The Long War
The Long War is a term used by the Chaos Space Marines to refer to their subsequent struggle to topple the Imperium and complete the work begun by Warmaster Horus during the Horus Heresy millennia earlier.
Overview
While the events of Horus' Great Betrayal seem ancient and often simply myths to the Imperium, due to the inconsistent passage of time in the Warp, these memories are still fresh in the minds of some of those Chaos Space Marines who now dwell within the Eye of Terror. The centuries have seen most Legions tear themselves apart in civil fighting, its fellows becoming disparate warlords, mad killers, possessed by Daemons, or the servants of the Ruinous Powers who are more devoted to the Great Game than the struggle against the Emperor's domain. It is in this world of ever-changing delirium and destruction that the Chaos Space Marines who have retained their sanity and kept the influences of the Warp at bay have done so by keeping their sense of purpose by continuing the Long War and attacking the Imperium from the Eye. Indeed, the Long War can be said to be the only thing capable of uniting many of the disparate Warbands of Chaos Space Marines into a cohesive fighting force, most notably in the Black Crusades of Abaddon the Despoiler.[1]
Many Chaos Space Marines consider the Primarchs once loyal to Horus to have given up on The Long War, failing their cause and instead achieving Daemonhood to wage war in the Great Game in the Warp.[2]
Although the Horus Heresy was ten thousand years ago by the measure of time in realspace, those who fled into the Eye of Terror do not all experience time the same. The perception of time is distorted in the Eye, a place where the warp overlaps with reality and plays games with the laws of the physical realm. Some of those traitors in the Eye lived through the Horus Heresy but days ago, or only a few hundred years or a few millennia ago, while others may have experienced Horus' war over fifty thousand years.[3]
See also
Sources
- 1: Codex: Chaos Space Marines (4th Edition), pg. 17
- 2: Blood Reaver (Novel), Chapter XVI, pg. 257
- 3: Void Stalker (Novel), Chapter I
