Editing Imperium Secundus (section)

===Counterpoint===
Guilliman was ''very'' politically minded and was careful not to take the position of Regent for himself lest he be seen as a usurper of his father's Empire. So he resolved to ensure that the position would go to another Primarch as only a member of the blood would have the qualities to rule (just not himself). Unfortunately, the first Primarch to arrive (Vulkan) had gone completely insane and thus was incapable of taking the position.

When the Lion arrived on Macragge, the issue of whether Guilliman should hand over rulership to him did come up. Unfortunately, Guilliman described the Lion as too inscrutable to be properly trusted with the position, and in turn the Lion could not trust Guilliman due to what the entire enterprise represented. (They never actually came to blows with one another over the matter, but nearly did since BOTH brothers were keeping secrets from one another, such as the locations of [[Konrad Curze]] & [[Vulkan]].) So when [[Sanguinius]] and his fleet arrived, the two of them showed some common sense and unanimously decided to hand over the position of [[Regent]] to him. At the very least, both brothers could be described as sincere in their desire to put aside their differences and [[get shit done]] for the Imperium, therefore assigning the regency to Sanguinius was a matter of convenience for both parties involved.

Deathfire also shows that since Konrad Curze managed to single-handedly bypass all the security measures Guilliman put in place (along with the disparate World Eater and Word Bearer raiding groups still plaguing Ultramar), he turned Macragge into a military fortress, complete with curfews, decreasing civil liberties, and the Ultramarines acting as police force. Those were the very things setting up Imperium Secundus was supposed to prevent, causing Guilliman considerable emotional distress that wouldn't be expected from someone who merely wished to build an empire.

Guilliman's intentions were apparently sincere, if not their execution. The three Primarchs eventually found out that the Emperor was still alive due to a combination of Sanguinius's visions of his death at the hands of Horus and Kurze's precognition of his being slain by an assassin sent by the Emperor. Guilliman himself was utterly mortified at everything he had done based on the assumption the greater Imperium had fallen and left for Terra alongside the Lion and Sanguinius at once. Curze, having spent the past few years terrorizing Macragge on the (very twisted) premise that what he was doing was what his father truly wanted, promptly pissed himself laughing from the irony of it all.