A slightly smaller Mess

Tyren: "He served the emperor, but his methods were his own."

"No. He Did his duty the most practical way possible. He dirtied his hands for the sake of what he would build once it was done. Because father told him to. Because duty comes before what he wanted. But you... you so called 'brothers' of him. You only saw the dirt on his hands, when he plunged his hands into the filth for the sake of the betterment of mankind. Not the man beneath the dirt. The man who wanted only to make a better galaxy for us all. Until your spite, your hatred for the methods he used for his father's sake, mean that there was no man underneath left. your precious vulkan. He and his brothers killed the man beneath the filth."

"Practical? He spent men like water. He used innocent civilians as mine sweepers. Men killed themselves rather than be assigned to his command. That is not practicality, that is madness."

"Pragmatism. Pure and simple pragmatism. Oh but you don't beleive me? Ask your precious fucking lyanna. She was there when your primarch and his brothers drove him into what he became. Drove us from your imperium. Did you never stop and think? Of course not. You just thought, hell still think, he's just a 'madman'. Nice and simple that way isn't it? Don't have to actually think about things. Cause you and my mother are living fucking proof, that it's always that fucking simple."

Tyren: *tyren's hand curls into a fist.* "Stop. Stop saying these things. Lyanna is better than that."

Diana: Better than what? To believe in a man who the imperium's ignorance turned into something you call a monster?

Tyren: "....If i could. I would end that vile traitor with my own two hands."

Diana: I'm not saying you shouldn't think that...*sighs* I'm saying he wasn't always like that. And people like your gene father killed the man he once was.

Tyren: "What happened to him, he did to himself."

Diana: 'I had dreams once, brother. No one ever asked me.'

Tyren: "You think his actions could be forgiven? Vulkan made the right choice."

Diana: are you...kidding me? *sighs* of course not... You haven't met him. His mind it... doesn't work like yours or mine. I've seen him now, and him then. Emotion didn't come naturally to him. He tried, but he couldn't handle it, couldn't understand it. He wasn't...wired like you or me. Valued pragmatism and practicality, even at the cost of lives. War always ends lives anyway. And the one thing you all, always like to overlook, is the fact that perturabo, vulkan, all of them. They were 'wired' by a person. A person who remains blameless when that causes problems later.

Tyren: "He had a choice. We all have a choice."

Diana: the choice of what? to obay his father? to follow the way his mind worked? a mind his father literally designed?!

Tyren: "To value life, or to not."

Diana:.... he did.

"He chose wrong."

Diana: tyren... i'm sorry for that... I know you might not beleive me but... allow me the chance to explain? please?

Tyren: "..." *he unclenches his fist, and sighs* "Go on."

Diana:...*sighs* before you ask how I know...Perturabo created... things, in his spare time. For the sheer beauty of it. One example is a clockwork phoenix, with an AI he programmed. Lyanna had it in her posession for a while, kept some recordings from its memory banks. I watched them.

"Yes... and?"

Diana:...no one knew him. Not really.

"Diana. I do not care about the man's secret doubts. He could have spent every waking moment sobbing over his actions for all i care. But he did what he did. And what he did was irredeemable."

Diana: let me...finish. He beleived in the golden civilisation that would come with the imperium's final victory. And he lived for the day he would become it's architect. It was what his father had promised him. But first, came duty. The duty of winning that victory. He saw what his father wanted him and his men to be. And he did it in the most practical way possible. His father wanted him to be calculating, cold, and ruthless in war. Every legion, every primarch had a purpose. He knew what he was doing was wrong, but it was his duty. That mattered more than anything he wanted. It was only when he realised that all the things he had done could not be justified, that his dreams were all a lie... that was when he finally made a choice that was his own. And he turned. By then, the ignorance of his brothers, who had not seen the path he walked as anything more than an unfeeling madman, and his father who set him on that path in the first place, he was 'unforgivable' and 'unsavable' as you would put it.

Tyren: "He walked the same path through the crusade all the legions did. Planet after planet, forging on alone. The only exception is the word barers. He did what he did out of choice."

"Because he thought it would bring about the golden age quickly and efficiently. That the civilisation to come later would wash the dirt from his hands. Was he wrong? Yes. But the only person who couldve made him see before it was too late, did nothing. Let it continue."

Tyren: "Do i blame the emperor for the blood on my hands? Do i blame vulkan? No. No i do not. My actions are my own. It is simply denial and weakness to say otherwise."

"you...idealistic fool...just because your legion is 'better' means everyone must take the blame for not meeting your standards, is that it?"

Tyren: "My legion was once one of the worst. Have you ever heard stories of them?"

"Ive heard. Just cause you got better, everone else is just lesser to you. Morally evil no matter the true complexities."

Tyren: "It proves that redemption is not impossible."

"For you. Is it for him?"

"It was once. But redemption is impossible for a daemon."

"... you know he hates calling people like you 'loyalist'."

"What does he call us? Blind? Sheep? i have heard them all."

"The enemy. The terms loyalist and heretic are irrelivent to him. He stayed loyal to his legion and ideals. You stayed loyal to your emperor. To him, we are both loyalists."

"He sold his soul to chaos. He turned his back on humanity herself."

"No.No god rules him. He just uses any weapon or tool at his disposal."

"Chaos is not a weapon to be wielded."

"To you."

"Chaos will always corrupt. That is what chaos is."

"Maybe."

"I have fought chaos my entire life. Seen brother turned heretic time and again. Chaos is never a tool, men are the tools of the gods."

Diana: this is different. Perturabo, and those loyal to him, do not worship the gods of chaos.

"And yet he is a deamon prince."

Diana: A reward for the iron cage. They....We, find even basic worship of the undivided powers distateful. When an iron warriors astartes finds his body has at all mutated, he sees it as his flesh having failed him, and will remove it, often with fire, replacing it with a mechanical replacement.

"A human can be purged of the influence of chaos. A daemon cannot be. For a daemon is chaos in its simplest form."

Diana: He gave up on redemption long ago.

"And thus i oppose him. Death would be a kindness to one like him."

Diana: and those of us who believe in him? Who like him feel failed, abandoned and exiled by your tyrant of an emperor?

Tyren: *he looks down at her, then breaks eye contact, looking at the contemptor that was his shell, a hint of sadness in his voice* "The willing followers of a daemon are as damned as he." *he says the line as if it is a quote*