Editing Emperor's Children (section)

=== Pre-Heresy ===
[[File:6f89d3843c1387e46a590262c7ecc473.jpg|400px|left|thumb|The Emperor's Children are the best pimps in the galaxy. Chaos! Fuck Yeah!]]

Back during the [[Great Crusade]], the Emperor's Children were unswervingly loyal, which is how they got their name. Now they just use the name as a form of mockery to [[troll]] the loyalists. Their [[Primarch]], [[Fulgrim]], was buds with [[Horus]], so when Horus did his [[heresy]] [[Horus Heresy|thing]], Fulgrim went straight to Horus and said "Dude; what the fuck? For reals." Horus knew that Fulgrim was a perfectionist with mild OCD and, straight out of an 80's afterschool special, Horus convinced Fulgrim that he could get that perfection [[Doomrider|if he tried some of these diet pills... and meth... and speed... ]] and by the time Fulgrim was on [[Doomrider|cocaine]] he did a one hundred eighty turn and devoted himself and his legion to [[Slaanesh]].

Before their fall to Chaos, the Emperor's Children were exemplars of what it meant to be an Astartes and were initially drawn from the Terran noble families rather than the chaff of the hive cities. They were noble, strong, excelled in all matters and above all were loyal to the core. Interestingly, a sizeable number of recruits after Fulgrim was found came from far less aristocratic sources (one Marine mentions being one of many children born to an underhive prostitute). They weren't experts in any sort of warfare (if there was an especially tough fortress to crack the Lords of Terra would bring in the Imperial Fists and not the Emperor's Children, for example) but could do everything very well and constantly drove themselves to learn as much as they could. Naturally, they were hyper-competitive and as a way to entertain their notions of superiority, engaged in lengthy duels against other Astartes. This is how you get somebody like [[Lucius the Eternal|good ole Lucy here!]]

Unfortunately in the early Great Crusade their gene-seed suffered a form of [[AIDS|Space-Cancer]] that caused their organs to develop tumours and shut down their bodies. It's thought that this was due to sabotage by the Selenar gene-cults of Luna, which is supported by the disappearance of gene-seed reserves last seen near Luna. In an effort to stem the tide they "[[Blam|mercifully]]" executed those who suffered the condition and destroyed them; by the time Fulgrim was discovered there was only a few hundred Astartes left in the "Legion". Also, Fulgrim's return did not actually cure the problem, but merely sidestepped the issue by allowing untainted new gene-seed to be produced. It's quite possible that [[Fabius Bile]] is the only sufferer remaining but he likely gets around the symptoms through [[Dark Eldar|advanced medical sciences]], although even he has found that all that's done is stall for time.

After finding Fulgrim, it is probably safe to assume that they were friends with the people of the Imperium and popular with other Legions. Firstly Fulgrim had a lot of friends among the Primarchs, most namely Ferrus Manus of the Iron Hands and Horus himself.''(The Emperor's Children are also battle-brothers with the Salamanders, but Vulkan is friends with everyone.)'' In addition the Legion was noble in conduct and aspect, a shining example to other Legions. Starting off from this high place, perhaps it is not a surprise that pride began to poison the noble heart of the Emperor's Children.

The Emperor's Children were not so much known for their number of victories (especially since they got sort of a late start because of the whole gene-seed thing) but for the way they were won. Other Legions would take their mode of war and apply it in every situation. The Emperor's Children did everything, and were good at everything. In addition no other Legion could claim as many individual unit and Astartes honors as the Emperor's Children. In their waging of war was a perfection that perhaps echoed their fall.

A good example of the Third Legion's style of war was a battle known as the Defense of Tranquility. Basically there was a nebula that had a series of (probably Eldar) gates. The Imperium came to claim them, and the Emperor's Children (still only 500 strong at the time) were ordered to defend the poisonous crystal world of Tranquility, the Imperium's forward base of operations. All was pretty quiet until lo and behold a xenos fleet emerged from the [[Warp|warp portal]] hanging above Tranquility's Geographic North Pole. The xenos were crystalline and emitted powerful beam rays that could cut [[ceramite]]. They dropped from their ships in their thousands, and the Third Legion was ready for them. Every Legionary had studied and memorized the surface of the planet, and as the aliens came, the Emperor's Children knew exactly where to lure them in, where to run, and where to prepare kill zones. The aliens soon began to lose so many troops they were forced to direct their ships' weapons onto the planet, which gave the Imperial Navy ships also in orbit a chance to get close and destroy the fragile vessels. Praetor Abisare of the Third is noted as having said it was not a battle but "an execution of considered intent". For the Emperor's Children war was an art, a craft to be honed and practiced!

As time went on, though, the Legion's pursuit of perfection started to take a bit of a wrong turn, at least to outsiders. During the Murder campaign the [[Luna Wolves]] found that [[Eidolon|Lord Eidolon]] had opted to take his entire force into a warzone which had already swallowed up a bunch of [[Blood Angels]] and [[Space Marines|Imperial Army]] troops. Eidolon then threw some weak insults at [[Tarik Torgaddon]] and took credit for his subordinates' achievements. Unsurprisingly, Torgaddon started fretting that egotistical arseholes like Eidolon might indicate something unhealthy in the EC's legion culture.

Anyways even before they were getting genuinely chaotic, they were already doing weird ass shit in the pursuit of 'perfection', like genetic enhancements and what not, and that's a big no-no for [[Space Marines]], even if it is a bit hypocritical for the genetically engineered super-duper-awesome-power-humans to get all shitty about a few enhancements on top of that. But, shitty they were - what gets skimmed over is the fact that all this stuff [[heresy|was based on a Slaanesh-worshipping alien race's modifications]], so waaay more dodgy than anything the Emperor had devised for the SMs. If you're going to get more awesome, then you have to [[Iron Hands|chop bits off]] and [[Adeptus Mechanicus|replace them with robot]] [[Dreadnought|like everyone else]]. Anyhow they did it anyway because they wanted to be perfect THAT hard.

Aaaaand that's where [[Fabius Bile]] came in. He was the [[Apothecary]] that was fucking with everyone's genes to turn them "perfect", among other things rewiring their nervous systems so that pain actually caused them pleasure. While not generally focused on, Slaanesh is also the god/ess of perfection, in addition to excess. Therefore, the Space Marines that are obsessed with perfection turn to Slaanesh. And don't forget that [[Fulgrim]]'s mind was eaten by a demon. Although he got better. So yeah, they are Slaaneshi now.