# Were the Space Wolves naive or ignorant of other Legions?



## zerachiel76 (Feb 12, 2010)

I know that's a pretty inflamatory title so I'll clarify. In Prospero Burns there's a conversation (can't find the page number so if someone could help me out) about the Space Wolves being the Legion that would do things no other legion would ie the Anti Legion, Legion. 

What I just can't get my head around is how the Space Wolves imagine that the Night Lords and World Eaters wouldn't also do whatever had to be done. Surely the Space Wolves must have been aware of the other 2 Legions modus operandi and general attitudes. I just can't imagine situations which the Space Wolves would take action where the Night Lords or World Eaters wouldn't. It's my opinion that if the job of attacking Prospero had been given to either of the other 2 legions they would have done it without question.

Is this simply a case of arrogance or naivite on the Space Wolves part or is there some other differences I'm missing?


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## Oldenhaller (Nov 28, 2008)

Curze and Angron (along with thier legions) were loose cannons, they may have relished such an order but the wolves are discaplined and thus would do what the Emperor asked of them to the letter.

~O


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

Exactly.



The whole thrust of that conversation is that the Space Wolf character in question believes that each Primarch and Legion had a specific mandate. Whatever mandate Angron was supposed to have, he was a lost cause thanks to his implants. Night Haunter was likewise lost to the Emperor.

Both Angron and Night Haunter were censured for what they did. Russ and the Space Wolves were not. This likely has to do with the fact that the Legio VI operated--if inhumanly--with discipline, within their mandate, etc. By contrast, the World Eaters became increasingly compromised by their psycho-surgery and the Night Lords found themselves with murderers, rapists, etc., within their ranks.

In the end, I suspect the Night Lords and the World Eaters liked to tell a pretty story about what they were capable of... but it was the Space Wolves who were doing the hard things because _they were supposed to._


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## Oldenhaller (Nov 28, 2008)

that my friend is a true fact


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## zerachiel76 (Feb 12, 2010)

I agree about what you've both said but I still can't believe that the Space Wolves believed they were the only Legion that WOULD and COULD do what ever needed to be done, whatever else is taken into consideration as both the Night Lords and World Eaters would and could, due to those very factors you mentioned. 
The Space Wolves would have known of the 2 other Legions "problems" and therefore I believe they would know the other Legions would and could have acted. 
I agree they wouldn't probably have been asked but that's different to having the ability and willingness had they been asked.


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## Unknown Primarch (Feb 25, 2008)

why is angron thought of as a lost cause because of his implants? why couldnt the emperor just do his 'machine heal thyself' trick on them and make him stop having those spaz attacks? i understand curze being a schizo but i would have thought the emperor could use some psychic powers on him to fix him up too. is any of this elaborated in PB?


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## piemelke (Oct 13, 2010)

Well I do not think that the space wolves though that the WE or NL would not do everything to obtain their goal, e.g. killing the entire population, the differnence is that the SW do this in order to obtain the emperor his wisher, the other legions not necessarily,

furthermore I feel the number of tools in the SW arsenal is bigger, they can do aggressive and cruel and paternal and warm, whilst in my view the WE or NL were more focussed on the former,

but to conclude if I were the emperor and I had a nasty job to do I would ask the SW, not the WE or NL, the SW can be trusted to do what I want whatever it takes


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

zerachiel76 said:


> I agree about what you've both said but I still can't believe that the Space Wolves believed they were the only Legion that WOULD and COULD do what ever needed to be done, whatever else is taken into consideration as both the Night Lords and World Eaters would and could, due to those very factors you mentioned.


But NOT according to the Emperor's mandate, and NOT as he wanted them to.

That's the big difference. Angron and his World Eaters became increasingly censured precisely because they exceeded their mandate. The Emperor, didn't anticipate Angron's brains being scrambled by the cerebral implants his masters gave him. Whatever mandate or mission he had in mind for the War Hounds, that went out the window.

Just because Angron and Night Haunter were WILLING to do the horrific things they did didn't make them into the Emperor's tools. Exceeding the authority he gave them would have been just as bad as not carrying out his orders to the limit. That's the crux of the argument the Space Wolves make: that they are NOT these uncontrollable, berserker barbarians.

By contrast, though, the Night Lords and World Eaters had lost sight of what they were doing.




Unknown Primarch said:


> why is angron thought of as a lost cause because of his implants? why couldnt the emperor just do his 'machine heal thyself' trick on them and make him stop having those spaz attacks? i understand curze being a schizo but i would have thought the emperor could use some psychic powers on him to fix him up too. is any of this elaborated in PB?


Because the Emperor is not omnipotent.

It took him centuries to create the Primarchs, and according to "The First Heretic" ...


... that was with the help of Chaos.

But even if that *wasn't* the case, repairing Angron's brain would hardly have been a "snap my fingers" trick. In essence, he would have had to engage in potentially even more difficult procedures (not just creating in this case, but repairing while keeping his subject alive) with no real threshold for error, during the middle of the Great Crusade.

And Night Haunter's problems were, if anything, even _more_ complex.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Images of Night Haunter seeing a shrink

"So Konrad, tell me how you feel?"
"I'm going to rip your face off and wear it as a cravat...."


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## Khorne's Fist (Jul 18, 2008)

Phoebus has it spot on. The WEs and NLs didn't know when to stop, and let their rage dictate their actions, where as the SWs controlled their fury and directed it, using it as a weapon as much as a bolter. But when they have completed their mission, they can rein in their ferocity. The other legions simply weren't capable of that.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

One more thing... The timeline of "Prospero Burns" is admittedly hazy... But at one point it is revealed that the protagonist has been on Fenris or alongside the Wolves for approximately seventy years. This is revealed during the same time as the Council of Nikaea. It could also very well be that the Wolves' opinion of themselves was formed at a time before the excesses of the Night Lords and World Eaters were made common knowledge.

But that's just a guess on my part. I'm more inclined to lean on my previous post.


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## Gree (Jun 13, 2010)

Oldenhaller said:


> that my friend is a true fact


It's really more of an opinion. We get to see what the Wolves think of themselves and that's pretty much it. We got to see a biased POV pretty much.

I'm not saying anyone is wrong, on the contrary, I agree with Phoebus on most points. It's just that most of what we get on the subject where from the opinions of the Wolves themselves, who are obviously going to be biased.


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## Unknown Primarch (Feb 25, 2008)

well must say i dont agree with your opinion on curze and angrons mental states there phoebus. considering the emperor had vast knowledge on how to build stuff and being able to concieve a piece of tech like the throne well fixing angrons implants would be childs play. 
obviously there is a underlying story to all the business with angron and why the emperor didnt help him at de'shea and why he left his legion to deal with the nutter by themselves but on a logical note why wouldnt he be able to sort out his implants, it just doesnt make sense when he is passing himself as the god of machines.

and as for curze, well id say he would be even easier to be honest. you have the greatest psyker in the galaxy and he cant see into curzes mind and help him out? the only explaination as to why he couldnt would be he is like that as its ingrained into his D.N.A. and could be hard to remove i suppose.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

I disagree. Fixing a machine, building one, even creating something as complex as the golden throne is still not the same as fixing someones mind, especially one so complex as a primarchs. The implants were directly interfaced with Angrons mind and had already done sufficent damage and change to his brain. Again fixing someones psyche is completley different to fixing a machine


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## MEQinc (Dec 12, 2010)

Phoebus said:


> Exactly.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


*Lies*. The Night Lords did exactly what was asked of them. They became the weapons the Emperor needed. They conquered empires with mere mention of their name. The created obedient and prosperous Imperial worlds. And the Emperor never censured them. He never told them to stop. He never held them to account for their actions because *they were what he had asked for*. Night Haunter was held to account for his attack on Dorn but even that, and his bloody escape, where not enough to keep him from being sent to Istvaan because the Emperor knew that Kurze would do what was necessary to achieve victory. 

All the legions filled their ranks with killers. Murderers by another name. The Night Lords were no different. They took the strongest their world had to offer and forged them into weapons worthy of the Emperors service. No wishy-washy notions of honour. No blinding hypocrisy. They knew what they were and what they were intended for.

Back OT,

The reason the Wolves were sent instead of the WE or the NL is because, just because. There's no particular reason they would be more effective than other legions, no particular reason they would be more willing or able to do the task. It was their role in the grand design, nothing more, nothing less.


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## Doelago (Nov 29, 2009)

MEQinc said:


> *Lies*


H-hmm... I believe that that particular word belongs to me, especially if it is written with bold text... Yea, but move along, move along... k:


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## Child-of-the-Emperor (Feb 22, 2009)

Unknown Primarch said:


> well must say i dont agree with your opinion on curze and angrons mental states there phoebus. considering the emperor had vast knowledge on how to build stuff and being able to concieve a piece of tech like the throne well fixing angrons implants would be childs play.


I disagree. The sheer amount of _'depth'_ involved in the Primarchs' anatomy and physiology is staggering. One that only the Emperor could begin to comprehend. The Primarchs were probably the most complex beings ever to exist, drastically changing their mindset wouldn't be simple _'child's play'_. But as for why he didn't attempt it (presuming he didn't), it was literally in the middle of the Great Crusade that Angron was discovered and brought into the Imperial fold, it wasn't practical to alter a potentially useful occurence when in the middle of coordinating a galaxy-spanning war of conquest. 

Removing the implants may have even resulted in far-reaching and damaging consequences to Angron's mind that it would have been more sensible and rational to leave them in place. Or as I said above, the Emperor may have viewed Angron's warped mindset (due to the implants) as useful.

And on a side note, the Emperor didn't create the Golden Throne from scratch. He unearthed it on Terra, presumably as an artifact from the Dark Age of Technology.



Unknown Primarch said:


> and as for curze, well id say he would be even easier to be honest. you have the greatest psyker in the galaxy and he cant see into curzes mind and help him out? the only explaination as to why he couldnt would be he is like that as its ingrained into his D.N.A. and could be hard to remove i suppose.


Night Haunter was probably the most fucked up out of all the Primarchs. Regardless of what the Emperor did or tried to do, Curze knew his fate long before he even met the Emperor on Nostramo. His visions were so potent and terrifying that he attempted to claw out his own eyes. Seeing an individual as amazing as a Primarch be brought so low only testifies to the sheer potency of his visions. I highly doubt the Emperor could have simply invaded Curze's mind/link to the warp and prevented his visions.


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## unixknight (Jul 26, 2010)

Perhaps the easiest way to think of it is this: The Space Wolves are a spear, the World Eaters are a grenade. 

Both will kill a target, but one of them makes a much bigger mess.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

That's all well and good; the issue at hand is that the Wolves genuinely believed that they were the Legion meant to be doing all of that bad stuff.

I'm starting to think, more and more, that this was simply the case at the beginning... before the World Eaters went berserko and the Night Lords degenerated into a Legion of criminals, murderers, and psychopaths. That way, they would be justified in their view of themselves, even if things changed over a period of 70+ years.

The more interesting question, IMHO, is this:

Nevermind how the Wolves didn't know the World Eaters and Night Lords were also capable of brutality, etc... How on Terra did Horus Lupercal go damn near two centuries taking Russ and his Legion at face value? "False Gods" (IIRC) shows he thought him to be pretty much what he pretended to be, which is sad given Horus' level of intelligence and insight.

Perhaps there really was something to the purported assigning of specific responsibilities to each Primarch (see another thread for that). If that was the case, ...



Fulgrim's presence in the de-briefing of Howser during Nikaea would indicate he was the man in charge of intelligence (one of the roles mentioned) ...


... and might explain Horus' ignorance as a result of compartmentalization. That is, he wasn't meant to be burdened with certain roles, and even as Warmaster wasn't privy to something other Primarchs...



... in this case, Fulgrim, having a good idea of Russ' cunning...


... were unto already.


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## MuSigma (Jul 8, 2010)

zerachiel76 said:


> I know that's a pretty inflamatory title so I'll clarify. In Prospero Burns there's a conversation (can't find the page number so if someone could help me out) about the Space Wolves being the Legion that would do things no other legion would ie the Anti Legion, Legion.


I can't believe the Space Wolves believe they are the only Legion willing to be used to chastise another Legion, In 1000 sons it is hinted that Russ's potent talent is as an Anti-Psycher.

Also in The First Heretic Guilliman and the Ultramarines are used to destroy Monarchia and were used by the Emperor to punish the Word Bearers.

Also Rogal Dorn was invovled with the Night Lords and Kurze.

I think any Legion is quite capable of being used against any other Legion if ordered to.

I think Russ is just trying to justify himself, maybe after the changing of orders by Horus, he assumed his role was some dirty job no other Legion would be able to do, not realising he was being used.


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

MuSigma said:


> Also in The First Heretic Guilliman and the Ultramarines are used to destroy Monarchia and were used by the Emperor to punish the Word Bearers.
> 
> Also Rogal Dorn was invovled with the Night Lords and Kurze.
> 
> I think any Legion is quite capable of being used against any other Legion if ordered to.


The destruction of Monarchia is different then what the Wolves were used for; the space wolves were the executioners meant to deal with problems like the thousand sons.

Again, not quite the same. It is my contention that the wolves were only employed when the ultimate goal was annihilation.

No, not every legion was capable. I doubt that the BA or the salamanders were really an option and very few, other than Russ, could have been used to butcher one of their brothers.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Plus Prospero Burns does show how vastly intelligent the Wolves really are, despite what the other Legions may think. They can think very well out of the box, why go for a full frontal assault on a planet when you could just as easily slingshot an orbiting station into it and then follow in through the breach. Most of the other Legions (aside from the Alpha Legion) do seem to be quite predictable. Now the Wolves may appear to be simple and predictable to the others, but thats only because its what they want them to think. Where as im sure the Emperor and Malcador know better.

I don't think its just Russ bigging themselves up in some way. There has to be a reason that they were used as a failsafe on Nikea incase Magnus and the Thousand Sons got out of hand, why they were used to sanction the Legion on Prospero, and why they were very likely the ones to sanction at least one of the unknown Legions.


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## randian (Feb 26, 2009)

Phoebus said:


> But even if that *wasn't* the case, repairing Angron's brain would hardly have been a "snap my fingers" trick. In essence, he would have had to engage in potentially even more difficult procedures (not just creating in this case, but repairing while keeping his subject alive) with no real threshold for error, during the middle of the Great Crusade.


Surely the Emperor would know a lot more about Primarch anatomy and how to remove the rage device than the surgeons who got lucky implanting it. I assume actual physical surgery wouldn't be used, but rather the Emperor would use his psychic power to remove the rage device. So yes, it would be a "snap my fingers" trick.

The problem we have is we don't know if the Emperor even knew about the device. The surgical scars may not have been visible. Not psychically checking out Angron's mind and body after recovering him may seem like a gross oversight to you and me, but the Emperor may have not seen the need to do so at the time and simply chalked up Angron's erratic behavior to his intrinsic nature and barbarian upbringing rather than surgical intervention.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

randian,

It took the Emperor a long time to create the Primarchs. In fact, ...



... he needed Chaos to create them.


Their anatomies and genetic makeup have been described as incredibly complex structures. Remember when Horus was wounded by the anatheme? The Apothecaries of his Legion were at a loss as to even _begin_ to address his wounds--not just the effect the anatheme had on him, mind you, but _just his physiology._

Check out Matt Farrer's blog for his opinion on the damage done to Angron's mind and how it shaped his story. He's spot on. It was a remarkably complex architecture, and it was brutally and crudely damaged by beings that had no idea what a Primarch's brain was. The Emperor, for whom it took centuries to make a Primarch, was in position to take a pause from the Great Crusade to engage in incredibly complex bio-re-engineering while also trying to keep his gene-son alive. If it sounds like I'm repeating myself, that's because I can't stress this enough.

Could he just snap his fingers and remove the device? Sure, I guess. And who knows what further damage that would have done--a gap left in his brain. Did he know about the device? I don't see why he wouldn't. Furthermore, there is no evidence he _didn't_ check Angron out following their encounter.


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## randian (Feb 26, 2009)

Phoebus said:


> Check out Matt Farrer's blog for his opinion on the damage done to Angron's mind and how it shaped his story. He's spot on. It was a remarkably complex architecture, and it was brutally and crudely damaged by beings that had no idea what a Primarch's brain was.


If that's so, there's no way they should have gotten it to work, let alone leave Angron in a passably functional state. The device was designed to work on humans. Putting it in Angron is like taking a device intended for a dog's brain and implanting it in a human. Getting it to do anything but kill him isn't just lucky, it's a miracle. Or a daemonic plot.

If the best magos biologis in the Imperium couldn't do a darn thing to save Guilliman, I don't see how some hacks on a backwater planet got their rage device to work on Angron. Unless, of course, they were daemonically informed regarding the proper procedures, and that planet was secretly a Khornate base of operations, much like Colchis was secretly a Chaos-worshipping planet.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

That's the thing, he wasn't!

Angron was left in a state where he was subject to uncontrollable fits, where his lucid thoughts were interrupted by rages. It didn't "work"; well, it did only in the sense that his masters still got the uber-gladiator they wanted.

Where your counter-example is concerned, I think you're (no offense) kind of missing the point. The Emperor and your theoretical Magoi Biologis were trying to *repair* something incredibly complex. That's a heck of a lot harder than *damaging* said thing.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

randian said:


> If the best magos biologis in the Imperium couldn't do a darn thing to save Guilliman, I don't see how some hacks on a backwater planet got their rage device to work on Angron. Unless, of course, they were daemonically informed regarding the proper procedures, and that planet was secretly a Khornate base of operations, much like Colchis was secretly a Chaos-worshipping planet.


Interesting you should say that really seeing as its quite clear from The First Heretic that the chaos gods had planned the fall of certain primarchs from the very moment they stole them away from Terra. Intentionally depositing some of them on certain planets to begin their long road to corrupting them and alterting their detinies towards chaos, suceeding in all but one case (The Lion). So really its entirely possible that they landed Angron on a world which would be able to manipulate his mind in such a way, and possibly backed by the machincations of Chaos.

And using Guilliman is a poor example, Guilliman was dead the very moment Fulgrim cut his throat. There is literally nothing the Magos Biologis can do for him, he is dead. And like Phobeus said, damaging and fixing something are two entirely different things.


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## Child-of-the-Emperor (Feb 22, 2009)

Phoebus said:


> That's all well and good; the issue at hand is that the Wolves genuinely believed that they were the Legion meant to be doing all of that bad stuff.
> 
> I'm starting to think, more and more, that this was simply the case at the beginning... before the World Eaters went berserko and the Night Lords degenerated into a Legion of criminals, murderers, and psychopaths. That way, they would be justified in their view of themselves, even if things changed over a period of 70+ years.
> 
> ...


That's a very interesting point actually (in regards to Horus). I can't remember if Raldoran and Typhon were aware of Russ' ploy, or if Fulgrim was actually. I'll have to re-read the Nikaea scene. 



MuSigma said:


> I can't believe the Space Wolves believe they are the only Legion willing to be used to chastise another Legion, In 1000 sons it is hinted that Russ's potent talent is as an Anti-Psycher.
> 
> Also in The First Heretic Guilliman and the Ultramarines are used to destroy Monarchia and were used by the Emperor to punish the Word Bearers.
> 
> ...


They are very different examples. Guilliman and the Ultramarines destroyed a city, and Dorn apprehended another Primarch. Regardless of the intent or consequences, no Legion or Primarch is ever known to have brought war and death upon another Legion. Russ was the first (and only) to do so (until the Heresy), as it was his role (at least he was under such an impession).

The Emperor couldn't have maintained all the Legions as willing to physically challenge another Legion. It was sensible for the Emperor to maintain that inter-Astartes conflict was a near-impossibility (most the Primarchs and Astartes themselves even believed so).

Russ and the Vlka Fenryka were _willing_ to make war upon another Legion. And that is the point. Any other Legion may not have gone as far, or executed it as effectively as _the Rout_. Doubt would have likely lingered in all but the Vlka Fenryka in such circumstances.



MuSigma said:


> I think Russ is just trying to justify himself, maybe after the changing of orders by Horus, he assumed his role was some dirty job no other Legion would be able to do, not realising he was being used.


Did Horus change the orders? There has been no confirmation of this at all. If anything, the Prospero duology (as well as all previous background including _Collected Visions_) indicates that the Emperor directly ordered the Burning of Prospero.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

I am almost positive Horus says he did as much in one of the Horus Heresy novels... 

Stand by.

EDIT:

From "False Gods":



‘We have the advantage of surprise. No one yet suspects us of having learned the Emperor’s true plan, and in that lies our
greatest weapon.’
‘But what of Magnus?’ asked Maloghurst urgently, ‘What happens when Leman Russ returns him to Terra?’
Horus smiled. ‘Calm yourself, Mal. I have already contacted my brother Russ and illuminated him with the full breadth of Magnus’s treacherous use of daemonic spells and conjurations. He was... suitably angry, and I believe I have convinced him that to return Magnus to Terra would be a waste of time and effort.’
Maloghurst returned Horus’s smile. ‘Magnus will not leave Prospero alive.’
‘No,’ agreed Horus. ‘He will not.’


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## RIVALBLACKWELL (Dec 13, 2010)

Oldenhaller said:


> Curze and Angron (along with thier legions) were loose cannons, they may have relished such an order but the wolves are discaplined and thus would do what the Emperor asked of them to the letter.
> 
> ~O


What he said.


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## randian (Feb 26, 2009)

Phoebus said:


> Angron was left in a state where he was subject to uncontrollable fits, where his lucid thoughts were interrupted by rages. It didn't "work"; well, it did only in the sense that his masters still got the uber-gladiator they wanted.


I'd say it worked pretty well, considering Angron was still a mostly-functioning "human" being.

You miss _my_ point. The brain architecture of a Primarch is surely as different from a human as the rest of his body. The rage device combined with the surgery they performed shouldn't have left Angron with uncontrollable fits, it should have left him a vegetable. How did a bunch of guys with no access to the Emperor's research or notes manage to adapt, however imperfectly, their rage device to work on Angron?


Phoebus said:


> The Emperor and your theoretical Magoi Biologis were trying to *repair* something incredibly complex. That's a heck of a lot harder than *damaging* said thing.


Here's a thought experiment. Shoot somebody in the head, but make sure they won't be any worse off than Angron was. I daresay you could do this once a day for centuries without success. That is essentially what Angron's surgeons did installing their rage device: shoot Angron in the head. Damaging something while leaving it useless is easy. Damaging something as complex as Angron's brain while leaving him a passable semblance of a human being, on your first try no less, is far more than lucky.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

randian,

The difference between Angron's reality and your experiment being, of course, that a Primarch is a heck of a lot harder to *kill* than a human being.

I didn't say a degree of luck wasn't involved. But at the same time we can see how even primitive attempts at surgery succeeded in, by and large, keeping patients alive even while crippling them in some fashion. In many ways, Angron's treatment parallels this. His masters' technology was obviously very sophisticated--it far outstrips what we have currently. At the same time, like ancient Earth surgeons, they did not understand the workings of Angron's makeup, nor did their knowledge in any way come close to the Emperor's. They accomplished what they wanted, but they damaged horribly--ruined, even--Angron in the process.

The only question left is how easy it would be for the Emperor to fix his gene-son. Nothing about the Primarchs has been shown to be easy. And the Great Crusade was hardly a time for such deviations (especially when there were yet more Primarchs to be found before the natives managed to mangle them!). 

Cheers,
P.


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