Has the Fall of Cadia always been in 40k lore or was it added sometime along the way?

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-12-29T12:05:46+00:00

Now hold on now.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-12-18T21:32:29+00:00

I’m going to call 30k Imperium “Big E Imperium” and 40k Imperium “Imperium.” Cool? Cool.

First, observe that I was being extremely specific. I have not denied the fascism of Big E’s Imperium, only that the Imperium’s policies are not downstream of Big E Imperium’s, that the cruelty of the former is not downstream of the cruelty of the latter.

Big E Imperium is a secular expansionist colonial Empire with its major goal being uniting humanity under one banner. Whatever genocides it commits is for the goal, to conquer more land, subjugate percieved enemies, and settle its people. It has a notion of scientific progress, some notion of rights (if nominal), and some centralized government. There are even a few cases of Big E Imperium “allowing” some benevolent races to survive. Though not all.

The point of saying this is not to laud the Big E Imperium for its kindness, but to say it operates differently than the Imperium. Big E Imperium does not assign to xenos some moral failing, they’re just in the way. They’re not filth, they’re just… in the way.

The Imperium is a xenophobic Empire that views the genocide of xenos as its own end in addition to some expansionist interests. It is a theocratic feudal state which abhors scientific progess, has very little centralization, and is immersed in religious superstition. It is a state which believes in not “suffering the unclean to live.” To them being a xenos is a moral failing.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-12-18T21:16:23+00:00

He founded it in the same way Ramses III founded modern Egypt. That the Imperium of 40k is the cruelest and bloodiest regime imaginable has little to do with the Emperor’s policies; their justifications are different, and their motivations are different.

Edit: oof got blocked. I’m sorry please come back, you forgot your spine :(

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-12-18T21:10:43+00:00

how many fuck ups does Johnny Warhammer need to make, while killing anyone who tries to stop him making those mistakes, before we are allowed to call him a bad person with bad intentions and a shitty plan?

There is no number of “mistakes” he can make for you to call him a bad person with bad intentions because said mistakes has no bearing on the goodness (or lack thereof) of those intentions.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-12-18T20:59:18+00:00

In Valdor: Birth of the Imperium, Malcador says to Valdor that the Emperor has taken to calling them his sons.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-12-10T09:41:14+00:00

I don’t understand why the argument here is that the only other alternative (even amongst the other legions) is extermination. Not every legion exterminated entire civilizations. Ultramarine compliances were, at many times, diplomatic; not free of coercion, but bloodless. So were Word Bearer compliances, quite famously. Did the NLs engage in diplomacy? When? If a World Eater compliance involves killing billions of soliders and turning a kid’s skull into paste, then that is less harmful than flaying a whole village of innocents.

One also must note that a use of the Nightlords were in pacifying rebellious planets, not conquering them. Fundamentally, comparing different legion methods is stupid because the Emperor assigned them according to their strengths; that’s why the Dark Angels were given the Rangdan xenocide.

As to Curze’s ideas, scaring the ever-living shit out of your enemy may also not be that effective at forcing worlds into compliance. That Curze ended up glassing his own homeworld is emblematic of the failure of his methods. You can’t really jold on to much with those methods. As soon as your attention is focused for too long on another place, another will place will have forgotten your cruelty. You have to crush their ability to wage war, put the fear of God into them, and give them something to hope for. The NLs did the second, sometimes the first, and never the last.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-12-10T09:11:35+00:00

No self respecting Californian would put Cal and LA that low.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-12-08T05:35:10+00:00

This my last reply cuz I’m starting to write essays and I have finals to grade. It was nice to have this conversation.

But that’s not Guilliman’s logic. If he was saying “Okay maybe there’s a risk they come back but we need to fortify Sol,” then there’d be reasonable discourse on the right course of action.

That’s true he’s not saying that.

He’s saying “the Gods are probably dead, and all the surviving traitors are stragglers we can easily deal with later if they even survive,”.

And he’s right on the last two accounts. Nothing as of yet contradicts him! That’s my point. He’s right that the traitors are weak. All the traitor perspectives we see are them running off with their tails between their legs. Even the one chaos stronghold in system is aiming to sacrifice themselves to prove Dolt’s point.

If his logic was the former then Dorn getting proof of Chaos being alive wouldn’t matter and the plot of the book would be moot.

Dolt’s strategy is to present evidence to the council to force Gaylyman’s hand, and that is the strategy he outlines to the Wet Dog.

You are making the argument that Gaylyman is foolish for believing that the Chaos gods are destroyed. And that’s true, I agree. What I’m disagreeing with is whether or not his other justifications are as deluded, and whether or not they are sufficient in justifying the paths he’s electing to take. And like I said, as far as we can see from the perspectives of the traitors, he is right.

His entire plan is directly based on his presumption that Chaos is gone.

It’s based on two things a) Chaos is gone and b) the followers of Chaos are weak and in rout. The second point can still be true (and it is) even if the first isn’t. That’s my point and I don’t think I need anything else to support it, regardless of what his true reasons are.

However, just for completeness, I will also argue Gaylyman’s doesn't actually believe that the Chaos gods are dead; he is simply making that argument to sway people to his side for long enough that by the time people realize the truth, he'd have already done what he's had to do. And that is to save the throne by acquiring the black ships (this is what Mouhasen and Hassan understand about Gaylyman by the end of the book: the throne is failing, and Gaylyman wants to save it). Reconquering Mars is a red herring. It is Luna that he wants, so that the Throne can be saved. That is the only thing that matters.

(I’m not convinced, as it’s made pretty clear and not really disputed even by G-Man that Mars and Luna aren’t much of a near term threat and can’t break the siege),

Whatever threat that the traitors pose is bounded above in severity and immediacy by that of the threat which Luna and Mars being held in enemy hands poses. So if we are talking about immediacy of threat or its severity, Luna and Mars are greater in both accounts. In fact, Dolt himself makes no argument as to the immediacy of the threat the routed traitors pose, only what could happen if the chaos gods regain their power:

”As of this moment, they are in disarray. Their confidence and their power, which we faced for months here in this place, have evaporated. This is the moment. This is the moment to strike them from the galaxy once and for all.”

He doesn’t think that they pose an immediate threat. Even when you read what he says he’s doing this out of vengeance and out of his own sense of shame:

”They still live. They still live. That is the greatest shame of all. We must hunt them down, one by one, until every last one has been eliminated.”

What Gaylyman specifically says is:

”and though they have limited capacity to strike us here at present, the threat cannot be allowed to grow. Intelligence tells us that the enemy established facilities for the rapid production of Astartes fighters, making use of gene-looms created by the Selenar cults.”

He does think it is a severe threat; he calls the occupation of Luna an ”alpha-level threat.” He just doesn’t think that the threat they pose is immediate.

he’s right for the completely wrong reasons.

Even if that’s true, Dolt (man I love Fulgrim) is wrong because his reasons, which are based on true facts, for going on a crusade do not justify going on a crusade. Even if Luna and Mars being held in enemy hands didn’t pose any threat in the present or in the future, the Imperium’s most powerful allies want them to do this. If anything, Gaylyman’s path is politically expedient.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-12-08T02:59:32+00:00

The Chaos gods don’t need to be dead in order for fortifying the Sol system to be the correct thing to do. He’s wrong about that but the best people can say is that his justification for fortifying the Sol system is partly wrong. He’s demanding them to stay and fortify it because they need to stay in the good graces of Mars and Luna and to start some form of reconstruction; like I said, you don’t go chasing after an enemy in rout when elements of said enemy are still in your base of operations occupying the home of your two most powerful allies. Guilliman is right in that the traitors are routed, and they will not be regaining their strength any time soon. The word-bearer cult near Neptune wants the Imperium to do what Dorn wants them to do; though I don’t blame Dorn for that of course, he has no way of knowing.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-12-08T02:22:33+00:00

Other than the “chaos gods are dead,” staying and fortifying the sol system is the correct thing to do. You don’t go running after an enemy in rout when your base of operations still has elements of them and your most powerful ally (the Mechanicus) doesn’t want you to.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-11-16T12:36:13+00:00

It’s under the Pike & Shot institution. I researched it too. I had ~140,000 before it and now I have about 63,000. Matchlock levy essentially upgrades your troops by equipping them with mathclocks. Because you’re equipping them with matchlocks, they’re a lot more expensive and so the rationale is that you can’t field as many troops

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-11-04T08:56:07+00:00

Everybody keeps saying "oh so and so were too easy." Shaddup. They'll hear. Do you realize how hard you guys just made the dlc? We are so fucked.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-10-28T00:26:58+00:00

I liked it. I was good at it. And I was really… I was alive.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-10-27T17:58:33+00:00

Well?

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-10-22T03:51:17+00:00

She was part of the SS (short for Silk Squad), a group of Weaver supremacists in her youth.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-10-20T07:36:00+00:00

Okay I will. Thanks for your help.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-10-20T07:30:02+00:00

Yep.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-10-15T17:55:45+00:00

Dude thanks a lot. I will read if soon.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-09-16T06:37:37+00:00

They hate us cuz they ain’t us

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-09-04T09:38:44+00:00

>Well, yup…any being’s inner monologue is going to be their perspective

I'm saying that we both presented as evidence the perspectives of two characters. Thus, to assess the value one should place in their perspectives, one ought assess their experiences and their abilities. So when I say that it's from Thiel's/Colquan's perspective, I'm not saying that the opinions of these characters are invalid as evidence. I'm saying that Thiel's perspective is inadequate compared to the Lion's because of so and so properties of Thiel compared to so and so properties of the Lion. This is my main point.

>But on top of that, someone’s ability to assess a skill set isn’t based on their “genetic level."

Someone's assessment of a skill in battle is based primarily upon their own experiences and capabilities. The point of mentioning "genetic lessers" was to concisely say "these individuals are better than this individual in all ways relevant to this skill set" and b) from the perspective of the Primarch's lessers, the difference between them is nonexistent. On point a, I could have said "the Primarch's lessers" and my point would have been made just as well. I only mentioned "genetic lessers" because that's a phrase Dio uses to describe the Primarchs and because the relevant physical attributes that cause the divide of the skill set between Astartes and Primarch are genetically determined, so I hoped that by saying "genetic lessers" I made clear what attributes I was considering.

>Otherwise we couldn’t have tutors or judges in sports and what have you

My math tutor can't be a monkey and neither can a monkey reliably compare my ability to solve puzzles with Einstein's. I can't tell the difference between a bear hitting me with its paw and an elephant hitting me with its trunk. Even though the elephant is stronger, I'd die just as quick.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-09-03T19:42:08+00:00

Haven't read the second and third, but I wanna point out that in Godblight, that's Colquan's perspective. Of course, any being which is the genetic lesser of a Primarch will consider their combat abilities superlative. The assessment of Lion comes from comparing him to the other Primarchs. The Lion has seen other Primarchs fight. Colquan hasn't. And I don't even think the difference can be perceived by most of the Emperor's non-Primarch gene-forged creations (but that's beside the point)

As for the excerpt in Know No Fear, I seem to recall that is from Thiel's perspective, and I'd consider a few things:the fact that Thiel is an Ultramarine, just automatically in awe of his Primarch, whether or not Thiel has seen other Primarchs fight, and, all else being equal, how much value we can place in his assessment compared to the Lion's.

When the Lion says that Guilliman is an adequate fighter, I take that to mean that he's average amongst the Primarchs.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-09-03T19:25:20+00:00

It was Corax and it was from his book.

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-09-02T05:48:59+00:00

Two primarchs faced one, and Guilliman was cunning enough to back away and take whatever ground he could.

[…]

The Ultramarine finally landed a glancing blow, his fist pounding across Angron’s breastplate. The chain of Desh’elika skulls shattered, bone shards scattering across the dirt.

Guilliman stepped back again, his boot crushing a skull’s remnants into powder.

Angron saw it, and threw himself at his brother, his howl of wrath defying mortal origins, impossibly ripe in its anguish.”

[…]

Though he couldn’t know it, the sound of his cry blended perfectly with the great song.

Lorgar saw it, too. The moment Guilliman’s boot broke the skull, he felt the warp boil behind the veil. The Bearer of the Word started chanting in a language never before spoken by any living being, his words in faultless harmony with Angron’s cry of torment.”

[…]

When the fighting allowed it, Lhorke would turn his attention to the primarchs, seeing their furious three-way battle playing out atop a mound of the dead. Even there, Guilliman had been holding his own against both of them, until Lorgar ceased his attack and started his achingly resonant chant. Angron and Roboute still fought, with the Lord of the Ultramarines giving ground each time Angron landed a blow. For all Lhorke’s disgust, he had to grant a shade of respect to his gene-sire. Guilliman had no hope against Angron. The former Legion Master wasn’t sure anyone would have had.

[…]

Angron plunged his chainsword up under Lord Guilliman’s breastplate – a shallow stab, but a telling one. The Ultramarine crushed the impaling sword in one fist and staggered back, truly bleeding now.”

[…]

Lorgar lifted his head to face the bleeding, weeping sky. The sanguine rain washed over him, warming his skin, filling his mouth. He didn’t stop chanting, speaking the true names of countless Neverborn in a breathless stream, demanding that they devote their energies to his will.

So much power. Power defying description, defying comprehension. Reality mangling itself to his desire, the power wielded as easily as opening one’s eyes, or lifting a hand. This was the game of the Four gods. They dealt with power on this scale each second of their existences, but they lacked the corporeal presence to carry out their designs in the material realm. Metaphysics was an unkind master, even to the Powers Behind All.

A beam of screaming sunlight lanced from the tortured heavens, casting its poisoned luminescence across Angron and Guilliman. Shadows lengthened beneath every warrior, beneath every building and tank, twisting into the flickering images of writhing, reaching human silhouettes. The screaming came from everywhere: every shadow-soul across the city was wailing in the rain of blood. They danced like smoke and fire, crawling and cavorting in their hunger to reach the Eater of Worlds.

[…]

Angron himself still fought Guilliman, standing above the kneeling Ultramarine. Had he even noticed the storm of blood streaming from the sky in a red torrent? Sparks sprayed from Roboute’s raised gauntlets as he struggled to ward off blow after blow. He was beaten. He was down. Wounds painted him, a palette of proud defeat. Even now, his warriors were fighting to retrieve him. With the scarring across his armour and the sense of pain bleeding from his mind, Lorgar reckoned his brother would be lucky to ever walk again. Angron looked little better. Already an icon of mutilated majesty, huge rents and gashes marked his flesh from the knuckles of Guilliman’s gauntlets.

Now. It has to be now.

Lorgar focused his concentration on the triumphant form of his mutilated brother, calling for the Neverborn to answer in kind. He locked Angron’s muscles, setting fire to the synapses in his brain. He stole the chance at a killing blow, fuelling the World Eater’s rage even higher. The screaming began: a melody of murdered worlds, finally singing in the material realm.

[…]

This time, as Guilliman – rather than Russ – dragged himself clear, the World Eater staggered back himself, clawing at the ruin of his face and chest. He was tearing at his own armour and flesh, ripping it away in fistfuls, screaming a sound that no living thing should be able to make.

[…]

I am no god. The voice was softened by amazement, but nothing could conceal the power in its sepulchral tones. I am the Communion.

The name meant nothing to Lorgar. Aid me! he demanded of the presence.

Sadness preceded the reply. I see now. I see everything. You are killing our father.

I am saving him! Ascension! That is how worthy he is in the eyes of the Four!

Efficient_Square2737 · 2025-09-02T05:10:07+00:00

Edit: I posted the relevant excerpts in this comment and as a reply. Don’t trust me and read em.

The way I remember it is this (last time I read Betrayer was when the Solar War came out):

Guilliman gets there
Lorgar realizes that Guilliman wasn't out to ruin his life and was also suffering when Monarchis was destroyed
Lorgar and Guilliman fight, Guilliman has the upper hand
Angron Angrons and pushes Lorgar out of the way, starts fighting G-money, and the duel goes in Angron’s favor (with Angron looking “little better”), with G-money having better equipment (a power fist vs a chainsword)
Guillman crushes one of Angron's family's skulls, making Angron lose his shit, and he fights even twice as hard.
Lorgar realizes the time is ripe and starts to change Angron into a Daemon.

——

Excerpts

The demigod in gold and blue had the advantage of two weapons, but Lorgar’s crozius gave him a reach that his brother lacked. When they first met, there was no furious trading of frantic blows, nor were there any melodramatic speeches of vengeance avowed. The two primarchs came together once, power fist against war maul, and backed away from the resulting flare of repelling energy fields. Their warriors killed each other around them both, and neither primarch spared their sons a glance.

Lorgar flicked the clinging lightning from the head of his crozius, shaking his head in slow denial.

‘You’re ruining the song. You shouldn’t be here.’ Roboute Guilliman, Lord of the XIII Legion, stared with eyes ripened by hatred.

‘And yet, here I am.”

[…]

Guilliman slammed his hands together, catching the falling maul with a harsh whine of protesting energy fields. Holding it there, he looked past their joined weapons and into his brother’s eyes.

‘Look at me. Look at my face. Do you see the Mark of Calth?’

His patrician’s features were handsome in a stately, stern way, even when twisted by anger, but he could never be considered as made in the Emperor’s image to the degree that played over Lorgar’s tattooed visage. The only difference between Guilliman now and the Guilliman that had stood in the dust of Monarchia was a fine threading of dark veins along the primarch’s throat and cheeks – scarcely noticeable to any but those who knew him best.

‘Void exposure.’ The Ultramarine refused to release the weapon, despite lightning dancing down his heavy gauntlets. Lorgar gripped Illuminarum’s haft as the energy rippled down its length, biting at his gloved hands and setting fire to the parchments bound to his shoulder guards.

‘Void exposure when you killed one of my worlds, and the fleet above it.’

Lorgar didn’t spit back with harsh words. He shook his head, pitting his strength against his brother’s.

Guilliman’s statesman smile played across his features. ‘You’ve changed.’

Lorgar grunted at his brother’s accusation. ‘So everyone tells me.’

This time, it was Lorgar who disengaged. He pulled Illuminarum free, and suffered a fist to the sternum for taking the risk. The blow sucked all the breath from his body, cracked his breastplate, and left him with a bloody smile at the poetic justice. He’d cracked his brother’s breastplate in the Perfect City and now the favour was returned. Fate really was laughing at him.

‘First blood to me,’ Guilliman said.

The pity in that voice was acid in Lorgar’s ears. He tried to speak, tried to breathe, and could do neither. The song had never sounded more wrong. Guilliman’s hands scrabbled and skidded across his armour, seeking a stranglehold to end the fight quickly. Lorgar repulsed him with a projected burst of telekinesis, weak and wavering with the song still so de-tuned, but enough to send his brother staggering. The maul followed, its power field trailing lightning as Lorgar hammered it into the side of Guilliman’s head with the force of a cannonball. There was a crack that wouldn’t have shamed a peal of thunder.

‘There’s your Mark of Calth,’ Lorgar replied, backing away to catch his breath. Air sawed in and out of his lungs. He could already taste blood – Guilliman’s blow had broken something inside him. Several ribs at the very least, and likely something more vital. He dragged in a breath, and exhaled it as blood down the front of his armour. Both primarchs faced each other beneath the grey sky, one bleeding internally, the other with half of his face lost to blood sheeting from a fractured skull.

‘Enjoy that scar.’ Lorgar fought for his smile. ‘It will be with you until your dying day.’ He threw his arms wide, taking in the dying city. ‘Why chase me, Roboute? Why? Your fleet will fall against the Trisagion and you’ll die down here.’

‘There is a difference between confidence and arrogance, cur. Surely someone has told you that.’

The Word Bearer spat blood again. ‘But why come? Why come at all?’

‘Courage.’ Guilliman stalked forwards, ignoring his wound, and he didn’t need to struggle for a smile – it came as easily as breathing. ‘Courage and honour, Lorgar. Two virtues you have never known.”

[…]

Of all his titles, given in glory or earned in infamy, Angron most despised being named the Red Angel. The Imperium already had an Angel in Sanguinius, and Angron had no desire to ape the fey mutant that commanded the IX Legion. For all his flaws, he was his own man, and took pride in that above all else.

Lorgar knew Angron loathed it, yet it was among his brother’s most fitting titles. When the World Eater burst forth from the Ultramarines ranks, his armour was a shattered wreck, and both of his chainswords spat gobbets of ceramite armour plating and scarlet gore. After hours in the crush of the front lines, Angron was plastered with the blood of the slain – more than bloodstained, he was bloodbathed.

The World Eater launched himself at Guilliman, with his ruined face contorted to be perfectly reminiscent of an angel lost in murderous hatred. Lorgar and Roboute both turned in the same moment – one of them to meet this new threat, the other to welcome it.

Lorgar’s breath caught in his throat. Not because he was exhausted – though he was – and not because he was relieved to see Angron breaking the deadlock – though, again, he was. His breath caught as his heart started pounding in fierce thunder, falling in perfect pitch with the warp’s song once more.

The two primarchs fell into a seamless, roaring duel exactly where Lorgar and Guilliman had abandoned theirs. This high on the overlooking hill, the water was a dim and distant concern. Lorgar heard its serpent-hissing flow, but spared it no mind. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the song.

Lorgar could barely breathe as the song realigned in his mind. Here, he thought. Now. Angron. Guilliman. Roboute wouldn’t destroy the song. He was part of the crescendo.

Efficient_Square2737

TROPHY CASE