The Horus Heresy: The Iron Hands & The Keys of Hel (Warhammer 40K & Horus Heresy Lore)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
- Being a record of the psychological trauma inflicted upon the Iron Hands following the loss of their primarch, and their utilization of the heretical technologies of the Keys of Hel.
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Music: Missa Sicut lilium inter spinas by the Tudor Consort
This video is a non-profit fan-made lore discussion. Games Workshop, Forge World, Warhammer 40,000, Warhammer, Space Marine etc are all trademarks of Games Workshop Ltd. Games Workshop does not endorse or support fan-made "lore" videos. All views and opinions expressed in this video belong to Oculus Imperia and in no way reflect the views or opinions of Games Workshop Ltd or it's employees.
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Flesh is weak, but Trauma Is Very Strong!
Well there's your problem, the mind is fleshy
"tHe BrAiN gOeS fLlOpPy-FlLoPpY!"
I see what you did there
Emotional damage!
@@Wwllww123 no, no… the Mind is strong; the Brain Is Fleshy
Gather 'round, children. The Oculus has something to say...
Praise the Omnissah
Ave Imperator. Gloria, in excelsus Terra
Never considered the difficulty an Astartes could have trying to process grief and how alien that whole experience would be. A new perspective. Cheers and well done Historitor.
It’s even worse than that really. The 10th is the worst possible legion for this to have happened too. The only other time anything even close to this happened was the cognitive dissonance that the oculus described happening to the dark angels with their massive superiority complex.
The hawk boy died, and his legion just turned the wound into rage and kept fighting.
Rogal died and his Legion just kept following his example.
The salamanders actually keep their connections to their mortal family, and are the most empathetic legion by far. Psychologically speaking the disappearance of their Primark barely affected them at all.
@@Aschwartz14 Yep. The Iron Hands can't even maintain healthy relationships with their fellow Iron Hands. Their Legion wasn't decimated by the Isstvan massacre, like the Salamanders or Raven Guard. It was shattered into a million pieces. There were plenty of Iron Hands left over, comparatively. But they had no ability to work together.
So, in their isolation and grief, and having no tools with which to process their emotions save that of the technician, they go to the darkest of places. Humans, even transhumans, were never meant to be alone. Least of all in times of such staggering trauma and emotion.
Yeah I mean let’s do a role call:
1-4 already discussed or they are chaos
V: wow that sucks. I’m gonna go on a killing spree on my motorcycle in his honor.
VI: Lets all go get drunk and tell tales of the wolf king!
VII: just keep serving, just keep serving ONLY IN DEATH DOES DUTY END!
IX: points at tyranid. HEY LOOK ITS HORUS!! FUCKING KILL HIM!!!
XIII: well, our dad was smart enough to write it all in a book. So as long as we keep following the book we know he’ll be proud of us.
XVII: you guys severed all of your emotional tethers except the ones in your legion that sounds terrible! I’ve got emotional stability for days.
XIX: go insane? That’s cringe! Nah we’ll just do what the imperial fists are doing, but getting progressively more and more emo about it.
XX : what do you mean Alpharius is dead? I AM ALPHARIUS! and I’m right here!
@@Aschwartz14 It's chaos but...
VIII: He died? Good riddance now we can murderhobo across the galaxy under my elighte... Wait, the assassin took the relics I was going to use to gain power? FUCKING GET HER!
@@Aschwartz14 Also, the XVII are the Word Bearers which makes "I've got emotional stability for days." hilarious.
I’ll be honest: when Oculus was almost done describing the Keys of Hel themselves, one of the lights in my room went out and I damn near shat myself. Thanks, Occy, now I won’t sleep tonight.
The Iron Hands are a Legion who suffering is never ending, and the shame that they failed their Primarch continues to haunt them to very day. Though they are a Legion or Chapter that knows what it truly takes to destroy an enemy, and they will break and change their very bodies to bring true victories against anything that stand in their way.
Also a pity that the Iron Fathers had the only possible heir to Ferrus Manus murdered before the Heresy was even over, guaranteeing their own power and that the Tenth would fade into irrelevance.
"You are weeeeeeeak, Vulcan..."
"Shut up, tiny ghost Ferrus!"
I love that you’re talking about the psychological aspect of the astartes, and just how different they are from baseline humanity. Well done.
Ah!
25:26 "...a ghola-thing..."
BLESSED BE THE MAKER, AND HIS WATER!
Bless his Coming and his Going.
Shuffle and random steps to keep the Great Ones away
Ayyye
The Xth legion need more love, inside the lore and outside it.
Indeed. A unique unit or Dreadnought Character would be my suggestion
@@jackmyers8687 *[CLEARS THROAT]*
Iron Father Malkaan Feirros is a good start
@@citrusorange794 The Prime Anus? Wouldn't sully my army
@@venerablebrothergoriate5844 A fair point brother. My apologies
Finally, some crumbs of the Tenth content.
Recently released Iron Hands lore cache located. Proceed to enjoy with maximum contemplation of the duality of man and machine. Thank you honoured Historitor [Oculus Imperia]
Headless Manus charges into battle once more!
Enemy snipers: *visible confusion*
This is in no way a condemnation or discounting of your recent videos, so please don’t take it as such- I just have to say that this is the best one you’ve given us in a long time. The Iron 10th are a Legion that I’ve never had too much enthusiasm about, and never, as much as I wanted to, could find any common ground with. This video, however, really affected me in a way that was unexpected. Absolutely enthralling, and I found that the end came far too soon. If I were the type to wear a hat, I’d say my hat’s off to you, but instead I’ll just say thank you. That was really something.
What do men do when times try their very being?
Their hearts become Engines. Their hands become Iron. And they stand against.
For the Gorgon!
Somewhere, at some long forgotten tomb, the necron are penning up a cease and desist order for the Iron Hands...
And in very a Necron fashion, it will take them probably aeons to see it done. perhaps long enough for the chapter to be made up completely out of machines themselves and they can have a near infinite scrapcode based copyright courtcase about it.
You're one of the few channels I actually got the freaking bell activated because knowing that you uploaded another entry to your library
will brighten up even a freshly started monday, whether or not I can watch it right away.
This is one of the greatest episodes you have done. Your work and creativity in coming up with the things that had been in the Imperium is phenomenal. I remember you talking about how machine spirits may actually be the mutilated remains of digital human psyches from the Golden Age. Broken marines goaded on by millenia old ghosts to unleash the walking dead is a heck of a horror story.
I like this take on them from the standpoint of psychology. The lore is full of astartes being smug and superior but from the human standpoint they are children who were psychologically tortured and had their humanity taken from them. Well done B.S.K!
I've always thought about that. How no one has ever called them out on that fact. Shitting on Imperial guard dudes while essentially being brainwashed child super mutants.
Got out of work early on a Friday to find this posted what a great start to the weekend
Another great testament to the man emperor of mankind and his infinite.....apathy? Melancholy? Indifference!!!
Sounds like someone found a biotransfurance furnace. Fun stuff!
Ghola? I didn't even know that the 40k verse had that term. Wow. Absolutely stunning revelation if that's actually what the Keys of Hel do. Can't wait for Ghola Ferrus Manus.
The irony of ironies (no pun intended) is that in the act of trying to excise weakness from himself and his legion, Manus bred within them all a new one: a lack of empathy and compassion toward others and oneself. How might things have gone differently if, instead of charging in recklessly, Manus had instead tried to empathize and reason with Fulgrim or if he had been willing to acknowledge and act on the emotional difficulties of fighting his brother that would ultimately cost him his life? How differently things might have gone if the Iron Hands could instead treat each other with compassion, raising each other up instead of tearing each other down at the slightest hint of 'weakness'? Would they, much like their brothers of the 9th, developed coping mechanisms to deal with the madness and trauma that would come to consume them? We will never know. Nevertheless, let the tragedy of the 10th be a reminder that sometimes the fear of 'weakness' is a far greater danger than any other flaw.
Well fucking said
What a great subject matter to explore. Thank you for hooking me into this saga.
Majorkill was so, so right. Your channel is amazing, the telling of 40k lore from your in-realm character perspective is awesome, and I just can't get enough of the in-character jokes.
I wonder what the "Keys of Hel 🗝" symbol looks like. There has be to one. "Where the door should be, in their stead a large block of black iron. No signs or symbols anywhere to tell what could be behind but for the image of a set of keys stamped into the iron itself."
So, robo zombies from hel. That's pretty much a normal day in 40k
My house had a power outage just as Oculus was finished describing what the Keys of Hel were…. I almost pissed my pants.
I hope you realize how much joy it brings me when I see a notification for one of your videos pop up. this stuff is a drug, and there is no true substitute for the quality you bring to the table.
This is what makes the Iron Hands compelling to me. Their obsession with cybernetic ascension and cold calculation belies a very human trait: they are frail, sobbing children, maladapted to existence by a cruel upbringing, and haunted by a sorrow they cannot healthily process. They cut away flesh and humanity, because they cannot stand the pain of being human.
But no matter how cybernetic they become, nor how stoic they pretend to be, they are fundamentally human still. Burdened by hate and loss and trauma that is at the core of their being, that no quantity of metal can excise.
Is it any wonder, then, that even in death and grisly reanimation, their hate remains? "Hatred outlives the hateful". They carry the agony of unprocessed grief even beyond the grave, no matter that flesh, friendship, and even life is cut away.
It is their phantom pain.
(If I ever were to build an Iron Hands army, I'd like to run them as a successor that heavily uses such reanimated soldiers. Even if it's just fluff. A chapter of revenants, shells of cold flesh and steel stretched over hollowed out, agonized souls. Or what remains of them, anyway. Mechanical undead and their tortured techno-necromancers. Like the Imperium's own Necrons.)
The Iron Hands rarely ever get the love they deserve in many Horus Heresy books which is a shame because they are one of the most underrated legions out there. They were the first loyal legion to fight traitors, their actions on
Istvaan V although rash, provided the loyalists with a means of escape and to continue fighting, Ferrus was the first to lay a blow against a traitor primarch and the first primarch to be sacrificed in what would be a very new kind of war the Imperium was going to have to fight. Unfortunately with stories about characters like Meduson they never gave him a proper series with a good death, they had him die as a prisoner instead of in glory and everytime they depict an iron hand or Ferrus Manus it's to be like "ha! Look how crazy these losers are!" and I hate that way they are depicted because the good depictions of them are a lot better than the slap stick versions portrayed and the Keys of Hel illustrate that perfectly.
These were sons that truly loved their father and believed in him. In everything they did they were like "how can i be as strong as Ferrus Manus?" even though they could never be as strong as their father, they had that mentality to try where as many other legions saw themselves as humble lessers to their fathers. The Iron Hands are as much a legion of emotion as the Blood Angels are but where as the Blood Angels display their emotions, the Iron Hands force their emotions deeper and deeper, covering it in layer after lay of iron will and logic until that emotion comes out and usually as anger. The Keys of Hel are an expression of that. They lost their father and not knowing how to process grief and loss, they did what so many people do in real life; they alienated their friends, they found a way to blame themselves where there was no blame and then in that grief they punished themselves for their weakness with the Keys of Hel. They got what they wished for, they no longer felt anything, each time the Keys of Hel brought them back, a little more was taken from them and in their own way they were right. These new, truest dream come true for the Iron Hands was a menace for the traitors. They were harder to kill, they were much stronger than they were in life, they were in unison with every action they did without having to utter a word and if the traitors killed 80 one day, they would face the same 80 the next
This Halloween episode is damned good, but it's three months early!
Amazing entry! As a 30k IH player, with an army based around concept of Keys of Hel, I absolutely love this episode. A lot of people think IH are boring legion, not knowing this part of their lore. Bravo for showing them they otherwise!
Tbh the iron hands are one of my favourite legions/ chapters. Never known why I haven't started them yet 😂
Another Oculus Imperia video? This is surely a blessing of the Pantheon and the True Gods! Hail Chaos!
*Lifts Heavy Flamer* 👀
HERETIC!
@@PelagiustheGrey INFIDEL!
When there's no more room in Hel, the Revenants will walk the galaxy.
I absolutely love your videos. Telling the history of the setting while in character as what would be a historian in that world's setting is both a simple and brilliant decision. Sadly, my heart is currently broken over what's happened with GW's policy on fan work and I simply cannot bring myself to continue immersing myself in 40k lore. I hope that I'm a minority in this respect and that your channel continues to do well, as none of this is anything you have done. Thanks for the fun videos, cheers and take care.
Iron Hands content?? HECK YES
More fantastic work, we are truly blessed!
What an amazing video.
All I can say is, Thank you. Thanks for all the work you put in your vids. They are informative and enjoyable. Hope that things keep getting better for you.
Ave Imperator,
Gloria in excelsis Terra.
One of the coolest videos on the iron hands I’ve ever seen! I was looking for an excuse to get into them on the table top and I think I’ve found it
Another amazing upload from my favourite Warhammer lore channel
So occulus any worries about the gw crack down on 40k fan animated stuff
Just another company that hates its fans. Well. I won't be buying their products again.
I was curious myself
Excellent handling of the subject, without saying too much.
Absolutely fantastic video as always!!! I have a request though, could you please please PLEASE finish up the legiones Astartes by doing an origins and tactics video each for the Ultramarines, Word Bearers, Space Wolves and Thousand Sons
I get the impression that he got kinda burnt out or something. But yeah, I'd looooove to have the full collection!
Another entry by Scribe
into the parchment mountains and info stacks in deepest Terra.
".... and he had failed to live". Love that line
I really hope you'll do a Video about the Shattered Legions and Blackshields one day. But since that's still pretty far away from possibility, i'll just wait for the Space Wolves or Thousand Sons or Ultramarines or Word Bearers lore for now.
As ever, Historator Magnus, your efforts are unparalleled. Sit scientia et Oculus Imperia in aeternum vive...
They had walked into the mouth of Hell, and not only had they returned, but they had left Hell shattered in their passage.
This is one of your finer works good Sir. Ave imperator!
Thank you kindly!
Great episode! The Iron Tenth were a strange legion even before the horrors of Isstvan V were visited upon then.
Talking of which, has anyone else wondered what Autek Mor retrieved from the tech-vaults of Bodt?
Always great. Thanks Oculus!
I'd pay GW all my savings for Ferrus Manus to return with a full necrodermis body
Iron Hands becomes Iron Man. And probably despises what he's become! Perfect for the Iron Hands
Omg! This is so well told. Thank you so much for brining all the pieces together in such a cohesive presentation.
I've been in a year long quagmire to make a campaign for my Gladius Iron Hands mod and this video is full of inspiration that will help me finished my project at last.
Glad it was helpful, especially on the hobbyist modding front!
I was just going to go for a bike ride. This will be the perfect accompaniment.
wasnt there a Iron hands short story/novel were two humans/mechanicus priest basically said "yes, they suffer serious psychological selfharming syndrom, but dont tell if you want to life"?
Another fine record, good Chronicler. May the dead stay dead, but remembered well. Ave Imperitor...
this i my most favorite Warhammer 40k Lore and Video
I find the phrase Keys to Hel fascinating as it plays into the mystery of death by changing meaning based on whether Hel or He’ll is used.
Praise be the Omnisiah! He has blessed us with a Vox Cast video. The machine spirits are kind.
Just rewatched iron hands origins before this. Excellent! Please more Legiones Astartes vids!
**BLARG**
- Uh, brother Tungstine?
**BLARG**
- Yes, initiate Spaulding?
*BLARG-BLARG-BLARG*
- I can't help but notice that down in the hold is a large pit filled with undead Astarties of the Iron Hand.
- Oh. Let me turn this down... There... Sorry couldn't hear you very well over the wails of the damned. Now, You are concerned about...?
- The undead astarties in the hold.
- Ah. THEM. Well, you see we used the Keys of Hel... however... well... we forgot to get the latest patch. We spoke with the greatest Mechanicus, Todd Howard (praise be upon him) He said the solution to upgrading our undead brothers is something called... a microtransaction. Might take a while, but if we just keep at it, sooner or later they'll all be fixed.
Any yet through all this! The Iron Hands are bouncing Back! The Iron Crusades is showing the other Chapters that the Iron Hands are no longer mourning their primarch. They have moved on from that, now they only have rage and hate for their enemies, and are learning that not every Human is weak and worthless as once thought. The Mordian Iron guard has earned the respect of the Chapter, and now they have retaken a system that doomed by Eldar Farseers. Thus the Warp bends the knee to Iron. Remember brothers of the Iron 10th. “Though Steel makes us strong, without Souls we are nothing!” Remember the words of the Greatest of our Iron Fathers Kardan Stronos.
Very nice to see some iron hands lore :)
“Half the fun of Mad Science is when it all goes horribly wrong!” - Dr. Geist.
Iron hand acolyte: Ok, I’ll get the A.I., quantum brain computer fusion power package please!
“What are the Keys of Hel?”
“They are the fire taken from the mountain. They are what cannot and must not be. Only in the last days of civilization, when law has no meaning, should any think to break the locks placed upon them. These are those days.”
“What are the Keys of Hel? They are the reward for our weakness. They are the cruelty of Iron. They are all we have left.”
Always good to see another upload
Based my home brew chapter on the iron hands , I love these guys. Good vid bro
Excellent video!!!!
Big fan, keep up the good work and great content!
Greatest lore voice
As always, stupendous!
I might think that, in the Sons of Medusa Chapter, formed by a Schism with the Iron Hands due to a tiring of the Tenth's cruelty...perhaps in their ranks dwell the Sons of Manus that have...healed. To a degree. And have let go of their hate. They've stopped running from the past and its pain. And only look to the future and the protection of The Imperium.
That is what Manus would want, I think.
Truly a excellent video. Thank you
Another excellent video oculus
Very nice video indeed. I am thankful that the currents of TH-cam‘s algorithms brought me here.
The video has me wondering how the Iron Hands have avoided the special attention of Khorne all these years.
No souls.
They do have souls the Blood Angels are just hotter
@@iansaviet600 Not enough blood, too much oil.
The Oculus hath returned!
The Keys of Hel
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Brought to you by the Omni Consumer Products corporation.
Right when I'm summoning (building) black knights, nice
Hey, you stole my pfp. Not cool bro.
@@whythelongface64 but...I am alpharius
@@aarondelgado1996 Well, so am I
@@whythelongface64....... hyrda dominatus
I am Alpharius.
For the holy algorithm!
The flesh is weak
Be quiet brain ghost Ferrus!
But deeds endure.
This was Sooooooo Gooooood.
Damn.. That was great
10/10 video.
I love my BloodAngels and White Scars but the Iron Hands are one of my favorites to play in 40K Deathwatch if I am not playing a Librarian. They can become so good as tech Marines
I must scream, but I am iron within....
I must scream, but I am iron without....
I am Iron, and I must scream....
I am iron, and I must scream...
*HEAVY BOLTER CHUNKING AWAY AT INNOCENT GUARDSMEN IN DEAFENING SILENCE A SINGLE WHISPERING BINARIC CANT.*
...and I must scream...
The flesh is weak. But deeds endure
Such debased technology appears to still be in employment be the modern day chapter, at least during the kristosian conclave. Guarding the eye of medusa, home to the council chambers of the iron fathers, are the unnerving sentinels known as Helfathers. Their black terminator armor devoid of any personal or clan markings, and they are incredibly heavily armed, far beyond the already prodigious carry capacity that normal terminator plate allows for. Most unnervingly, the psykers of the chapter can not percieve the souls of these silent guardians, either so encased in iron that it is too dim, or annihilated in the process of becoming a helfather.
Damm this channel Is so good ave brother
So this is how they will revive manus. He shall literally become iron. A wrathful and rage filled machine, with only faint memories of who he once was. A man who never wished to become the man he is now, who despises it, but has no choice in a galaxy that is burning around him.
Nothing could be more grimdark.
That's fo fucking IH. I realy hope to see it in my lifetime .
@@Marc-hm6bz if black library and gw remember manus even exists. but it would work really well I think.
also imagine if his metal hands and his skull are the only true bits of his boy left. the same hands metal hands wished to be rid of after the end of the crusade, and a skull devoid of all flesh.
@@notknightbean true. Sadly, they won't.
What a glorious day!
Ghola, huh? I recognize that term. It's too bad Warner Bros is treating Dune the same as Games Workshop is with Warhammer. Grimdark corporatism coming for my favorite IPs. Keep up the good work Oculus, and Emperor bless.
Never quite been this early
I’ve always wondered how the Tenth would react if given (by some means) a Fabius Clone of Ferrus Manus. They were purposefully pure and complete, absent necrodermis hands.
Had it been the Tenth at their time as a legion, they would have rejoiced and taken the offer, ten thousand years later however i believe they are too saturated in their hate that though the clone would bear their primarch's visage and personality. it would clash with their need to augment themselves and reforge themselves in hatred. with a purity only the machine provides. during his life, the original Ferrus sought to stop that from happening before it could manifest in the first place, the tenth turned their motto onto themselves. "i am human and therefore insuffcient"
Oculus May the Primordial Annihilator immolate your living Soul
Does that mean you're going to report him to GW's new content police?
First the Hereticus, then the Mechanicus and the Iron Hands. Just building up that list of organizations out to get you.🤣
... Man, I have a newfound sense of pity and horror towards the Iron Hands, especially considering that Astartes are typically taken as early adolescents and children, and thus most probably are little better when it comes emotional maturity and resilience to trauma. Even moreso when you consider that a Techpriest in the 41K time frame actually describes the Iron Hands' obsession with self-cyberization as PATHOLOGICAL and a desecration of the Emperor's own "holy" design, musing that this such self-hatred can only be the result of a massive psychological trauma.
27:38 The quote actually says "ideals".
28:32 Uh, you meant "fate" instead of "faith", right?