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Well, it's implied that for all that time he had been more subtlety aiding humanity, and seeing how that turned out in the end he decided that total control was the only way to achieve his ends, and he also had to manage it quickly before the chaos gods found a way to undo his work. The foundation of a 10 thousand old Imperium was set down in just a couple centuries, after all; that's how efficient the method was, even if cruel. He also didn't count on dying and being unable to actively influence it anymore.
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# ? Nov 11, 2012 00:34 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 05:12 |
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Nephilm posted:Well, it's implied that for all that time he had been more subtlety aiding humanity, and seeing how that turned out in the end he decided that total control was the only way to achieve his ends, and he also had to manage it quickly before the chaos gods found a way to undo his work. The foundation of a 10 thousand old Imperium was set down in just a couple centuries, after all; that's how efficient the method was, even if cruel. Unless he totally knew he could never succeed because chaos=entropy and figured that 10K+ years of endless GRIMDARK and DECAY is the best humanity could hope for. I really wish the concept of the emperor was addressed by a really good author to set it all in stone (or at least as close to stone as good writing gets). What there is on him is so inconsistent its hard to have a solid discussion without stepping into territory that is fanwanky as all hell or just plain inconsistent.
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# ? Nov 11, 2012 01:57 |
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Nephilm posted:Well, it's implied that for all that time he had been more subtlety aiding humanity, and seeing how that turned out in the end he decided that total control was the only way to achieve his ends, and he also had to manage it quickly before the chaos gods found a way to undo his work. The foundation of a 10 thousand old Imperium was set down in just a couple centuries, after all; that's how efficient the method was, even if cruel. Well, total control is one thing, but it also counts what you do with it. To go with my Old Testament comparison, it's the difference between Jesus coming back and saying 'no, really, you do need to love one another and do unto others as you want them to do unto you, and this time I'm sticking around to make sure you do it,' or coming back and saying 'You know what, my dad was right, we're going to go back to the plan of killing and enslaving the tribes in the next valley over.' (As an aside, isn't it implied somewhere that the entity known as the Emperor literally was Jesus at one point in his career?)
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# ? Nov 11, 2012 02:04 |
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JerryLee posted:The Emperor isn't just a bad dad, he's a really bad savior, too. His grand master plan to keep humanity from falling under the sway of Chaos seems to have amounted to 'prohibition, ignorance, and xenophobia' which even I, with the benefit of about 28 fewer millennia of human history to look back on, could have told you was a horrible idea. One theory I've heard (and the one I subscribe to) is that since the warp is a reflection of the thoughts of every sentient in the galaxy, it's possible to influence it by controlling the thoughts of sentients. So what sentients believe essentially becomes fact, god's exist because we believe in them. This is sort of how ork science works, it's complete bollocks but it works because the orks, who are a gestalt, believe it works. So the Emperor set out to destroy every sentient species in the galaxy that wasn't humanity, so that he could directly control what exists in the warp. If humanity stops believing in gods, the chaos gods disappear.
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# ? Nov 11, 2012 02:12 |
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Demiurge4 posted:One theory I've heard (and the one I subscribe to) is that since the warp is a reflection of the thoughts of every sentient in the galaxy, it's possible to influence it by controlling the thoughts of sentients. So what sentients believe essentially becomes fact, god's exist because we believe in them. This is sort of how ork science works, it's complete bollocks but it works because the orks, who are a gestalt, believe it works. Khorne doesn't give a poo poo if you believe in him or not.
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# ? Nov 11, 2012 23:46 |
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None of them do. They're vague existences created by aligned ideas/emotions, not by specific believes in themselves; as long as you're doing something aligned to their natures, it empowers them and they care little if you're doing it intentionally. Daemons are more invested in belief and praise on themselves though, for the sake of maintaining individuality, while doing things in name of their patron gods to gain favor.
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# ? Nov 12, 2012 00:49 |
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Going by the old Fantasy fluff, Khorne isn't the god of war etc so much as he's just one of the many daemons that draw power from it, but he's managed to beat up all the other ones and impose his will on them.Sephyr posted:I felt that was a very clever twist as well, a decent take on the whole "bring about the prophecy you fear" theme otherwise known as the Anakin-Padmé Gambit.
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# ? Nov 12, 2012 02:31 |
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Fuzzy Pipe Wrench posted:Unless he totally knew he could never succeed because chaos=entropy and figured that 10K+ years of endless GRIMDARK and DECAY is the best humanity could hope for. I remember one book (but forgot exactly which one) that sort of states that basically the Emperor was being a harsh dick early on to build a lasting foundation from which to oversee humanity as it crossed an evolutionary treshold and became more warp-resistant, at which point things would gradually improve. But yes, inconsistency across authors is annoying as hell.
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# ? Nov 12, 2012 03:42 |
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Nephilm posted:None of them do. They're vague existences created by aligned ideas/emotions, not by specific believes in themselves; as long as you're doing something aligned to their natures, it empowers them and they care little if you're doing it intentionally. Perhaps the Emperor's plan was to empower Khorne to the point where he'd kill every other Chaos power, then himself.
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# ? Nov 12, 2012 05:55 |
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Isn't it implied in the fluff somewhere that Zeech creates plans that could end the war but then works against those plans so that the war against Chaos marches on because once Humanity falls the universe wouldn't change any more and he'd lose power. Could have swore I read that in the fluff some where when reading up on the thousand sons but now can't find it.
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# ? Nov 12, 2012 07:44 |
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Nephilm posted:
After De'shea is one of my favourite 40k stories. I'd like to see what Matthew Farrer could have done with a full novel, but ADB seems like he will do it justice. I just finished Prince of Crows, and it really is the best thing. Sevatar is such a dude. Looking forward to seeing more of him.
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# ? Nov 12, 2012 09:41 |
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EyeRChris posted:Isn't it implied in the fluff somewhere that Zeech creates plans that could end the war but then works against those plans so that the war against Chaos marches on because once Humanity falls the universe wouldn't change any more and he'd lose power. Could have swore I read that in the fluff some where when reading up on the thousand sons but now can't find it. Anyway, what's the worst BL cover you've seen, guys? I was looking at the BL website and saw this, which has some of the more hilarious proportions BL cover art could offer.
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# ? Nov 12, 2012 13:56 |
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Schneider Heim posted:I've read this before, but I forgot the source too Most of the Heresy books have terrible CG covers. They'd get my vote. All of them.
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# ? Nov 12, 2012 14:15 |
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Schneider Heim posted:Anyway, what's the worst BL cover you've seen, guys? I was looking at the BL website and saw this, which has some of the more hilarious proportions BL cover art could offer.
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# ? Nov 12, 2012 15:31 |
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EyeRChris posted:Isn't it implied in the fluff somewhere that Zeech creates plans that could end the war but then works against those plans so that the war against Chaos marches on because once Humanity falls the universe wouldn't change any more and he'd lose power. Could have swore I read that in the fluff some where when reading up on the thousand sons but now can't find it. I'm pretty sure a daemon made that point in some short story. Not really a trustworthy source. Basically, Chaos is Chaos. Trying to 'humanize' the Gods by applying intent and desires doesn't really work. Tzeentch does what 'he' does because that's literally all 'he' knows how to do, and the same applies to the rest of the Gods. I like to think that whenever the books actually depict the Gods themselves, it's not actually the God, but some Greater Daemon doing his own thing. The Gods are after all amalgams of select thoughts and emotions from the collective psyche of all sentient races in the galaxy. Viewing them as individuals in our sense of the word doesn't really work for me.
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# ? Nov 12, 2012 18:18 |
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I flipped through the new Forgeworld Horus Heresy book. Lots of good information in there along with some awesome pictures of Legio Astartes Marines.
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# ? Nov 12, 2012 18:38 |
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So, Sandy Mitchell (he of the Ciaphas Cain stories) had a couple of books about an inquistorial warband, which ended on a cliffhanger. I expected the third book to come out, but it seems the previous two don't even exist on BL's site anymore. Anybody know what's going on?
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# ? Nov 12, 2012 19:05 |
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bunnyofdoom posted:So, Sandy Mitchell (he of the Ciaphas Cain stories) had a couple of books about an inquistorial warband, which ended on a cliffhanger. I expected the third book to come out, but it seems the previous two don't even exist on BL's site anymore. Anybody know what's going on? They were published years ago. You probably won't see the conclusion.
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# ? Nov 12, 2012 19:41 |
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Mowglis Haircut posted:Most of the Heresy books have terrible CG covers. They'd get my vote. All of them. There's one I particularly dislike: The Soul Drinkers omnibus cover. That sneer... quote:So, Sandy Mitchell (he of the Ciaphas Cain stories) had a couple of books about an inquistorial warband, which ended on a cliffhanger. I expected the third book to come out, but it seems the previous two don't even exist on BL's site anymore. Anybody know what's going on?
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# ? Nov 12, 2012 23:41 |
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I liked Mitchell's short story about the Arbites and the Administratum Adept in the Sabbat Worlds anthology. I wish he would do more of those.
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# ? Nov 13, 2012 06:59 |
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Legion of the Damned: skip the first 2/3rds of the book and read the last third. I don't understand the thought process with that book. The first third, with all that garbage about the Scourge and all the grumbling and "crabby" looks (seriously? A Space Marine being described as crabby? "Get off my space lawn, you Xenos kids!") was completely boring and was not needed for the book at all. You could have had a solid novella with just the final prep and battle. It seems to me like Rob Sanders had a good story, then BL decided they wanted to make an entire Space Marines Battles novel, so they told him to flesh out the Scourge. Bleh. Despite my dislike of the first 2/3rds, I really did like the last part of the book. The way the LotD and their weapons phase in and out of reality was pretty clever. On a related note, were we to infer that LotD Marines deploy via some sort of drop coffin? If so, that is pretty drat cool.
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# ? Nov 13, 2012 20:06 |
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Hhaha poo poo I always thought Sandy Mitchell was a woman and often wondered how she would have handled fans in GW stores.
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# ? Nov 13, 2012 20:20 |
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Schneider Heim posted:I was planning to buy those! I'd say buy them anyway. But just expect to be hearing a lot of dice rolling in the back of your head as they read a lot like Dark Heresy adventures. They are kinda like the 40k equivalent to the first Dragonlance books. Or at least I keep thinking of them as such. Just a tad bit better.
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# ? Nov 13, 2012 21:40 |
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berzerkmonkey posted:Legion of the Damned You pretty nailed what my opinion of that book was, as for your last spoiler bit I wasn't so sure about the drop coffins, I felt that the LOTD were essentially everywhere/nowhere at once, the coffins were just some kind of tradition or artistic license from the author or some such (they had the date the marine died on it I think). They're ability to phase on the battlefield, and the scourge seeing one following him about (who was actually "there") led me to that conclusion but I can have the intelligence of an ork when it comes to "getting it" with some BL authors. I was more interested in what ship the lotd had with them, if I recall the book says the defence monitor captain said it dwarfed the battleship class vessels in the chaos armada, I've never heard of anything bigger than a battleship before with the one or two exceptions (black stone fortess/phalanx), but then the book had a system defence force monitor manage to destroy several astartes strike cruisers, so who knows. Oh, the scrouge gladius/dornsblade switcheroo was also dumb as all hell. rocket_Magnet fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Nov 13, 2012 |
# ? Nov 13, 2012 21:48 |
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I really like what they're doing with the cover for the Ravenor vs Eisenhorn trilogy. The metal art and the reflective red surface for Pariah is cool and all, but they run with that and make it even more badass for Penitent as I'm sure those of you who read Pariah have already seen at the back of the book. Not a spoiler, just I didn't even realize that the faces in the middle of Pariah were not mirrored before I saw that sketch and took a closer look on the original. Many goosebumps were had during this little discovery. Attack on Princess fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Nov 14, 2012 |
# ? Nov 14, 2012 00:17 |
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rocket_Magnet posted:You pretty nailed what my opinion of that book was, as for your last spoiler bit I wasn't so sure about the drop coffins, I felt that the LOTD were essentially everywhere/nowhere at once, the coffins were just some kind of tradition or artistic license from the author or some such (they had the date the marine died on it I think). They're ability to phase on the battlefield, and the scourge seeing one following him about (who was actually "there") led me to that conclusion but I can have the intelligence of an ork when it comes to "getting it" with some BL authors. From some wiki: quote:After being nearly driven to extinction during the Badab War, the Fire Hawks' mobile fortress-monastery, the ancient Void Fortress Rapturous Rex, was lost in the Warp in 963.M41. It is now believed that the survivors of this disaster became the cursed Astartes known collectively as the Legion of the Damned.
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# ? Nov 14, 2012 01:40 |
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The more information there is about the Legion the less awesome they get Also, losing more than one Strike Cruiser is kind of crippling for a chapter.... wow.
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# ? Nov 14, 2012 03:37 |
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Arquinsiel posted:The more information there is about the Legion the less awesome they get quote:History Basically, they're Cursed Founding, which means they're super unlucky for some mysterious reason. I always found that to be an amusing bit of fluff fun, myself.
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# ? Nov 14, 2012 03:54 |
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Yeah, but I remember when they were "Yeah, they're Space Marines in black armour with fire and even MORE skulls. They turn up sometimes and kill poo poo and then just vanish. I don't know either" and they hadn't really bothered to go any more into depth with it.
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# ? Nov 14, 2012 11:46 |
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Arquinsiel posted:Yeah, but I remember when they were "Yeah, they're Space Marines in black armour with fire and even MORE skulls. They turn up sometimes and kill poo poo and then just vanish. I don't know either" and they hadn't really bothered to go any more into depth with it. Actually, they started off with the cool fluff, then GW decided to gloss over that for some reason. I think, for a time, GW had lost all its creative people and were focusing on dumbing everything down. Black Library is a good thing - they're using creative people to expand and detail the universe. One of the fluffy bits was that all of the Chapter's officers had died, so now the highest ranking Marines were sergeants. One of the sergeants, Centurius, carried a skull (an officer's - you can tell by the service studs) around that would suck an enemy's soul and resurrect a LotD Marine. Plus, it was always cool to see a page in WD or something that showed different chapter paint schemes, and the Fire Hawks were always partially hidden with some ominous "stamped" warning like "Classified: Lost in the Warp. See cross ref. datafile 9456.35324M re: Reported sightings" or something. It kind of gave an air of mystery to them - you knew something was going on, but weren't quite sure if there was a link between them and the LotD.
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# ? Nov 14, 2012 15:19 |
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berzerkmonkey posted:Actually, they started off with the cool fluff, then GW decided to gloss over that for some reason. I think, for a time, GW had lost all its creative people and were focusing on dumbing everything down. Black Library is a good thing - they're using creative people to expand and detail the universe. Also, they were in the fanboy feedback loop, where their new intake was already fanboys of the franchise. Which is fine, except the one thing fanboys crave is resolution for all the unanswered questions, since this is part of how you entice fans to keep reading. But, like most things, it's better to want something than to actually have it, and what happens is that the fun bits that caught the eye of the fan who's now working there get turned to mush.
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# ? Nov 14, 2012 15:29 |
Just publish it already, we don't care if it's edited or proof-read, goddamnit! Count me in for Team Eisenhorn. I love Ravenor as a character and a concept, but I'm sticking with the old coot until proven wrong.
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# ? Nov 14, 2012 16:20 |
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Cream_Filling posted:Also, they were in the fanboy feedback loop, where their new intake was already fanboys of the franchise. Which is fine, except the one thing fanboys crave is resolution for all the unanswered questions, since this is part of how you entice fans to keep reading. But, like most things, it's better to want something than to actually have it, and what happens is that the fun bits that caught the eye of the fan who's now working there get turned to mush. This is why the LotD book is so good. It answers basically nothing.
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# ? Nov 14, 2012 16:27 |
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berzerkmonkey posted:Actually, they started off with the cool fluff, then GW decided to gloss over that for some reason. I think, for a time, GW had lost all its creative people and were focusing on dumbing everything down. Black Library is a good thing - they're using creative people to expand and detail the universe.
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# ? Nov 14, 2012 17:02 |
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Donnerberg posted:I really like what they're doing with the cover for the Ravenor vs Eisenhorn trilogy. The metal art and the reflective red surface for Pariah is cool and all, but they run with that and make it even more badass for Penitent as I'm sure those of you who read Pariah have already seen at the back of the book. That is indeed some awesome artwork.
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# ? Nov 14, 2012 19:50 |
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Arquinsiel posted:Apparently this is the first ever reference to them, but it's clearly just a lame "marines what am a bit wrong but bettar at being marines" article rather than the later ghost marines they turned into, followed by way, WAY too much adding to it. Centrius was already later than when I got bored of them IIRC. As for "ghost Marines", that is a brand new thing with the LotD book - they were always portrayed as having some warp-borne illness. Nothing was ever added or expounded upon regarding the LotD until now. The only thing GW did was to allow you to take a full army of them (which was completely lame.)
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# ? Nov 14, 2012 19:52 |
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It's just berzerkers but different, or Blood Angels but the same (but still different). The ghost thing turned up in late 2nd ed, when they first released specific LotD minis. It was mostly in the fluff text of the rules, but it was there.
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# ? Nov 14, 2012 20:03 |
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So I just finished Pariah, and was left confused by something that I assume was supposed to be a significant character reveal at the end. Who is Alpharius? The way it was presented I assume I was supposed to recognize that character, but I didn't. For context, I've read the Eisenhorn and Ravenor omnibuses, the first Gaunt's Ghosts book, and Brotherhood of the Snake. I haven't read any of the Horus Heresy books. EDIT: To clarify, a little googling provided me some information on who that is, but I'm not understanding the connection in the book. Perhaps I'm not meant to? McCoy Pauley fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Nov 15, 2012 |
# ? Nov 15, 2012 02:33 |
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All Alpha Legion marines identify themselves as Alpharius.
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# ? Nov 15, 2012 02:44 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 05:12 |
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McCoy Pauley posted:So I just finished Pariah, and was left confused by something that I assume was supposed to be a significant character reveal at the end. Who is Alpharius? The way it was presented I assume I was supposed to recognize that character, but I didn't. For context, I've read the Eisenhorn and Ravenor omnibuses, the first Gaunt's Ghosts book, and Brotherhood of the Snake. I haven't read any of the Horus Heresy books. Going to spoiler this in case someone hasnt read Eisenhorn (Cant imagine who if you are reading this thread but hey) Like Neph said, all Alpha Legion marines identify themselves as that. They are one of the Traitor marine chapters. The whole point was to show just how far Eisenhorn has fallen and just what he will use/ally with etc "For the good of the Imperium". Because having a Daemonhost in his thrall just isn't enough.
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# ? Nov 15, 2012 03:17 |