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All this talk over Perpetuals seems odd to me. I just figured them as essentially ultra-rare warp touched individuals, who much like the laws of physics simply "exist". If I had to guess this either occurs naturally or through some complicated warp trickery that can be hand-waved as "cutting the thread of fate" or some such thing. It seems pretty clear that there is a term limit to this power, just like everything else in 40K, and considering how terrified Grammaticus is of The Cabal I have a feeling they are responsible for his state of life and can undo it whenever they so choose. You have to remember that in the case of demonic entities they are literally immortal, and can only be truly destroyed through psychic powers/warp magic/any other effect that can un-make a soul. Who isn't to say Perpetuals work in exactly the same fashion but on the material plane? This all really fits well into Warhammer 40k, and I don't see how anyone would find it out of place.
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Jul 20, 2014 05:45
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Another point to the Perpetuals in the HH novels is that it allows the (good) authors to discuss The Emperor on human terms from the points of views of people that have lived the same span of time as him. They have made a point of having at least two of them actually meet earlier versions of The Emperor and discuss his evolving personality (especially Ol, who knew him in the distant past when his philosophy in guiding humanity was not yet formed). Abnett and ADB are both working towards a re-imagining of how we perceive The Emperor and his works, and the Perpetuals are necessary for this.
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Jul 21, 2014 03:58
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I liked when Oll Pearson basically admitted he wasn't allowed to go the Emperor's secret clubhouse because he had faith. I like the Perpetuals because despite being a copout mechanic they're still engaging characters (was that eldar-wannabe assassin sent to deal with John a perpetual? I don't remember, but if he was he's the worst).
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Jul 21, 2014 04:37
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Anonymous Zebra posted:Another point to the Perpetuals in the HH novels is that it allows the (good) authors to discuss The Emperor on human terms I'm not sure what the current Perpetuals attitude is, but haven't all of them displayed a "conventional" human perspective and the Emperor seems like an autistic ubermensch?
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Jul 21, 2014 06:09
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pentyne posted:I'm not sure what the current Perpetuals attitude is, but haven't all of them displayed a "conventional" human perspective and the Emperor seems like an autistic ubermensch? The Emperor is really weird to me (or, if you prefer, poorly conceived/written) in that he obviously has a good enough handle on human motivations and such to inspire and launch an empire on crusade, but not enough to realize the large gap between the inspiration that he's capable of doing and the robotic ideological allegiance that is his actual ideal--and it's in that gap that the Heresy takes root. Maybe the Emperor's initial success in uniting a planet was because it was just that, a planet, undoubtedly the birthplace of a major species but still incredibly parochial for all that, especially at the end of an age of isolation. Add to that that the planet was a hellhole and freshly conquered, and following this messianic figure probably seems like a pretty good idea. This advantage and the momentum it generated would have kept the Crusade going for a long way after that, but eventually the broader horizons gave room for alternative thinking and the 'gently caress you dad' mentality to take root. What I'm saying is that maybe the reason why the Emperor thinks he can keep on subduing the more disgruntled Legions (and whoever else) is because that sort of approach worked flawlessly at first and he thought it would continue to scale indefinitely.
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Jul 21, 2014 06:52
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Oll and Gramm are at least two "powerful" beings that you can at least relate to and root for because they have easily to identify motives to their actions. I like to think with what they've revealed its shown that Big E after he became immortal and all powerful lost his grasp in what it takes to lead humanity. Which in turn has blinded him on the exact things that would have enabled him to beat Chaos back into the ether for good. It's the people and the troops who believe in him that give the Imperium stregnth. Gramm realized this and did the only thing he could think of to turn the tide... By using the fulgerite spear to transfer his strength and power to Vulkan in an attempt to save him. Instead of following the Cabal's orders to give it to Curze to kill a natural immortal. I do agree though the Perpetuals are a good tool for good writers. A bad writer could just completely mess them up and break any sort of reliability and motives they've shown and turn another story element into another hot mess that eschews continuity.
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Jul 21, 2014 10:20
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Or maybe the big E lost that ability to connect to humanity when he made the primarches, since they have aspects of him.
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Jul 21, 2014 13:09
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Or maybe the Emperor is just a lovely father who expects his sons to do as they're told. Two of them never wanted to be soldiers and always resented him as a result, and depending on what exactly happened and whose version of the story you believe, Angron and Magnus are just tragic and were doomed from the word go.
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Jul 21, 2014 14:33
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Are we at any place yet where we can at least roughly outline the motivations of the Emperor in making the Imperium? So far this is what I get: He wants to subjugate the Galaxy because he believes its the only way for humanity to survive, then fully integrate the Imperium with the Eldar web-way so they don't need to use the Warp and the Chaos Gods are cut off in some way from the material realm. He then kicks back, puts the primarchs in their Terra Rooms and calls it a day's work / eats everyone's souls. I guess it wouldn't be the Grim-dark if the Emperor wasn't actually on some level a massive dicklord way beyond the level of 'bomb any planet which refuses compliance'.
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Jul 21, 2014 14:38
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I think his dicklordishness doesn't need to be "secretly has evil end game." I think it really can just be an ends justifying the means kinda thing. He'll eradicate the entire galaxy of every non-human race, and subjugate actual humans to his weirdo dictatorship, in order to achieve his relatively noble ends (getting rid of Chaos, getting rid of worship to false gods, etc.). That's pretty dickish.
DirtyRobot fucked around with this message at 14:51 on Jul 21, 2014 |
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Jul 21, 2014 14:49
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I don't really know where yo'ure getting the subjugate part either, beyond a fairly loose set of dictates in regards to setting up an administration for tithes to the war effort and not dealign with aliens, imperial worlds seem to pretty much be allowed to do whatever they wanted, be it techno-utopias or primitive feudal states with chattel slavery. They sent in a bunch of weird atheist missionaries too but it doesnt seem like they had any formal power. I mean the dude can see the future and he thinks the human race is doomed by a certain date unless he intervenes, so yeah he's going to rush things for the sake of expediency. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Jul 21, 2014 |
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Jul 21, 2014 15:20
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maev posted:Are we at any place yet where we can at least roughly outline the motivations of the Emperor in making the Imperium? So far this is what I get: He wants to subjugate the Galaxy because he believes its the only way for humanity to survive, then fully integrate the Imperium with the Eldar web-way so they don't need to use the Warp and the Chaos Gods are cut off in some way from the material realm. He then kicks back, puts the primarchs in their Terra Rooms and calls it a day's work / eats everyone's souls. My interpretation has always been that the Emperor wanted to use humanity to destroy the chaos gods and/or bring the warp into balance. The warp is influenced by emotions and beliefs of sentients, the Emperor exterminated every other species he got into contact with because he couldn't easily control their beliefs (and thus their effect on the warp). Basically the Emperor sought to destroy the chaos gods by destroying the idea that gods exist.
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Jul 21, 2014 15:46
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Demiurge4 posted:My interpretation has always been that the Emperor wanted to use humanity to destroy the chaos gods and/or bring the warp into balance. The warp is influenced by emotions and beliefs of sentients, the Emperor exterminated every other species he got into contact with because he couldn't easily control their beliefs (and thus their effect on the warp). Basically the Emperor sought to destroy the chaos gods by destroying the idea that gods exist. Either that or it was a quick-and-dirty delay tactic to stall the developing sentience of the chaos powers until he implements his webway project and/or other secret projects
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Jul 21, 2014 15:48
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Motivation wise The Emperor wanted to unify Humanity because as it stood before the Unification Wars the entire race was like galaxy spanning plankton. hosed long term and set to be eaten and poo poo-kicked into oblivion by themselves, Orks, Eldar Raiders and whatever else lurked out there.
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Jul 21, 2014 16:14
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The audiobook The Sigillite has Malcador muse about the differences between him and the Emperor for humanity, apparently the Emperor's end goal was some sort of anarchy utopia, where humanity would all ascend to being psychic beings like him and he and his Imperium would no longer be needed and be dissolved. Malcador was much more on the "no, we need rules, order, and structure for people and we will always need you because the rest of the population will always be inferior even after they ascend, egalitarianism only goes so far" side. It is basically the Arthur/Merlin split of idealism vs practicality.
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Jul 21, 2014 16:27
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I like Malcador. I think whatever the endgame was for the Emperor it would have been molded by the guidance of the sigillite. Too bad when the Emperor had to go take care of bidness with Horus, Malcador had to be used like a big rubber-stopper to seal up the tear in the warp that Magnus left when he crashed through into the Golden Throne project like the goddamn Kool-Aid Man.
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Jul 21, 2014 16:49
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I like Malcador because he's got so much swag. "Yeah Rogal that's the Mona Lisa hanging above my bed. Ain't no big deal," It is hard to like The Emperor when The Emperor's single biggest piece of face-time is that lovely story where he's basically an idiot reddit atheist harassing an elderly churchman with his unrivaled powers of  I don't remember who wrote that (McNeil?) but it was a terrible idea to turn the big "here is the Emperor actually walking around and talking" moment over to one of the lesser writers. PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Jul 21, 2014 |
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Jul 21, 2014 17:03
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I've got a personal theory that Malcador is related to the Emperor somehow, but there really isn't much backing me up on this point. I could honestly go for a whole book of nothing but Malcador scheming and plotting against some rogue Terran nobles pre-heresy while the Emperor is out crusading, and when it seems like the nobles have backed him into a no-win scenario he just says 'nope' and unleashes crazy psychic destruction, but feels bad about it since he had to destroy some priceless relics and stuff to do so.
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Jul 21, 2014 17:10
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PupsOfWar posted:
I know its popular for far future stories to include famous pieces of modern art and culture, but there is no loving way the original Mona Lisa could survive 30k years until it was held in a stasis field. A marble statute I could believe, but a wood painting? VanSandman posted:I've got a personal theory that Malcador is related to the Emperor somehow, but there really isn't much backing me up on this point. I could honestly go for a whole book of nothing but Malcador scheming and plotting against some rogue Terran nobles pre-heresy while the Emperor is out crusading, and when it seems like the nobles have backed him into a no-win scenario he just says 'nope' and unleashes crazy psychic destruction, but feels bad about it since he had to destroy some priceless relics and stuff to do so. I could believe that Malcador was the Emperor's back-up Magnus, but since he lost the unique primarchs he just had to pull a Captain America and make a perfect human psyker.
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Jul 21, 2014 17:27
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pentyne posted:I know its popular for far future stories to include famous pieces of modern art and culture, but there is no loving way the original Mona Lisa could survive 30k years until it was held in a stasis field. A marble statute I could believe, but a wood painting? quote:I could believe that Malcador was the Emperor's back-up Magnus, but since he lost the unique primarchs he just had to pull a Captain America and make a perfect human psyker.
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Jul 21, 2014 18:04
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pentyne posted:I know its popular for far future stories to include famous pieces of modern art and culture, but there is no loving way the original Mona Lisa could survive 30k years until it was held in a stasis field. A marble statute I could believe, but a wood painting? Who says it's really the original? And pre-Crusade mankind was way more advanced so it wouldn't necessarily have had to survive that long before they invented stasis fields or similar magic tech to keep it preserved. Or even wacky time-travel/warp magic shenanigans to make an exact duplicate/get the original and replace it with a fake.
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Jul 21, 2014 18:31
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PupsOfWar posted:I like Malcador because he's got so much swag. Malcador's just pumped up by some poo poo from a thrift shop.
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Jul 21, 2014 18:32
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VanSandman posted:I've got a personal theory that Malcador is related to the Emperor somehow, but there really isn't much backing me up on this point. I could honestly go for a whole book of nothing but Malcador scheming and plotting against some rogue Terran nobles pre-heresy while the Emperor is out crusading, and when it seems like the nobles have backed him into a no-win scenario he just says 'nope' and unleashes crazy psychic destruction, but feels bad about it since he had to destroy some priceless relics and stuff to do so. 5/5 better than Zhou
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Jul 21, 2014 18:39
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pentyne posted:I know its popular for far future stories to include famous pieces of modern art and culture, but there is no loving way the original Mona Lisa could survive 30k years until it was held in a stasis field. A marble statute I could believe, but a wood painting? Perturabo has Leonardo da Vinci's journal and most of his drawings. Ahriman has a translated copy of the Voynich manuscript.
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Jul 21, 2014 19:14
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Malcador is probably some super famous historical person the Emperor admired and handed immortality. My guess is he's one of the Greek philosophers.
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Jul 22, 2014 08:38
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Does anyone else get Warhammer: Visions on the iPad, or am I the only one who didn't cancel his WD subscription when they made the switch? I'm having a problem with the July issue where the Page Flip, Multiple Images, and Additional Images icons are not working. The other icons and previous issues do work properly, so it's not the iPad. I just want to make sure I didn't get a corrupted copy that stays in the cache when I delete and reinstall.
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Jul 22, 2014 17:02
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Demiurge4 posted:Malcador is probably some super famous historical person the Emperor admired and handed immortality. My guess is he's one of the Greek philosophers. My guess? Benedict Cumberbatch. Because you know super autist emperor was at dashcon. (He was the one who peed in the ballpit)
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Jul 22, 2014 19:03
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Do we know the approximate date of either Lorgar's union with the XVII Legion or the Scouring of Khur? I'm thinking of running a campaign premised on a Word Bearers Battle Barge exiting the Warp after ten thousand years, with its occupants feeling like they were away for only a year or two. The dudes inside would have come from before Khur but after the Imperial Heralds were renamed.
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Jul 23, 2014 17:39
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Sulecrist posted:Do we know the approximate date of either Lorgar's union with the XVII Legion or the Scouring of Khur? I'm thinking of running a campaign premised on a Word Bearers Battle Barge exiting the Warp after ten thousand years, with its occupants feeling like they were away for only a year or two. The dudes inside would have come from before Khur but after the Imperial Heralds were renamed. Scouring was 40 years before istavaan I think.
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Jul 23, 2014 17:52
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Fried Chicken posted:Scouring was 40 years before istavaan I think. That sounds about right. What year was Istvaan?
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Jul 23, 2014 18:33
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AndyElusive posted:Yup. Curze still willfully allows the assassin to kill him. He saw it coming in one of his visions and refused to avoid the outcome. A topic of hot debate, but why? Is it because he realized that he was being sanctioned for using fear and terror to bring worlds into compliance, and he hated the irony in the E's choice to kill him? Or was he just batshit crazy?
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Jul 23, 2014 20:49
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vigorous sodomy posted:A topic of hot debate, but why? Is it because he realized that he was being sanctioned for using fear and terror to bring worlds into compliance, and he hated the irony in the E's choice to kill him? Or was he just batshit crazy? He's basically the Joker. He is proving he is right by doing things that make the imperium respond in ways that turns them into the monsters they decry, and them murdering him is a confirmation to him that they have become like him. Like Angron, he hated the hypocrisy of the Imperium, that murder and terror was unacceptable but the Emperor sent him specifically to murder and terrorize into compliance, and then that he was despised for it. Dorn was leading a crusade and had Cruze do this thing knowing full well what it entailed, but afterwards went to bring him to heel for the Night Lords doing what they were charged with. Cruze's response was one of the worst possible things in the fledgling Imperium, a sneak attack on a primarch, beating Dorn to near death. He was facing sanction and went off into seclusion until Istvaan 3 came to light and he was the lesser evil, but he ended up throwing in with Horus for his own ends. The Imperium was about to run him down because in its hosed up sense of morality, murder and terror were legitimate military tactics, not war crimes, but a sneak attack to kill the Emperor's son organizing such military campaigns was completely unacceptable. So he went on a rampage through the northern rim using the tactics of murder and terror, and ultimately got the Imperium to send an assassin to murder him for running that campaign. His actions make even more sense when you realize he is also filled with suicidal levels of self loathing like Angron. If Russ is the executioner, Khan the rider at the galaxy's edge, and Vulkan the teacher, then Cruze was meant to be the judge. He had a sense of justice the way Angron had a sense of freedom, and having to compromise it, to do the same things he was made to hate made him hate himself. But also as the judge, he wanted to make certain a lesson was learned from the punishment.
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Jul 23, 2014 22:19
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In short, the Night Haunter was meant to be Batman but ended up being the Joker.
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Jul 24, 2014 04:20
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jng2058 posted:In short, the Night Haunter was meant to be Batman but ended up being the Joker. He may have had a sort if split personality so he may av been both at the same time. Of course i also totally disagree with the above explanation. Kurze was facing sanction for his excessive use of force and cruelty even before hr threw in with Horus. Kurze dies not understanding what he did wrong because his view on human nature and society is flawed. Kurze feels that force and fear are the only way to impose order, not understanding that law and custom are necessary as well. His abject failure to create a lasting peace on his homeworld reflects this and this combined witj the degeneracy of his legion and guilt over his own evil actions is probably what drives him to suicde. Likely this also goes back to his childhood as an uncivilized wildman who grew up alone on an urban crime planet. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Jul 24, 2014 |
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Jul 24, 2014 04:40
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vigorous sodomy posted:A topic of hot debate, but why? Is it because he realized that he was being sanctioned for using fear and terror to bring worlds into compliance, and he hated the irony in the E's choice to kill him? Or was he just batshit crazy? Death is nothing compared to vindication
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Jul 24, 2014 04:41
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Cream_Filling posted:He may have had a sort if split personality so he may av been both at the same time. By the time of his death he despised his Legion so much he welcomed death as a chance to escape them. Most of that was that all the recruits were drawn from the criminal underclass, i.e the ones best at surviving and killing and the rot of Nostramo had followed him even after the planet died. They were pretty much perfect in the brief period between "universal unrest requires massive brutal force to dispel" and "Imperium's all set guys time to retire". That and his visions of the future probably make him batshit crazy from the start. pentyne fucked around with this message at 05:28 on Jul 24, 2014 |
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Jul 24, 2014 05:24
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Cream_Filling posted:He may have had a sort if split personality so he may av been both at the same time. Forgeworld Massacre says that attacking Dorn was the tipping point and what pushed him from loyal son to target of sanction.
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Jul 24, 2014 06:03
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It'd take some pretty bullshit explaining for that to not directly contradict the last few books of the heresy series, where he spends an entire book torturing a fellow primarch, tries to gently caress up everything on Macragge, etc. etc.
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Jul 24, 2014 12:46
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DirtyRobot posted:It'd take some pretty bullshit explaining for that to not directly contradict the last few books of the heresy series, where he spends an entire book torturing a fellow primarch, tries to gently caress up everything on Macragge, etc. etc. But... that happened AFTER the attack on Dorn? I've not read all the books yet, but I thought the attack on Dorn was after the Night Lords and Imperial Fists had pacified a planet together during the crusade and Dorn found out about the mass executions and skinning pits leading to the rebuke (and some scene where Kurze allows a captive to try and shoot him). The heresy hadn't broken out yet. There's another story where Dorn is fortifying Terra and is thinking back to the Kurze attack and questioning if he is afraid. Had the heresy not happened they would have taken Kurze back and either got together for an intervention Magnus/Nikea style or outright had him Russ'd. Although I'm wondering if the Ultramarines would have absorbed another legion considering it was full of rapey murderers.
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Jul 24, 2014 13:33
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DirtyRobot posted:It'd take some pretty bullshit explaining for that to not directly contradict the last few books of the heresy series, where he spends an entire book torturing a fellow primarch, tries to gently caress up everything on Macragge, etc. etc. How does any of that contradict it? His behavior got a blind eye, if wasn't tacitly endorsed, until he attacked Dorn. He ran off to sulk, blew Nostromo to poo poo as part of that, was staring down the barrel if a gun until Horus got the attention, was told "we'll postpone your reckoning if you help clean this up", threw in with Horus instead, and visited his particular brand of evil on a whole hell of a lot more people, including his brothers and Ultramar as part of his "make a point" crusade.
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Jul 24, 2014 15:20
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