Warhammer 40,000

As mentioned in my last post, i shall talk about Warhammer 40,000 today. What drew me to Warhammer was the beautifully crafted figurines that could be painted from the basic template. But a further research into the background story of Warhammer which constituted of some moral values interwined with a science-fiction yet gothic storyline…

I won’t be writing an essay of the entire storyline but just a small portion of it. The backdrop of Warhammer lies in a group of characters. Primarily the Emperor, his genetically-modified sons: Primarchs and the Space Marines. The Space Marines are literally who they are: super-soldiers, sharing some genetic resemblence to the Primarch, armed to teeth to spread the Emperor’s light across the Universe. The 20 Primarchs were scattered at birth for some unknown reasons, every reunification of father and son was marked by the deployment of the Space Marine under command of a particular son. Each son was tasked with spreading the conquest in the Emperor’s name. The most notable Primarch who was first discovered and groomed was Horus but it was Horus who began what was the most devastating civil conflict: Horus Heresy

Now, many would wonder what bought about the Horus Heresy aptly named after Horus whom i feel was styled after Lucifer. Many minor events formed the gunpowder but it was Horus’s eventual corruption that sparked a war. Many of the Primarchs while superhuman had flawed human personality. Many of them had a violent history since birth on different worlds like Angron whom due to his gladiatorial upbringing was bloodthirsty and hated the Emperor who indirectly causing the death of his comrades. Lorgar whose oratorical skills led to creating a cult for the Emperor but was rebuked by the Emperor who prefered Science and Logic and not groundless devotion. Perturabo was furious that a rival Space Marine Chapter had been chosen to act as the Emperor’s Praetorian Guard instead of his.  Adding to the Emperor’s mistakes was the exclusion of the Primarchs as a ruling body for the Emperor’s empire. Each had shed blood for the Emperor but was not given credit for it. Some were not concerned but others felt rejected.

How was Horus was the spark of the Heresy? While Horus shared a close bond between the Emperor, the Emperor made a mistake of not explaining his return to Terra(Home-planet) to his most favored son who drew bitter and fought his personal glory instead of the Empire’s. Eventually Horus was injured a wound created from daemon-weapon. Note in Warhammer, the storyline has been known to personify undesirable human traits like violent, hedonism, change, despair into deities like Khorne, Slaneesh, Tzeentch and Nurgle. Each gods sought power and created a base of cultists. Horus was corrupted by the 4 Gods who played with Horus’s resentment to the Empeor.  Horus’s corruption was not the end, being a master of manipulation he played upon the different Primarch’s history to sway them over to his side and created a schism between the Empire’s forces.

The massacre of Istvaan III was the point in which Horus made his corruption open. Horus had virus-bombed 16 billion civilians whose psychic scream was a shock to the superhuman Emperor. Fearing the worst, the Emperor deployed numerous Space Marine Chapters to bring Horus into custody. What the Emperor failed to see was the fact that certain Chapters had in fact been swayed. Loyalist chapters were wiped out being surrounded by traitor forces. This culminated in the destruction of major forces available to the Emperor. Remaining loyalist forces had been sent to distant worlds on either wild goose chase or ambushed.

Nevertheless Horus attacked Terra with all forces available and challenged the Emperor’s reign. A titanic battle that would decide whether the Imperium would be ruled by benevolence or human corruption..