Warhammer 40k Forum and Wargaming Forums banner

Theory on Black Rage Source - Sanguinius/Emperor/Horus

10K views 81 replies 20 participants last post by  Chompy Bits  
#1 ·
Horus lowers his shields for some reason, to bait the emperor to end the war.

Sang reaches horus first and they are together for an undisclosed ammount of time.

I believe....when sang arrived he and horus spoke, and horus showed him things, evidence, something....

Sang sides with horus, does he embrace chaos? That I don't know, but I do think horus convinced sang of some thing regarding the emperor....

The emperor arrives shortly after, or the emperor arrives while horus is telling sang the "truth".

Going by what he (sang) now knows, and the emperors reaction, or admittance, he becomes angry...

Sang feels betrayed by whatever he finds out about the emperor....so hate filled, angry the black rage happens, and he attacks the emperor.

Sang wounded from prior battle, is killed by the emperor.

Horus then rather immediately aiming to kill the emperor whilebeing channeled the full power of all the chaos gods, instead chooses to torture him for what he did to sang, as well as whatever betrayal it is the emperor did to them that sang found out about.

The emp gains the upper hand at some point, slays horus, but not before being crippled.
 
#2 · (Edited)
I doubt it. What evidence could he show him? There is nothing the emperor could have done that would outweigh what Horus was doing. That and GW has said that Tweety was killed by Horus, not the emperor. Even if he was why would Horus hold back and watch his brother, favorite brother btw, charge head long into a fight he couldn’t have hoped to win even on his best day? Even if he didn't care what happened to Tweety, why wouldn't he, a brilliant tactician, not capitalize on the moment? If he had used Tweety as a screen and attacked while the emperor was focused on his brother he could have ended it right there.
 
#4 ·
People need to remember....the Emperor is not that good. He also made a deal with the Chaos Gods, go read A Thousand Sons.....during the vision Magnus gets from the Chaos demon (Tzeentch?), he finds out the Emperor made a deal with Chaos concerning at the very least, the Primarchs. Lux's theory is probably. Also remember, GW is telling the story as if they were Imperium astropaths.......they only give us the info the Imperium wants you to know. Another thing to think of: Noone else was present during their initial meeting on board Horus' ship.....The Emperor could have come up with any story. If you are to continue to believe the visions given to Magnus, the Emperor wanted to use him to power the Golden Throne and drain him of his psychic powers to do what the Emperor does now.
 
#5 ·
He was good. Unfortunately he had to do some bad things to reach a better end. The difference was that the emperor was powerful enough not to be corrupted by chaos, Horus and Magnus couldn't. TBH Horus was a traitor, he was responsible for the deaths of billion and the death of a primarch. There was no reason to believe Tweety would trust anything he said and no reason to believe the emperor would admit to anything.
 
#10 ·
Ok, lets say your living in America, and the Emperor is on the moon.
You have your army, and a number of civilians.
There are reports of a small chaos influence amongst 1 or 2 civilians.
Emperor drops a nuclear bomb on all of America.

Humanity is not necessarily good either. As i said before, its a matter of perspective.
A race that minds their own business and defends themselves if attacked could be considered a good race.
A race that insists on destroying everything in the galaxy with a "kill first, ask questions later" attitude could be considered as evil as it gets (Imperium). Even more so when they are willing to sacrifice people of their own race in order to do so.
 
#9 ·
I can see where KingOfCheese is coming from, Horus believed his actions were for the betterment of humanity.

I don't think Sanguinius did turn against the Emperor, as with Guilliman I think the Lord of Angels deeply believed in the Emperor's vision- an ideal he would have gladly given his life for.
 
#11 ·
First off all that example is retarded, they wouldn’t declare an extermination for an infestation of that size. If half the pop were turned then it would be a necessary evil. And how was horus any better? If he had one humanity would have died.
 
#12 · (Edited)
Oh? Which primarch did he kill? Last I remember, by this time the only one to have died was Ferrus Manus, and that was at the hands of Fulgrim, not Horus. He might have sided with Horus but that particular blood is not on his hands.

I agree with LordofFenris; because history is written from the eye of the victor, there is nothing that would stop that victor from writing history as he/she/it see's fit.


When the Emperor, Dorn, and Sanguinius teleported onto Horus's ship, Horus made it so that only Sanguinius made it to him at first, in a last attempt to try and turn his favorite brother. Who is to say that he did not succeed? The Emperor? Nine of his sons turned traitor, the Blood Angels had fought for weeks on Terra against the traitors, if their primarch did turn what good would come of telling them that? Why let the shattered Imperium know that another of its greatest heroes had turned his back?


Maybe that is what happened; maybe it worked, Horus turned Sanguinius. But maybe he did not turn him because he wanted him anymore, maybe at that point he wanted him because Horus knew that if he fought the Emperor then and there, he would lose. So the Emperor is forced to fight another son, and the fight leaves him drained and Horus tortures him. At the height of it all, with Horus standing before the mortally wounded Emperor, he goes so far as to speak of how he turned Sanguinius, how he planned on making sure all of the others knew about what the Emperor did.


Why not, only three individuals truly know what happened there, and two are dead while the third does not speak. Its the beauty and tragedy of history, and honestly which would you rather the Emperor's people to know? That Horus shattered the Imperium and turned more than half of its greatest heroes or that he was stopped only at half?



As for how evil the Emperor was: he bartered with gods and went back on his end of the bargain. He planned to unite the galaxy under his rule in order to destroy those gods, that was his reason for stopping religion and superstition. He had no qualms with wiping out anyone who would not follow his ideals and vision, no matter what. He thought he knew what was best for mankind, damn be anyone else.

Horus was evil, he shattered everything with his actions, but he did not knowingly make deals with gods and break them when his needs were met. Horus thought he knew what was best, that he was doing the right thing, to a point; and he was prepared to go to any lengths to achieve that.
 
#13 ·
Who led the led the traitors did he not? Do we blame Stalin for all the people killed when he was leader? Fuck yes we do even though he didn’t directly kill the vast majority of them.
 
#14 ·
Study the Artwork of the final confrontation. Horus is standing over Sangs remains but to me it looks as if he is guarding over them, not standing triumphantly. The only wound on Sang is a single peircing wound. The only person there with a peircing weapon is the Emperor. And sure some might say horus use one of his fingers to do it.

A lightning claw is a rending weapon not something that would make a clean cut.
 
#17 ·
The fist doesn't do a hell of a lot of damage its the claws that do it. The blades go in.... the blades go out. They do not go in blow up the torso and come out.
 
#19 ·
The blade of the emperors sword is larger than the finger. Even if you look at it the pic the emperors sword is ablaze.. There would have been burn marks around the wound. They made it look good. Trueth is no one wants to see sang mutilated beyond mention.
 
#20 ·
This all sounds strangely familiar:so_happy:
I really like this theory, it's a bit of a leap of faith but it does tie up some loose ends Black Rage, Mephiston, etc.
The thought that the Emperor was a 'good guy' always makes me laugh, he was powerful yes, even wise, but good?
Not a chance!
The Emperor was a raving genocidal lunatic who makes any of the real worlds dictators look like Care Bears.
Even when he was still stuck on Terra he was leading a crusade to wipe out religion, literally wiping it out. Read the HH book Tales of Heresy, it paints a less than flattering picture of the big E.
He manipulated Mars and brought about the Ad Mech, he did dodgy deals with the Chaos Gods to create a race just as psychotic as him and then he set out across the galaxy on a destructive rampage that humanity are still suffering for 30k years later.

Great guy the Emperor, I'd have him round for tea any day!
 
#21 ·
I have read them all and by humanities perspective he was creating a better reality then there was. Just because some can't stomach the methods changes little. His goal was to elevate humanity to the greatest height it had ever known. Simple. HE was brutal yes but rightly so. He needed to be. Xeno races had shown that they couldn’t be trusted during the fall, this was the best option.
 
#25 ·
I also believe this is the emperor doing what he had to do. Religion is to easily manipulated to fit evil purposes. Without religion the gods would have no worship. From what we see in the heresy it was working.... for a time at least. His downfall was his mistrust in his own people, however. If they had know what they were fighting then they might have been able to see what was happening.
 
#27 ·
No, he did tell his sons some thing, Lorgar would still have happened. He was looking for something to worship and the emperor didn't want to become a god, he would have gone to the chaos gods eventually.
 
#28 ·
He obviously didn't tell his favoured son enough. Even Lorgar as fanatical as he was would not have been stupid enough to go up against 17 Legions on his own. Lorgar's legion were the bricks in the Wall of Heresy, but Horus was the Mortar that kept everything together. Without him the other legions would not rebell.
 
#30 ·
He was what they needed. He was doing what needed to be done given those circumstances. We don't require anything near that severity. Religion needed to go to ensure the death of chaos. He wouldn’t have needed a thousand psykers per day to keep him alive if Horus had not rebelled. I didn't say he was nice but that was what humanity needed at that time. The truth is we don’t know if his vision was what was right because Horus ended all hope for the galaxy when he started his rebellion.