Editing Imperium Secundus (section)

==Legacy==
===of Guilliman===
Imperium Secundus' was called the "Unremembered Empire" for a reason: [[retcon|officially it didn't actually happen]] according to the history texts, as to do so would portray Guilliman as a traitor against his father.

There remains the interpretation that Guilliman's motives were not entirely sincere and that the Emperor, Malcador and the Lion were right: that Guilliman was only interested in building his OWN Empire, irrespective of the Emperor's involvement in it, which is where the problem lies. This is also supported by the the views of his brother [[Rogal Dorn]] who had been present at the final battle, returned his dying father to the Golden Throne and actually HEARD his final orders. Considering the Emperor already had knowledge of the war's outcome (read Outcast Dead), he should have prepared his own plan for its aftermath, therefore his orders to Dorn and [[Jaghatai Khan]] should have at least involved some sort of planning for the eventuality, unless the Emperor simply revealed what Guilliman was in the process of doing and was going to run with that anyway. Disagreements between them very nearly sparked another civil war about how the Imperium and its military should be run. That said, recent revelations have shown that he had been able to make it to Terra but elected to stay behind to fend off the Traitor fleets surrounding it so Sanguinius could fulfill his destiny.

Additionally, there remains the fact that 10,000 years later, his own sons are the foremost protectors of the Imperium of Man making up 50-60% of the whole Astartes population and have marginalised the others into either conformity (via the [[Codex Astartes|Codex]]) or obscurity (by denying them descendant chapters). With the Ultramarines Chapter having the [[Spiritual Liege|singular honour]] of being the most respected of Space Marine chapters, who set the standard [[Matt Ward|for all other Astartes to aspire to]], it's not a difficult set of circumstances to arrange when your father was the one to initially draft the policies that everyone conforms to. History is written by the victors; it is even said on the Ultramarines Chapter Banner: ''[[retcon|"Our Presence Remakes the Past"]]''

After unveiling his [[Codex Astartes]] which affirmed that no person, Primarch or otherwise, should be able to wield such power of the Legions, Guilliman '''DID''' eventually achieve lordship over the Imperium, becoming '''Lord Commander of the Imperium''' (which was essentially Warmaster in all but name) and particularly at odds with the stated intention of restricting forces by achieving oversight of ALL armed forces. The position was used up until M32 and subsequent holders were even referred to by the title of ''"Lord Guilliman"''

Following Guilliman's resurrection in the last year of the 41st Millennium, his first instinct is to secure his 500 worlds and re-establish the stability of Ultramar. Afterward, he leaves his Five-Hundred Worlds to the care of [[Marneus Calgar]] and sets course for Terra. Shortly after his revival, Guilliman ordered the Ultramarines' Library of Ptolemy to be sealed off with entry forbidden on pain of death. Guilliman claimed the gesture was symbolic of how there would be no place for learning in the dark days they lived in, but what he didn't say was that he wanted to make sure nobody could find evidence of the Imperium Secundus, which he is still deeply ashamed of. It may be possible that he blames himself for the Emperor's mortal wounding.

When he reached Terra, he resumed the position of '''Lord Commander of the Imperium''' following a visit to the Emperor and forcibly replaced High Lords of Terra with candidates of his own choosing, claiming a direct mandate from the Emperor that no-one besides the Custodes can verify. Politically expedient and effective? Yes, this behaviour retains all the hallmarks of a dictator. On the other hand, Luna had been attacked by the forces of [[Magnus the Red]] and shortly afterwards ''Terra itself'' was invaded by the daemonic forces of [[Khorne]], yet the High Lords were still desperately plotting behind closed doors to keep control of the Imperium ''away'' from Roboute Guilliman because of their fear of losing control, considering him and the other Primarchs to have been "fratricidal lunatics" and utterly failing to realise how the Imperium was going to shit around them. Guilliman has taken control and has indeed tried to push reforms, but opposition from the Inquisition and other influential organizations has made such changes slow in coming. Eventually he’ll lose his patience and they’ll be...”reminded” that he’s a motherfucking Primarch.

What it means or heavily implies is that there is possibly an edgier side to the Ultramarines beyond simply being [[Mary Sue]]s or the best thing since sliced bread, and that the supposedly [[Spiritual Liege|eminent]] status that the Ultramarines enjoy is because of well calculated political maneuvers. Each of the Primarchs had their strengths which they passed on, in part, to their sons. Guilliman was said to have been the greatest of statesmen.

===of Sanguinius===
Thanks to his prescient sight, Sanguinius became more and more aware of his ultimate fate to die by Horus' hands. When the fact that Terra had not yet fallen became known, the three Primarchs would attempt to brave the Ruinstorm and return to the throneworld. Along the way each brother would be tested, yet none more so than Sanguinius himself, who was presented with the possibility that he might survive the Heresy and spare his legion from the Black Rage, giving him hope. However, he later realized that he would have to become something far worse than Horus in order to do it, and so he rejected this possible future and strengthened his resolve to meet his end as a loyal son of the Emperor. The Dark Angels and Ultramarine forces would buy Sanguinius the opportunity to reach the Siege of Terra by assaulting the rear flanks of the Traitor forces and drawing them away. This explains why only the Blood Angels made it back to Terra even though they left with the Dark Angels and Ultramarines, and also explains why they were delayed in the first place.

One thing that does remain from this time is the [[Sanguinor]], who was a by-product of this era. Sanguinius needed a regent to stand for him and deal with petitioners when he was too busy with other important tasks, as well as to act as a body double for the sake of assassination attempts and keep the focus away from the Primarch. Even at the time, the identity of the herald was kept a closely guarded secret and his name removed from the records of the legion. By M41, the origins of the Sanguinor are completely forgotten about even by the majority of the Blood Angels themselves, if they ever knew about the practice at all. This individual would stand in for Sanguinius at Davin, pinning a powerful daemon in place in a portal between the warp and realspace while the planet was bombarded around him (potentially setting himself up as a Draigo-like figure later on). Sanguinius was originally going to take this task upon himself, but realized in another vision that whether he died on Davin or on Terra, his death would still cause his sons to suffer the [[Black Rage]] so there was no escaping that fate.

===of the Lion===
Perhaps the most difficult to quantify, as we know the Lion's eventual fate is more tied to Caliban than to Terra or Ultramar. The impact of Imperium Secundus on the Dark Angels or their Primarch in later years is a relative unknown; other than a squad of [[Space Wolves]], the Lion was seemingly the only person who actually made the conscious decision to actually go to [[Macragge]] and even if he had not arrived, Guilliman was still going to form his Imperium Secundus and would still have starved Terra of valuable resources; [[Sanguinius]] would still have become Emperor-Regent; and a charbroiled, insane [[Vulkan]] would still have fallen from orbit and the [[Cabal]] would still have sent an agent to kill him with the fulgurite.

However, the Lion did unintentionally bring [[Konrad Curze]] to Ultramar, and it was only by corroborating his visions with Sanguinius that they realized the Emperor was still alive and proved the lie that the whole project was based upon. The Lion would also appear to goad the [[Salamanders]] into departing for [[Nocturne]] with the body of their fallen Primarch with the vague hope of his resurrection. Furthermore, it was only through the use of [[Tuchulcha]] that the Dark Angels were able to lead the fleets through the Ruinstorm, eventually reaching Davin and clearing the way for Sanguinius to get to Terra.

Therefore it can be said that the presence of the Lion acted as a catalyst for dismantling the Imperium Secundus, which was something he had set out to do in the first place, though it actually took him about seven or eight years to accomplish and happened in a way he did not initially anticipate. Ironically enough, by then he had already settled into his own role as the Imperium Secundus's not-Warmaster.

Despite this, in-universe (and often out of it) there does remain the lingering accusation that the Lion simply "sat out" the Horus Heresy and it would cause the Dark Angels to be mistrusted in later years. This accusation was spelled out directly by Konrad Curze during the [[Thramas Crusade]], but has been unwittingly parroted by members of the Imperium who are suspicious of the First Legion's lack of records on their activities.

With the development of the Black Library series, we know any such accusations are false. The first two years were spent breaking the [[Night Lords]] and capturing their Primarch. Even after departing for Ultramar, the Lion only took 20,000 men and a small fleet with him; the rest of the First Legion were spread throughout the Imperium chasing down the [[Death Guard]]. What's more, the Lion and those 20,000 men commanding the forces of the [[Blood Angels]] and [[Ultramarines]] were put to good use fighting the Shadow Crusade against the [[Word Bearers]] and [[World Eaters]], so if anything the Dark Angels were the most active loyalists of the entire war and were actually ''gaining ground'' against the enemy rather than just winning pyrrhic victories.

Even if no records of the Dark Angels activities existed, the Triumvirate of Primarchs acted together for most of the war and therefore all three ought to be considered as guilty as each other. However, Sanguinius sacrificed himself in the final battle against Horus and would be elevated in the eyes of the population (and /tg/) practically to sainthood; Guilliman would become Lord Commander of the Imperium and steer it through the anarchy of the Scourging. The Lion would have no chance at endearing himself to the people in a similar way because he would disappear during the fall of [[Caliban]] while his Legion would not be able to truthfully answer the accusations of procrastination without also besmirching the names of Guilliman and Sanguinius, and they're too classy for that.

The issue of hunting the [[Fallen]] only began after the [[Second Founding]], and it would not have immediately mattered to the Imperium at that time (at least not until a pattern of suspicious behaviour presented itself) Therefore it is likely then that the undercurrent of mistrust of the Unforgiven Chapters could only have been built up based on their activities over a long period of time, biased with the fact that the knowledge of the activities of First Legion are a result of a bit of [[Retcon|selective memory]] on the part of the Imperium and its rulers coupled with Guilliman's desire to bury the evidence of Imperium Secundus and [[Cypher]]'s own tampering with the records to erase anything compromising relating to the Dark Angels.

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