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PawParole posted:Anyone got books about civilians doing economic stuff in 40k. Like just your average joe Bit of a cliche answer given the thread title, but Eisenhorn and Ravenor show a lot of the ground level in 40k. More so Ravenor as it's not stuck in first person narrative. Obviously the operatives are all enhanced super agents, but they go undercover, they investigate regular people and there's even a scene in Ravenor where an agent goes undercover in the day to day grind of magistrateum number crunching and it's soul crushing. Abnett is amazing at building worlds (just not endings). Eisenhorn and Ravenor keep me coming back because the worlds feel alive rather than just "courage brother, we fight!" stuff. From Eisenhorn describing his estates (and simple things like taking the 40k version of the Orient Express tourist train) to operatives going under cover in mutant bars, wounded guard veterans barely able to be cared for by their families in horrific slums, to super wealthy traders on ships full of antiques to street hustlers selling umbrellas in acid rain soaked shanty towns. The books really paint a picture of how insanely diverse the 40k setting is. Right from the opening passage in Ravenor you know you're going to feel the world it's set in as he opens his mind and passes through various nobodies people and tastes their lives. that scene is great because not only do you get slices of life, but also the crushing fatalism of 40k. "I am a servitor in a warehouse stacking boxes. The boxes have an arrow on them". And Ravenor in his tomb-chair feeling "I am a bird. Free". drat...  Note - I don't actually know which Ravenor books are which as I brought the omnibus so think of it all as one
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Dec 16, 2019 08:41
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One of the Eisenhorn short stories is about an accountant who noticed that the numbers were not adding up right, lead right to a chaos conspiracy.
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Dec 16, 2019 14:56
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Azubah posted:One of the Eisenhorn short stories is about an accountant who noticed that the numbers were not adding up right, lead right to a chaos conspiracy. I'm going to choose to believe that the accountant noticed that 2+2 = 5 on this planet (because chaos) and nothing you can say will change my mind.
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Dec 16, 2019 17:26
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnYc071DHJs Didn't realize the cult mechanicus would let squats join. Then again are you going to be the one to say no to Grombrindal?
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Dec 16, 2019 17:58
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Technowolf posted:I'm going to choose to believe that the accountant noticed that 2+2 = 5 on this planet (because chaos) and nothing you can say will change my mind. I think it was something like that!
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Dec 16, 2019 18:54
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Dog_Meat posted:Right from the opening passage in Ravenor you know you're going to feel the world it's set in as he opens his mind and passes through various nobodies people and tastes their lives. quote:A river of indigents was rushing past in the valley below, coming out of the west in a broad, tidal surge, like a badly regimented cavalry charge. Outriders and foot runners came first, racing ahead of the main flood on uni-lopers, bikes, mono-traks and frightened steed animals. Through the dust, Varco glimpsed galloping hippines, bounding daku-maku, sickly struthids and mangy saddle-cats. Caravansaries of crawlers and tug-habs, carts, wagons, mech-teams and walkers came after them, en masse. A huge migration of vassal souls was pouring out of the Western Prospection.  there's almost zero repetition) suggests such tremendous depth that it really doesn't matter.
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Dec 16, 2019 22:10
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"Twist" is the slang Abnett uses for mutant. So it's probably some slur along the lines of brain addled or strung out mutant. edit: Given that they're dragging some kind of mobile house I'm envisioning something like this. Only with shark faces and 3 arms. Galvanik fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Dec 16, 2019 |
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Dec 16, 2019 23:30
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You're right, that does ring a bell. It's been a long time since I last encountered that term in context.
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Dec 17, 2019 00:34
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What's the book with the sequence of a single tech priest manning a station on a poisonous planet when a diseased leviathan creature wanders into range of the auto bolters and get shredded to bits?
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Dec 17, 2019 07:51
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Azubah posted:One of the Eisenhorn short stories is about an accountant who noticed that the numbers were not adding up right, lead right to a chaos conspiracy. Well there was an innocent photographer who's developing fluid raised daemons, so it's pretty much business as usual. Seriously, the inquisition are dicks but they kind of have to be in that crazy world. Edit: Something else I like about Abnett's world is that the Inquisition doesn't just turn up, shoot things and ride off into the sunset. He covers the fact that there are sometimes years of painstaking work, cross referencing investigation building up to a confrontation and even when it's all done there are years of paperwork to follow up on, trials, etc. Right at the start of Eisenhorn he has to consider political ramifications and choose not to shoot a woman dying a horrific, agonising death . Abnett is also good at painting the internal conflicts and politics of the inquisition without bogging down the story. Just be warned though, his reputation for abrupt endings comes from some of these books. I swear one of the Eisenhorn books is chapter after chapter of build up and then "allmyfriendsturnedupandwewon". Dog_Meat fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Dec 17, 2019 |
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Dec 17, 2019 08:14
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Dog_Meat posted:Well there was an innocent photographer who's developing fluid raised daemons, so it's pretty much business as usual. Eisenhorn wasn't if he didn't need to be. Show one scintilla of stubbornness and he's all "my patience, unlike my authority, is limited", but in the course of things the photographer in "Backcloth" gets a pass because he had no idea he was involved with the ruinous powers, and in the story where the accountant gives himself up the Inquisition just doesn't give a gently caress about what little he did.
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Dec 17, 2019 09:18
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mllaneza posted:Eisenhorn wasn't if he didn't need to be. Show one scintilla of stubbornness and he's all "my patience, unlike my authority, is limited", but in the course of things the photographer in "Backcloth" gets a pass because he had no idea he was involved with the ruinous powers, and in the story where the accountant gives himself up the Inquisition just doesn't give a gently caress about what little he did. Again, that's something I love about Abnett's world. The hardened detective feel of someone who knows real crime when he sees it, but still investigates bullshit street level stuff out of duty and because his instincts pick up when there's more going on. Even though Eisenhorn is a hardcore ball-buster, he's grounded enough to see humanity and honest mistakes whereas other inquisitors rise up the ranks and go for the aloof, full power armour floating cherub thing and burn everyone who makes the slightest mistake. The characterisation between Eisenhorn and Ravenor is good too. Ravenor has a gentleness to him, but is utterly terrifying when he decides to take action. He's more open minded than most (dangerously permissive of xenos) and is far more intimate with his team. Eisenhorn is a stone faced avatar of duty and willpower, but behind it is actually reasonable and humane - just don't put so much as a toe over the line with him or he will end you. I love that Ravenor still looks up to his former master despite being far more powerful. Well, until Eisenhorn goes full on glowy eyed warp infused chaos powered radical destruction machine mode that terrifies a daemon, but lets see how that pans out As Kara said, "I'd rather face Ravenor unarmed than ever cross Gregor Eisenhorn"
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Dec 17, 2019 10:34
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Angron posted:"What would you know of struggle, Perfect Son? When have you fought against the mutilation of your mind? When have you had to do anything more than tally compliances and polish your armour?" [...] "The people of your world named you Great One. The people of mine called me Slave. Which one of us landed on a paradise of civilization to be raised by a foster father, Roboute? Which one of us was given armies to lead after training in the halls of the Macraggian high-riders? Which one of us inherited a strong, cultured kingdom? And which one of us had to rise up against a kingdom with nothing but a horde of starving slaves? Which one of us was a child enslaved on a world of monsters, with his brain cut up by carving knives? Listen to your blue-clad wretches yelling of courage and honour, courage and honour, courage and honour. Do you even know the meaning of those words? Courage is fighting the kingdom which enslaves you, no matter that their armies outnumber yours by ten-thousand to one. You know nothing of courage. Honour is resisting a tyrant when all others suckle and grow fat on the hypocrisy he feeds them. You know nothing of honour."  I'd seen fans praise that passage from Betrayer and went into the book looking forward to it, and the scene was even better than I expected with all the build up to it. But, what I'd never seen was anyone bringing up this conversation between Russ and Angron. quote:The wind pulled at Russ’s wolfskin cloak. ‘Lorgar wrote something several years ago that has nourished my thoughts each day and night since he shared it with me.’ The World Eater snorted, showing just what he thought of his pious, scrivener brother’s musings, but Russ was unfazed. ‘It is not enough that corruption is recognised,’ Russ quoted. ‘It must be opposed. It is not enough that ignorance is acknowledged. It must be defied. Win or lose, what matters is making a stand for the virtues we will bequeath to the human race. When this galaxy is finally ours, we’ll hold a worthless prize if we plant the last aquila, on the last day, on the last world, having led humanity into moral darkness.’ Between Lorgar, Angron, and the darkhorse friendship between Kharn and Argel Tal, I think this might be my favorite 40k book. Even the fight scenes were engaging. Especially that one at the end. Sanguis extremis Betrayer succeeded beyond my wildest expectations for an World Eater focused story. ===== Is there any story where a Perpetual shows up and it doesn't seem like they're shoehorned into a setting where they don't belong? Know No Fear, Legion, Unremembered Empire, Betrayer, each time Grammaticus or Damon show up I find myself wondering why the characters were created. It makes me so worried for resolution of the Horus Heresy series. The notion that the Patron Saint of the Imperial Guard, Ollianus Pius, is gonna turn out to be a fifty thousand year old immortal badass, and not some bog standard infantryman is just so disheartening. Galvanik fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Dec 19, 2019 |
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Dec 19, 2019 07:17
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That sounds like a quite principled set of objections, but like most of the fallen primarchs it's pretty much impossible to square their later actions with their alleged motivations. I mean this is a guy who kills both civilians and fellow Space Marines for fun - before joining Chaos. The "wise Spartacus" Angron is neat, but he has nothing in common with the "nihilistic butcher" or the chaotic "blood for the blood god" poster-boy. He might complain about how military tithes amount to slavery, but that certainly doesn't justify making mountains out of conquered skulls or planting mind-control rage implants into his soldiers.
Kaal fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Dec 19, 2019 |
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Dec 19, 2019 09:02
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Galvanik posted:
I only read the book once, but agree with this. The sense of desperation in Kharn as he realises the World Eaters have lost their minds so he has to make their crazy gambit work was so well written. Much better than the usual bolter porn. Kaal posted:The "wise Spartacus" Angron is neat, but he has nothing in common with the "nihilistic butcher" or the chaotic "blood for the blood god" poster-boy. It amazes me how some of the most boring archetype characters have been turned around by good writing. Guilliman going from "generic template courage and honour" boy to "frighteningly competent empire builder and tactics master with odd insecurities" and Angron going from "Raaagh I'm angry, me" to tragic "good man doomed from the start who could have been so much more". It actually makes his fall to Daemonhood more tragic because the glimpses you saw of Angron the true primarch have been swept away by the snarling balrog thing stomping around in the siege. Considering the character of Angron was basically an uber-bloodthirster, they've done a good job on him Dog_Meat fucked around with this message at 09:12 on Dec 19, 2019 |
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Dec 19, 2019 09:04
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Worth remembering too that by the time of the Heresy, Angron's markedly degenerated from what he was after being reunited with his Legion. Angron's later actions may not square with the wise Spartacus archetype he might have represented earlier on, but they fit quite well with the rage-monster more or less bleached of his humanity that he was by the time he became a daemon prince.
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Dec 19, 2019 12:12
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Angron also has massive survivor's guilt about his homeworld rebel buddies dying after the Emperor beamed him up mid heroic last stand.
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Dec 19, 2019 13:17
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I cant recall but was there ever a reason the Emperor didnt help Angron out with his war cause it would have been like real easy to kill em all and than take Angron
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Dec 19, 2019 13:53
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So I read through the Fabius Bile duology, they were pretty good. Is it odd that my biggest issue with them is that Fabius Bile doesn't exactly do anything evil other than making Key? After the Night Lords trilogy, Ahriman trilogy and Word Bearers trilogy, it's a little disappointing that he seems more on the "non-aligned" side of things. I could easily see him hanging out with Cawl as long as he's allowed to tinker in his lab. Oliander was a good protagonist in the first book, and it was a nice change to see a "Better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission" plan actually backfire for once. Also, the backdoor way of possibly introducing Chaos Primaris Marines (Bile's New Men with pure Emperors Children geneseed, especially considering he made a point to make both male and female New Men with modified geneseed.) Plus it was nice to finally read how Treyzen actually got a clone of Fulgrim, until now I was assuming it was one that hadn't been decanted, not one that had actually grown up and was starting to tap dance on the razor's edge of falling to Chaos again.
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Dec 19, 2019 14:21
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Waroduce posted:I cant recall but was there ever a reason the Emperor didnt help Angron out with his war cause it would have been like real easy to kill em all and than take Angron I think my first post in this thread was pretty mush asking the same thing. Teleport down, kick rear end with his son and welcome him into the fold (although he'd have still seen him as a slaver eventually). I think there was something to do with the world having tech that the emperor wanted so he took the path of least resistance which backfired spectacularly. I think it's Betrayer where Angron gets to go back to that world and finds out that they tell the story of the coward Angron who left his people to die. Obviously Angron takes this in his stride with poise, grace and responds as the diplomat he is Which book had the Emperor working on Angron in his lab trying to remove the nails? Basically saying "man, this one is hosed. Oh well. A hosed up primarch is still a primarch. Might as well keep him around to do as much as I can with him until he dies". He constantly refers to him as "the twelfth" which shows how he views his sons as tools rather than people Dog_Meat fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Dec 19, 2019 |
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Dec 19, 2019 14:36
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Dog_Meat posted:
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Dec 19, 2019 14:47
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Fearless posted:Worth remembering too that by the time of the Heresy, Angron's markedly degenerated from what he was after being reunited with his Legion. Angron's later actions may not square with the wise Spartacus archetype he might have represented earlier on, but they fit quite well with the rage-monster more or less bleached of his humanity that he was by the time he became a daemon prince. I don't know that he degenerated that much. The first thing he did after being reunited with his legion was kill all of his company captains except Kharn in cold blood. e: lets not forget his psychotic push to have the butcher's nails implanted in the whole legion, which killed thousands of his warriors and led to him purging his legion decades (i think?) before istvaan. hopterque fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Dec 19, 2019 |
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Dec 19, 2019 15:20
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Kaal posted:That sounds like a quite principled set of objections, but like most of the fallen primarchs it's pretty much impossible to square their later actions with their alleged motivations. I mean this is a guy who kills both civilians and fellow Space Marines for fun - before joining Chaos. The "wise Spartacus" Angron is neat, but he has nothing in common with the "nihilistic butcher" or the chaotic "blood for the blood god" poster-boy. He might complain about how military tithes amount to slavery, but that certainly doesn't justify making mountains out of conquered skulls or planting mind-control rage implants into his soldiers. He says it himself that his brain spikes make him do it
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Dec 19, 2019 15:43
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hopterque posted:I don't know that he degenerated that much. The first thing he did after being reunited with his legion was kill all of his company captains except Kharn in cold blood. I thought they volunteered as a sign of solidarity?
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Dec 19, 2019 16:15
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I just listened to First and Only and it brought up something that's confused me for awhile.' What exactly is an STC? In the past i got the impression that it was like a blueprint or a program that allowed a factory to produce something. But First and Only made it out like they were individual factories that produced a single type of item.
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Dec 19, 2019 16:17
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Bucnasti posted:I just listened to First and Only and it brought up something that's confused me for awhile.' It's both. The STC has been portrayed as both plans as well as the actual Standard Template Constructors used to turn those plans into reality.
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Dec 19, 2019 16:27
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Azubah posted:I thought they volunteered as a sign of solidarity? Yeah, they did. Thousands still died, though.
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Dec 19, 2019 16:30
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An STC is basically an all-in-one manufacturing device. STC templates are the data files you drop into them to create things. In F&O, the STC was operational but configured to make one specific thing. An intact STC is valuable because you can potentially use it to produce literally anything you've got a template for. By the year 40,000 STCs are mostly degraded or partially functional, and template libraries are fragmented and corrupt. It's confusing because Standard Template Construct has been used in fiction to describe the template, manufacturing assembly, and items constructed in one.
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Dec 19, 2019 16:36
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Azubah posted:I thought they volunteered as a sign of solidarity? He would only accept them if they got the nails. Angrons big thing is shared suffering. He shared suffering with his fellow slaves. That united them. He could not accept his legion because they didn’t know the suffering of the nails. He said as much to Gulliman when he talked about how he could never know what suffering was because he was born at the top of his worlds food chain on a stable and functioning world. When asked to explain why he drove in the nails Angron said, and I’m paraphrasing here “it’s not my job to educate you!”
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Dec 19, 2019 16:40
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moths posted:An STC is basically an all-in-one manufacturing device. STC templates are the data files you drop into them to create things. Wasn't there some fluff about two dudes finding an STC that just made knives and they were awarded with their own planets or something?
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Dec 19, 2019 16:55
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moths posted:An STC is basically an all-in-one manufacturing device. STC templates are the data files you drop into them to create things. There's also STC fragments, what are basically photocopies of blueprints
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Dec 19, 2019 16:57
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Waroduce posted:I cant recall but was there ever a reason the Emperor didnt help Angron out with his war cause it would have been like real easy to kill em all and than take Angron He's a jerk is the short answer. Long answer is they complied instantly and had cool archeotech like the Nails and a bunch of anti-grav stuff and He didn't want to lose any.
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Dec 19, 2019 17:26
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Technowolf posted:Wasn't there some fluff about two dudes finding an STC that just made knives and they were awarded with their own planets or something? That sounds about right. New technology is culturally reviled by the Imperium so the only way make any advances is to 1) reverse engineer artifacts from the "good days" or 2) find an STC. It was thematically meant to evoke the historical dark ages, when a village might benefit from something like a Roman aqueduct or steel tools but not have the means to reproduce or repair them.
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Dec 19, 2019 17:38
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Technowolf posted:Wasn't there some fluff about two dudes finding an STC that just made knives and they were awarded with their own planets or something? Yeah it's in First and Only. It's a story they tell to put perspective on why the STC they find is a mind blowing big deal.
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Dec 19, 2019 18:42
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They were really good knives and they became standard issue for several space marine chapters.
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Dec 19, 2019 19:05
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Kaal posted:That sounds like a quite principled set of objections, but like most of the fallen primarchs it's pretty much impossible to square their later actions with their alleged motivations. I mean this is a guy who kills both civilians and fellow Space Marines for fun - before joining Chaos. The "wise Spartacus" Angron is neat, but he has nothing in common with the "nihilistic butcher" or the chaotic "blood for the blood god" poster-boy. He might complain about how military tithes amount to slavery, but that certainly doesn't justify making mountains out of conquered skulls or planting mind-control rage implants into his soldiers. It sounds like he also sees jamming the nails into his legion as being a type of mercy for his troops. Because with the nails they can be the monsters that is required of them without feeling like poo poo.
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Dec 19, 2019 23:39
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Waroduce posted:I cant recall but was there ever a reason the Emperor didnt help Angron out with his war cause it would have been like real easy to kill em all and than take Angron The Emps is a dick.
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Dec 19, 2019 23:51
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Zudgemud posted:It sounds like he also sees jamming the nails into his legion as being a type of mercy for his troops. Because with the nails they can be the monsters that is required of them without feeling like poo poo. Angron is right but importantly, Angron is still a piece of poo poo who deliberately subjected his legion to the nails because he was mad at his dad.
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Dec 20, 2019 00:28
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Waroduce posted:I cant recall but was there ever a reason the Emperor didnt help Angron out with his war cause it would have been like real easy to kill em all and than take Angron That's how you get Mortarions. No one wants Mortarions.
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Dec 20, 2019 00:29
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Hey Mortorion is pretty cool, dude. You just dont understand him.
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Dec 20, 2019 00:36
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