HH3节译：空洞冠冕

The Hollow Crown

More so than many of those who turned traitor and sided with Horus, the motivations and path of damnation pursued by the Iron Warriors remains perhaps the most unknown and uncertain, save perhaps that of the history of the Alpha Legion around who little but lies circle. Once faultlessly loyal, they did not bend but seemed to outsiders instead to suddenly and inexplicably shatter in their allegiance. Many who view the matter with enough dispassion see, rightly or wrongly, a Legion eroded by too much horror, too much attrition and death in the service of a cause to which they went unheralded and unthanked. They see a Primarch and his sons who were slowly laid low with suspicion, malcontent and a growing madness. But there remains scant evidence of wholesale corruption of the body or the insidious hand of the Ruinous Powers at work among them, let alone any actual traffic with dark forces before the cataclysm of galactic civil war engulfed the Imperium. For others the answer is more simply that there grew in the Legion a savage, jealous arrogance born of nothing more than base bloodlust and malcontent which led the Iron Warriors down the path to their ruin.

相比于其他那些站在荷鲁斯派系并背叛了帝国的势力，或许除了阿尔法军团那遍布谎言的历史之外，钢铁勇士军团的叛变动机和通往毁灭的道路可能是最不为人知也最令人不确定的。他们曾是完美的忠诚军团，而且他们并非是屈服，在外人看来，钢铁勇士们的忠诚似乎是突然且莫名其妙得粉碎了。无论对错，许多能以足够冷静的态度看待此事的人所看到的都是：一个军团被太多的恐惧、消耗和死亡所侵蚀着，他们为一项事业服务却得不到感谢，也不会被提及。他们看到一位原体及其子嗣们被怀疑、不满和越来越疯狂的情绪慢慢击倒。不过，也很少有证据能证明钢铁勇士军团中存在大规模生理腐化，或者毁灭大能在他们当中动了阴险的手脚，更遑论他们在吞噬帝国的灾难般银河内战爆发前与黑暗力量有过任何实际往来。对其他人而言答案则更为简单：钢铁勇士军团中滋长出了一种野蛮且嫉妒的傲慢情绪，这种情绪诞生自卑劣的嗜血性格和不满心态，导致第四军团走上了毁灭之路。

There have been some who have contended that the Iron Warriors' fatal flaw was instead a lack of faith at a fundamental level; that they did not truly believe in the cause of the Great Crusade or the Emperor that they served, or that they themselves were anything more than machines built to kill. It might then be viewed that ultimately they were undone by the very pragmatism and logic that had made them such ruthless and effective soldiers, but left them ill-equipped to fight an enemy as existential as doubt and moral terror. If this is true then for Perturabo, his Primarch's mantle became nothing but a licence for slaughter without a higher purpose; his conquests empty and victories hollow. It has been further contended that this was what ultimately deranged and destroyed them from within, leaving nothing but empty vessels to be filled with the uncaring savagery and the mirror of the horrors they had borne.

某些人认为钢铁勇士的致命缺陷是缺乏根本层面上的信念;他们并不真正相信大远征（所造就）的伟业，不相信他们所侍奉的帝皇，也不相信自己只不过是用来进行杀戮的机器。总的来看，毁灭他们的正是将之造就为如此无情且高效的战士的极端实用主义（精神）和逻辑——这种思维模式让他们在对抗怀疑和道德恐惧这般关于存在主义的敌人时缺乏（精神上的）装备。倘若这就是真实情况，那么对佩图拉博而言，他身为原体的职责就是一张没有任何崇高目标的屠杀许可状；他的征服和胜利都是一场空。有人进一步认为这就是最终使他们精神错乱并从内部发生（自我）毁灭的原因，这种状况另钢铁勇士们成为了装满冷漠野蛮的空壳，变为了他们所承受着的恐怖情绪的镜像。