Perturabo was incredibly cold and distant with people; he preferred to hide alone in a dark room, tinkering with machines and pursuing his dream of building a great civilization, possessing a technical prowess among the Primarchs that surpassed The Eleventh Brother and Gaius.
Perturabo's reclusive nature did not improve during the Great Crusade, because although he himself deeply longed to build the Terra Imperial Palace like Rogal Dorn, creating things that would benefit the common people.
However, the Emperor did not give him this opportunity; the Fourth Legion, due to its resolute, unyielding, and never-retreating style, was used as a meat grinder Legion, constantly filling in battle lines.
Throughout the Great Crusade, Perturabo and his Iron Warriors did the most grueling work, worked the most overtime, took the harshest beatings, and earned the least money. They grew increasingly weary, angry, and despairing of the endless war.
By the end of the Great Crusade, resolve had turned into stubbornness, resilience into numbness. Perturabo and his Legion no longer hoped for praise from their father; he also abandoned his previous visions of a great future, turning instead to resentment towards the Emperor.
If the Emperor was not a good father, making him the primary cause of all this, then the second person responsible was actually Perturabo himself.
He resented his adoptive father and now the Emperor, who only used his engineering talent, which could have benefited all mankind, to create weapons. But in reality, he chose not to create anything other than weapons, because he felt that civilian projects would not be taken seriously.
He was angry about the heavy casualties suffered by his Legion during the Great Crusade, yet he seemed to have never considered any tactics other than large-scale frontal assaults and overwhelming firepower.
Only when seeking sympathy or praise would Perturabo put on a facade of, 'I must sacrifice my poor sons for the Imperium,' but he never truly made any effort to spare his warriors from painful and meaningless deaths.
He never tried to attack the weak points of enemy defenses in the manner of the Seventh Legion, the Imperial Fists, to quickly break the stalemate and achieve victory (in fact, this is how the Imperial Fists got their name: attacking with the seasoned ruthlessness of a boxer).
According to Rogal Dorn, Perturabo simply kept "pounding walls with Soldiers."
In fact, Perturabo's tactical performance in many battles was unreasonably poor; he seemed utterly unwilling to think about how to fight more cleverly, instead numbly trying to win by piling up time and resources, like a worker with no enthusiasm but who must complete his job.
Perturabo greatly admired Da Vinci, spending a lot of time searching for Da Vinci's surviving manuscripts in the ruins of Ancient Terra. He was obsessed with creating an immortal legacy and was constantly at odds with Rogal Dorn because he never got the chance to do so.
The conflict between The Fourth Son and Rogal Dorn was a classic sibling rivalry: Dorn was the good child who often received praise from his father, while Perturabo was the overlooked child constantly ignored by his parents.
Dorn was a respected national leader in civil engineering, while Perturabo was a demolition crew foreman with only a civil engineering heart.
Fulgrim once asked Dorn if he could build a fortress that Perturabo could not breach. The straightforward Rogal Dorn replied in front of The Fourth Son:
"Yes, because I am Rogal Dorn."
During the Hrud campaign, the Fourth Legion suffered continuous heavy defeats. The outstanding Warpsmith Dantius suggested retreating rather than holding impossible positions, but Perturabo strictly forbade it.
Dantius's forces lost half their strength fighting the Hrud, and he himself aged rapidly due to alien sorcery. When he dragged his elderly body before Perturabo, Perturabo merely accused him of being too fragile.
After the war, Dantius questioned some of the Primarch's decisions, and as a result, immediately went from being Perturabo's most valued son to his most disliked, ordered to be permanently stationed on a planet and not to accompany the Legion.
As a result, this actually allowed Dantius to live the life many of his comrades and even Perturabo himself dreamed of: building.
Although Perturabo had all the above shortcomings, it must be admitted that he was indeed an effective bulldozer, completing every task the Emperor assigned him efficiently, even with a hundred reluctant thoughts.
He was not entirely without friends either. Perturabo firmly believed that the process of building friendship should be like steelmaking, requiring multiple trials, and once forged, it would be unbreakable.
Under such strict standards for friendship, he unexpectedly became friends with The Eleventh Brother, Gaius, and The Fifteenth, Magnus, and also earned the respect of Lion ElJonson, who was similarly suspected of having autism and had equally stringent standards for friendship.
And although he never expressed love for his sons, the Iron Warriors still regarded Perturabo as a monster slayer, a tyrant overthrower, a powerful yet distant and strict father figure, like a god. They fought and sacrificed without hesitation, only to meet his demands, hoping that perhaps one day they would receive affirmation from their father.
He complained to everyone who would listen that his brothers always underestimated and unappreciated him, yet he always put on a sour face when other Primarchs showed friendliness. The only one who was willing to listen to him and enjoyed inventing things like him, The Eleventh Brother, was also killed by his father at the hands of that Wolf Cub.
Perturabo and the Fourth Legion never received praise for completing their work. He had endured all of this until, after a grueling siege involving the Iron Warriors, Imperial Fists, and the Ninth Legion Blood Angels, Rogal Dorn received a medal while Perturabo received nothing. To make matters worse, an artist painted a picture to commemorate the war.
In reality, the painting depicted only an Iron Warriors Apothecary giving last rites to another severely wounded Soldier, with an Imperial Fists banner flying behind them. But in Perturabo's eyes, the painting had only one meaning:
"The Imperial Fists stand like heroes while the Iron Warriors kneel in the mud."
Perturabo later bought the painting, took it home, stomped it to pieces, burned it to ashes, and finally flushed it down the toilet. When Dorn went to find the painter to commission another, the painter wisely refused, stating he didn't want to suffer the same fate as the painting.
Many believe this painting was the final straw, but strictly speaking, it should have been the second to last.
The true final straw was Perturabo hearing that an anti-Imperium uprising had broken out in his homeworld of Olympia. Subsequently, at the instigation of a Word Bearers priest sent by Lorgar, he dealt with the situation in a tried and tested manner: he killed everyone.
Perturabo led the Fourth Legion to slaughter his own homeworld. Those Iron Warriors who were unwilling to harm civilians were also purged. When his long-lost sister, Erebus's Sister, pointed out that his terrible personality and unwillingness to listen to others' opinions had led to this uprising against oppression.
He never realized he was a twisted, jealous, self-pitying princess. And when his "foster sister" pointed out these flaws, he choked her to death.
He did shed two tears afterwards, but only two tears. Perturabo realized that the Emperor would never forgive his actions this time. As he pondered what to do, Warmaster Horus suddenly called:
"Don't panic, The Fourth Son, I've got your back. Let's storm Terra and seize Father's throne!"
The Horus Heresy gave Perturabo an outlet for his resentment. He had long hated his glamorous brothers and secretly rejoiced at finally having the chance to dismantle the palace built by Rogal Dorn.
However, things did not go as planned, because the brothers who rebelled with him were also not easy to deal with.
Mortarion, a fool controlled by his son Typhus.
Konrad Curze, an Imperial psychopath.
Fulgrim, a snake demon who almost wanted to self-gratify and only desired lust.
Alpha, someone whose whereabouts are unknown.
Lorgar, a mad prophet who spouted nonsense daily.
Angron, merely a wetware for the Butcher's Nails.
Magnus, a constantly mumbling bookworm.
Horus, an Alzheimer's patient (senile dementia) secretly in love with his father and Sanguinius.
Thus, after Horus's death, Perturabo and his sons hid in the Eye of Terror. He and his Legion seemed indifferent to the Chaos Gods, preferring to use their own methods, vast numbers of colossal, terrifying, and ferocious war machines, to crush the loyalist scum.
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