M31.004
The dust on this dead world tastes of betrayal. It settles on my torn cloak, silvers the cracks in my power armour, and chokes the breath in my lungs—or what's left of them.
I am Valerius, Captain of the xth Company, formerly of the Luna Wolves. Later, the Sons of Horus. Now… I am a ghost. A survivor of the first, unexpected wave. And I saw how the wave began.
They call it the Heresy. A clean word for a universe drowning in blood. But the root of it wasn't some festering grievance, some slow decay. It was a single, perfectly delivered blow to the mind of a god-made-man, orchestrated with the precision of a maestro conducting a symphony of screams. It was the Great Joke, finally paying off.
Before it all, there was tension, yes. Whispers in the void. Strange currents in the Empyrean. Disquiet among the Legions and the Great Houses alike. We felt it—a growing unease, a sense that the grand design wasn't as stable as the Emperor proclaimed. But we had Warmaster Horus. Lupercal. Our father, our brother, our leader. He was the bulwark, the golden standard we measured ourselves against. His charisma could soothe any conflict. His wisdom could untangle any knot. We trusted him implicitly.
We loved him.
That was the first cruel irony. The target was the strongest link.
It happened… I cannot pinpoint the exact moment on any standard calendar, for time grew fluid and sickening around it. But it was after Ullanor. After the triumph that should have solidified everything. Horus was… changed. Distant. Haunted. He spoke of visions—not openly at first, but in hushed tones with his most trusted. Vulkaris. Serghar. Even First Captain Abaddon. They became grim, their eyes reflecting a cold, dawning horror I couldn't yet comprehend.
The official report spoke of arcane weapons, of sorcery on a forgotten world. Lies. Or perhaps, desperate attempts to rationalize the irrational. What truly struck Horus was not a blade or a bolt, but a vision. A construct of the deepest, most malicious dimensions of the Warp, woven with threads of absolute falsehood made to look like ultimate truth.
I was not present for the vision itself. Few were. But I saw the Warmaster immediately after. The aura he carried—his presence, once so commanding—was still there, but brittle, like sunlight through shattered glass. His eyes… they were alight with a terrible certainty, but also a profound, gut-wrenching agony. He looked like a man who had seen the face of utter betrayal—not from an enemy, but from the one he had sworn his existence to.
The tale he recounted, piecemeal at first, then with burning fury—it was the vision crafted by the Architects of the Joke.
He saw the Emperor, our beloved, distant father—not building one Imperium for all of humanity, but a second. A hidden dominion, secreted away in the galaxy's core or perhaps beyond the galactic plane. Populated by genetically engineered humans. Perfected citizens loyal only to him. Served by automatons and dark technologies forbidden to the rest of us.
A cold, sterile empire built without the Primarchs. Without the Legions. Without the vast, messy, faithful human populations we had bled to unite.
We were, in this vision, mere tools. Disposable weapons. Once the galaxy was pacified, we would be set aside—perhaps even purged—while the 'true' Imperium, his perfect creation, took its final, hidden form. The grand crusade hadn't been for humanity's future, but a brutal paving-over. A clearing of the path for a private kingdom where his flawed sons had no place.
And who showed him this?
He didn't name them as daemons or gods. Instead, he spoke of influences. Feelings made flesh. An omnipresent, chuckling absurdity—the Joker—who whispered of cosmic futility and revealed the hidden punchlines of destiny. A force of exquisite, corrupting beauty—the Griffith—who offered salvation through sacrifice, glory through ruin. And a crushing, inevitable darkness—the Vader—who mirrored the Emperor's tyranny, only cloaked in cold logic and iron certainty.
These weren't just entities. They were the emotions woven into the vision. The cosmic mockery. The seductive rot. The inescapable tyranny. They didn't just show him a lie—they made him feel it, with the weight of divine revelation.
The effect was instantaneous. And absolute.
Horus didn't question the vision. It resonated with every moment of perceived coldness from the Emperor, every unanswered query, every silent burden he had carried as Warmaster. His love curdled into a hate so pure, so incandescent, it was terrifying to behold. Madness was too simple a word. It was divine certainty. A holy wrath aimed at the ultimate blasphemer—his own father.
He was not falling to Chaos. In his mind, he was rising—to confront the true chaos the Emperor represented.
He was the saviour. Liberating the galaxy from a tyrant's hidden plan.
And that is where the Great Joke became truly monstrous.
Horus, radiating this terrible, righteous conviction, didn't just gather the Legions who felt slighted or susceptible to darker promises. He turned outward—to the very foundations of the Imperium we had built.
He presented his vision not as a personal revelation, but as unvarnished truth. He exposed the Emperor's supposed betrayal to the human nobility who ruled star systems. To the Fabricator-Generals of the Mechanicum who commanded Forge Worlds.
To the nobility—tired of distant Terra's bureaucracy, its tithes, its puritanical Imperial Truth stamping out their customs—Horus offered liberation. He validated their resentments, painting them as victims of the Emperor's cold, centralizing tyranny. He promised them autonomy under his new order.
He showed them the vision of the "Second Imperium" and said:
"He didn't trust you. He didn't trust us. He seeks to replace you with puppets. Join me, and we will cast down his hidden throne and build an Imperium where your power is respected—not eroded."
Half a galaxy of Lords and Ladies, Counts and Dukes, chafing under Imperial rule, saw an opportunity. A validation of their fears. They flocked to his banner. Their personal fleets. Their household guards. Their planetary defense forces—all pledged allegiance, based on a lie.
To the Mechanicum—fractured between tradition and innovation, between Mars and the forbidden—Horus offered knowledge. He painted the Emperor as a suppressor of truth. A thief of technology. A hoarder of secrets meant to fuel his private empire.
He showed them the 'Second Imperium,' its advanced, hidden tech, and declared:
"He denies you this. He denies the Omnissiah's true potential. Join me, and the secrets of the universe will be yours. We will unlock forbidden lore, reclaim lost technologies, and exalt the Machine God—not just on Mars, but across a liberated galaxy."
Fabricator-Generals. Archmagi obsessed with power. Those resentful of Terra's constraints. They saw the promise of revelation. Of dominion. Their Titan Legions. Their Skitarii armies. Their starships—they turned with terrifying speed.
It wasn't just the Legions splitting.
It was the entire edifice cracking down the middle.
Planets declared independence from Terra and loyalty to Lupercal. Trade routes vanished into hostile space. Astropathic choirs flickered out as their masters turned traitor. The galaxy didn't erupt into war—it fractured from within. Along lines of ancient resentment. Fueled by the most sophisticated, targeted lie ever conceived.
And the irony? The gut-wrenching punchline of the Great Joke?
All of it—the rivers of blood. The burning worlds. The brother killing brother. The father abandoning son—all of it was based on a vision of betrayal that was itself a betrayal.
The Emperor hadn't built a second Imperium. He hadn't planned to discard us. He was simply striving to protect humanity—from the very forces that had just orchestrated this cosmic prank.
I stand on this ruin. The sky above a sickly green where it should be black. And I hear the faint, distant sound of fighting—the continuation of the punchline.
Horus, our Warmaster, is leading his righteous crusade, built on a fabrication.
The nobility fight for power they think they're reclaiming. The Mechanicum tear reality apart for knowledge they believe was denied. The Legions, our brothers, march with certainty toward damnation.
All of them devout. All of them certain. All of them utterly, tragically wrong.
And somewhere—in the impossible spaces of the Warp perhaps, or simply in the cruel fabric of existence itself—I imagine the Architect of the Joke is laughing.
Laughing at Horus, the divine fool.
Laughing at the Emperor, whose silence became the canvas for the ultimate lie.
Laughing at humanity—so easily turned against itself by a whispered falsehood.
The war ignites. The web snaps. Half the galaxy turns.
And it all began because a single, perfect nightmare was shown to the wrong man, at the right time, by powers who value irony above all else.
May the Emperor forgive us.
Though I suspect, after this, forgiveness is another joke lost to the void.