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Baron Bifford posted:The human entrance? Hmmm. Why can't humans use the existing entrances like the Eldar? No one but the Eldar know where they are, and they're guarded by the Eldar, and if you can somehow find them and get past the Eldar guards you might run into a pack of raiders from Commoragh on the other side. Also, Imperial ships are all gigantic fuckhuge monstrosities, and the gateway the Emperor was building on Terra was as tall as a scout titan.
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Aug 25, 2012 21:38
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The Emperor was working on unlocking the secrets behind them; not just map the existing webway, but how to create entrances and new paths.
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Aug 25, 2012 22:32
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What did you guys think of A Thousand Sons? I hated the writing style. It's just too verbose.quote:FAR BENEATH THE birthrock of the race that currently bestrode the galaxy as its would-be masters, a pulsing chamber throbbed with activity. Hundreds of metres high and many hundreds more wide, it hummed with machinery and reeked of blistering ozone. Once it had served as the Imperial Dungeon, but that purpose had long been subverted to another.
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Aug 26, 2012 18:52
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I didn't particularly enjoy it for a few reasons. There was a bunch of psyker wizard magicks which is jarring compared to something like Ravenor's psyker stuff. There were explicit quotes from stuff like Laozi and Plato and stuff which definitely shouldn't exist in the 30th millenium. And also it was really awkwardly written as you mentioned.
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Aug 26, 2012 19:41
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Graham McNeill is all you need to know. He is not a good writer. Better than the absolutely unreadable ones like CS Goto, but just barely.
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Aug 26, 2012 20:23
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It's a legit good book and the best Graham McNeil book I've ever read. I haven't been able to find a copy of Storm of Iron, though.
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Aug 26, 2012 20:26
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I'll admit that A Thousand Sons is readable and not terrible. It is pretty decent, and near the top tier if we're talking only Black Library books.
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Aug 26, 2012 20:28
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The Horus Heresy should be a little overblown. The moment when Magnus crashes the Emperor's webway gate, the second most important moment in the Heresy, should be a little pompous and overblown. That's The Grim Darkness of the Far Future being born right there, in that conversation. It's not like Magnus is going to be all like "wassup". MacNeill has genuinely improved since they started the Heresy series. His latest entries are head and shoulders above the crap he wrote before, even if it's not exactly the greatest literature in history.
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Aug 26, 2012 20:50
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Thulsa Doom posted:The Horus Heresy should be a little overblown. The moment when Magnus crashes the Emperor's webway gate, the second most important moment in the Heresy, should be a little pompous and overblown. That's The Grim Darkness of the Far Future being born right there, in that conversation. It's not like Magnus is going to be all like "wassup". Absolutely. Vast powers are involved in this and the fate of the galaxy is changed. Mundane language would be wrong here, especially since its from Magnus' perspective.
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Aug 26, 2012 22:18
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Cream_Filling posted:Graham McNeill is all you need to know. He is not a good writer. Better than the absolutely unreadable ones like CS Goto, but just barely. His Ultramarines stuff is pretty readable for bolter porn, which means that it's kind of brainless, packed full of religious awe, has lots of mutants/heretics/foul xenos/random Guardsmen getting turned into pink mist, has maaaybe 4 female characters over 6 books, and goes into pages of loving detail about everyone's firepower and power armor fetishes. Also, there's a lot of descriptions of Uriel Ventris' stormy grey eyes to get through. He's competent, at least, which puts him leagues ahead of Goto, but it's not exactly the kind of stuff I'm going to recommend to someone who doesn't already think space marines are kind of cool.
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Aug 26, 2012 22:27
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I haven't read the fourth one, but MacNeill wrote a trilogy of Ultramarine books where the first one is sort of normal, the second one is increasinly weird, and the third one is balls to the wall give no fucks bizareness. His prose may not be the greatest, but I like it for its insanity all the same, the weirdness of it is part of its charm. Some of the other writers try to do the same thing, especially Counter's Grey Knights books which follow a strikingly similar plotline, but fall far, far short and just sort of peter out into a weird place where the wildness of chaos is really bland and uninteresting.
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Aug 26, 2012 23:03
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Plus he had his hero get thrown out of the Ultramarines, which I really hadn't expected from that series. Surprises are good.
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Aug 27, 2012 01:24
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Degenerate Star posted:Plus he had his hero get thrown out of the Ultramarines, which I really hadn't expected from that series. Surprises are good. It did strike me as really weird that such a thing is even possible. I mean, they give him blank armor and tell him to shove off. That's really odd, and I've never seen it anywhere else in 40k fiction. Do marine chapters just kick dudes out and let them live?
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Aug 27, 2012 01:44
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^^^^ I think if asked, the answer would be "they do now". Thulsa Doom posted:No one but the Eldar know where they are, and they're guarded by the Eldar, and if you can somehow find them and get past the Eldar guards you might run into a pack of raiders from Commoragh on the other side. dongsbot 9000 posted:I didn't particularly enjoy it for a few reasons. There was a bunch of psyker wizard magicks which is jarring compared to something like Ravenor's psyker stuff. There were explicit quotes from stuff like Laozi and Plato and stuff which definitely shouldn't exist in the 30th millenium. And also it was really awkwardly written as you mentioned.
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Aug 27, 2012 02:14
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Thulsa Doom posted:It did strike me as really weird that such a thing is even possible. I mean, they give him blank armor and tell him to shove off. That's really odd, and I've never seen it anywhere else in 40k fiction. Do marine chapters just kick dudes out and let them live? If I remember correctly, he wasn't kicked out, only sent on a penance crusade to make up for following orders, which went against The Codex Asartes. It's still a bit retarded though.
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Aug 27, 2012 03:02
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Theparker posted:If I remember correctly, he wasn't kicked out, only sent on a penance crusade to make up for following orders, which went against The Codex Asartes. It's still a bit retarded though. He was assigned a death oath by the Chief Librarian and stripped of his rank and position in the Ultramarines.
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Aug 27, 2012 04:45
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Olanphonia posted:He was assigned a death oath by the Chief Librarian and stripped of his rank and position in the Ultramarines. Plus they cut his tats and aquila brand out of his skin, so it was definately more serious than just penance. If the Librarian hadn't had his vision, I think they would've just executed him and his buddy. Can't have transhuman supermen running around all willy-nilly, now.
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Aug 27, 2012 05:01
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Almost everything to do with "not following the Codex Astartes" in the Black Library range is absolute stupidity of the worst kind. It's the hallmark of lovely, unimaginative, thoughtless writing. No one, except Abnett, seems to recognise that it isn't meant to just be a list of black and white rules.
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Aug 27, 2012 05:44
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Whoever wrote the script for Space Marine was pretty aware of it too.
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Aug 27, 2012 05:48
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Arquinsiel posted:Whoever wrote the script for Space Marine was pretty aware of it too. Please O Emperor, let them make another 40k game with an even cooler version of that engine. Playable orks would be nice, thanks.
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Aug 27, 2012 05:54
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Arquinsiel posted:Whoever wrote the script for Space Marine was pretty aware of it too. I would kill for a sequel to this. So freaking awesome. The game is the reason I started reading Warhammer 40k books to learn more about the lore.
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Aug 27, 2012 12:19
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Rapey Joe Stalin posted:Almost everything to do with "not following the Codex Astartes" in the Black Library range is absolute stupidity of the worst kind. It's the hallmark of lovely, unimaginative, thoughtless writing. No one, except Abnett, seems to recognise that it isn't meant to just be a list of black and white rules. Add to that the fact that for a ling time, military tactics were word for word out of a text and there was no deviation whatsoever. Why the hell do you think the British troops hated the Colonists so much? We were savages for hiding behind trees and shooting their commanders! I have no problem with believing that over ten thousand years things have become so warped that some organizations view the Codex as a sacrosanct text - the Ultramarines most of all. Their primarch wrote the drat thing - of course they're all ga-ga over it.
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Aug 27, 2012 13:41
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berzerkmonkey posted:Except replace "the Codex Astartes" with "the Bible" or "the Koran" and, woah! People follow it without question to the point of fanaticism. It happens in real life, so why not in a fictional world? Besides, I hear that most Chapters are willing to be a little flexible with their methods. Even the Ultramarines aren't the most rigid adherents out there (I hear the Novamarines will kill anyone who would defy it). Baron Bifford fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Aug 27, 2012 |
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Aug 27, 2012 14:01
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Baron Bifford posted:It's a wonder that the Imperium has survived so long. The gods of war severely punish those who do not innovate in their strategies.
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Aug 27, 2012 14:20
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In the Fire Warrior FPS game, it's stated that the weak souls of the Tau give them a certain resistance to Chaos mutation. Is this canon?
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Aug 27, 2012 14:49
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The Tau resist Chaos mutation because they are the Emperor's favoured race and the true inheritors of the galaxy.
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Aug 27, 2012 15:30
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Baron Bifford posted:It's a wonder that the Imperium has survived so long. The gods of war severely punish those who do not innovate in their strategies. Innovation doesn't mean poo poo if you can throw entire planetary populations into the meat grinder. The Imperium is all about taking punishment and then ignoring it.
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Aug 27, 2012 16:31
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Baron Bifford posted:In the Fire Warrior FPS game, it's stated that the weak souls of the Tau give them a certain resistance to Chaos mutation. Is this canon? In general the Tau have a weak presence in the warp. It's the same reason their empire expands so slowly - they have no equivalent of Navigators and can only take short hops through the warp. However, wasn't there some speculation that Commander Farsight was corrupted by Chaos, and that's why he turned against the Ethereal cast? 
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Aug 27, 2012 16:53
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berzerkmonkey posted:Except replace "the Codex Astartes" with "the Bible" or "the Koran" and, woah! People follow it without question to the point of fanaticism. It happens in real life, so why not in a fictional world? Except the codex was laid down by a primarch, during and after the great crusade and accounting for the numerous threats they faced in their conquest of the galaxy and foreseeing for possible future strategic/tactical scenarios, and further added onto during the thousands of years since. It is a sacred text, but it loving works. Saying that a military textbook doesn't account for the kind of mundane poo poo that is thrown at it in books like the Ultramarines series, or that it doesn't have clauses for what to do when preferable procedure is unfeasible in critical situations, is being blind and stupid and completely relegating something so pivotal to the identity of most space marine chapters as a mere excuse to say "Ventris is a maverick, he doesn't play things by the codex!".
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Aug 27, 2012 17:00
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Thewittyname posted:In general the Tau have a weak presence in the warp. It's the same reason their empire expands so slowly - they have no equivalent of Navigators and can only take short hops through the warp. I'm pretty sure the goonsay is implied in every single post in this thread, so don't worry about adding it.
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Aug 27, 2012 17:12
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EyeRChris posted:I would kill for a sequel to this. So freaking awesome. The game is the reason I started reading Warhammer 40k books to learn more about the lore. berzerkmonkey posted:Add to that the fact that for a ling time, military tactics were word for word out of a text and there was no deviation whatsoever. Why the hell do you think the British troops hated the Colonists so much? We were savages for hiding behind trees and shooting their commanders!
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Aug 27, 2012 18:52
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Are there any books or stories about how the Emperor functions on the golden throne? Is he some sort of barely there life force focused on keeping the navigational beacon working or is he able to communicate with his inner circle? I've read on the wiki that the Sisters of Battle in their origin were shown that they were being manipulated by a corrupt clergy when their leader was brought before the Emperor. I was curious if it was just being in his presence that convinced him or something more.
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Aug 27, 2012 19:37
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Nephilm posted:Except the codex was laid down by a primarch, during and after the great crusade and accounting for the numerous threats they faced in their conquest of the galaxy and foreseeing for possible future strategic/tactical scenarios, and further added onto during the thousands of years since. Exactly. There is the aspect of it being a holy book to some, then there is the fundamental truth that it is meant the greatest military treatise ever committed to paper. Almost every time there is a deliberate 'shocking' Codex conflict in the BL fluff it involves reducing the author of the Codex to a level of mental sub-normality that would have precluded any of the chapters surviving breakfast, let alone ten thousand years of constant war.
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Aug 27, 2012 19:41
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There was a great bit in the Night Lords series where Talos talks about how they were attacked by Astartes who were utilizing the Codex and he basically said that there was pretty much nothing they could have done to prevent getting their poo poo ruined. I'm also pretty sure there is something in the Codex that is basically like "do whatever works because winning is all that's important when it comes to the survival of humanity."
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Aug 27, 2012 19:53
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Rapey Joe Stalin posted:Exactly. There is the aspect of it being a holy book to some, then there is the fundamental truth that it is meant the greatest military treatise ever committed to paper. Correct. In one of the Heresy books Guilliman distributes copies of the first edition with orders to follow it faithfully. The Ultramarine officers follow along, have absolutely no idea why they're moving their troops around like they are, and then they end up with a crushing victory over the Traitors in a brilliant maneuver battle as everything comes together at once. It's that subtle and that good.
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Aug 27, 2012 19:57
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Olanphonia posted:There was a great bit in the Night Lords series where Talos talks about how they were attacked by Astartes who were utilizing the Codex and he basically said that there was pretty much nothing they could have done to prevent getting their poo poo ruined. Yeah, in Know No Fear they talk about how philosophically troubling it is to have that segment in the Codex because of its potential use as an ex post facto justification for literally any act of war. In the end I guess they decided to keep it in, there is always more and it is always grimmer (and darker).
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Aug 27, 2012 20:13
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A large part of the tragic appeal of the primarchs is how they are later venerated by the Imperium at large and, despite protests to the contrary, by the Space Marines themselves when they knew themselves to be just men like any other.
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Aug 27, 2012 20:19
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Arquinsiel posted:A large part of the tragic appeal of the primarchs is how they are later venerated by the Imperium at large and, despite protests to the contrary, by the Space Marines themselves when they knew themselves to be just men like any other. Dunno, they are pretty clearly larger-than-life demigods in the Herculean vein. It's just that they had human flaws to go with their inhuman power and ability, which ended up being kind of a bad mix. The real tragic part, and I mean this in the ancient Greek sense, is how misfortune and bad judgments by the Emperor leads to the downfall of such paragons despite their immense personal power and intellects.
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Aug 27, 2012 20:30
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Olanphonia posted:There was a great bit in the Night Lords series where Talos talks about how they were attacked by Astartes who were utilizing the Codex and he basically said that there was pretty much nothing they could have done to prevent getting their poo poo ruined. Yeah, the representation of the Codex in Void Stalker is great, as is the one in that short story where Roboute is writing/testing it. The "point" of the Codex should be that following it is the next best thing to being commanded by an actual Primarch, and not as a lovely plot device for punishing Gary Stu protagonists.
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Aug 27, 2012 20:36
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Olanphonia posted:There was a great bit in the Night Lords series where Talos talks about how they were attacked by Astartes who were utilizing the Codex and he basically said that there was pretty much nothing they could have done to prevent getting their poo poo ruined. Yeah, I think it's built up as a sort of The Art of War / Book of Five Rings meets the Army Ranger Handbook / military field manual sort of thing. Lots of philosophical stuff mixed in with general frameworks for force organization, procedures, response drills, etc. Or, in more general terms, it's a sort of good version of the necronomicon, only instead of driving you insane, it makes you an amazing general. It's a plot device. Basically the Space Marine Bible. Too bad, much like the Necronomicon, it's a very convenient plot device that often gets used poorly by lazy writers.
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Aug 27, 2012 20:38
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