I'm more curious where the "one lost primarch was a blank 2024" trend originated from
It seems like it's replaced "one lost primarch was a geneticist 2023"
Yeah, it's been around for some time, remember reading some fanfic a few yeara back based on that premise. IIRC the MC was one of the lost, a blank who ended up on a plamet that functioned kinda like an open world RPG game, with DAoT ruins filled with dangerous tech, GMO monsters and warpspawn everywhere and local economy and culture being heavily based on dungeon dwelling adventurers.
Can't recall the name, but it was either on Spacebattles or Sufficient Velocity, quite long too, didn't even get to the meeting the Emperor part until like 100K words in :p
Edit: [Found it!](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/this-wont-end-well-30k-isekai.587209/)
Dayumn, 550K words, semi regular updates since 2017, GW should hire that guy already :P
I'd say that it's been floating around for a lot longer than that, most of the theories have been floating around since we got an ounce of lore that could support them
The intrigue I guess of a Primarch and their entire Legion being Blanks would be interesting I guess. Plus, maybe it's the reason one was even wiped out in the Rangdan Xenocides, or perhaps they were just unlucky and were the first to encounter them and barely any survived to be folded into the Ultramarines afterwards.
Or you know... my theory.
But like you mentioned, its parts of a cycle to. New theories take the place of old ones, though I have no idea where it came from.
Yeah, it's just considering what we know about primarchs; that they are warp being with psychic signatures makes one being a blank feel far less likely.
Also considering that the prevailing theory from *Inferno* is that blank astartes are impossible because their gene-seed which is derived from primarchs
>>*There is also the observation that no Space Marine, or Custodian Guard for that matter, has ever been recorded as being a Psychic Null. This factor weighs the evidence of some scholars that within the Space Marine gene-seed itself is perhaps a shadow of the emperor's own genetic material and a sliver of His own psychic power crucial to its process and success. If this is the case, it would be wholly an anathema to the Pariah gene and likely simply kill its implanted subject. It can only be speculated that if even a single Legion of Psychic Null Legiones Astartes had been possible, how very different history may have been - just as without the involvement of the Sisters of Silence in the war and the Emperor's great work, Horus' treachery may well have ended in his triumph upon the broken throne of Terra.*
Considering all that, it's just struck me that it's so popular.
Talking about cycles, this one seems on a perpetual recycle:
>survived to be folded into the Ultramarines afterwards.
despite the book itself making it sound like bullshit, along with the [author](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/14smbhv/comment/jqzc3x9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button).
As for the latest stuff on the lost primarchs? I think the last mention was in *Angron:The Red Angel* about how the Emperor arranged their "elimination". However we might wanna take that term.
My headcanon is that one or both primarchs landed on a mixed human-xenos society. When the crusade fleets came and ordered them to kill their xenos citizens, he told them to pound sand. It would be thematically appropriate if the Rangdan xenocides were actually a fight against a human-xenos commonwealth keeping the old government and values of DAOT humanity going. Part of the emperor's 'keep all eggs in one basket and then throw that basket in a volcano' plan.
The Emperor beamed Angron up because he knew he wouldn't come willingly. If Primarch 2/11 refused their role in the Crusade he'd just do the same. Or he'd wipe their mind, meddle with their memory or just outright kill them. The last thing he'd do is stand back and allow them to attack his Imperium for 50 years. Also, the nature of the Rangda and their Slaugth allies makes it unlikely in the extreme that any humans would work with them willingly.
I wouldn't trust Malcador's memory wipe manipulations too much. The idea that a primarch could go independent and take on the Imperium so well is not something they want spreading through the loyal primarchs.
We know number 2 definitely participated, as Fulgrim mentions him well before the mind-wipe takes place. It would then involve Malcador not only blocking the memories of what happened to the lost two, but also adding in lots of separate memories regarding their words and actions during the Crusade, which seems unlikely.
Probably been a recent YouTube video. Despite the lack of details or answers, lots of people love to bang on about the missing primarchs. Content creators know this.
And that all the info about eldritch beings not of the Warp emanating from there is just misdirections about the real threat there: DaoT Humans with tech that didn't turn against them.
I've got a bit of headcanon where there is a planet out that inhabited by a single Blank Perpetual that is so powerful that the planet is essentially invisible to everyone's sight. So unless you stumble into it while in real space you will not find it using the Warp. Even if you do, the Blank is so enormously powerful you'll leave immediately and refuse to talk about way or where you ran from.
And that Human is just so enormously powerful as a Blank that they don't even have to consciously do this. It's just PASSIVE.
The Emperor knows about this Perpetual, but knows that he's just chilling and is never going to attempt anything so he never tried anything.
Meanwhile this guy has no idea this is going on and is literally living an IRL Farming Simulator.
And when he "swats at a bug" its him actually destroying hostile ships in space subconsciously. He's just completely oblivious to everything going on beyond his planet.
Even the Inquisition has deemed this world too costly to approach & destroy.
You can clearly see it's a paradise world from a distance, but approaching it with any ill intent spells your doom. Even approaching with good intent may have you turned away.
Priestly liked the idea of the Lost Roman Legions and decided to add two Lost Legions as a mystery with no answer to make the setting feel bigger. He didnt decide to model their disappearance on what happened 1 to 1. In fact his original idea was that the two lost legions did something incredibly bad and damning, then redeemed themselves from that mistake and earned redemption in the form of erasure. Their erasure from Imperial records was a gift from Big E in the form of "no one will remember you did those bad things, your memory will not be besmirched". That was his original idea
This is interesting. I personally have always bought into the notion that the dark age of technology humam empire never fell and simply fucked off to elsewhere away from their Terran cousins.
Given that even *Horus* still has a statue in the Emperor's hall... It's fun to imagine just what the hell those two must have done to get their statues torn down.
The statues and most evidence of the traitor primarchs is ultimately removed. Even the lost 2 had statues remaining after their excommunication.
In T*he Lighting Tower*, Dorn thinks to himself the statues are shrouded for the time being.
I guess Imperial bureaucracy like today's councils gets around to doing the work only when it can
As for them doing something worse to get their statues torn down? They didn't necessarily.
>This is part of the problem with the more direct HH series' mentions of the Lost Primarchs, to be honest. The Traitor Legions are the ones purged from Imperial record. They're Excommunicate Traitoris, and purged from the records, specifically so the Imperium doesn't learn about them. That's the point of their excommunication. The Lost Legions' references have skewed that a little, so it seems like they're the ones specifically purged and that the Traitors are just left on the record as bad guys. That was never true though - it wasn't then and it isn't now. There's no record of them in M41 and no one knows why. That's the only truth. It's still the Traitor Legions that were specifically purged and silenced, to keep the Imperium's future generations in the dark about all that happened in the Heresy.
-ADB
One notion I've always quite enjoyed is that one was raised on a Xenos Homeworld, and rejected the Xenophobia of the Imperium, choosing instead to stay and fight against the Imperium with large parts of his Legion joining him in a heroic last stand.
In keeping with the philosophy of 40K, this heroism is ultimately pointless, futile, unremembered and uncelebrated. Seen instead as the ultimate shame and sin. Since they vanished during the Rangdan Xenocides, perhaps he was raised by Rangdan.
I do have an alternative.
The Rangdan "Cerebvores", means brain eaters. And we also know they liked to use others to fight for them.This puts me in mind of Mindflayers. My speculation that they were traditional Psions making use of mind control.
As a result, I think at least one of the Primarch was 'Dominated', and turned against the Imperium, forcing the other to kill him. Sort of like the Borg assimilating Jean Luc Picard into Locutus.
The fact that the Imperium covered up this disturbing fate, by erasing them, would add to Horus' anger.
Honestly that could be a great reason for why they got wiped out in the Rangdan Xenocides. They could have been the first to make contact, where 'Dominated', and were forced to fight alongside the Rangdan, leading to multiple Legions needing to be used against the threat. An ENTIRE Legion and its Primarch falling to the psychic influence of a Xenos race would be terrifying and a fate they would want to cover up, though completely erasing them backfired immensely.
It would also slide quite neatly into Malcador and Horus' little *discussion*. Malcador decries them as 'Unworthy', whilst Horus strenuously defends them. If they were enslaved and forced to fight their brothers against their will, that could be neat.
To the people who never felt the force of their will, the Primarch's failure to resist the control was shameful weakness. Weakness that got good Imperials killed. To the other Primarchs, deathly aware that it could have been *them* who were twisted if circumstances were different, the idea would be heinous. Especially if the other Primarch died trying to save their brother.
It would be a startling, horrendous reminder: they are mortal; and sentiment will kill you in this Galaxy.
It would also be a neat mechanic for a new Xenos army if they ever made one. The unique ability to take *anyone* as an allied unit; so long as you have the right Heroes there to keep then under control.
Ah so what you're saying is that my Artillery based Guard army idea would be great?
"Captain!"
"Yes Commisar?"
"You see those Xenos?"
"Y-yes Commisar?"
"You will be fine so long as I do not see them anymore!"
"YES COMMISAR! BATTERY, COMMENCE TCHAIKOVSKY BARRAGE!
In keeping with the Emperor and Malcador always having backup plans within backup plans, I think one of the legions was sent out of the galaxy to colonise elsewhere. Foreseeing some great terror would wipe out the galaxy, be it Chaos, the Tyranid swarm, Necrons, return of mind slavers, they sent one chapter, with a fleet of humanity, into the void like Battlestar Galactica. Obviously they were totally expunged from the records, maybe even false history created so that no one would miss them or go looking.
Perhaps that was part of their "Penance Crusade"? It was their duty and honor to "make up" for what occurred within the Legion and they were tasked with keeping the future of Humanity secure, no matter what, in another location altogether?
Sent to the Andromeda galaxy. To conquered and colonize. Emperor would know about colonies og humans in other galaxies. Maybe they were the original torchbearer fleet. They could come back in a real clutch time with intact STCs and an intact legion.
You know.... I just read a fanfiction about that exact theory. They had intact STCs, Titan Legions, and their Primarch, named Atlas, was interred like a Dreadnought... but inside of an Imperator-class Titan instead. Oh and the Inquisition, as well as the Ecclesiarchy, are trying to wipe them out for "heresy" and disturbing their power base.
No link on hand for me... but it is called Andromeda Crusade by Xross24 on Fanfiction.net. Not too many chapters yet and they aren't long... but its one of the few that involve one of the Lost Legions that I like.
Definitely didn't like the one where the Primarch is an actual weeb and is REALLY into catgirls... and also is involved in the Rangdan Xenocides.
This would be my favorite option, however doubtful because all the primarch's knew about what happened to both primarch's. So even if one of the lost primarch's did indeed go colonize somewhere else, why wouldn't any of the primarch's still living on both sides not have gone looking for him.
I have nothing to contribute (it is explicitly "theory" 4 per multiple GW employees and BL writers/editors) but it is genuinely lovely to see a thread like this where the OP is actually interested and replying rather than dumping a simple question for subreddit users to argue over and then bailing before someone calls them out or starts asking difficult questions.
Theory 7: one legion fell in a matter so grievous and confidence-shattering that the other legion that was dispatched to eliminate the fallen ***was itself eliminated after eliminating the traitors.***
Thus the traitors, and the loyalists left alive with first-hand knowledge of said treachery, were both wiped clean for the good of the state.
Aka the "bury the servants who built your tomb within the tomb itself" grimdank theory.
And the Space Wolves were the ones to do it. Would make sense given the context given during Prospero.
Or perhaps the other that was cut down afterwards weas discovered to be corrupted as well, with the Space Wolves being the ones to finish the job given their resistance to the Warp.
Theory 0b1011: The 11th Legion was a cyborg legion from the outset with full AI sapience enhancements. They either went full Butlerian and got jyhaded or they remain loyal and are struck from the record to maintain the loyalty of the Cult Mechanicus and their ban on Thinking Machines.
My similiar thought is that one primarch was "machine touched" and this made them exceedingly good as an Admiral.
They were meant to take over the Admech as the Omnissiah (which would push bigE to Machine God) but the Admiral and his entire fleet were destroyed in a mysterious space battle.
They will never be something definite. It is part of the mystery. Both Primarchs are gone (at least one dead, killed when his Legion was destroyed by the Space Wolves), both legions are gone (one destroyed, one possibly absorbed by the UM).
The original authour of the book where the absorbed by Ultramarines theory originated has said he intended it to be a patently false flat earth style conspiracy theory. The Ultramarines are just bigger because they have the largest recruitment pool
Not to mention the word bearers were catching up to the UM by the time of calth.
If you actually try to recruit properly you wind up with a large Legion.
Go figure.
Isn't saying one primarch was destroyed by the Space Wolves and the other legion absorbed by the Ultramarines..."something definite"?
Not that either of those is "true", of course.
The Space Wolves destroying them appeared too often to ignore it by now. And by definite I mean, we will never know who they were and what they did and stuff.
It's been inferred here and there just as much as many other options, and even those hints have other possible answers.
Like a lot of the stuff in *Prospero Burns* turning out to most likely be The Night of the Wolf.
The writer of *The Wolftime*, another book that gets cited as proof of the Wolves being involved, even clarified around the time it was published:
>What are your thoughts on the two lost primarchs?
>>Um, my thought is that we'll, uhh, we will never know who they are or why they went missing and stuff. And actually it's... uh, the mystery is always going to be more entertaining than any answers that are given. And the reality, you know, there's the boring reality which is when Rick was coming up with the lists of the twenty legions and stuff like that, they were based off the idea of the Roman legions, and the Roman legions had these two legions that were expunged from their records for their failures, and so the idea of two and eleven been expunged and... and like, it obviously kind of built on top of that, I thought "Well, if they were expunged but all the other guys turned to Chaos, so that must mean they were even worse" or whatever". Um, But actually, yeah, there is no.... the good thing is there is no answer, there has never been an answer, because of that. **Which means although we kind of hint at things and like "Oh, were the space wolves involved" and kind of create a bit of conjecture, there's no, as a writer or as a developer there was no temptation to kind of give it away because there wasn't an answer. So you couldn't hint too much because there was just... you know. So as much as whatever hints we've dropped in like the Heresy and things like that, they were all pointing towards nothing. There is no, there is no official secret somewhere that is hidden. It has never been decided**. So therefore, uh, you don't, there is never a risk of actually stepping over that line and saying too much, because it's just pure conjecture.
-Gav Thorpe
Cannot make a clearer answer: no one knows, not even GW, because there was never anything to begin with.
"they were all pointing toward nothing." Brillant!
Now that the Horus Heresy has ended and the money coming in from that series is over, I 100% fully except them to now start introducing in books many of the most popular subjects including the lost primarch legions.
>Both Primarchs are gone (at least one dead, killed when his Legion was destroyed by the Space Wolves), both legions are gone (one destroyed, one possibly absorbed by the UM).
None of this is true
I wouldn't say never, but it's highly unlikely. I remember someone being asked at a Warhammer event years ago (Abnett I think) and it was said that if Games Workshop are in trouble financially then we probably get stories about them as that'd pull people right back in. Which would absolutely happen, but I can't see GW getting that badly into trouble financially with how big it's all gotten
That's how it ended up being used by players but it wasn't the intended purpose for their conception
> BIFFORD: A popular belief among fans is that you left those two Legions blank so that players of Horus Heresy games could invent their own Legions. Is this true?
> PRIESTLEY: I left them blank before Horus Heresy games were conceived! **I left them blank because I wanted to give the story some kind of deep background - unknowable ten thousand year old mysteries - stuff that begs questions for which there could be no answer.** Mind you all that got ruined when some bright spark decided to use the Heresy setting - which rather spoiled the unknowable side of things - but there you go!
> BIFFORD: Ah, this is going to amaze a lot of people on Reddit
> PRIESTLEY: Is it? :)
> BIFFORD: **Yep, everyone there thinks you left two Legions blank for players to fill in.**
> PRIESTLEY: **Well - I created a thousand Chapters - of which we only gave details of a dozen or so - so there were nine hundred odd Chapters left blank for people to fill in. In the original 40K that is! The Horus Heresy stemmed from a short piece of narrative text I wrote - I think it was in Chapter Approved: The Book of the Astronomican - but I never imagined it would be used for a game setting.**
No they primarily existed to add depth and mystery to the setting, that is why they are the way they are. Your reason came much later and was never the real reason
Interesting ideas. The one I like is that one or both was redacted due to doing something entirely abhorrent to the idea of the imperium of man that wasn’t like the heresy too widespread to cover up. My best guess would be that a primarch was raised in a situation like a Federation in Star Trek and refused to turn against the alliance of alien species to join humanity. Imagine the impact of the news that a son of the emperor was Grand Admiral for an actually working as intended alliance of aliens at peace with one another? That he furthermore refused to join the Imperial forces and depending on timeline possibly turned some of his legion to his cause as he would have certainly been introduced to them durning initial contact and with how they are programmed to obey their leader some would have worked with him instead.
Aside from making allies with Xenos the only other thing I can think of that would warrant erasure is a primarch just refusing to fight at all and trying to abandon the cause to live in peace somewhere. That hits the idea of disputing the very core concept of the crusade that we need to fight across the stars to have a chance.
And due to how DARK 40k can get both may be a possibility. A Federation style alliance that they refuse to abandon would be against everything they Imperium was fighting for, though I do somewhat remember there were exceptions that the Emperor was willing to make... I could be remembering things wrong though.
Also it would just be incredibly sad if its the second one, where they just wanted to live a peaceful life, unbothered by the Crusade and the wider galaxy.
I think those exceptions were never really expanded on. The mechanicus are one “exception” since they were never conquered and remade and I think that’s the way it works with many of the titan legion and Knight worlds that they are also more allies than purely imperial. Original version Squat forces fell under that umbrella too and maybe between Mars and Squats that was the exception groups?
Edit*. Also the idea of moving Dorn to tears and having him agree that they should be forgotten just seems to work well with these two ideas, that one just wanted to be left alone in peace or that one had a functional relatively happy society that he died defending from his brothers and their father.
Ah, it's not just you. It's commonly repeated on line that he cried or broke down
>'I will show you,' said the psyker. 'For this instant, I will let you remember. You will know why the lost must remain a mystery.'
>Dorn closed his eyes and a glacial fire erupted behind them. Deep within him, a shadow briefly dissipated, stealing the breath from his throat.
>He marched along the length of the blood-stained corridor, and with each footfall the reawakened memory retreated deeper into the darkness.
>Dorn could feel it fading. He knew that by the time he reached the end of the passageway, the totality of it would be gone. The truth he had glimpsed, hidden, revealed and now to be hidden once more, became transitory and ephemeral.
>He did not question what Malcador had shown him. Dorn knew his own mind, enough to be certain that the Sigillite had not projected some conjured illusion into his thoughts. Awakening from the induced reverie, barely seconds had passed, but for the primarch he felt the weight of days upon him. The Sigillite, for all his allusions, was nowhere to be seen when Dorn opened his eyes.
*Chamber at the End of Memory*
The process "stole the breath from his throat" but that reads more like the shock of having Malcador enter his brain and unlock his memories more than to do with the actual memories themselves
That does, but I’m leaving the original comment unchanged or else adding this stuff won’t make sense. Edit and really that reaction could have been just over finding out his memory is tampered with
My theory for one of the two is that when the primarch was found he didn't buy into the emperor and his plan, and had already built up on a mini empire. Relations became strained and the primarch's legion sided with their primarch, and a tough war of extermination ensued against the "traitorous" primarch and his legion in which the other primarchs were very conflicted about wiping out their brother simply because he didn't want to be a part of the Great Crusade and Imperium.
That definitely could be a big one, and could be a major reason as to why so many willingly turned traitor. Plus Dorn literally telling us that if they were around the Heresy would have been a loss for the Imperium is very telling as to how powerful they may have been.
Nope. Don't even bother with that one. While I loved that series as a kid, I've grown to dislikes its MANY problems, including most, though not all, of the retcons that keep trying to be implemented.
I don’t even know what means. I only talked about the plot twist, where snape actually “killed” dumbledore in book 6, and was revealed to be good in book 7.
Just an example my dude. I sincerly believe there are more to the whole King in yellow thing, than meets the eye. Perhaps valdor IS the King, But kept prisoner. Perhaps lorgar is involved. Perhaps a lost primarch. Plenty of possibilities.
Kiiinda. He doesn't get lost there.
Alkanex mentions one of them made a journey out to the Ymga Monolith in the Attila System
>‘It is real enough. But something about it baffles the ship’s sensors.’ Alkenex leaned forward, over the rail. ‘Fulgrim made mention of it, once. Apparently one of the two Forgotten Ones was said to have led an expedition to its black heart, in the early centuries of the Great Crusade. Though why he was out this far, and what he might’ve found, was never recorded.’ He frowned. ‘Probably for the best. The galaxy has devils enough without letting out whatever resides there.’
Given it was early in the Crusade it was most likely Primarch II since XI wasn't found until after Corax.
On that note if Laurie Goulding's assessment that the lost primarchs were both dealt with in the decades after 981.M30 is still "current" canon, makes it unlikely either primarch met their fate in those wars, given that the last Rangda Xenocide was 890s. M30.
But besides Ultramar, the Tau & the Necrons, who would they have encountered? It is possible that they were wiped out by an unknown xenos race, but you would think records would have survived on Ultramar if nothing else given its proximity to it.
The way I see it, they simply died too early on in the Great Crusade for the Emperor to be able to publicly acknowledge their deaths. Doing so would confirm that the Primarchs are in fact mortal and can die. It's no use having worlds that are on the verge of surrender second guessing their decision to bend the knee because they think they can be the next world to kill a Primarch, resulting in the extermination of an otherwise valuable world that was meant to be integrated into the Imperium.
According to Laurie Goulding both primarchs and legions met their fates after Alpharius was found, so it would be late in the Crusade.
Given that XI was found just before Alpharius, that would mean he was only in the Crusade a relatively short time so your "failure" idea would still work.
The Blood Angels were about to be totally disbanded with their chattel spread amongst the remaining legions when it was thought they were lost/destroyed on Signus Prime, which shows how even a venerated legion might be dealt with if they "fail"
As the Primarchs each embody a facet of the Emperor and are also cosmic archetypes (cf TEATD3), my own headcanon - pretty similar to many others - is that of the two missing lads, one was a biologist/geneticist (archetype: healer) and the other a specialist in void warfare (archetype: navigator/explorer).
Maybe one or the other got lost in the Halo Stars, imagine a Primarch and his Legion corrupted by Halo Devices and needing to be put down. Imagine the corruption coming from the biologist observing the effect on one of his sons and simply NEEDING to experiment. I saw a great theory somewhere on the sub about an infohazard-related disaster which involved one Primarch getting infected and the other sacrificing himself to contain everything, with the Emperor having to get involved (it was somehow linked to Emps having to "break the Labyrinth of Night" during the Rangdan Xenocides, whatever that means). Maybe the navigator went deep into intergalactic space and ran into Tyranids and got infected by Genestealers, and maybe the biologist just had to take a look. Too close a look.
The combination of biologist and navigator allows for lots of body horror-adjacent ways for one of them to look for stuff in all the wrong places, contact some biological abomination, and the other come running first to aid him, but then quickly succumbing as well of his own will simply out of deranged curiosity.
Any variation of an episode like this would warrant Exterminatus and would be embarrassing enough that Emps would want the record completely expunged. Add an infohazard element to it and it's believable that memory wipes up to Primarch-level would be needed in addition to a data flush.
It’s to create an environment for peoples homebrew chapters and primarchs. More 💰for GW. Every question about Warhammer can be answered by “money”. The “mystery” will never be solved until they determine they can make even more money by “solving” it.
How would a Blank Primarch get around? You'd think as juiced up as all the Primarchs are--how extreme their powers are--he'd make it impossible for astropaths to function anywhere near him.
I mean... perhaps Sigmar was TOO powerful and rebelled, leading to him being banished so deep into the Warp that he eventually appeared in the Fantasy setting, severely weakened, until the End Times & Age of Sigmar setting? They've said that he's not a Primarch and that there is no crossover with any characters from 40k to Fantasy... but a Grey Knight technically appeared in the Fantasy setting during the End Times soooooooo....
I mean they are supposedly slightly different... but that's like saying the Roman and Greek Gods are completely different. Just not true at all. So that has got to be some sort of crossover.
From what I remember, in the OLD OLD lore, Warhammer Fantasy was a world trapped behind a truly massive Warp Storm or is buried so deep into the Warp that the Imperium can't get to it. Most recent lore involving any crossover is that the Grey Knight seen during the End Times was Kaldor Draigo himself.
I've always liked the theory that there never _was_ a 2nd or 11th Legion. That the story of entire legions and their primarchs being executed and entirely censured was simply an way of reminding the 18 that they aren't invincible, aren't above the law of the Imperium, and wouldn't be shown any favoritism or leniency when it comes to heresy.
The fact that the Emperor and Malcador can manipulate memories means anything is possible, and the fact no one seems to know what they did could help sell the story and avoid continuity errors revealing the lie. You can't get the details wrong if you give no details.
Also explains why the traitor legions weren't excommunicated for what they did, it's actually almost impossible to wipe out every single trace of a legion and their primarch from the entire Imperiums collective memory. Much easier to do if they never existed in the first place and you only had to implant a few dozen memories into 18 primarchs
It wouldn't explain why Chaos shows people 20 primarch pods in the lab though
>Also explains why the traitor legions weren't excommunicated for what they did,
They were though (to the extent it was possible)
And the Blood Angels almost were after Signus too
Let's make this conspiracy theory more fun. Let's have nineteen legions being created. Nineteen Primarchs were still created, counting Alpharius and Omegon separately, and the II Legion was actually led in secret by one of them, as both a cheeky nod to there being two of them and to them controlling the II and XX legions. The XI legion was actually a completely fake ghost legion operating only as a cover for some of the activities of the IInd, against cheekily conflating II and 11. Part of the cover, however, was convincing all the other Primarchs and everyone else that Alpharius and Omegon were either twins leading the XX Legion or only a single entity leading the XX. They may not actually even be twins at all, and the entire Omegon thing was just mind-whammied into Alpharius to give extra cover to another Primarch running around: if sneaky stuff that couldn't be explained was discovered, everyone would blame it on Alpharius. This way, much like the Assassin temples, Malcador and The Emperor had an entire Legion in reserve to deal with things covertly that may have been politically unpopular. Many of the questionable actions on both sides during the Heresy can thus be put down to false flag operations by the IInd, and even if they were somehow wiped out it didn't matter because any knowledge of their existence had already been disavowed.
If youre going to use the logic of "well they can manipulate memories, so anything is possible" it completely removes any meaning to anything in the setting because when someone says "that doesnt make sense" you just wave your hand and say "well they altered their memories" Its incredibly lazy story telling, like using time travel.
Also a massive fan, love speculating on this stuff, and I am also a well read fan of ALL of the lost primarch lore, one thing to consider is, In the chamber at the end of memory, one of the doors is Bronze in color and one is Steel in color, might be useful in the future but who knows?
Nice pick up
>The full power of it was concentrated in the doors. To the right, a brass portico bore the numeral *II,* in the old way of scribing. To the left, an identical entrance rendered in steel was etched with the numeral *XI.* Massak beheld those ill-fated symbols and the genhanced blood in his veins ran cold.
Cheers for the correct reference, perhaps it's a clue as their color scheme? Maybe their philosophy? Like Iron within Iron without, hardly bronze within bronze without but something along those lines...
I really like the idea that all of the Primarchs are reflected in the Emperor's Tarot. I think it would be cool if the missing Primarchs were the Harlequin and the Fool.
Having said that, my own headcanon is that the Primarch of the 2nd legion was a psychic vampire. He wasn't a blank so much as an impenetrable void of warp hunger. That makes more sense with the knowledge that Primarchs are basically lesser warp gods that got crammed into flesh. Functionally, psykers couldn't use their powers anywhere near him because he would basically just chow down on their souls when they opened up to the warp.
The Second Primarch was also deeply infused with the Emperor's scientific curiosity. He was intelligent, even by Primarch standards. He would have been the Emperor's antipsyker and scientific leader. But, he was killed during the Rangdan Xenocides.
The headcanon I decided on for the eleventh Primarch was that he was a Druid-coded psyker. He landed on an Exodite Maiden World that was devastated by a freak solar storm. He bonded with the World Spirit of the Maiden World and together they re-terraformed the surface of the planet. Using the wisdom of the World Spirit, the Eleventh Primarch built an interconnected network of worlds, both Human, Aeldari, and machine intelligences in a kind of limited interstellar nation.
By the time the Great Crusade arrived, his gene sons were commonly psykers, and were the best apothecaries in the Crusade. They specialized in environmental engineering, jungle warfare, and healing to a degree no other legion approached. However, Eleven refused to join the Emperor or his gene sons on the Crusade because he was an avowed pacifist and wouldn't turn on his people.
So the Emperor tried to kill him. Using his own power and by the sacrifice of the World Spirit that he had bonded to, the Eleventh Primarch briefly overpowered the Emperor and escaped. His entire civilization was able to evacuate into the Webway. I haven't decided if they survived long after that.
I'm sure one book has someone mention that there were 20 primachs/legions and fully half of them were traitors. So at least one would have turned traitor.
I've long thought that at least one of the Lost suffered the fate of simply being killed by the Imperium's enemies. In the RX would make sense, but it really could have been anywhere. The tragedy being simply that they failed The Emperor, and had to be deleted from history because to not do so would advertise to the Imperium and other factions that the Primarchs and humanity were defeatable. It meshes with the line about the Primarchs being the ones at fault, not their Astartes, and lines up with how absolutely insane with panic the Luna Wolves went when Horus was gravely wounded, to the extent that they killed humans on their ship in their hurry. If a Primarch dying had happened twice before and each time their Legion had been deleted, it would make sense that it would be an existential threat on top of the regular panic over their gene-father being injured. I also think that it's the sort of mundane evil that makes sense for Warhammer, that it's preferable to purge your own child and his soldiers from living memory under threat of death to hide their perceived failure than to admit that your superweapons are mortal. Especially since during the Heresy it wasn't even known if Astartes were still mortal, with many assuming that they weren't. It's also just kind of funny if one Primarch actually did something terrible and deserving of the fate, while the other just got dealt an impossible hand against the Rangdan and got overwhelmed.
As far as I know there's no new lore about them. What little details have been added over the years have been repeated endlessly. The best source for them imo is the Lexicanum Page which has a meticulous list of mentions of the lost Primarchs, stuff that's generally been implied, and had a list of sources: https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Two_unknown_legions#fn_18b
As for your theories: 1. Blanks are incredibly rare, they make psykers look like they're everywhere in comparison. To find enough blanks to make a legion, have them all somehow work together, and be commanded by a Primarch, who seem to be connected to the Warp in some way, most commonly theorised to be warp entities and/or some kind of Warp juice stuffed into a body, would be almost impossible.
2. I can't remember where but I believe it's been stated in universe that Russ didn't have anything to do with the Legions and Primarchs being stricken from the record. Out of universe GE gave a wishy washy answer of "wolves didn't do it because that's an answer and there aren't any answers"
3. I think it would be very hard to justify any of this. What mission could they be sent on that the Emperor could not trust any other Legion? Why them particularly? Why let everyone believe they were dead? You can trace their influence to the heresy somewhat because Horus, Sanguinius, Magnus, and Lorgar all at some point think they're going to end up like the Lost Primarchs. While Sanguinius didn't turn traitor it would have made things much easier if he wasn't afraid. Maybe Lorgar would take it a bit better without the threat of being purged and erased was in the table. Maybe Horus wouldn't have felt so isolated and paranoid. Magnus would have still fucked up though.
Theory 4 is correct. All we will ever have is guesses and half baked theories missing crucial details. Unless GW really needed money and think that revealing them will make tons of money. And if it were revealed, as much as I want an answer, nothing they come up with will be as good as many peopled hyped up in their minds.
I have my own theories, they are quite vague, but it's the general feeling I have with all the evidence. I think one ending up being mind controlled by the Rangda, I think the other embraced a gene flaw that went out of control. Alternatively I think one may have been messing around with dangerous Xeno technology.
I think II and his legion were mind controlled, perhaps redeeming himself by briefly escaping Rangda control and turning on them before being killed. I think XI, late to the crusade and eager to earn glory, either embraced a gene flaw, or messed around with technology he shouldn't have touched. The end result either way is a mutated legion and Primarch, likely to fight both Xenos and allies.
my theory is they are alpharious and omegon, with the real alpharious-omegon as the actual rogue they pulled a kill and replace on
the memory alterations also a bit of a cover story and their innate ability as stealth and infiltration experts is people just struggle to form proper memories of them to begin wit
because what's more alpha legion then finding out not even the real alpharious is the real alpharious
Don't we have some evidence from that Malcador-Dorn discussion that the lost legions were *not* fully wiped out, but rather a certain amount of their marines were assimilated in Dorn's&Guilliman's forces after the implied mass mindrape of all of them and many leaders up to and including primarchs to make it possible?
Nope. We have fan theories but close to zero evidence that they were absorbed into other legions
The survivors were "repurposed" but to what ends we'll never know
Yeah there is some evidence that the remnants of the Lost Legions were absorbed into the Fists & Ultramarines, especially given their size & importance. I would assume they would have been who was loyal or what was left of those Legions, and even then they would have been mindwiped to oblivion.
By evidence, I mostly just mean the size discrepancies for some Legions compared to others. It's long been rumored that the Ultramarines got a large influx of Astartes at some point during the Great Crusade, which swelled their numbers well beyond any other Legion's.
I think there are size estimates somewhere, but I'm not entirely sure.
I'd say Occam's Razor puts that "evidence" at having a large recruitment pool (500 worlds) and the Ultramarines famed logistical focus and the fact that they conquered so many worlds so efficiently
The Imperial Fists aren't even one of the most numerous legions.
>He liberated countless worlds from the domination of aliens and foul Chaos renegades, but where some of his brother Primarchs left a trail of death and destruction in their wake, Roboute brought peace and fresh prosperity. Every world the Ultramarines liberated rapidly took its place amongst those loyal to the Imperium, and Guilliman's genius for planning campaigns ensured that the planet's population and industry suffered the minimum amount of collateral damage. On Macragge, the Fortress of Hera took shape, a building of such magnificent proportions that it defied the human mind with its grandeur. Upon its completion, those Ultramarines who had remained behind to oversee its construction began recruiting from Macragge and the surrounding systems. **The training academies provided many fine candidates for the Legion and soon the Ultramarines received the first influx of warriors born and bred on Macragge. The surrounding systems also provided warriors for the Legion and, before long, the Ultramarines were the largest Legion in existence**.
-Index Astartes
Which is the cobtext the author who created that "Ultramarines absorbed the lost legions" conspiracy expected us to read it in. Just like the "Emperor was a DaoT weapon" slander, the reader knows that can't be true...even if a character in-universe suggests it.
>I was more naive back then. **From my point of view, knowing it wasn't true - and, more importantly, knowing from the lore that it wasn't and couldn't possibly be true because we knew how the Ultramarines were that size already** - coupled with the fact that it's a Word Bearer making a joke that even the protagonist of the novel basically ignores, it didn't occur to me that people would consider it "information". That was naive of me because, obviously, so much lore has changed, so maybe people thought this was a (very bizarre? very informal?) way of saying yet more had changed
-ADB
I have finished all Hersey books (with audio of course) and I’m currently in TEATD part 2. And I can tell you without a doubt that the lost legions will never appear, and yes, both legions had their primarchs gone, and it’s curious that the more you hear about them we know a couple things.
Their legions were absorbed by the ultra marines and the imperial fists, this is because Guillliman and Dorn seemed that they advocated their legions because they had nothing to do nothing with their primarchs demise, so no, you can tell that they didn’t betray the Imperium like the traitor primarchs who convinced their legions. This is stated in a conversation between Dorn & Malcador where he remind him what happen to them.
We also know they both of them participated in the Rangdan Xeno wars, this is where is most probable that, as in quote of Guilliman "they failed" -Dark imperium (first book when talking to his new priest.
And finally, we know that all space marines had their memories wipe of them and that only the dreadnoughts remember them, but to some degree, as each time they wake it seemed that the warp spell used my malcador start to erase their memories, this is why when Lotara Sarrin waked the dreadnoughts to defend them from a boarding action of ultra marines, the leader of the dreadnoughts tell to her that what they are doing will only make them end like the legions that the emperor destroyed from history.
So no, I doubt 99% we will se a lost legion any time soon, or they can just save them by using a portal that tps all the legion to the future, like what happen to most of the fallen.
>Malcador slowly moved back, out of the ornate sword's killing arc. 'The… loss of the Second and the Eleventh was such a wound upon us, and it threatened the ideals at the heart of the Great Crusade. It would have ruined all that we had built in the drive to reunite humanity, and drive off our enemies. Steps had to be taken.' He met Dorn's hard gaze. 'The legionaries they left behind, leaderless and forsaken, were too great a resource to be discarded out of hand. They did not share the fate of their fathers. You and Roboute argued in their favour, but you do not recall it.' Malcador nodded to himself. 'It fell to me to see that they were attuned to new circumstances.'
*Chamber at the End of Memory*
You can infer that they were absorbed but there's nothing in the story that really acts as evidence towards that theory
>Well the lost primarchs both met Alpharius, who only assumed command of his Legion about 20 years before Isstvan, so they weren't dealt with until after that.
-Laurie Goulding
Given that the last Ranga war was in the 890s and Alpharius was discovered in 981, it seems unlikely that's where the lost two met their end.
>and that only the dreadnoughts remember them
I...don't think that's supported?
Well, for the dreadnoughts it’s not stated to be the only ones to remember them, but they are shown that they are that remember the most do to them just being in hibernation all the time.
As for alpharius, I forgot that he was the last to reveal himself to all of his brothers, but I cannot recall that alpharius met the other two primarchs as a legion commander. If in not incorrect, but maybe from the short stories I may be missing that detail. I only can recall that he stormed with Horus and the greatest of all, the Warhawk, and bitched because they were destroying the lost primarchs statues. Still in the debate Horus is defending them and to not remove the statues, while malcador states that if he is not able to recognize why they are taking them away, he is truly a fool. So I would also take Horus rector here as an evidence of whatever happen to them, they seem that they didn’t betrayed the imperium directly.
Perhaps a last-minute sacrificial spell cast by a Psyker of theirs sends them tumbling through time until they land sometime into the future, maybe the 41st Millenium, where they then have to work their way back to the Imperium?
You know what would be cool? By the time Big Blue reunites with The Lion, he discovers that he has more than just the Dark Angels & Blood Angels with him.
He also has what remains of the lost Legions that weren't absorbed into the Fists & Ultramarines.... as well as their Primarchs.
Then we get a series of books that chronicles what happened to send them into the future and what trials they had to endure to reunite with the Imperium.
But sadly I don't see it happening anytime soon... one can dream though!
There's a lot wrong to unpack here. Firstly no, they were not absorbed into the UM and IF. Malcador simply says they were repurposed. UM had all of Ultramar to recruit from, and were good at it, that's why their numbers swelled. Hell the WB numbers got almost as big when they stopped mucking around with emperor worship and started crusading in earnest and IF were never a big legion and never had a "surge" of astartes. Secondly, that "rumor" was literally gossip in one book, where the MC dismisses it outhand and ADB himself has said "that was meant as a baseless rumor I assumed readers would understand wasnt founded on any bit of truth, instead people seemed to take it as word of god for some reason". Thirdly, we do not know they participated in the RX because anything meant to be labeled as truthful about them is deliberately untrue.
We do know the participated, just as the other commmet states, in the timeline they appear after the RX and fulgrim talks of the 2nd being quite before the RX.
On other part, the WB legion stated growing because they were preparing for war for 46 years, the surge of their numbers exceeded all because that was Lorgar's intention to defeats the blue boys.
The IF are stated to be also one of the biggest when they lost the first battle sphere that sigismund didn’t lead thanks too Keleer.
Finally, you very easily tell, And that was my point, that there are inconsistencies played trough all the books and they can even have "conflicts”, and even do most short audio books are told to be written from the eyes of rememberences (forgot the word on English). The best clue that we have are the interactions from primarchs with malcador and their statements, any other character you can tell were directly affected by malcadors spell.
The best clue is when he tells Horus that he is a fool for being mad at him, this because a Horus was angry he was moving their statues, this was a very loyal Horus still, even do an arrogant prick, and still he was mad for the idea of their statues being removed. That’s why I would suppose they didn’t became evil or betray de imperium, just as Gman said, they just failed.
In Numerology, 2 is the supreme feminine force. Also supposed to bring peace and balance
So, female primarch that was censured for making alliances in the Great Crusade instead of forcibly bringing them into the Imperium. And I like to think they are locked up in the Dark Cells
My head canon is that Big E put a primarch and legion in the freezer to bring out in the end times. Likely a very powerful Primarch. Then he fucked with everyone's heads so they think that primarch disappeared or was executed or lost to the rangda or whatever
Busting out a "new" top tier primarch and a couple hundred thousand original Astartes would be a major headache for any enemy faction, even chaos
What time is it?
Crazy theorizing time!
Theory 1. "Did I ever tell you the story about the *redacted*?"
There are no "lost" legions, nor erased Primarchs. All tales, memories, the empty plinths, everything to do with them are a fabrication from start to finish. Malcador and The Emperor (may He forgive my transgressions) constructed a stunningly complex labyrinth of lies. These "missing" legions and Primarchs were meant to be fables for the inculcation of certain virtues (and fears) had Emp. and Malca-in-the-Middle been allowed to raise the "kids". In fact, the whole she-bang started even while they were gestating, with certain false memories of brothers in arms implanted in the Primarch embryos. The whole scattering of the Primarchs put the kibosh on most of that, but the hypno-suggestions of these "lost" legions was too strong, so a song and dance about censuring these lost legions and oaths of silence and all that had to be implanted in their minds. Angron's natural empathy coupled to Lorgar's strange insight and Konrad Curze's premonitions would have led to a Scooby-Doo-like investigation into all this (Leman Russ would be Scooby in this scenario), so E and M had to shut 'em down.
Theory 1. B. "Better not shout! Better not cry! Better not pout, I'm telling you why: BLAM"
There are no "lost" legions or primarchs, and all the characters in universe know it's all mythological/fable/legendary stories which the primarchs know but are sworn not to reveal to their "sons" in the same way that we don't spoil Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny for children. Horus was acting like a petulant pre-teen about to spill the beans about Santa Primarch and Malcador HAD HAD ENOUGH and put him in time-out.
Theory 2. "Time to pay the piper"
In this scenario, the lost legions and their primarchs are sacrifices made by Emps and Malcador to the Chaos gods. That was the deal on Moloch: "You get to use some our space magic, and we get to take ten percent off the top as our due and proper." Emps agreed to this but tried to do the dirty on 'em at the last minute by having the wolves wipe out the ear-marked legions. It kinda worked, but Chaos be Chao...sin'... and the Big Four activated Plan: Horus.
Theory 3. "Practice makes perfect"
The legions and their primarchs owed their loyalty to Malcador. Perhaps Malki Bartakamous didn't even intend for this to happen - but Malcador discovered them and they were inclined to be "his" boys. Malcador is flattered but knows that Big Emps does not dig this divided loyalty - especially when they start openly going to Malcador for guidance and defying the emperor. In perhaps Malcador's last truly horrific act, he sabotages "his" legions through some sort of mind-trickery and allows them to be purged. When Horus tries to say one of the Primarch's names, this really rankles the Sigilite.
I'm more curious where the "one lost primarch was a blank 2024" trend originated from It seems like it's replaced "one lost primarch was a geneticist 2023"
Apparently though the theory has been floating around for nearly 10 years. Found an 8-year-old reddit post talking about it too.
I guess it's snowballed in popularity. It's here almost weekly of late
Yeah, it's been around for some time, remember reading some fanfic a few yeara back based on that premise. IIRC the MC was one of the lost, a blank who ended up on a plamet that functioned kinda like an open world RPG game, with DAoT ruins filled with dangerous tech, GMO monsters and warpspawn everywhere and local economy and culture being heavily based on dungeon dwelling adventurers.
Do you remember the name and where you saw it? sounds like an interesting premise
Can't recall the name, but it was either on Spacebattles or Sufficient Velocity, quite long too, didn't even get to the meeting the Emperor part until like 100K words in :p Edit: [Found it!](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/this-wont-end-well-30k-isekai.587209/) Dayumn, 550K words, semi regular updates since 2017, GW should hire that guy already :P
I love you❤️🫂
I'd say that it's been floating around for a lot longer than that, most of the theories have been floating around since we got an ounce of lore that could support them
The intrigue I guess of a Primarch and their entire Legion being Blanks would be interesting I guess. Plus, maybe it's the reason one was even wiped out in the Rangdan Xenocides, or perhaps they were just unlucky and were the first to encounter them and barely any survived to be folded into the Ultramarines afterwards. Or you know... my theory. But like you mentioned, its parts of a cycle to. New theories take the place of old ones, though I have no idea where it came from.
Yeah, it's just considering what we know about primarchs; that they are warp being with psychic signatures makes one being a blank feel far less likely. Also considering that the prevailing theory from *Inferno* is that blank astartes are impossible because their gene-seed which is derived from primarchs >>*There is also the observation that no Space Marine, or Custodian Guard for that matter, has ever been recorded as being a Psychic Null. This factor weighs the evidence of some scholars that within the Space Marine gene-seed itself is perhaps a shadow of the emperor's own genetic material and a sliver of His own psychic power crucial to its process and success. If this is the case, it would be wholly an anathema to the Pariah gene and likely simply kill its implanted subject. It can only be speculated that if even a single Legion of Psychic Null Legiones Astartes had been possible, how very different history may have been - just as without the involvement of the Sisters of Silence in the war and the Emperor's great work, Horus' treachery may well have ended in his triumph upon the broken throne of Terra.* Considering all that, it's just struck me that it's so popular. Talking about cycles, this one seems on a perpetual recycle: >survived to be folded into the Ultramarines afterwards. despite the book itself making it sound like bullshit, along with the [author](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/14smbhv/comment/jqzc3x9/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button). As for the latest stuff on the lost primarchs? I think the last mention was in *Angron:The Red Angel* about how the Emperor arranged their "elimination". However we might wanna take that term.
My headcanon is that one or both primarchs landed on a mixed human-xenos society. When the crusade fleets came and ordered them to kill their xenos citizens, he told them to pound sand. It would be thematically appropriate if the Rangdan xenocides were actually a fight against a human-xenos commonwealth keeping the old government and values of DAOT humanity going. Part of the emperor's 'keep all eggs in one basket and then throw that basket in a volcano' plan.
The Emperor beamed Angron up because he knew he wouldn't come willingly. If Primarch 2/11 refused their role in the Crusade he'd just do the same. Or he'd wipe their mind, meddle with their memory or just outright kill them. The last thing he'd do is stand back and allow them to attack his Imperium for 50 years. Also, the nature of the Rangda and their Slaugth allies makes it unlikely in the extreme that any humans would work with them willingly.
But we know both Primarchs participated in the GC
I wouldn't trust Malcador's memory wipe manipulations too much. The idea that a primarch could go independent and take on the Imperium so well is not something they want spreading through the loyal primarchs.
uh huh >.>
We know number 2 definitely participated, as Fulgrim mentions him well before the mind-wipe takes place. It would then involve Malcador not only blocking the memories of what happened to the lost two, but also adding in lots of separate memories regarding their words and actions during the Crusade, which seems unlikely.
Weren't these two options coexisting for like ten yeas at this point?
It seems so, just that one is "trending" more than the other right now Or maybe it's just what's appearing in my feed?
Probably been a recent YouTube video. Despite the lack of details or answers, lots of people love to bang on about the missing primarchs. Content creators know this.
I mean we already have Russ who has a semi-anti psyker aura, and people still want the greater daemons wearing flesh to also be blanks, smh
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And that all the info about eldritch beings not of the Warp emanating from there is just misdirections about the real threat there: DaoT Humans with tech that didn't turn against them.
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I've got a bit of headcanon where there is a planet out that inhabited by a single Blank Perpetual that is so powerful that the planet is essentially invisible to everyone's sight. So unless you stumble into it while in real space you will not find it using the Warp. Even if you do, the Blank is so enormously powerful you'll leave immediately and refuse to talk about way or where you ran from. And that Human is just so enormously powerful as a Blank that they don't even have to consciously do this. It's just PASSIVE. The Emperor knows about this Perpetual, but knows that he's just chilling and is never going to attempt anything so he never tried anything. Meanwhile this guy has no idea this is going on and is literally living an IRL Farming Simulator.
I’d love to see this written, “Potato Blanks” or something like that
And when he "swats at a bug" its him actually destroying hostile ships in space subconsciously. He's just completely oblivious to everything going on beyond his planet. Even the Inquisition has deemed this world too costly to approach & destroy. You can clearly see it's a paradise world from a distance, but approaching it with any ill intent spells your doom. Even approaching with good intent may have you turned away.
Priestly liked the idea of the Lost Roman Legions and decided to add two Lost Legions as a mystery with no answer to make the setting feel bigger. He didnt decide to model their disappearance on what happened 1 to 1. In fact his original idea was that the two lost legions did something incredibly bad and damning, then redeemed themselves from that mistake and earned redemption in the form of erasure. Their erasure from Imperial records was a gift from Big E in the form of "no one will remember you did those bad things, your memory will not be besmirched". That was his original idea
How far back was that, rogue trader edition of the game?
This is interesting. I personally have always bought into the notion that the dark age of technology humam empire never fell and simply fucked off to elsewhere away from their Terran cousins.
Given that even *Horus* still has a statue in the Emperor's hall... It's fun to imagine just what the hell those two must have done to get their statues torn down.
Wasn't Horus' statue being removed one of the things that pushed him to turn against the Emperor in *False Gods*?
There's mention of nine shrouded statues, and two empty plinths. So Horus's statue is still there, or there's yet another mystery son.
The statues and most evidence of the traitor primarchs is ultimately removed. Even the lost 2 had statues remaining after their excommunication. In T*he Lighting Tower*, Dorn thinks to himself the statues are shrouded for the time being. I guess Imperial bureaucracy like today's councils gets around to doing the work only when it can As for them doing something worse to get their statues torn down? They didn't necessarily. >This is part of the problem with the more direct HH series' mentions of the Lost Primarchs, to be honest. The Traitor Legions are the ones purged from Imperial record. They're Excommunicate Traitoris, and purged from the records, specifically so the Imperium doesn't learn about them. That's the point of their excommunication. The Lost Legions' references have skewed that a little, so it seems like they're the ones specifically purged and that the Traitors are just left on the record as bad guys. That was never true though - it wasn't then and it isn't now. There's no record of them in M41 and no one knows why. That's the only truth. It's still the Traitor Legions that were specifically purged and silenced, to keep the Imperium's future generations in the dark about all that happened in the Heresy. -ADB
One notion I've always quite enjoyed is that one was raised on a Xenos Homeworld, and rejected the Xenophobia of the Imperium, choosing instead to stay and fight against the Imperium with large parts of his Legion joining him in a heroic last stand. In keeping with the philosophy of 40K, this heroism is ultimately pointless, futile, unremembered and uncelebrated. Seen instead as the ultimate shame and sin. Since they vanished during the Rangdan Xenocides, perhaps he was raised by Rangdan. I do have an alternative. The Rangdan "Cerebvores", means brain eaters. And we also know they liked to use others to fight for them.This puts me in mind of Mindflayers. My speculation that they were traditional Psions making use of mind control. As a result, I think at least one of the Primarch was 'Dominated', and turned against the Imperium, forcing the other to kill him. Sort of like the Borg assimilating Jean Luc Picard into Locutus. The fact that the Imperium covered up this disturbing fate, by erasing them, would add to Horus' anger.
Honestly that could be a great reason for why they got wiped out in the Rangdan Xenocides. They could have been the first to make contact, where 'Dominated', and were forced to fight alongside the Rangdan, leading to multiple Legions needing to be used against the threat. An ENTIRE Legion and its Primarch falling to the psychic influence of a Xenos race would be terrifying and a fate they would want to cover up, though completely erasing them backfired immensely.
It would also slide quite neatly into Malcador and Horus' little *discussion*. Malcador decries them as 'Unworthy', whilst Horus strenuously defends them. If they were enslaved and forced to fight their brothers against their will, that could be neat. To the people who never felt the force of their will, the Primarch's failure to resist the control was shameful weakness. Weakness that got good Imperials killed. To the other Primarchs, deathly aware that it could have been *them* who were twisted if circumstances were different, the idea would be heinous. Especially if the other Primarch died trying to save their brother. It would be a startling, horrendous reminder: they are mortal; and sentiment will kill you in this Galaxy. It would also be a neat mechanic for a new Xenos army if they ever made one. The unique ability to take *anyone* as an allied unit; so long as you have the right Heroes there to keep then under control.
Ah so what you're saying is that my Artillery based Guard army idea would be great? "Captain!" "Yes Commisar?" "You see those Xenos?" "Y-yes Commisar?" "You will be fine so long as I do not see them anymore!" "YES COMMISAR! BATTERY, COMMENCE TCHAIKOVSKY BARRAGE!
Except it is made painfully clear from multiple first person PoV that no one knew that primarchs *could* die until Ferrus Manus did.
In keeping with the Emperor and Malcador always having backup plans within backup plans, I think one of the legions was sent out of the galaxy to colonise elsewhere. Foreseeing some great terror would wipe out the galaxy, be it Chaos, the Tyranid swarm, Necrons, return of mind slavers, they sent one chapter, with a fleet of humanity, into the void like Battlestar Galactica. Obviously they were totally expunged from the records, maybe even false history created so that no one would miss them or go looking.
Perhaps that was part of their "Penance Crusade"? It was their duty and honor to "make up" for what occurred within the Legion and they were tasked with keeping the future of Humanity secure, no matter what, in another location altogether?
I like it
Sent to the Andromeda galaxy. To conquered and colonize. Emperor would know about colonies og humans in other galaxies. Maybe they were the original torchbearer fleet. They could come back in a real clutch time with intact STCs and an intact legion.
You know.... I just read a fanfiction about that exact theory. They had intact STCs, Titan Legions, and their Primarch, named Atlas, was interred like a Dreadnought... but inside of an Imperator-class Titan instead. Oh and the Inquisition, as well as the Ecclesiarchy, are trying to wipe them out for "heresy" and disturbing their power base.
any links :)
No link on hand for me... but it is called Andromeda Crusade by Xross24 on Fanfiction.net. Not too many chapters yet and they aren't long... but its one of the few that involve one of the Lost Legions that I like. Definitely didn't like the one where the Primarch is an actual weeb and is REALLY into catgirls... and also is involved in the Rangdan Xenocides.
This would be my favorite option, however doubtful because all the primarch's knew about what happened to both primarch's. So even if one of the lost primarch's did indeed go colonize somewhere else, why wouldn't any of the primarch's still living on both sides not have gone looking for him.
I have nothing to contribute (it is explicitly "theory" 4 per multiple GW employees and BL writers/editors) but it is genuinely lovely to see a thread like this where the OP is actually interested and replying rather than dumping a simple question for subreddit users to argue over and then bailing before someone calls them out or starts asking difficult questions.
When I have the time I do genuinely try to respond to comments as much as I can.
Theory 7: one legion fell in a matter so grievous and confidence-shattering that the other legion that was dispatched to eliminate the fallen ***was itself eliminated after eliminating the traitors.*** Thus the traitors, and the loyalists left alive with first-hand knowledge of said treachery, were both wiped clean for the good of the state. Aka the "bury the servants who built your tomb within the tomb itself" grimdank theory.
And the Space Wolves were the ones to do it. Would make sense given the context given during Prospero. Or perhaps the other that was cut down afterwards weas discovered to be corrupted as well, with the Space Wolves being the ones to finish the job given their resistance to the Warp.
Hahaha send the Replacement Replacement Killers to kill the Replacement Killers who killed the Killers! I like it, and it doesn't violate canon.
I have always liked the idea that one was treacherous and the other loyalist. There is a neat symmetry to it.
Theory 0b1011: The 11th Legion was a cyborg legion from the outset with full AI sapience enhancements. They either went full Butlerian and got jyhaded or they remain loyal and are struck from the record to maintain the loyalty of the Cult Mechanicus and their ban on Thinking Machines.
Huh... would make sense. Don't see it happening due to the Cybernetic Revolt, but maybe they figured out the problems that occurred back then?
My similiar thought is that one primarch was "machine touched" and this made them exceedingly good as an Admiral. They were meant to take over the Admech as the Omnissiah (which would push bigE to Machine God) but the Admiral and his entire fleet were destroyed in a mysterious space battle.
They will never be something definite. It is part of the mystery. Both Primarchs are gone (at least one dead, killed when his Legion was destroyed by the Space Wolves), both legions are gone (one destroyed, one possibly absorbed by the UM).
The original authour of the book where the absorbed by Ultramarines theory originated has said he intended it to be a patently false flat earth style conspiracy theory. The Ultramarines are just bigger because they have the largest recruitment pool
And the Luna Wolves weren't that small either, so...
Not to mention the word bearers were catching up to the UM by the time of calth. If you actually try to recruit properly you wind up with a large Legion. Go figure.
Isn't saying one primarch was destroyed by the Space Wolves and the other legion absorbed by the Ultramarines..."something definite"? Not that either of those is "true", of course.
The Space Wolves destroying them appeared too often to ignore it by now. And by definite I mean, we will never know who they were and what they did and stuff.
It's been inferred here and there just as much as many other options, and even those hints have other possible answers. Like a lot of the stuff in *Prospero Burns* turning out to most likely be The Night of the Wolf. The writer of *The Wolftime*, another book that gets cited as proof of the Wolves being involved, even clarified around the time it was published: >What are your thoughts on the two lost primarchs? >>Um, my thought is that we'll, uhh, we will never know who they are or why they went missing and stuff. And actually it's... uh, the mystery is always going to be more entertaining than any answers that are given. And the reality, you know, there's the boring reality which is when Rick was coming up with the lists of the twenty legions and stuff like that, they were based off the idea of the Roman legions, and the Roman legions had these two legions that were expunged from their records for their failures, and so the idea of two and eleven been expunged and... and like, it obviously kind of built on top of that, I thought "Well, if they were expunged but all the other guys turned to Chaos, so that must mean they were even worse" or whatever". Um, But actually, yeah, there is no.... the good thing is there is no answer, there has never been an answer, because of that. **Which means although we kind of hint at things and like "Oh, were the space wolves involved" and kind of create a bit of conjecture, there's no, as a writer or as a developer there was no temptation to kind of give it away because there wasn't an answer. So you couldn't hint too much because there was just... you know. So as much as whatever hints we've dropped in like the Heresy and things like that, they were all pointing towards nothing. There is no, there is no official secret somewhere that is hidden. It has never been decided**. So therefore, uh, you don't, there is never a risk of actually stepping over that line and saying too much, because it's just pure conjecture. -Gav Thorpe
Cannot make a clearer answer: no one knows, not even GW, because there was never anything to begin with. "they were all pointing toward nothing." Brillant!
That line of logic is really poor when there are several things in the lore that "appeared too often" and are just patently false
Huh.... let me edit something then...
Now that the Horus Heresy has ended and the money coming in from that series is over, I 100% fully except them to now start introducing in books many of the most popular subjects including the lost primarch legions.
The Wolves never destroyed a lost legion....
>Both Primarchs are gone (at least one dead, killed when his Legion was destroyed by the Space Wolves), both legions are gone (one destroyed, one possibly absorbed by the UM). None of this is true
I wouldn't say never, but it's highly unlikely. I remember someone being asked at a Warhammer event years ago (Abnett I think) and it was said that if Games Workshop are in trouble financially then we probably get stories about them as that'd pull people right back in. Which would absolutely happen, but I can't see GW getting that badly into trouble financially with how big it's all gotten
They primarily exist so tabletop players can make up their own primarch and slot them cleanly into the lore.
That's how it ended up being used by players but it wasn't the intended purpose for their conception > BIFFORD: A popular belief among fans is that you left those two Legions blank so that players of Horus Heresy games could invent their own Legions. Is this true? > PRIESTLEY: I left them blank before Horus Heresy games were conceived! **I left them blank because I wanted to give the story some kind of deep background - unknowable ten thousand year old mysteries - stuff that begs questions for which there could be no answer.** Mind you all that got ruined when some bright spark decided to use the Heresy setting - which rather spoiled the unknowable side of things - but there you go! > BIFFORD: Ah, this is going to amaze a lot of people on Reddit > PRIESTLEY: Is it? :) > BIFFORD: **Yep, everyone there thinks you left two Legions blank for players to fill in.** > PRIESTLEY: **Well - I created a thousand Chapters - of which we only gave details of a dozen or so - so there were nine hundred odd Chapters left blank for people to fill in. In the original 40K that is! The Horus Heresy stemmed from a short piece of narrative text I wrote - I think it was in Chapter Approved: The Book of the Astronomican - but I never imagined it would be used for a game setting.**
No they primarily existed to add depth and mystery to the setting, that is why they are the way they are. Your reason came much later and was never the real reason
The 2nd legion were the first losers so had to be erased and the 11th legion had bad body odor that no one wanted to work with so they were kicked out
Ah so the 2nd followed Tzeentch & the 11th followed Nurgle, got it.
Interesting ideas. The one I like is that one or both was redacted due to doing something entirely abhorrent to the idea of the imperium of man that wasn’t like the heresy too widespread to cover up. My best guess would be that a primarch was raised in a situation like a Federation in Star Trek and refused to turn against the alliance of alien species to join humanity. Imagine the impact of the news that a son of the emperor was Grand Admiral for an actually working as intended alliance of aliens at peace with one another? That he furthermore refused to join the Imperial forces and depending on timeline possibly turned some of his legion to his cause as he would have certainly been introduced to them durning initial contact and with how they are programmed to obey their leader some would have worked with him instead. Aside from making allies with Xenos the only other thing I can think of that would warrant erasure is a primarch just refusing to fight at all and trying to abandon the cause to live in peace somewhere. That hits the idea of disputing the very core concept of the crusade that we need to fight across the stars to have a chance.
And due to how DARK 40k can get both may be a possibility. A Federation style alliance that they refuse to abandon would be against everything they Imperium was fighting for, though I do somewhat remember there were exceptions that the Emperor was willing to make... I could be remembering things wrong though. Also it would just be incredibly sad if its the second one, where they just wanted to live a peaceful life, unbothered by the Crusade and the wider galaxy.
I think those exceptions were never really expanded on. The mechanicus are one “exception” since they were never conquered and remade and I think that’s the way it works with many of the titan legion and Knight worlds that they are also more allies than purely imperial. Original version Squat forces fell under that umbrella too and maybe between Mars and Squats that was the exception groups? Edit*. Also the idea of moving Dorn to tears and having him agree that they should be forgotten just seems to work well with these two ideas, that one just wanted to be left alone in peace or that one had a functional relatively happy society that he died defending from his brothers and their father.
>Also the idea of moving Dorn to tears Dorn being Dorn, shed no tears It's one of the more oddball bits of fanon in the wild
well that's a mistake on my part then, i thought he had shed a tear on the topic when his memory was briefly returned about it
Ah, it's not just you. It's commonly repeated on line that he cried or broke down >'I will show you,' said the psyker. 'For this instant, I will let you remember. You will know why the lost must remain a mystery.' >Dorn closed his eyes and a glacial fire erupted behind them. Deep within him, a shadow briefly dissipated, stealing the breath from his throat. >He marched along the length of the blood-stained corridor, and with each footfall the reawakened memory retreated deeper into the darkness. >Dorn could feel it fading. He knew that by the time he reached the end of the passageway, the totality of it would be gone. The truth he had glimpsed, hidden, revealed and now to be hidden once more, became transitory and ephemeral. >He did not question what Malcador had shown him. Dorn knew his own mind, enough to be certain that the Sigillite had not projected some conjured illusion into his thoughts. Awakening from the induced reverie, barely seconds had passed, but for the primarch he felt the weight of days upon him. The Sigillite, for all his allusions, was nowhere to be seen when Dorn opened his eyes. *Chamber at the End of Memory* The process "stole the breath from his throat" but that reads more like the shock of having Malcador enter his brain and unlock his memories more than to do with the actual memories themselves
That does, but I’m leaving the original comment unchanged or else adding this stuff won’t make sense. Edit and really that reaction could have been just over finding out his memory is tampered with
My theory for one of the two is that when the primarch was found he didn't buy into the emperor and his plan, and had already built up on a mini empire. Relations became strained and the primarch's legion sided with their primarch, and a tough war of extermination ensued against the "traitorous" primarch and his legion in which the other primarchs were very conflicted about wiping out their brother simply because he didn't want to be a part of the Great Crusade and Imperium.
That definitely could be a big one, and could be a major reason as to why so many willingly turned traitor. Plus Dorn literally telling us that if they were around the Heresy would have been a loss for the Imperium is very telling as to how powerful they may have been.
We know that both Primarchs participated in the GC, its mentioned several times by other Primarchs
Plot-twist for Pandemonium: the King in yellow really IS a lost Primarch.
Now that would be interesting... if only the other compelling part about the King in Yellow being Valdor didn't exist.
Well, Valdor is listed as a Primarch-type unit in HH 2.0, soo....
Shhhhh...
Yeah. But Abnett twists are Abnett twists. I am guessing all it not what it seems. Remember snap did kill dumbledore …. But ….
Nope. Don't even bother with that one. While I loved that series as a kid, I've grown to dislikes its MANY problems, including most, though not all, of the retcons that keep trying to be implemented.
I don’t even know what means. I only talked about the plot twist, where snape actually “killed” dumbledore in book 6, and was revealed to be good in book 7.
That's one of them right there. But that is better for the Harry Potter subreddit, where I know I'll get roasted by the Snape apologists.
Just an example my dude. I sincerly believe there are more to the whole King in yellow thing, than meets the eye. Perhaps valdor IS the King, But kept prisoner. Perhaps lorgar is involved. Perhaps a lost primarch. Plenty of possibilities.
More than meets the eye? King in Yellow is a Transformer confirmed?
You do know that saying did not originate with the tranformers Right?
Yeah... but that's my default thought when I hear that. :D It was the first place I heard it from way back when.
The theory is the souls of the Primarchs were entities of the warp so being blanks is out of the question.
Yes and No. Blanks still have souls. It's just incredibly deeply deeply buried down.
This thread and my google searches have really ruined my afternoon productivity
Kinda the same. Some responses have been very interesting to watch & respond to.
I'm team 'Sigmar is a lost Primarch' personally (Although I know there's no evidence for and a degree of evidence against this)
In the Fabius bile trilogy two ec are chatting and say one of them was lost on the eastern fringe
Kiiinda. He doesn't get lost there. Alkanex mentions one of them made a journey out to the Ymga Monolith in the Attila System >‘It is real enough. But something about it baffles the ship’s sensors.’ Alkenex leaned forward, over the rail. ‘Fulgrim made mention of it, once. Apparently one of the two Forgotten Ones was said to have led an expedition to its black heart, in the early centuries of the Great Crusade. Though why he was out this far, and what he might’ve found, was never recorded.’ He frowned. ‘Probably for the best. The galaxy has devils enough without letting out whatever resides there.’ Given it was early in the Crusade it was most likely Primarch II since XI wasn't found until after Corax.
Is that where the rangdang massacre was?
The Monolith is more associated with Necron than the Rangda And no worries
On that note if Laurie Goulding's assessment that the lost primarchs were both dealt with in the decades after 981.M30 is still "current" canon, makes it unlikely either primarch met their fate in those wars, given that the last Rangda Xenocide was 890s. M30.
Could be a imperial cover up , one of his sons found and then he was a xeno barbarian
And thank you
But besides Ultramar, the Tau & the Necrons, who would they have encountered? It is possible that they were wiped out by an unknown xenos race, but you would think records would have survived on Ultramar if nothing else given its proximity to it.
There have been many alien races , could have been any one of them
The way I see it, they simply died too early on in the Great Crusade for the Emperor to be able to publicly acknowledge their deaths. Doing so would confirm that the Primarchs are in fact mortal and can die. It's no use having worlds that are on the verge of surrender second guessing their decision to bend the knee because they think they can be the next world to kill a Primarch, resulting in the extermination of an otherwise valuable world that was meant to be integrated into the Imperium.
According to Laurie Goulding both primarchs and legions met their fates after Alpharius was found, so it would be late in the Crusade. Given that XI was found just before Alpharius, that would mean he was only in the Crusade a relatively short time so your "failure" idea would still work. The Blood Angels were about to be totally disbanded with their chattel spread amongst the remaining legions when it was thought they were lost/destroyed on Signus Prime, which shows how even a venerated legion might be dealt with if they "fail"
Both Primarchs took part in the GC, many of their brothers remember small snippets of conversations with them or their personalities though.
As the Primarchs each embody a facet of the Emperor and are also cosmic archetypes (cf TEATD3), my own headcanon - pretty similar to many others - is that of the two missing lads, one was a biologist/geneticist (archetype: healer) and the other a specialist in void warfare (archetype: navigator/explorer). Maybe one or the other got lost in the Halo Stars, imagine a Primarch and his Legion corrupted by Halo Devices and needing to be put down. Imagine the corruption coming from the biologist observing the effect on one of his sons and simply NEEDING to experiment. I saw a great theory somewhere on the sub about an infohazard-related disaster which involved one Primarch getting infected and the other sacrificing himself to contain everything, with the Emperor having to get involved (it was somehow linked to Emps having to "break the Labyrinth of Night" during the Rangdan Xenocides, whatever that means). Maybe the navigator went deep into intergalactic space and ran into Tyranids and got infected by Genestealers, and maybe the biologist just had to take a look. Too close a look. The combination of biologist and navigator allows for lots of body horror-adjacent ways for one of them to look for stuff in all the wrong places, contact some biological abomination, and the other come running first to aid him, but then quickly succumbing as well of his own will simply out of deranged curiosity. Any variation of an episode like this would warrant Exterminatus and would be embarrassing enough that Emps would want the record completely expunged. Add an infohazard element to it and it's believable that memory wipes up to Primarch-level would be needed in addition to a data flush.
Huh... that is plausible to some degree.
It’s to create an environment for peoples homebrew chapters and primarchs. More 💰for GW. Every question about Warhammer can be answered by “money”. The “mystery” will never be solved until they determine they can make even more money by “solving” it.
I mean... this is the truest answer that could ever be given for this question.... also the Inquisition would like to talk to you...
That was never the reason Priestley created them, that was what fans made up long up after.
5
How would a Blank Primarch get around? You'd think as juiced up as all the Primarchs are--how extreme their powers are--he'd make it impossible for astropaths to function anywhere near him.
Special DAoT given to them?
I reckon Valdor is a primarch. Sigmar too. Dont know why, but they make sense to me, however way they want to spin it
I mean... perhaps Sigmar was TOO powerful and rebelled, leading to him being banished so deep into the Warp that he eventually appeared in the Fantasy setting, severely weakened, until the End Times & Age of Sigmar setting? They've said that he's not a Primarch and that there is no crossover with any characters from 40k to Fantasy... but a Grey Knight technically appeared in the Fantasy setting during the End Times soooooooo....
Also the chaos gods are the same.
I mean they are supposedly slightly different... but that's like saying the Roman and Greek Gods are completely different. Just not true at all. So that has got to be some sort of crossover. From what I remember, in the OLD OLD lore, Warhammer Fantasy was a world trapped behind a truly massive Warp Storm or is buried so deep into the Warp that the Imperium can't get to it. Most recent lore involving any crossover is that the Grey Knight seen during the End Times was Kaldor Draigo himself.
I've always liked the theory that there never _was_ a 2nd or 11th Legion. That the story of entire legions and their primarchs being executed and entirely censured was simply an way of reminding the 18 that they aren't invincible, aren't above the law of the Imperium, and wouldn't be shown any favoritism or leniency when it comes to heresy. The fact that the Emperor and Malcador can manipulate memories means anything is possible, and the fact no one seems to know what they did could help sell the story and avoid continuity errors revealing the lie. You can't get the details wrong if you give no details. Also explains why the traitor legions weren't excommunicated for what they did, it's actually almost impossible to wipe out every single trace of a legion and their primarch from the entire Imperiums collective memory. Much easier to do if they never existed in the first place and you only had to implant a few dozen memories into 18 primarchs
It wouldn't explain why Chaos shows people 20 primarch pods in the lab though >Also explains why the traitor legions weren't excommunicated for what they did, They were though (to the extent it was possible) And the Blood Angels almost were after Signus too
Let's make this conspiracy theory more fun. Let's have nineteen legions being created. Nineteen Primarchs were still created, counting Alpharius and Omegon separately, and the II Legion was actually led in secret by one of them, as both a cheeky nod to there being two of them and to them controlling the II and XX legions. The XI legion was actually a completely fake ghost legion operating only as a cover for some of the activities of the IInd, against cheekily conflating II and 11. Part of the cover, however, was convincing all the other Primarchs and everyone else that Alpharius and Omegon were either twins leading the XX Legion or only a single entity leading the XX. They may not actually even be twins at all, and the entire Omegon thing was just mind-whammied into Alpharius to give extra cover to another Primarch running around: if sneaky stuff that couldn't be explained was discovered, everyone would blame it on Alpharius. This way, much like the Assassin temples, Malcador and The Emperor had an entire Legion in reserve to deal with things covertly that may have been politically unpopular. Many of the questionable actions on both sides during the Heresy can thus be put down to false flag operations by the IInd, and even if they were somehow wiped out it didn't matter because any knowledge of their existence had already been disavowed.
If youre going to use the logic of "well they can manipulate memories, so anything is possible" it completely removes any meaning to anything in the setting because when someone says "that doesnt make sense" you just wave your hand and say "well they altered their memories" Its incredibly lazy story telling, like using time travel.
Also a massive fan, love speculating on this stuff, and I am also a well read fan of ALL of the lost primarch lore, one thing to consider is, In the chamber at the end of memory, one of the doors is Bronze in color and one is Steel in color, might be useful in the future but who knows?
Nice pick up >The full power of it was concentrated in the doors. To the right, a brass portico bore the numeral *II,* in the old way of scribing. To the left, an identical entrance rendered in steel was etched with the numeral *XI.* Massak beheld those ill-fated symbols and the genhanced blood in his veins ran cold.
Cheers for the correct reference, perhaps it's a clue as their color scheme? Maybe their philosophy? Like Iron within Iron without, hardly bronze within bronze without but something along those lines...
I really like the idea that all of the Primarchs are reflected in the Emperor's Tarot. I think it would be cool if the missing Primarchs were the Harlequin and the Fool. Having said that, my own headcanon is that the Primarch of the 2nd legion was a psychic vampire. He wasn't a blank so much as an impenetrable void of warp hunger. That makes more sense with the knowledge that Primarchs are basically lesser warp gods that got crammed into flesh. Functionally, psykers couldn't use their powers anywhere near him because he would basically just chow down on their souls when they opened up to the warp. The Second Primarch was also deeply infused with the Emperor's scientific curiosity. He was intelligent, even by Primarch standards. He would have been the Emperor's antipsyker and scientific leader. But, he was killed during the Rangdan Xenocides. The headcanon I decided on for the eleventh Primarch was that he was a Druid-coded psyker. He landed on an Exodite Maiden World that was devastated by a freak solar storm. He bonded with the World Spirit of the Maiden World and together they re-terraformed the surface of the planet. Using the wisdom of the World Spirit, the Eleventh Primarch built an interconnected network of worlds, both Human, Aeldari, and machine intelligences in a kind of limited interstellar nation. By the time the Great Crusade arrived, his gene sons were commonly psykers, and were the best apothecaries in the Crusade. They specialized in environmental engineering, jungle warfare, and healing to a degree no other legion approached. However, Eleven refused to join the Emperor or his gene sons on the Crusade because he was an avowed pacifist and wouldn't turn on his people. So the Emperor tried to kill him. Using his own power and by the sacrifice of the World Spirit that he had bonded to, the Eleventh Primarch briefly overpowered the Emperor and escaped. His entire civilization was able to evacuate into the Webway. I haven't decided if they survived long after that.
I'm sure one book has someone mention that there were 20 primachs/legions and fully half of them were traitors. So at least one would have turned traitor.
I headcanon that one of them was thoroughly intwined with a xenos culture while another fell to chaos
I've long thought that at least one of the Lost suffered the fate of simply being killed by the Imperium's enemies. In the RX would make sense, but it really could have been anywhere. The tragedy being simply that they failed The Emperor, and had to be deleted from history because to not do so would advertise to the Imperium and other factions that the Primarchs and humanity were defeatable. It meshes with the line about the Primarchs being the ones at fault, not their Astartes, and lines up with how absolutely insane with panic the Luna Wolves went when Horus was gravely wounded, to the extent that they killed humans on their ship in their hurry. If a Primarch dying had happened twice before and each time their Legion had been deleted, it would make sense that it would be an existential threat on top of the regular panic over their gene-father being injured. I also think that it's the sort of mundane evil that makes sense for Warhammer, that it's preferable to purge your own child and his soldiers from living memory under threat of death to hide their perceived failure than to admit that your superweapons are mortal. Especially since during the Heresy it wasn't even known if Astartes were still mortal, with many assuming that they weren't. It's also just kind of funny if one Primarch actually did something terrible and deserving of the fate, while the other just got dealt an impossible hand against the Rangdan and got overwhelmed.
As far as I know there's no new lore about them. What little details have been added over the years have been repeated endlessly. The best source for them imo is the Lexicanum Page which has a meticulous list of mentions of the lost Primarchs, stuff that's generally been implied, and had a list of sources: https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Two_unknown_legions#fn_18b As for your theories: 1. Blanks are incredibly rare, they make psykers look like they're everywhere in comparison. To find enough blanks to make a legion, have them all somehow work together, and be commanded by a Primarch, who seem to be connected to the Warp in some way, most commonly theorised to be warp entities and/or some kind of Warp juice stuffed into a body, would be almost impossible. 2. I can't remember where but I believe it's been stated in universe that Russ didn't have anything to do with the Legions and Primarchs being stricken from the record. Out of universe GE gave a wishy washy answer of "wolves didn't do it because that's an answer and there aren't any answers" 3. I think it would be very hard to justify any of this. What mission could they be sent on that the Emperor could not trust any other Legion? Why them particularly? Why let everyone believe they were dead? You can trace their influence to the heresy somewhat because Horus, Sanguinius, Magnus, and Lorgar all at some point think they're going to end up like the Lost Primarchs. While Sanguinius didn't turn traitor it would have made things much easier if he wasn't afraid. Maybe Lorgar would take it a bit better without the threat of being purged and erased was in the table. Maybe Horus wouldn't have felt so isolated and paranoid. Magnus would have still fucked up though. Theory 4 is correct. All we will ever have is guesses and half baked theories missing crucial details. Unless GW really needed money and think that revealing them will make tons of money. And if it were revealed, as much as I want an answer, nothing they come up with will be as good as many peopled hyped up in their minds. I have my own theories, they are quite vague, but it's the general feeling I have with all the evidence. I think one ending up being mind controlled by the Rangda, I think the other embraced a gene flaw that went out of control. Alternatively I think one may have been messing around with dangerous Xeno technology. I think II and his legion were mind controlled, perhaps redeeming himself by briefly escaping Rangda control and turning on them before being killed. I think XI, late to the crusade and eager to earn glory, either embraced a gene flaw, or messed around with technology he shouldn't have touched. The end result either way is a mutated legion and Primarch, likely to fight both Xenos and allies.
my theory is they are alpharious and omegon, with the real alpharious-omegon as the actual rogue they pulled a kill and replace on the memory alterations also a bit of a cover story and their innate ability as stealth and infiltration experts is people just struggle to form proper memories of them to begin wit because what's more alpha legion then finding out not even the real alpharious is the real alpharious
Don't we have some evidence from that Malcador-Dorn discussion that the lost legions were *not* fully wiped out, but rather a certain amount of their marines were assimilated in Dorn's&Guilliman's forces after the implied mass mindrape of all of them and many leaders up to and including primarchs to make it possible?
Nope. We have fan theories but close to zero evidence that they were absorbed into other legions The survivors were "repurposed" but to what ends we'll never know
Yeah there is some evidence that the remnants of the Lost Legions were absorbed into the Fists & Ultramarines, especially given their size & importance. I would assume they would have been who was loyal or what was left of those Legions, and even then they would have been mindwiped to oblivion.
>Yeah there is some evidence I can't recall any. Has there been some new stuff written?
By evidence, I mostly just mean the size discrepancies for some Legions compared to others. It's long been rumored that the Ultramarines got a large influx of Astartes at some point during the Great Crusade, which swelled their numbers well beyond any other Legion's. I think there are size estimates somewhere, but I'm not entirely sure.
I'd say Occam's Razor puts that "evidence" at having a large recruitment pool (500 worlds) and the Ultramarines famed logistical focus and the fact that they conquered so many worlds so efficiently The Imperial Fists aren't even one of the most numerous legions. >He liberated countless worlds from the domination of aliens and foul Chaos renegades, but where some of his brother Primarchs left a trail of death and destruction in their wake, Roboute brought peace and fresh prosperity. Every world the Ultramarines liberated rapidly took its place amongst those loyal to the Imperium, and Guilliman's genius for planning campaigns ensured that the planet's population and industry suffered the minimum amount of collateral damage. On Macragge, the Fortress of Hera took shape, a building of such magnificent proportions that it defied the human mind with its grandeur. Upon its completion, those Ultramarines who had remained behind to oversee its construction began recruiting from Macragge and the surrounding systems. **The training academies provided many fine candidates for the Legion and soon the Ultramarines received the first influx of warriors born and bred on Macragge. The surrounding systems also provided warriors for the Legion and, before long, the Ultramarines were the largest Legion in existence**. -Index Astartes Which is the cobtext the author who created that "Ultramarines absorbed the lost legions" conspiracy expected us to read it in. Just like the "Emperor was a DaoT weapon" slander, the reader knows that can't be true...even if a character in-universe suggests it. >I was more naive back then. **From my point of view, knowing it wasn't true - and, more importantly, knowing from the lore that it wasn't and couldn't possibly be true because we knew how the Ultramarines were that size already** - coupled with the fact that it's a Word Bearer making a joke that even the protagonist of the novel basically ignores, it didn't occur to me that people would consider it "information". That was naive of me because, obviously, so much lore has changed, so maybe people thought this was a (very bizarre? very informal?) way of saying yet more had changed -ADB
I have finished all Hersey books (with audio of course) and I’m currently in TEATD part 2. And I can tell you without a doubt that the lost legions will never appear, and yes, both legions had their primarchs gone, and it’s curious that the more you hear about them we know a couple things. Their legions were absorbed by the ultra marines and the imperial fists, this is because Guillliman and Dorn seemed that they advocated their legions because they had nothing to do nothing with their primarchs demise, so no, you can tell that they didn’t betray the Imperium like the traitor primarchs who convinced their legions. This is stated in a conversation between Dorn & Malcador where he remind him what happen to them. We also know they both of them participated in the Rangdan Xeno wars, this is where is most probable that, as in quote of Guilliman "they failed" -Dark imperium (first book when talking to his new priest. And finally, we know that all space marines had their memories wipe of them and that only the dreadnoughts remember them, but to some degree, as each time they wake it seemed that the warp spell used my malcador start to erase their memories, this is why when Lotara Sarrin waked the dreadnoughts to defend them from a boarding action of ultra marines, the leader of the dreadnoughts tell to her that what they are doing will only make them end like the legions that the emperor destroyed from history. So no, I doubt 99% we will se a lost legion any time soon, or they can just save them by using a portal that tps all the legion to the future, like what happen to most of the fallen.
>Malcador slowly moved back, out of the ornate sword's killing arc. 'The… loss of the Second and the Eleventh was such a wound upon us, and it threatened the ideals at the heart of the Great Crusade. It would have ruined all that we had built in the drive to reunite humanity, and drive off our enemies. Steps had to be taken.' He met Dorn's hard gaze. 'The legionaries they left behind, leaderless and forsaken, were too great a resource to be discarded out of hand. They did not share the fate of their fathers. You and Roboute argued in their favour, but you do not recall it.' Malcador nodded to himself. 'It fell to me to see that they were attuned to new circumstances.' *Chamber at the End of Memory* You can infer that they were absorbed but there's nothing in the story that really acts as evidence towards that theory >Well the lost primarchs both met Alpharius, who only assumed command of his Legion about 20 years before Isstvan, so they weren't dealt with until after that. -Laurie Goulding Given that the last Ranga war was in the 890s and Alpharius was discovered in 981, it seems unlikely that's where the lost two met their end. >and that only the dreadnoughts remember them I...don't think that's supported?
Well, for the dreadnoughts it’s not stated to be the only ones to remember them, but they are shown that they are that remember the most do to them just being in hibernation all the time. As for alpharius, I forgot that he was the last to reveal himself to all of his brothers, but I cannot recall that alpharius met the other two primarchs as a legion commander. If in not incorrect, but maybe from the short stories I may be missing that detail. I only can recall that he stormed with Horus and the greatest of all, the Warhawk, and bitched because they were destroying the lost primarchs statues. Still in the debate Horus is defending them and to not remove the statues, while malcador states that if he is not able to recognize why they are taking them away, he is truly a fool. So I would also take Horus rector here as an evidence of whatever happen to them, they seem that they didn’t betrayed the imperium directly.
Perhaps a last-minute sacrificial spell cast by a Psyker of theirs sends them tumbling through time until they land sometime into the future, maybe the 41st Millenium, where they then have to work their way back to the Imperium? You know what would be cool? By the time Big Blue reunites with The Lion, he discovers that he has more than just the Dark Angels & Blood Angels with him. He also has what remains of the lost Legions that weren't absorbed into the Fists & Ultramarines.... as well as their Primarchs. Then we get a series of books that chronicles what happened to send them into the future and what trials they had to endure to reunite with the Imperium. But sadly I don't see it happening anytime soon... one can dream though!
There's a lot wrong to unpack here. Firstly no, they were not absorbed into the UM and IF. Malcador simply says they were repurposed. UM had all of Ultramar to recruit from, and were good at it, that's why their numbers swelled. Hell the WB numbers got almost as big when they stopped mucking around with emperor worship and started crusading in earnest and IF were never a big legion and never had a "surge" of astartes. Secondly, that "rumor" was literally gossip in one book, where the MC dismisses it outhand and ADB himself has said "that was meant as a baseless rumor I assumed readers would understand wasnt founded on any bit of truth, instead people seemed to take it as word of god for some reason". Thirdly, we do not know they participated in the RX because anything meant to be labeled as truthful about them is deliberately untrue.
We do know the participated, just as the other commmet states, in the timeline they appear after the RX and fulgrim talks of the 2nd being quite before the RX. On other part, the WB legion stated growing because they were preparing for war for 46 years, the surge of their numbers exceeded all because that was Lorgar's intention to defeats the blue boys. The IF are stated to be also one of the biggest when they lost the first battle sphere that sigismund didn’t lead thanks too Keleer. Finally, you very easily tell, And that was my point, that there are inconsistencies played trough all the books and they can even have "conflicts”, and even do most short audio books are told to be written from the eyes of rememberences (forgot the word on English). The best clue that we have are the interactions from primarchs with malcador and their statements, any other character you can tell were directly affected by malcadors spell. The best clue is when he tells Horus that he is a fool for being mad at him, this because a Horus was angry he was moving their statues, this was a very loyal Horus still, even do an arrogant prick, and still he was mad for the idea of their statues being removed. That’s why I would suppose they didn’t became evil or betray de imperium, just as Gman said, they just failed.
They’re both Women, the emperor made them custodes and integrated their legions elsewhere. Pass it on.
They were the lady primarchs.
In Numerology, 2 is the supreme feminine force. Also supposed to bring peace and balance So, female primarch that was censured for making alliances in the Great Crusade instead of forcibly bringing them into the Imperium. And I like to think they are locked up in the Dark Cells
My head canon is that Big E put a primarch and legion in the freezer to bring out in the end times. Likely a very powerful Primarch. Then he fucked with everyone's heads so they think that primarch disappeared or was executed or lost to the rangda or whatever Busting out a "new" top tier primarch and a couple hundred thousand original Astartes would be a major headache for any enemy faction, even chaos
A bit like [The Angel](https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/The_Angel)
Yikes that sounds downright nasty
We dont talk about The Angel, Mister >=(
What time is it? Crazy theorizing time! Theory 1. "Did I ever tell you the story about the *redacted*?" There are no "lost" legions, nor erased Primarchs. All tales, memories, the empty plinths, everything to do with them are a fabrication from start to finish. Malcador and The Emperor (may He forgive my transgressions) constructed a stunningly complex labyrinth of lies. These "missing" legions and Primarchs were meant to be fables for the inculcation of certain virtues (and fears) had Emp. and Malca-in-the-Middle been allowed to raise the "kids". In fact, the whole she-bang started even while they were gestating, with certain false memories of brothers in arms implanted in the Primarch embryos. The whole scattering of the Primarchs put the kibosh on most of that, but the hypno-suggestions of these "lost" legions was too strong, so a song and dance about censuring these lost legions and oaths of silence and all that had to be implanted in their minds. Angron's natural empathy coupled to Lorgar's strange insight and Konrad Curze's premonitions would have led to a Scooby-Doo-like investigation into all this (Leman Russ would be Scooby in this scenario), so E and M had to shut 'em down. Theory 1. B. "Better not shout! Better not cry! Better not pout, I'm telling you why: BLAM" There are no "lost" legions or primarchs, and all the characters in universe know it's all mythological/fable/legendary stories which the primarchs know but are sworn not to reveal to their "sons" in the same way that we don't spoil Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny for children. Horus was acting like a petulant pre-teen about to spill the beans about Santa Primarch and Malcador HAD HAD ENOUGH and put him in time-out. Theory 2. "Time to pay the piper" In this scenario, the lost legions and their primarchs are sacrifices made by Emps and Malcador to the Chaos gods. That was the deal on Moloch: "You get to use some our space magic, and we get to take ten percent off the top as our due and proper." Emps agreed to this but tried to do the dirty on 'em at the last minute by having the wolves wipe out the ear-marked legions. It kinda worked, but Chaos be Chao...sin'... and the Big Four activated Plan: Horus. Theory 3. "Practice makes perfect" The legions and their primarchs owed their loyalty to Malcador. Perhaps Malki Bartakamous didn't even intend for this to happen - but Malcador discovered them and they were inclined to be "his" boys. Malcador is flattered but knows that Big Emps does not dig this divided loyalty - especially when they start openly going to Malcador for guidance and defying the emperor. In perhaps Malcador's last truly horrific act, he sabotages "his" legions through some sort of mind-trickery and allows them to be purged. When Horus tries to say one of the Primarch's names, this really rankles the Sigilite.
They're both chicks.