History Literature / HorusHeresy

* InformedAbility: Played with in ''Horus Rising''. Loken is an admirer of the iterators, taking the opportunity to attend a speech given by primary iterator Kyril Sindermann, rigorously trained and the most famed member of his work, who gives a vapid sermon mostly consisting of a very thin argument, admitting near the start that "I'm right and your wrong" isn't a very good debate point but ends the speech saying exactly that and proclaiming the Imperial Truth. The speech itself is widely applauded by other iterators and Loken, one of the more aware Astartes in the series, doesn't question it in any serious way. It adds onto the theme of the pre-Heresy Imperium being an intellectually bankrupt authoritarian state, better in ways but not too drastically different to the theocratic dystopia it would become, and many of its followers and agents are just as indoctrinated.

* InformedAbility: Played with in "Horus Rising". Loken is an admirer of the iterators, taking the opportunity to attend a speech given by primary iterator Kyril Sindermann, rigorously trained and the most famed member of his work, who gives a vapid sermon mostly consisting of a very thin argument, admitting near the start that "I'm right and your wrong" isn't a very good debate point but ends the speech saying exactly that and proclaiming the Imperial Truth. The speech itself is widely applauded by other iterators and Loken, one of the more aware Astartes in the series, doesn't question it in any serious way. It adds onto the theme of the pre-Heresy Imperium being an intellectually bankrupt authoritarian state, better in ways but not too drastically different to the theocratic dystopia it would become, and many of its followers and agents are just as indoctrinated.

** The Siege of Terra books are an entire series of [[BigBadassBattleSequence]]s, featuring void battles in which entire moons are blown up and space hulks are used as fire ships,continent-spanning trench warfare, rampaging hordes of daemons and beastmen, brutal close-quarters fighting beneath the Palace walls, primarchs fighting primarchs and greater daemons, Titan legions waging battles of mutual annihilation, gigantic siege engines rigged with supersized sonic weaponry, aerial duels between hundreds of fighters at a time, and orbital bombardments that are so intense that they ''shift the planet's tectonic plates''.

** The Siege of Terra books are an entire series of {{BigBadassBattleSequence}}s, featuring void battles in which entire moons are blown up and space hulks are used as fire ships,continent-spanning trench warfare, rampaging hordes of daemons and beastmen, brutal close-quarters fighting beneath the Palace walls, primarchs fighting primarchs and greater daemons, Titan legions waging battles of mutual annihilation, gigantic siege engines rigged with supersized sonic weaponry, aerial duels between hundreds of fighters at a time, and orbital bombardments that are so intense that they ''shift the planet's tectonic plates''.

** In "The End and the Death: Volume II", it's revealed that the fifth Chaos God is indeed ascendant, and it's in fact [[spoiler: The Emperor. He does embrace power of the warp to vanquish Horus, but rejects it after being convinced by Ollanius, Garviel, and Leetu.]] Also, Sanguinius dies.

%% Administrivia.ZeroContextExample entries are NOT allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

%% Explaining a trope is more than just saying "In season two" or "Alison is this for Scott." It means actually going into detail about how the trope is used in the series.

* ''The End and the Death: Volume II'', by Dan Abnett

* CavalryBetrayal: The Isstvan III dropsite massacre, one the most significant and shocking battle of the Horus Heresy involved betrayal on a massive scale. In Isstvan V, the Raven Guard, Salamanders and Iron Hands were pitted against the Sons of Horus, Emperor's Children, Death Guard and World Eaters. The three loyalist legions expected reinforcement to come soon when the Alpha Legion, Night Lords, Iron Warriors and Word Bearers came but these were already swayed to Horus' side. It resulted in one of the worsts defeats for the Imperium where three legions were reduced to no more than 22,000 Astartes, Ferrus Manus died while Vulkan disappeared.

* TheCavalry: During the Siege of Terra, the loyalists' hope is to hold until Roboute Guilliman and Lion El'Jonson arrive with their Legion to crush the traitors from behind. [[spoiler:Alas the interior wall is breached before the loyalist can arrive, which will lead to the Emperor teleporting aboard the Vengeful Spirit.]]

** Horus is famously accompanied by a quartet of Sons of Horus captains called the Mournival. Each bearing symbols of the moon at different phases, they are the right-hand men of Horus and act as a group of counselors with balanced personalities so that Horus may hear advices that complement each other.

** The Emperor's Children had an informal clique of senior captains and other officers who are in Fulgrim's good graces, notably Julius Kaesoron, Lucius, Vespasian, Eidolon and Fabius Bile.
* ColorCodedArmies: Each of the legions are distinguishable by the color of the armour they wear. For instance, Ultramarines have blue armor while the White Scars have white armour. Moreover, each legion's elite units also tend to wear a distinctive colour scheme.

* ComputerVirus: In ''Mechanicum'', the Dark Mechanicum spreads a scrapcode (a warp-infested computer virus) across Mars, hacking and corrupting all the pieces of technology it touches. Because of their great use of cybernetics and noospheric connections, most of the Mechanicum on Mars was exposed and corrupted to Kelbor-Hal's side.

** In ''The End and the Death: Volume 1'', [[spoiler: Horus lists off the Daemon forces in his service. Alongside the usual suspects such as Skarbrand, N'Kari and so on along with other Daemons from the Heresy, there's a veritable storm of names from other ''40k'' works including [[VideoGame/DawnOfWar Ulkair]], [[Literature/GreyKnights Ghargatuloth]], [[Literature/SoulDrinkers Abraxes]], [[Literature/{{Ultramarines}} M'kar]], and [[TabletopGame/BlackCrusade Ax'senaea]].]]

** ''The Flight of the Eisenstein'' states that Saul Tarvitz was the First Captain of the Emperor's Children and that Garro could see the oceans of Terra from space. Previous books had established that Tarvitz was never one of Fulgrim's chosen elite, and that those oceans had long since been boiled away by nuclear war. The oceans are back again in ''Prospero Burns''. The idea seems to be be that small seas remain, which is shown in ''Nemesis''.

** Fulgrim has a taste for these. He originally wielded Fireblade, a sword made by Ferrus Manus. He later used the Silver Blade of the Laer, which he took as a trophy, but that [[ForegoneConclusion ended poorly]], and in the end went to Lucius. And during the Heresy itself, he used the Athame, which was a gift from Horus. At one point, he briefly owned ''all three'' of those swords at one time.

** During Horus' time in the Temple of the Serpent Lodge, he speaks to one of his senior captains who died in the events leading up to Horus Rising. {{Subverted}}, [[spoiler:because it was Erebus disguised with sorcery]], although the readers know this by the time it occurs.

* DelayingAction: Everything that the garrison on Terra does is aimed at delaying Horus' taking of the Imperial Palace so that the loyalist legions scattered across the galaxy can join the Siege of Terra before it is too late and attack the traitors from behind, which would assure the victory of the Imperium. The battle of Beta-Garmon and the Solar War are both great examples of this. The first battle takes place at a strategic hub of warp routes to delay Horus' invasion of the Sol system, and the second is a series of void battles where the defenders try to make it so Horus encircles Terra as late as possible.
** In Prospero Burns... [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Prospero burns]] when Space Wolves bomb it from the orbit.

* DefensiveFeintTrap: In ''Saturnine'', Dorn performs a masterstroke of defense by luring the enemy to the Saturnine Wall, which has a fault line underneath it that the traitors could have exploited to break directly into the Palace. Dorn has kill teams placed there and Arkhan Land fills the fault line with a rapid setting rockcrete. The result is 300 of the most elite Sons of Horus, including the Mournival, Catulan Reavers and the Justaerin being wiped out with or buried alive, as well as killing 18,000 Emperor's Children and upsetting Fulgrim to the point where he [[RageQuit takes his legion and bails out of the Siege]] after an unsuccessful assault on the wall itself.

** The Word Bearers perform voluntary possessions through the Gal Vorbak (meaning "blessed sons"). By voluntary submitting themselves to possession, chosen Space Marines can cohabit with a daemon instead of having their soul destroyed, and they can allow the daemons to temporarily shape their bodies and make them more powerful.

** Sergeant Thiel briefly gets there when he sees that despite his actions, the Word Bearers are about to succeed at boarding the flag ship. [[spoiler:That is, until Guilliman performs BigDamnHeroes InSpace.]]

** ''The First Heretic'': Lorgar falls to Chaos alongside his Legion. Argel Tal is possessed by a daemon forever, he must kill one of his only friends Aquillon and Cyrene dies.

* DropTheHammer: Some Space Marines forgo the usual power sword for hammers and maces of various description. Ferrus' and Vulkan's preferred weapon, too.

* EarthIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse: Politically and culturally. Terra is the most significant planet of the Imperium. It is the capital of the Imperium, where the Emperor started his Great Crusade, built the Imperial Palace, and where the Council of Terra governs the Imperium. It is also the site of the Astronomican, the psychic beacon that allows the people of the Imperium to navigate through the Warp. Finally, it is the cradle of humankind, and all cultures in any planet inhabited by humans are derived from the cultures of Terran colonists. Everybody knows that whoever holds Terra is the one who will hold the galaxy and thus prepares accordingly in anticipation of the Siege of Terra, where the fate of the Imperium will be decided.

* ParentalFavoritism:
* The Emperor doesn't treat his sons equally. While the likes of Horus and Fulgrim were heavily favored by the Emperor and He was friendly to the likes of Russ and Vulkan, other primarchs like Perturabo and Angron were treated like dirt. Some books like ''The Master of Mankind'' wonder whether the Emperor truly liked any of the Primarchs.

* LawfulStupid: It doesn't matter how effective psykers are against the Chaos powers the Traitor Legions are now wielding. As far as the Legio Custodes, the Imperial Fists, and the Space Wolves are concerned, the Edict of Nikaea is in effect until the Emperor says otherwise, even though Malcador, who was named Regent of the Imperium by the Emperor, has given tacit approval for the Legions to begin employing Librarians again. And they will try to enforce this on Loyalist Legions.
** A Dark Angels Chaplain tries to push the point with the Lion after one of the legion's Librarians has just broken the edict to kill a bunch of daemons that have attacked the bridge of the ''Invincible Reason'', demanding that the Librarian in question be executed. The Lion responds by backhanding the Chaplain so hard that he [[OffWithHisHead accidentally decapitates him]].

** During the siege of Terra, the battle devolves into this after the Legio Mortis break the Ultimate Wall, allowing the Chaos troops to storm the Inner Palace. The tip of the balance is irremediably tipped in favor of Horus' side, but there are still hundreds of kilometers of cityscape to fight through and the loyalists shift to fighting in order to hurt the enemy as much as possible. For instance Rogal Dorn allows Sigismund to go mount a rear guard action meant to bleed the traitors as much as they can, and Euphrati Keeler also helps mobilize the human civilians to fight the Heretic Astartes.

** [[spoiler: As of The Primarchs, Omegon is plotting behind Alpharius's back.]]

The series began in 2006, and as of mid-2019, it consists of [[LongRunningBookSeries 38 novels, 103 short stories and novellas (some of which are collated in 21 anthologies), 47 audio dramas (plus 4 audio drama anthologies), 2 artbooks, 2 scriptbooks, and 1 graphic novel]]. ''The Primarchs'' sub-series (another 15 novels, 7 short stories, and 4 audio dramas) focuses specifically on the leaders of the Space Marine Legions. From 2019, the main series has officially been ended, and new works are being published as part of ''The Siege of Terra'' sub-series, focusing on the titular conflict and serving as a capstone to the overall series (6 of 8 novels released so far, plus 2 out of an unspecified number of planned novellas). The series is one of the Black Library's most popular, with new titles regularly appearing in ''The New York Times'' bestseller list.

* SavageWolves: The Space Wolves Legion is (in)famous for its savagery on the battlefield, to the extent that even other Legions consider them TheDreaded.
* SceneryGorn: Most of the authors revel in describing the horrible messes that are left behind whenever the Legions fight or whenever Chaos gets involved. ''Fear to Tread'', in particular, goes into great detail on how horrible things went in the Signus Cluster when the eyes of the Dark Gods were turned on it.
* ScryVsScry: How the fight between Curze and Sanguinius pans out; with both being able to see the future, they both know that ultimately, their duel is futile, as neither is fated to die there and then.

* AFormYouAreComfortableWith:
** The [[spoiler: daemon in Prospero Burns says that its true form would drive Kasper Hawser mad, so it uses Horus, Amon of the Thousand Sons, and Navid Murza's forms instead. Strangely, it had planned on killing Kasper anyway, but it wanted to give its favorite pawn a painless death.]]
** The Big E appears in various humble guises, as his true form of an AmbiguouslyBrown man in golden glowing masterwork PoweredArmor is one of such masculine perfection that people either cream their jeans hard enough to brain damage themselves or fall to their knees in worship. [[spoiler:[[AppearanceIsInTheEyeOfTheBeholder Even this may be a pyschic projection]], as [[AntiMagic blanks]] like the Sisters of Silence see an ordinary man.]]

-->--'''[[BigBad Horus Lupercal]]'''

* BadassBaritone: When speaking, the books frequently describe the Primarchs as "rumbling".