Board Thread:Warhammer 40k General Discussion/@comment-69.142.168.238-20140724005240/@comment-6078851-20140725130719

i think it may have been that emps didn't truly believe what he'd heard horus had done. even when he saw sanguinius' corpse he didn't actually see horus do it, and then the 'indirect saviour of the imperium' walked in and emps saw first-hand how irredeemable horus was when he killed the marine. at which point emps obliterated every trace of horus' being instantly - ultimately horus wasn't in any way even a fraction of a match for emps.

i think the gods probably knew that horus wasn't a physical or psychic match for emps, but horus was spooked by what looked like imminent imperial reinforcements and he over-reached in thinking he could take out emps 1 on 1.

i'm also of the opinion that horus could have stuck to his plan and won out. but horus was corrupted by manipulating his pride and that very attribute got in the way of an immediate chaos victory: horus, in his pride, wanted to sit upon the throne as ultimate ruler, but if he wanted to simply win then earth could have been physically destroyed via bombardment, god knows horus had the weaponry and the tactical position to do just that. and even if horus was actually beaten by the reinforcements earth would still be destroyed and emps would have been truly dead for the last 10,000 years.