Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-2253300-20130211000751/@comment-6078851-20130211041525

i too would like to know more about the average people of the imperium.

from what i can tell the general populace don't know a thing about chaos unless they have contact with it,and anyone who does and is known to be a chaos follower are obviously wiped out and any witnesses are also "taken care of".

as for the horus heresy, again i don't think anyone knows anything about it for the exact references you give - traitor primarchs and the fact it was led by the 2nd highest position in the imperium, horus. i think if average people knew this it would completely undermine the position of the space marines and the awe they're held in. if the people know that the emperor created the primarchs (not sure if they do or not), then knowing that they could be corrupted would surely have people questioning the emperors divinity, thus affecting his power in the warp, and maybe whole swathes of human planets might start to worship the chaos gods, and knowing that they could corrupt the uncorruptable may imbue people with the thought that the chaos gods are more worthy to worship?

this is just my take on what little i know of the average citizen.