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| The Horus Heresy |

Ten millennia ago, before the Great Crusade had even left Terra, the Holy Emperor created the Primarchs, twenty god-like creatures, each bestowed with a little of the Emperor's unfathomable might. From the gene-seeds of each Primarch, he then produced a legion of superhuman warriors. These were the Legiones Astartes, the Space Marine Legions, and led by their Primarchs they set out on the Great Crusade, to retake the galaxy in the name of Terra and its most benevolent Emperor.

The Primarchs were the Emperor's proudest achievement, his children, and most favoured in his eyes was Horus, Warmaster and commander of all Imperial forces. At the forefront of the Crusade, side by side, the Emperor and his Warmaster liberated thousands of worlds from the grip of unenlightened heresy and alien heathens. Within a hundred years the Imperium of Man stretched halfway across the galaxy, and the Great Crusade showed no sign of slowing down. Thus pleased with his effort, the Emperor decided to return to Terra to consolidate his rule, leaving all responsibility for the Crusade in the able hands of the Warmaster.

As the years went by, the Crusade grew ever more distant from Terra, and with each light-year travelled the Warmaster distanced his heart a little more from his father, the Emperor, until one day he believed himself beyond the Emperor's reach. Standing at the eastern edge of the galaxy, with his back to the Light of the Emperor, surrounded by millions upon millions of soldiers who considered him God, the Warmaster thought to himself that he, not his forgotten father on distant Terra, must truly be the ruler of mankind. Taking his armies, he turned back towards the galactic west and Terra, intent of making himself the new Emperor of Mankind. But a small contingent of loyalists managed to steal away and warn the Emperor of Horus' betrayal.

Shocked by these news, the Emperor hesitated before he finally ordered his troops into action. By then, the Warmaster had managed to make himself the ruler of several hundred star systems. Worse yet, fully half of the Space Marine Legions betrayed the Emperor and sided with the Warmaster. Before long, the Imperium was being torn apart from the inside as brother fought brother all over the galaxy. But even though the Warmaster's forces were more numerous, the loyalists fought with the burning conviction of righteousness, and slowly the traitors were being pushed back. Realising he needed a decisive victory to win the war, Horus took the majority of his forces and laid siege to Terra directly.

The siege of the Terra was the bloodiest battle the Imperium has ever seen, and nowhere was the fighting any more furious than around the Imperial Palace. The traitors had to pay with blood for every inch of the palace they conquered. At long last, fearing to be caught between the walls of the palace and the loyalist legions who were racing towards Terra from the corners of the galaxy, the Warmaster lowered the shields of his battle barge. This allowed the Emperor to teleport onboard accompanied by two loyal Primarchs, Sanguinius and Rogal Dorn, and their retinues. It might be that he was unaware of the legions racing to his aid, but maybe he simply wanted to face his beloved Horus one last time.

Onboard the Warmaster's ship, the three were separated. When the Emperor finally found Horus, what he saw was a blood-crazed madman standing over the broken body of Sanguinius. Even so, the Emperor pleaded to the man Horus had once been, begging him to lay down his weapons and return to the Emperor's side. But the Warmaster only laughed, and raised his weapons once more.

So ensued the battle that decided mankind's fate, between Emperor and Warmaster, father and son. Only the Emperor knows what happened during those few minutes, but when it was all over Rogal Dorn found the ruler of mankind slowly dying from his wounds next to the body of his most beloved servant, Horus.

This was the Horus Heresy, the end of an era and the beginning of another. The Emperor ascended to the Golden Throne, not living, not dying, ruling mankind for all eternity. The traitors fled Terra with the body of their Warmaster, only to die a quick death at the hands of their brothers, or a slow death in the cold depths of space. The Great Crusade went on, and for ten thousand years the Imperium of Man has withstood the threats of heretics, insurgents, aliens and mutants.

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