What if Horus had won?

why does 30k-art always look so shitty?

>>53111145
The Imperium would be at the mercy of 9 legions, driven insane and twisted by chaos. Once Horus had won, I would expect that most of the Traitors would scatter away, driven to pursue their own acts and whims.

Horus would carve out a brutal, despostic empire centered around Terra. Depending on how much willpower he possessed, and if anything of the original Horus remained, it would be the most stable, albeit tainted to its core with the touch of chaos.

Fulgrim and Angron would naturally but heads, lead to their fracturing, and later them spliting off from the dark imperium.

everything explodes everywhere forever as chaos collapses onto itself

>>53111111

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>>53111166
CG modeling. Perfect proportions, no soul.

It was better back when it was a little goofy and wonky but the art also conveyed the spirit of the setting.

Then the galaxy died.

>>53111145

First off all it wouldn't be called the Horus Heresy.

>>53111221
This but i think Horus would become a Demonlord at some point (like most of the other traitors). Warp Storms and the Eye of Terror spreads.

Whats not devoured by Chaos is a bunch of Chaos Warlords endlessly fighting each other.

Orks and Nids are far stronger because there is no unified force stopping them.

Oh and the Eldar are probably hunted to extinction.

>>53111221
Once Chaos gets it's mitts on your brain, there's no more getting along for you. Horus would be a shitty administrator, his planets would be piles of rubble as his followers fought one another over scraps, and the other traitor Primarchs would start carving out fiefdoms because they'd no longer have a unifying cause and because they'd have fucking mutant tentacles growing out of their brains and peeking from their ears.

It's basically as described in the book Legion. Without Order, Chaos just burns out, like what happens to fire when the fuel is gone.

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Some more sweet Blance art

>>53111312
This. The Empire as flawed as it is probably is by far best suited to actually rule the galaxy.

Fucking Eldar became so decadent that Slaneesh happened.

The only other race that actually could manage to rule are maybe the Tau.

>>53111145
I just now noticed Kharn standing behind Angron looking at the WBs like "what the fuck man"

According to the Cabal if Horus wins his self loathing causes him to destroy mankind within a hundred years...causing the Chaos Gods to go poof.

>>53111724
This sounds stupid.

>>53111390
I haven't read up on the taus success rate on administration, how good are they?

>>53111792
They keep the trains running on time in their little chunk of the galaxy

But they're barely bigger than Ultramar and already they've got whole armies splintering off because apparently there's a BIG SPOOKY SECRET behind how the Ethereals get everybody to get along

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>>53111762
>Something stupid in the Horrid Heresy series
Color me shocked.

>>53112413
The Horus Heresy series is not that bad.

>>53111724
>Killing many dozens of trillions of people in a hudred years. This is absurd. The only way i could see people get kiled in enough numbers to atleast significatly starve the Caos gods is like, to exterminatus the whole of every major system in a Segmentum, and leave the rest to killed by Orks, deamons, and Tyranids.
Perorming Exterminatus at such a scale is utterly impossible to even organize, much less field the necassy fleets and ordnance.

The writers must have fucked up the scale a which the are oprtating against. The imperium fragmenting,into a billion tiny bickering, culturally diffrent fiefdoms of about several planets or a subrsector in size, and then getting slowly erodd into nothingness by the nastiness of the universe, never again able to mount a unfified and coordinated millitary effort, would fit much better I think.

>>53113563
parts of it are good, but a lot of the subplots are straight up retarded, in a Star Wars Extended Universe type of way.

Just to name a few, the Ruinstorm
and the Imperium Secundus are the dumbest pieces of padding I ever encountered. You could have kept the Horus Heresy tight and exciting, well paced, but having all of them fuck around the galaxy for 25 years takes the edge and excitement off it pretty severely.

Originally, the Ultramarines were late to Terra because of Calth, the Space Wolves because of Prospero, while the others either died at Istvaan or held Terra.

Now, it's just a giant Clusterfuck.

>>53111145
The Palace has been rebuilt, or as close to rebuilt as Horus understands it can be. When he first gave the order to Perturabo, couched in the niceties of a request and the indulgence of a reward–”Brother, the honor of building anew is yours”–Horus had expected a set time period, the usual speed and quality of Iron Warriors’ building projects. It’s been a decade since the project was started. He hasn’t seen Perturabo for three years, but gets reports from the bowels of the Palace complex. Copies of copies of copies of requisitions for building materials, and wine. Copies of copies of copies of orders for Apothecaries to comb through the terrified human population of Terra again, for the latest round of recruits. Copies of copies of copies of casualty lists of the legionaries Lord Perturabo’s automaton bodyguards have slain for disturbing him with their presence.

The Palace’s defenses were finished in the first month of rebuilding, every last trace of the Emperor’s fallen bastion destroyed to start again. The architecture is marvelous, the fortress impenetrable, and Horus turns a blind eye to the intricate Gothic labyrinth Perturabo is sealing himself into brick by brick.

There are far fewer humans on Terra than there were before Horus’ ascent. The Emperor’s death was a shock-wave through the Warp, and those that didn’t die in the warpstorm that enveloped the planet or were killed in the battle itself have been subjected to being endlessly combed through for servants, and sacrifices, and genetic compatibility. Fulgrim and his Legion seemed to think that the Emperor’s death was the end; stopping their battle to hastily capture as many humans and fallen Astartes as they could before breaking to the Eye. Horus hasn’t seen Fulgrim since then, and he doesn’t want to, no matter how many whispers he hears of his brother’s realm.

>>53114231
No one is willing to speak of it, but Horus held his father’s corpse after the Emperor died. The Gods had roared exultation that rang and faded in Horus’ mind. He’d expected more than the sudden silence of the Gods after everything, but instead there was nothing but quiet. Horus looked out over the ravaged face of the Imperium and saw that he’d made himself master of a ruin of worlds burnt to spite his father; Legion after Legion turned from the greatest and most disciplined forces in the galaxy to rapidly disseminating warbands tearing into each other as much as the few remaining strongholds of the Loyalists.

Angron left Terra as soon as there was no more sport. Dorn died defending the Palace, Sanguinius died trying to stop Horus, and the Khan was slain by Fulgrim and Mortarion as they argued over who had more of a right to duel him. Roboute lives, for now, at Lorgar’s mercy; being too late to save anything or anyone when he’d finally arrived with reinforcements. Horus sees Roboute whenever he visits Lorgar, and every time he stretches out the time between his visits a little more. He doesn’t bother to hope that the next time Roboute will be dead or gone or turned or whatever Lorgar intends for him, Horus just doesn’t want to have to witness anything more than the end result.

>>53114253
Magnus is there-and-gone, sliding in and out of perception, he appears to speak to Horus ostensibly out of brotherhood and alliance, but he appears in truth to riddle Horus about everything he’s done. To needle carefully at him until Horus snaps with impatience and Magnus can smile sedately and give his bitter, cryptic advice: the accusation that Horus dares to have orchestrated Magnus’ fall and yet regret his own writ in every glance. Horus thinks that whatever upset Magnus feels at Horus’ machinations–not all of them Horus’ own, even–is more put-on than Magnus would like to think, but he keeps his words to himself. Russ got wind of the trap waiting on Terra for all those rushing to the Emperor’s aid somehow, and saved himself and his Legion from deaths at Angron’s bloody hands by the barest margins. It was a false reprieve, dodging a sure fate on Terra for a frantic run to Fenris only to find Magnus waiting there. Whenever Magnus appears he always invites Horus to see New Tizca, a city of glittering ice built out of the cracked-open remnants of the Fang, and says that Russ would be as pleased to host him as he is to host Magnus.

Horus has the psychic ability of a stone and he knows it. Whatever Magnus did to make the sound of Russ’ screaming echo through the Warp so even he could hear it remains a mystery to him. If Horus has his way, whatever remains of Russ that Magnus keeps alive will remain a mystery to him as well.

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>>53111846

Yeah, that secret just doesn't strike me as all that SPOOKY considering the setting. Let's say the Etherials really are using mind control pheromones, or hypnotic implant chips, or subliminal Barney the Dinosaur tapes... so what?

Isn't that still an order of magnitude better than head-knocking Arbites, torturing Inquisitors, numbing Imperial propaganda... or for that matter the insanity of Chaos or total ego-death within the Hive Mind?

I'm just imagining an Etherial getting interviewed on the Tau holonet when the jig is up.

> Yeah, we use pheromones. So what? It's for the Greater Rood. You want to go back to tribal savagery in the desert? Right. Then sniff it up. Sniff my shrivelled grey pits.

>>53114271
The flagrant abuse of psychic power was enough to discomfit Mortarion into leaving Terra as well, claiming a pressing need to return to Barbarus that Horus accepted as gracefully as he possibly could when he’d already given orders for teams with flamers to cleanse every inch of the guest suites his brother inhabited. The rooms will never be clean by any stretch of the imagination, but charring everywhere his brother touched to ash and sealing that wing of the Palace permanently is enough to keep it from affecting the serfs and staff.

Scouts sent to Caliban return as heralds of a grieving First Captain Luther, bringing news of the regrettable death of the Lion. There are enough breaks in the man’s explanation of how it happened to weep that Horus believes at least the emotion is genuine. The planet exploding just after the Lion declared his loyalty to Horus seems as unlikely as anything else that’s happened since Istvaan, but the Dark Angels swearing their fealty and his spies reporting Luther’s oathed campaign to destroy and capture the ‘Unforgiven’ who’ve been assigned the blame satisfies him enough to give his blessings and speed the Rock from the Sol system as quickly as possible. At times Horus likes to believe that the Lion really was loyal. At times he remembers Konrad–the Night Haunter, now, and only the Night Haunter–huddled with his Legion in the furthest, darkest reach of the Imperium, slowly teaching the unraveling Five Hundred Worlds the meaning of madness and fear, and he wonders if the Lion was every loyal to anyone but himself.

>>53111145
The Imperium descends into madness as the corrupted demigods the Emperor created begin tearing each other to shreds, as well as fighting whatever remains of the Loyalists. At least the Loyalists had devotion to the Emperor and his vision to keep them coherent. The Traitors only have the object of their hatred.

The human race becomes a corrupted, mutated parody of itself, until eventually they genocide themselves out of existence, or at least enter a new isolated age.

Perhaps, if the influx of the warp awakens human's latent psyker abilities, a new Chaos god is born with a new Eye of Terror (an Eye of Terra?). Maybe it represents self-hatred, or hubris, or betrayal.

Maybe some new xenos race will find their remnants. Maybe they'll heed their warnings.

>>53111278
Blanche still works for GW, I believe. Even his sigmarines look interesting.

>>53114280
Yeah, if I were a tau and I learned the benefactors that uplifted us are subtly controlling me, id go "no duh, but its better than any other alternative!"

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The Cabal believed that, after the Heresy, a scintilla of the honourable being he once was would remain within Horus, eating at him and fueling a self-destructive sense of self-hatred and loathing that would see Horus fall on his subjects in an acceleration of the violence of the Heresy, creating civil strife amongst the traitor and Chaotic forces that would culminate in a final armageddon. The end result of Horus leading humanity would be total extermination of the human species within two or three generations...however, if this were so, the powers of Chaos, so heavily invested in humanity, would be extinguished with it.

>>53115156
They also believed Horus would win, they goofed man
Alpha Legion got duped, cept for the one of the twin primarchs who tried making sure the Loyalists would win.

The Imperium would just break apart into little fiefdoms ruled by each of the traitor Primarchs, each devoted to their respective patron god.

Horus had almost zero control over his brothers during the heresy.

>>53114231
>>53114253
>>53114271
>>53114292
Pretty good anon.
What happened to Corax and Vulkan?

>>53115298
+1
and where's Alpha Legion at?

>>53115296
What about Perturabo, Curze and Alpharius who weren't knee deep into Chaos like Magnus or Horus.

>>53115296
He seemed to bro out with Mortarion in Vengeful Spirit. Also he does a semi-decent job flattering Fulgrim to get him to do stuff.
Angron and Curze were just bad picks that were easy peasy to corrupt.

>>53115296
>The Imperium would just break apart into little fiefdoms ruled by each of the traitor Primarchs, each devoted to their respective patron god.
Considering the fact that would included Perturabo, Curze and Alpharius, I suspect the Traitor primarchs turning on each other relatively quickly because some weren't actively worshiping Chaos like the others.

Meaning none of them would be prepared for the WAAAGH! of the Beast when it hit the galaxy in M32. Could the primarchs stand a chance against the Beast and his "Prime-Orks"? Maybe if they had a unified front, but considering the Beast killed Vulkan, the traitor primarchs would have a hard fight on their hands in one-on-one combat.
Especially since Gork and Mork would back the Beast even more if the Chaos gods tried to support their primarchs.

>everyone thinks chaos would implode

Does nobody remember the Laer and other species that embraced chaos and had a thriving world? The Laer even worshiped Slaanesh without going overboard like the Eldar did and dying out.

>>53111145
The surviving Loyalist forces would likley turn to Corax to lead guerrilla campaigns against him.

>>53115343

Perturabo became a daemon primarch, so he clearly did become part of chaos. Only Curze and Alpharius/Omegon made no real pact with chaos. Curze got killed and nobody really knows what happened to Alpharius Omegon. Even if one did actually die there's still one presumably around.

>>53111291
If the Eldar were hunted to extinction wouldn't that cause the birth of Ynnead (early)?

>>53111278
>Perfect proportions
Pretty sure I've seen Black Library art where the Primarchs would have to be more then five times as high as the marines.

>>53115650

No. The soulstones have to be in the infinity circuit to be made part of Ynnead. Otherwise Slaanesh just takes them.

>>53111145
is that Dacia, written on the foremost legionaires helm?

>>53114280
The Arbites have to knock heads and the Inquisitors have to torture the shit out of heretics because MAN IS NOT AN ANIMAL TO BE YOKED (unless it's to make a servitor or fill out a penal legion and even then they probably deserved it)

>>53115625
They let Dorn kill one off too so either they want to snuff the Alpha Legion fans for good or Alpha Legion has champions that can convincingly pass as a Primarch in battle with another Primarch

>>53115679
Okay! Thanks for clearing that up

>>53115868
Considering Alpharius/Omegon are the smallest Primarchs (they're supposedly "slightly larger than the average Astartes" in stature), the "Alpha Legion has champions which can convincingly pass as their primarch in battle" theory isn't that far-fetched. It helps that their lieutenants were bigger than the average Space Marine, making the switch even easier to pull off.

>>53115868
>>53116778
Horus in Index Astartes knew Alpharius instinctively to be a Primarch despite Alpharius' small size when they first met, before they even chatted.

Unless BL retconned something while I wasn't looking, you can't fool a Primarch about another Primarch in that manner, they recognize each other's nature instinctively. No doubt because of warp magic.

>>53117124
>you can't fool a Primarch about another Primarch in that manner,
That might be the case for Horus, but we do know that for sure about the other Primarchs? Even the Ultramarines who supposedly killed Alpharius aren't 100% sure they actually killed him.

>>53117355
>Even the Ultramarines who supposedly killed Alpharius aren't 100% sure they actually killed him.
The Ultramarines aren't even 100% sure that battle even happened. At least not the account that Index Astartes uses.

>>53114984
Link?

>>53113967
Really, that seems absurd to you? Imagine this: Horus kills the Emperor, takes Terra and the Throne. He rules for a few centuries or so, all the while growing his Legion. He has an epiphany one day, after Angron and Fulgrim get into another shitfest showdown. Says to himself "I've messed up, this is enough."

Now during the Heresy, trillions of humans were killed as just collateral. Imagine them being the focus of the war, and think of all the death-dealing devices the Legions have at their disposal. I can see only one legion truly standing up to Horus in all this, and that is the Word Bearers and possibly the Children.

I'm sure Horus, being the new Emperor of Mankind and unparalleled paragon of Chaos, would have no difficulty in telling the rest of the Primarchs and their legions, to shoot the priests and the junkies, then murder everything.

Hell, the World Eaters would probably have already had a head start on that order.

I don't think Horus could destroy most or all of humanity a hundred years after the Liberation of Terra, but I have no doubt that he could do so a hundred years after deciding to do so - as Master of Mankind and having the full disposal of 7 rebuilt and expanded Legions, an undivided Dark Mechanicus, and all of the toys they could imagine to use.

>>53119933
can see only two legions truly standing up to Horus*

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>>53111166
There's this artist who does a lot of the digital art for Horus heresy. It's always strange looking because he digs putting soldiers facing away from the battle/threat with a manic look on their face. 70s style rocker hair is also oddly common.

See pic related.

>>53115674
To be fair, if I had to put up with half the shit a Primarch did, I'd have to be at least five times as high as well.

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>>53119982
Another example. Guy looking away from battle. Dude with rocket hair.

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>>53120022
Another example. Where the fuck is this guy looking.

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>>53111846
Seriously, the Imperium is doing a fucking great job considering the scale of the Galaxy and that there's 1 million planets.

The only real way they could make things better would be to leave the day-to-day Galactic Administration to a series of highly intelligent Artificial Super Intelligences, but we all know how the Imperium feels about that.

It's a miracle a centralized galactic government can function at all with only human intellects and brain-robots to run everything.

I guess Tau could do better if they really advance their AI technology and it doesn't inevitably turn on them.

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>>53111166

Looks fine to me.

>>53111278

>Soul

Fuck off with this buzzword.

I also don't see how his art can have perfect proportions.

>>53119982

Rocker hair works for certain legions, for example the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus have a gang background from Cthonia.

>>53115298
VULKAN LIVES

>>53114984
>>53119888
In the latest White Dwarf he states that the is Semi-retired. The guy is 69 so I think he earned some peace. However, said white Dwarf also contains his concept art for the new techno-dwarves.

>>53123362
>Is okay with shit art
>Doesn't like people talking about souls
Sorry you grew up without one, anon.

>>53120031
It kind of makes sense from a book cover perspective. You want to show an epic battle, as a backdrop, but also make sure some face are visible to give the cover a bit of personality.

And all the rocker hair seems to be sported by Luna Wolves, which as other Anon explained might make sense.

>>53123912
Using soul as a descriptor for anything is shitty though Anon, since it can't be defined what it is. using authentic might be a better expression of what you mean.

>>53123954

Can authentic be defined then? To me it sounds just as vague (and meaningful; I like both words well enough. There's no point in trying to escape vagueness).

Isn't there also an issue that if Horus did kill the Emperor, the man's psychic powers holding back a fuck huge Warp or Webway portal to a realm of archdeamons opens up underneath the Throne and kills everything on Terra?

Which means Horus can't even solidify his power base because the planet won't exist anymore.

Horus would have slain Sanguinius, the Big E and Dorn in rapid succession. Horus new Emp. Mortarion named Regent of Terra while Lorgar found a new black Imperial Faith and Inquisition to spread throughout the stars. These two are tasked with rebuilding the conquered empire.

Perturabo named Warmaster. He would direct Angron, Konrad and Fulgrim on one final crusade against the remaining Loyalists who had set up a holdout that stretched from Deliverance, to Nocturne to Macragge.

Magnus and Alpharius would be everywhere and nowhere, Alpha Legion always aiding the Dark Empire while the Thousand Sons pursue dark knowledge.

True to the Cabal's prophecy, Horus would become increasingly disturbed at his actions and the quality of his allies. He would watch as entire chapters of his brothers legions would descend upon already conquered worlds to fulfill their own dark agendas. Bitter infighting would break out on the front between World Eaters and Emperors Children. Disturbed, Horus would eventually leave Terra, placing the Triumvirate of Mortarion, Lorgar and Perturabo in charge.

Horus would have a moment of clarity in his travels: He was pawn; not the Master of Mankind but a man who had delivered his race into slavery. What would follow was a logical sort of madness: Horus only recourse was the destruction of Humanity, in hopes that this would lead to the destruction of the Four. If Humanity would not truly rule the stars on their own accord, then all of existence would burn.

Horus returned to Terra at the head of his legion. There he found Lorgar. He asked Lorgar to repent, and when he would not, he slew him, destroying him as he felt the Emperor attack himself years prior - it was an attack that obliterated Lorgar's mind, body and soul. In this moment the Four withdrew their blessings from Horus. This would leave most men a husk - but not Horus; for he had found great power on Molech and a renewed purpose.

>>53117124
The Alpha Legion supposedly has a serum that allows their members to take on the abilities and "sense" of a Primarch, they use it to further blur who their leader is.

>>53124286
>Alpha Legion
>not loyalist in secret

>>53124286
Horus would set his Legion upon Terra, destroying the Garden of Darkness Mortarion and Lorgar had created.

Soon Horus would find Konrad Curze and Alpharius as his side. They moved from planet to planet, picking them clean.

While Horus hoped to end the war quickly, this was not to be. Perturabo, Magnus, Angron, Magnus and Fulgrim united as well as five squabbling brothers could. They were joined by the Word Bearers under Kor Phaeron who served as a diplomat between the forces of Warp.

On the Loyalist/Humanist side: Vulkan, Corax and Robbie G desperately try to hold together a new Empire.

The Lion and his home planet has disappeared. What remains of his legion crusade endlessly against the traitors.

The Khan has died, competing legends say either on Terra or on one last valiant stand on his homeworld as it was besieged by the then-Warmaster Perturabo's final crusade.

What remains of the White Scars operate within the Eastern Fringe. Loyalists still, they raid beyond Robbie G's borders and act as first responders against incursion.

The Blood Angels have fallen to Chaos, their Primarch dead, legion shattered on Terra and Baal taken by the forces of the Traitor. They are broken into 3 primary warbands: One dedicated to Khorne, led by the Red Angel, One dedicated to Tzeentch led by former Librarians, and a small warband dedicated to Slaanesh.

What remains of the Iron Hands have been split in two. Those on the IH homeworld have fallen to Chaos, while those who found their way to Macragge remain loyal chapters, patrons of Robbie G and allies of the broken Adeptus Mechanicus.

The saddest fate of all belongs to Leman Russ. Cut off from his homeworld, it was soon destroyed by a force of Thousand Sons and Iron Warriors. With no way to recruit, his legion has withered and died, leaving only a mad Russ left, a lone wolf, stalking the stars, forever seeking a vengeance he will not find.

>>53124375
had a 2nd part. Alphas basically waiting for the prophecy to unfold and Horus to get his shit together. That's all they've ever been waiting for.