"So after realizing the Imperium was a garbage regime, the warriors who had a soft spot for the Second Legion completely rebelled?
Couldn't you at least consider your own reasons for this?"
Hogg's voice rang through the shuttle. Everyone who heard him looked unhappy, especially the Emperor and Malcador, since they were the two who had actually lived through it.
"I knew the Imperium had problems, but the Great Crusade was the priority at the time. As long as the Great Crusade could continue, I could complete my Webway Project, and everything would be all right.
The window of opportunity was so short. A plan that was supposed to take ten thousand years had been condensed into nearly a thousand, and then I was expected to accomplish it within a century. I simply didn't have the time to govern all those planets."
The Emperor wasn't wrong. The Great Crusade had been launched in haste, and if Hogg hadn't replaced the Webway with Star Gates and made up for the lack of communications with the Khala Network, the Imperium might already have been done for.
Even so, after hearing the Emperor's explanation, Hogg still felt a wave of frustration.
"So there was no outside invasion at all. It was entirely a human civil war. Roland did too good a job—so good that everyone thought the Imperium was the heretic, and that's what ultimately sparked the rebellion?"
"Yes!"
The Emperor admitted it without hesitation, but still tried to argue his case.
"Every Primarch had their own duty. From the moment Roland was born, I had decided he would be the Imperial Warmaster, leading the Legions forward. He was the person I thought least likely to be corrupted by Chaos, and you should have been the purest of them all.
"But the truth