Editing Magnus the Red (section)

==[[Siege of Terra]]==

{{Topquote|It takes a strong man to deny what's in front of him. And if the truth is undeniable, you create your own.|Colonel John Conrad, Spec Ops The Line}}


Magny Magic would join Horus for the biggest rave Terra would ever see, ostensibly for the purpose of providing entertaining parlor tricks for the guests. In reality, the big red wanted his good guy shard back. During the raid on Luna he helped the loyalists escape with the Magna Mater while asking Alpharius not to kill Nykona Sharrowkyn. When he took to the field, he offered comfort and sympathy to his nemesis Mortarion. 

His deeds for Morty would give Magnus the cover he needed to infiltrate the Imperial Dungeon, but not before [[Awesome|flinging a dying Capitol Imperialis at the enemy walls and creating a breach with its nuke-sized explosion, saving a group of his sons in the process]]. [[A Game of Pretend|Psychically cloaking themselves as Blood Angels]], he and his entourage would move through the Great Observatory. Even as a traitor, they'd still save a group of refugees from phosphex bombs. What a guy. 

After going through the Hall of Leng, Magnus would discover Malcador and Alivia Sureka. The Regent sought to convert Magnus to the loyalist cause, but such an effort collapsed when it was revealed his lost shard was in Janus and thus out of reach. Magnus [[RAGE|turned a deeper shade of red before killing Malcador out of rage]]. Malcador would get better, but meanwhile a regretful Magnus continued to move to the throne room. Apparently, playing Regicide IRL was more enjoyable to Magnus than playing it on a board game.

[[The Emperor|'Revelation']] would make his voice heard in the Hall of Victories, guiding Magnus' group to the throne room. Magnus would destroy the projection of Revelation and get ready to kill his dad, but the [[Vulkan|Jolly Green Giant]] would block Magnus' blow. While Magnus' underlings would fight the local Salamanders and Space Wolves, Big E and Magnus would psychically converse. Magnus was shown the [[noblebright]] future that could've been, and could still be if he rejoined the Emperor. The only catch was that the Thousand Sons, too deep in their corruption to be saved, had to be [[Blam|purged]]. He'd get a new legion though, one [[Grey Knights|"Whose flesh will be flawless. Whose fists are steel. Whose hearts are armoured in adamantium. And they would be the pride of the new Imperium"]].

Magnus refused, thinking that it was an impossible offer made by a callous and uncaring tyrant. [[Derp|The future of humanity as a whole is second when measured against his warp-tainted sons]]. [[FAIL|After all, if anybody's gonna purge the Thousand Sons, it's gonna be Magnus! Just ask Atrahasis during their quest to the throne room, and the ones that Magnus directly or indirectly killed due to his primarch-grade mental breakdown on Prospero]]. In slight fairness, Vulkan admits he wouldn't have accepted the offer either. After once again trying to kill Emps, Magnus duels Vulkan, but Vulkan eventually managed to beat Magnus. Tzeentch's favorite pet finally gives himself over to the Lord of Change, and is immediately banished.

Later on during the Siege, Magnus would go to work on destroying Big E's anti-chaos fuckery shield. With demons beginning to rear their ugly heads in the palace, Malcador tasks Vulkan with stopping Magnus. The two once again fight, although at the beginning it's really just a sequence that demonstrates how OP Magny Magic is. [[Derp|This does beg the question of why Magnus didn't do this to Gorilla Man the second they met]], [[FAIL|but plotholes take a back seat to plot armor]]. Anywho, having [[Perpetual|LITERAL plot armor]] eventually tipped the scales to Vulkan after a while. Magnus would freeze the both of them in Vulkan's mind to try and plead his case one last time before he was turned to paste by Vulkan's hammer. 

[[Not as Planned|Long story short, Vulkan would verbally tear Magnus a new one]]. By itself this doesn't mean much; the fact that Magnus had done everything wrong was immediately obvious to anyone who had actually read the books. What's interesting is what came next. Vulkan claimed that Magnus had actually made up the whole offer that Big E made. In reality, "the last unstained shard of your soul burst in to the Throne Room and begged to be saved. With a heavy heart, Father refused you". Why (or even IF) Magnus interpreted the encounter differently is up to speculation. 

Vulkan was clearly aware of the fracturing of Magnus' soul, and seemed to be referring to a different version of Magnus breaking in earlier, seemingly making this version have a memory of a conversation that never happened to him. What makes this part more complicated is that an "unstained shard" of Magnus' soul was installed into Janus, who was indeed given command over a [[Grey Knights|new breed of space marine]]. Meaning that parts of his memory have elements of truth, even if he isn't aware of which parts. 

On the other hand, the Custodes weren't present in the throne room when the offer was supposedly made, lending credence to Malcador saying he and Big E arranged for this offer of redemption to be made. Because of the strong suggestions (golden mist, knowledge Vulkan shouldn't have had, Magnus saying 'Father' later on, etc) that the Emperor was speaking through Vulkan, this would imply that Big E is lying about the circumstances regarding the rejection of the offer. The problem with this theory is that the Emperor has no reason to lie about such an offer. He'd have to trick Vulkan into interpreting the offer differently, which would require a good deal of psychic energy He would've otherwise used for the anti-Chaos shield. 

If the Emperor never made the offer to Magnus however, then the part where Vulkan agreed with Magnus that the deal was unacceptable can also be called into question. Vulkan and his legion are known for their borderline suicidal levels of self-sacrifice on behalf of human populations no matter where they are or how large they are. This was codified in Vulkan's Promethean Cult, which (among other things) emphasized loyalty and self-sacrifice to such a degree that the Warrior Lodges never even got their foot in the door. Plus, Vulkan is entrusted by Big E to blow up all of Terra itself if the planet is ever overrun. The idea that he would agree with Magnus and choose his corrupted sons over Mankind is preposterous, making it more likely that Magnus could've made this up.

Tzeentchian corruption could also be fucking with Magnus' cognitive functions to [[Just as Planned|help develop a false victim complex that would drive him from Big E and towards Tzeentch]]. Certainly, Vulkan does follow his statement by explaining how deep the rot of Chaos has sunk into Magnus at that point and that Magnus dreamed up his own redemption in order to give himself something to rage against, and that Magnus could not be cured and his fate was sealed.

This does directly contradict the idea introduced in Godblight that the traitor primarchs could be saved, although a reasonable explanation is that Big E just wasn't strong enough to do so in the heresy era while in M42 a supercharged Emperor could do it, or that Magnus was broken into so many smaller fragments that it was impossible to salvage whatever he used to be. Another possible explanation is that, while the Daemon Primarchs could be saved, they would need to want to be saved to make it happen. If Magnus's confrontation and conversation with Vulkan is anything to go by, Magnus was in no way genuinely repentant for what he'd done, and in fact still seemed to believe himself justified in his actions.

Either way, [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]] [[FAIL|fucking with the work of a fellow colleague (for some reason) via ill-conceived retcons and infuriating use of the 'SIKE YOU THOUGHT' style of plot twist]] has caused widespread confusion and [[Skub]]. In the end, Vulkan drops the hammer in a metaphorical and literal sense. At the exact same time, Magnus casts a spell that unmakes Vulkan at a genetic level. One is sent back to Tzeentch in failure, and the other is shambling back to the throne room with a hammer in his skeletal hands.