# Were all the Primarchs Alpha+ Psykers in terms of potential?



## Lux (Apr 17, 2010)

As the title states did all of the primarchs hold the potential of Alpha+ psykers, some actualizing it more so than most.

Each primarch has displayed several psychic abilities throughout the horus heresy novels, of which will be listed below.

*Curze:*
1. Raised his arms and psychically destroyed all the light fixtures in the room he occupied. 
2. Had a progressively increasing degree of foresight, which started off as vague dreams predicting the future. This evolved to consciously active battle precognition, which allowed him to fluidly know as well as manipulate the future from moment to moment. 
2. Used the shadows as warp portals to travel from one side of the city to the other instantaneously
3. Turned his body into a living shadow with hyper sonic speeds

*Corax:*
1. Could actively cloud the minds of living creatures so they would not be able to see him

*Perturabo:*
1. Could see warp energy clearly, was able to see golden light dripping from Fulgrim's face

*Lion El Jonson*
1. Immersed his fist in psychic fire of which he then incinerated an astartes head by punching it. 

*Sanguinius:*
1. Foresight in perceiving far off future events.
2. Possessed wings capable of super sonic flight
3. Was able to ignite a force sword

*Mortarion*
1. Possessed some degree of physical invisibility, only Magnus was able to sense/see him.
2. Possessed an extreme degree of resistance towards viruses, diseases, poisons, toxins, bacteria.
3. Either was able to teleport or possessed a degree of super sonic speed, in two books it is noted that Mortation was able to appear in one place than in another without others seeing him go there.

*Lorgar*
1. Telekinesis capable of rapidly drilling through hundreds of feet of concrete, and able to tear apart a thunder hawk in the air. Also was used to massacre hundreds of Ultramarines that tried to kill him, he crushed them as well as tore them apart.
2. Some form of psychic shield capable of easily shrugging off astartes bolter rounds, rockets, and thunder hawk cannons. This same shield was also able to absorb 3 Titan Plasma Cannon rounds point blank, however the third round partially penetrated his shield and greatly harmed him.
3. Possessed a degree of telepathy that allowed him to know what others were thinking (read Fulgrim's mind), and the ability to forcefully control the actions of others. Lorgar used this to manipulate Horus into taking his hand off of his shoulder, and to walk away while saying nothing. 
4. The ability to create psychic explosions of force that were capable of completely overpowering Angron, and were capable of hurtling Angron across a room which left him stunned. (This was done by Lorgar speaking words of warp origin)


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

*deep breathe*

None of them except Magnus were anywhere close to alpha level psykers. According to some of the Inquisition fluff, a psyker that powerful can dominate whole star systems by sheer force of will. Lorgar certainly came close after his change, but his power then is questionable as it may have been boosted by outside agencies.

There are several human or SM psykers that would outstrip most of the primarchs.


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## Lux (Apr 17, 2010)

I do realize that only a handful of them actualized alpha level psyker powers, my question has to do with their potential. Do you believe that each primarch held the latent potential to become an alpha level psyker?

I ask this because it seems that as time went on their powers were becoming more manifest, Lorgar is a prime example of this. However, you bring up an interesting point in that how much of Lorgar's psychic might was actually his own and how much was that of the Chaos gods?

I also question how much of Magnus' power was truly his own, and not that of the chaos god Tzneetch. The moment Tzneetch pulled away from Magnus he was left vastly weakened, particularly during his fight with Russ.


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## Beaviz81 (Feb 24, 2012)

How does possessing wings and having awesome chest-muscles qualify as a psychic power? Thats like calling Leman Russ' teeth a psychic power, thats mutations which are somewhat different from psychic powers that comes from the mind.


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## Lux (Apr 17, 2010)

Beaviz81 said:


> How does possessing wings and having awesome chest-muscles qualify as a psychic power? Thats like calling Leman Russ' teeth a psychic power, thats mutations which are somewhat different from psychic powers that comes from the mind.


Leman Russ did demonstrate a psychic howl that liquefied the heads of opposing thousand sons astartes, and he demonstrated an extreme resistance to psychic attacks performed on him. 

Sang ignited a force sword when he wielded it, which are normally only ignited by psychic powers.


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## Beaviz81 (Feb 24, 2012)

I'm not questioning Sang (he could predict the future and power up a nifty force-sword) nor Russ (he as you stated gave out a psychic howl that hypocrite) having some degree of psychic powers. I guess most if not all Primarches had psychic powers, its how you define them. Wings are physical, differentiate between physical stuff and psychic.

Though I actually think most if not all were Alpha Plus psykers as they are like a mixture of Herculeses and Jesuses walking their respective earths in power, and they almost all dominated at least one planet when Empy found them and they after all were made from his DNA (though they fermented traits Empy had through the different Primarches to make them individuals which I think I read somewhere).


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

Valid point regarding Magnus and Tzeentch. 

Some were created to be powerful psykers, and some it looks like are only psykers as a by product of their creation. Some we have not seen any real tangible manifestation of powers, like Dorn, Guilliman, the Lion, Ferrus Mannus, Alparius or Perturabo. Even Horus hasn't demonstrated any significant acts of psychic might so far. Others, like Vulkan and Angron seem to have had their potential steered in a different direction. 

All things considered, if you take the influence of the warp into consideration, it's possible none of them were naturally gifted to alpha strength. I think maybe you should look up what the very few alpha level psykers were capable of, compare it to what even Magnus and Lorgar have done, and you'll see they come nowhere close.


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## Lux (Apr 17, 2010)

Khorne's Fist said:


> Valid point regarding Magnus and Tzeentch.
> 
> Some were created to be powerful psykers, and some it looks like are only psykers as a by product of their creation. Some we have not seen any real tangible manifestation of powers, like Dorn, Guilliman, the Lion, Ferrus Mannus, Alparius or Perturabo. Even Horus hasn't demonstrated any significant acts of psychic might so far. Others, like Vulkan and Angron seem to have had their potential steered in a different direction.
> 
> All things considered, if you take the influence of the warp into consideration, it's possible none of them were naturally gifted to alpha strength. I think maybe you should look up what the very few alpha level psykers were capable of, compare it to what even Magnus and Lorgar have done, and you'll see they come nowhere close.


Just to nitpick on a few details regarding psychic demonstrations performed by Ferrus, Perturabo, and the Lion.

1. Ferrus commanded the blade wielded by Fulgrim to break, and the moment he did it exploded.

2. Perturabo was able to perceive warp energy, when he was walking with Fulgrim in the Angel Exterminatus book he noted that "I see golden light sweating from Fulgrim's face".

3. The Lion ignited his fist/arm in psychic fire and punched/incinerated a two headed warp daemon of tzneetch.


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## Over Two Meters Tall! (Nov 1, 2010)

Thinking about the HH immediately preceeding Terra, I would think that if Vulcan were a latent psychic, his extreme treatment by Curze would have awoken something in him, but nothings mentioned. I also think that Primarchs like Sanguinius had pretty incredible psychic potential with his foresight, but from the descriptions, even Ahriman was a more powerful overall psyker at the time of Sang's execution... which isn't Alpha+ level to my understanding.

Post-HH, there's no indication I'm aware of that Guilliman, Dorn, Vulcan, Corax, Russ, or The Kahn developed any further psyker abilities following the HH and the last one went into the great beyond, what, 1,000 years after the Heresy? If they were going to develop the abilities, I'd expect them to at least be manifesting them by then, especially considering the psychic shocks they go through with their Father dying, events like The Cage, the Burning of Calth, Isstvan V, etc.

Personally, while some of the feats the Primarchs performed based on their special powers are pretty incredible, I don't think of those as psyker powers so much as special Primarch mojo inherited from their Father's genes. If you move them away from that very specific narrow power, they still don't have any other psychic power.


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## Over Two Meters Tall! (Nov 1, 2010)

Khorne's Fist said:


> Valid point regarding Magnus and Tzeentch.


I would argue that if Magnus's powers came from Tzeentch or were significantly boosted by such, he would have reeked of it in his interactions with the Emperor, which were many.


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

@Lux, I notice you edited out the bit crediting Lorgar for creating the Ruinstorm, when in fact that was Erebus. At least you caught it yourself.



Lux said:


> 1. Ferrus commanded the blade wielded by Fulgrim to break, and the moment he did it exploded.
> 
> 2. Perturabo was able to perceive warp energy, when he was walking with Fulgrim in the Angel Exterminatus book he noted that "I see golden light sweating from Fulgrim's face".


Not exactly Alpha level feats. We already know the primarchs are partly creatures of the warp, so Perturabo seeing the warp on Fulgrim is really of no significance.



> 3. The Lion ignited his fist/arm in psychic fire and punched/incinerated a two headed warp daemon of tzneetch.


Where and when?



Over Two Meters Tall! said:


> I would argue that if Magnus's powers came from Tzeentch or were significantly boosted by such, he would have reeked of it in his interactions with the Emperor, which were many.


We know for a fact that the Thousand Sons were tainted by their use of the tutelaries, and their mutations held in check by a pact with tzeentch made by Magnus. If the Emperor couldn't sense it off them, it's not hard to believe that it was cloaked on Magnus as well. Besides, being the most psychically talented of all the primarchs, smelling the warp off him wouldn't be strange at all.


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## Reaper45 (Jun 21, 2011)

Over Two Meters Tall! said:


> Thinking about the HH immediately preceeding Terra, I would think that if Vulcan were a latent psychic, his extreme treatment by Curze would have awoken something in him, but nothings mentioned. I also think that Primarchs like Sanguinius had pretty incredible psychic potential with his foresight, but from the descriptions, even Ahriman was a more powerful overall psyker at the time of Sang's execution... which isn't Alpha+ level to my understanding.
> 
> Post-HH, there's no indication I'm aware of that Guilliman, Dorn, Vulcan, Corax, Russ, or The Kahn developed any further psyker abilities following the HH and the last one went into the great beyond, what, 1,000 years after the Heresy? If they were going to develop the abilities, I'd expect them to at least be manifesting them by then, especially considering the psychic shocks they go through with their Father dying, events like The Cage, the Burning of Calth, Isstvan V, etc.
> 
> Personally, while some of the feats the Primarchs performed based on their special powers are pretty incredible, I don't think of those as psyker powers so much as special Primarch mojo inherited from their Father's genes. If you move them away from that very specific narrow power, they still don't have any other psychic power.


Just to point out what curze did was extreme for a mortal being. Vulkan is no where near mortal.

Secondly the khan was capable of killing warp spectres using essential his normal blade whereas his body guard required a thousand son psyker to help them.

And to be fair only a handful ever reached their full potential. So we really have no idea what they could do.


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

Reaper45 said:


> And to be fair only a handful ever reached their full potential. So we really have no idea what they could do.


Who did and who didn't? For all we know Dorn might have reached his full potential, which wasn't very much so far as we can see, or Sang may have grown into a mighty precognitive psyker if he'd lived. We don't know what the potential of each is, so you can't say any of them at all reached theirs at all. The Khan for instance seems to know a hell of a lot more than even the Emperor thinks he does, which could mean he can do a hell of a lot more than anyone thinks he can. But we don't know yet.


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## Over Two Meters Tall! (Nov 1, 2010)

Reaper45 said:


> Just to point out what curze did was extreme for a mortal being. Vulkan is no where near mortal.
> 
> Secondly the khan was capable of killing warp spectres using essential his normal blade whereas his body guard required a thousand son psyker to help them.
> 
> And to be fair only a handful ever reached their full potential. So we really have no idea what they could do.


I think all the primarchs performed some amazing feats, but Lux's OP was the potential for all the Primarchs to be Alpha+ psykers eventually. I don't think any of the TS's were Alpha+ psykers during the GC and through the HH, to address your comparison with the Kahn, although Ahriman is an extreme bad-ass in 40K due to his arcane knowledge and his Chaos boost. By the time of the HH, the primarchs were all around 300 years old, and the remaining Loyalist primarchs reached up to 1,000+ years by the time they bow out after the Scouring. There's nothing in the fluff pointing to any of them performing Alpha+ psyker feats... not astounding, not cool, not uber-badass feats, but planet-shaking power.

Hell, for all of Lorgar's supposed potential and power at the time of the HH and the 'awakening' of his power, he was the longest Chaos servant outside of Magnus, so was that his primarchiness or just his being "the" favored son of Chaos?


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## Reaper45 (Jun 21, 2011)

Over Two Meters Tall! said:


> I think all the primarchs performed some amazing feats, but Lux's OP was the potential for all the Primarchs to be Alpha+ psykers eventually. I don't think any of the TS's were Alpha+ psykers during the GC and through the HH, to address your comparison with the Kahn, although Ahriman is an extreme bad-ass in 40K due to his arcane knowledge and his Chaos boost. By the time of the HH, the primarchs were all around 300 years old, and the remaining Loyalist primarchs reached up to 1,000+ years by the time they bow out after the Scouring. There's nothing in the fluff pointing to any of them performing Alpha+ psyker feats... not astounding, not cool, not uber-badass feats, but planet-shaking power.
> 
> Hell, for all of Lorgar's supposed potential and power at the time of the HH and the 'awakening' of his power, he was the longest Chaos servant outside of Magnus, so was that his primarchiness or just his being "the" favored son of Chaos?


They lived 300 - 1000 years for a being that would as far as we know die only in battle. Assuming the emperor wanted them to lead the imperium forever that time span is a drop in the bucket for immortal beings.


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

The Imperial Assignment is, let's face it, a flawed system of measuring psionic ability in an individual. I would argue that the Primarchs cannot be categorised or measured by such a system. Aside from that, the abilities of psykers within the lore is completely and utterly inconsistent - dependent on the author, context, etc. 

The Primarchs cannot be categorised. Many of them may not have demonstrated obvious psychic abilities (in fact, several of them denounced psychic individuals altogether), but they were all creatures of the warp to some extent. They were forged with the raw power of Chaos. But I don't think they were 'psykers' in the way that we understand the term.


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## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

Worded what I thought of the situation perfectly CotE.

I think a kickstarter is in order to fly you to BL HQ (Nottingham I believe?) and have you straighten out some of the authors and get them back on track.


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## Beaviz81 (Feb 24, 2012)

If that happened I would most likely stop following this game.

The Assignment is decent but not equipped for the really powerful psykers of Beta or more powerful because its for mere humans as their minds can't in this setting handle really powerful stuff in this setting without going crazy.


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## Reaper45 (Jun 21, 2011)

Child-of-the-Emperor said:


> The Imperial Assignment is, let's face it, a flawed system of measuring psionic ability in an individual. I would argue that the Primarchs cannot be categorised or measured by such a system. Aside from that, the abilities of psykers within the lore is completely and utterly inconsistent - dependent on the author, context, etc.
> 
> The Primarchs cannot be categorised. Many of them may not have demonstrated obvious psychic abilities (in fact, several of them denounced psychic individuals altogether), but they were all creatures of the warp to some extent. They were forged with the raw power of Chaos. But I don't think they were 'psykers' in the way that we understand the term.


So closer to magitech then?

I agree on the flawed scaling system as well. 

How can someone be an alpha level psyker but only have telekinesis, whereas as lower class one can read minds.

Does this make sense to anyone?


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## Beaviz81 (Feb 24, 2012)

It depends on the power. In Starcraft (they have a lot of the same personnel) a Teek is higher than a Teep so I can see that happening (Astropaths comes to mind).

And the system is accurate for its purposes, but I'm not surprised people take this rather disappointing view. As this is like celsius and fahrenheit. Good for measuring lower forces, but if you want to go into star-territory this won't work (I would be positively surprised if people here actually gets this analogy as I'm talking about kelvin, I don't intend to sound negative nor rude so I apologize if I do).

Plus you can make an argument about how good they can read thoughts as Ciaphas Cain have demonstrated an ability to not letting his thoughts been read just by controlling his thoughts (which probably was a wise choice).

So I have posted an argument against it, but because its you Reaper I expect you to throw it in the trash and completely disregard my points. I would likely add a like if you actually take my points to heart but I don't think you would.


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## Reaper45 (Jun 21, 2011)

Beaviz81 said:


> It depends on the power. In Starcraft (they have a lot of the same personnel) a Teek is higher than a Teep so I can see that happening (Astropaths comes to mind).
> 
> And the system is accurate for its purposes, but I'm not surprised people take this rather disappointing view. As this is like celsius and fahrenheit. Good for measuring lower forces, but if you want to go into star-territory this won't work (I would be positively surprised if people here actually gets this analogy as I'm talking about kelvin, I don't intend to sound negative nor rude so I apologize if I do).
> 
> ...


Actually I was going to agree with you... Everything we read about psykers and blanks is skewed and confusing.


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## Beaviz81 (Feb 24, 2012)

Reaper45 said:


> Actually I was going to agree with you... Everything we read about psykers and blanks is skewed and confusing.


Good point to a degree. There are a lot of writers, and people might fluctuate, but the measuring-system can only measure so far so when you are getting past Beta and Omega-territory then things gets iffy.


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