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Did we ever have a book about Creed?
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Aug 23, 2013 13:09
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lenoon posted:13 black crusades and the biggest (military) threat to the imperium is not this supposed super-genius villain with his 10,000 year revenge obsession but a load of space bugs? I think we're on Space Pharaohs as the Big Bad right now. I think the Zerg were last week.
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Aug 23, 2013 13:29
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Potooweet posted:ADB's post was great, but it's still pretty hard to take Abbaddon seriously when he hasn't managed to take Cadia after ten thousand years of trying. Even granting the incredible difficulties he faces and the tightrope he has to walk, he's still the saturday morning cartoon villain of the 40kverse (and given his competition, that's saying a lot). His galaxy shattering rage comes from his inability to twirl his mustache without arms. Yeah, ADB's post has to be read from the point of view of trying to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear that is current 40K lore, at least narrative-consistency-wise. I mean, the lore is engineered around the presupposition that the setting never actually changes or goes anywhere. That's fine when you just need a snapshot of the status quo to use as a backdrop for your game of tiny plastic people, but it's exactly the antithesis of ideal storytelling. lenoon posted:13 black crusades and the biggest (military) threat to the imperium is not this supposed super-genius villain with his 10,000 year revenge obsession but a load of space bugs? I dunno, from what I understand the Tyranid are no greater of a threat to the Imperium in metaplot-terms than the armies of the Eye are. In fact, the stories are pretty much the same: both the crusades and the hive fleets cause a lot of noise, engulf a laundry list of jobber planets, but break themselves on any target whose defeat would actually represent a challenge to the status quo. What I'm saying is that the Tyranids had exactly as much a chance of scoring a meaningful victory at e.g. Macragge as Abaddon has at Cadia, and vice versa. Now if you want to point out that the Tyranids have had a lot less time to work with, that's a fair point. 
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Aug 23, 2013 14:08
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lenoon posted:Yeah so he does all that, and a Winston Churchill parody and a succession of dubiously interesting Eldar seem to unite at the last minute and kill him off. 13 black crusades and the biggest (military) threat to the imperium is not this supposed super-genius villain with his 10,000 year revenge obsession but a load of space bugs? To be fair, it's a whole lot of bugs.
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Aug 23, 2013 14:25
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To be further fair to Abaddon, Cadia wasn't even all that important until the 13th crusade. Prior to that it was just a big hollow planet with a gate in the surface filled with alien tech. C'tan tech specifically. What I'm saying is, Codex Necrons ruined 40k forever.
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Aug 23, 2013 14:28
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JerryLee posted:Yeah, ADB's post has to be read from the point of view of trying to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear that is current 40K lore, at least narrative-consistency-wise. I mean, the lore is engineered around the presupposition that the setting never actually changes or goes anywhere. That's fine when you just need a snapshot of the status quo to use as a backdrop for your game of tiny plastic people, but it's exactly the antithesis of ideal storytelling. Storytelling is about characters, though, not universe-shattering events. I don't read a novel expecting the end of civilization or earth-moving plots. Usually those end up the opposite of interesting or good storytelling. The 40k setting is actually pretty ideally set up for storytelling. There's a ton of variety and freedom for authors to basically go hog wild in their corner of the universe at some point within about 10,000 years or so of loose continuity so long as they keep to certain basic themes and some common terminology and window dressing. Honestly I think an Age of Apostasy series would have been more interesting than a Horus Heresy one, though obviously it wouldn't have sold as well at first. More freedom to do anything and a lot less disappointing since the mostly unknown time of legends is written to be identical to modern 40k except with the occasional primarch running around.
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Aug 23, 2013 15:39
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Cream_Filling posted:The 40k setting is actually pretty ideally set up for storytelling. There's a ton of variety and freedom for authors to basically go hog wild in their corner of the universe at some point within about 10,000 years or so of continuity so long as they keep to certain basic themes and some common terminology and window dressing. The problem comes when there are these big recognizable characters who tie everything together, and you want to write stories about them too, but they have to be relatively static or fess up to the inconsistency. Yes ADB can do whatever he wants with Talos Valcoran and that's awesome, but then he has to turn around and say things like "well, my Logan Grimnar isn't the same as William King's Grimnar" which I see as a bug rather than a feature of the universe, no matter how well he managed to pull it off.
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Aug 23, 2013 15:43
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JerryLee posted:The problem comes when there are these big recognizable characters who tie everything together, and you want to write stories about them too, but they have to be relatively static or fess up to the inconsistency. Yes ADB can do whatever he wants with Talos Valcoran and that's awesome, but then he has to turn around and say things like "well, my Logan Grimnar isn't the same as William King's Grimnar" which I see as a bug rather than a feature of the universe, no matter how well he managed to pull it off. Except they're legendary characters often with histories stretching back for hundreds or even thousands of years in an rear end-backwards theocratic society that stretches over the entire galaxy with hideously unreliable communications, so probably perceptions of the characters differ even within universe. My Winston Churchill probably isn't the same as your Winston Churchill either and we're talking about an actual person who really existed just a handful of decades ago. Having too much "ownership" would be worse because then you can end up with situations where cool ideas with potential get shackled to lovely writers like Nick Kyme. Certainty is overrated and is certainly not realistic.
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Aug 23, 2013 15:49
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So I've already read A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns, and I'm just starting to read Battle of the Fang, but it seems like a lot has happened to the Thousand Sons since the end of the previous two books. I'm actually kind of lost on some of the details. Are there any books that detail what happened in between the end of A Thousand Sons and the beginning of Battle of the Fang in regards to the Thousand Sons?
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Aug 23, 2013 16:00
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Arquinsiel posted:To be further fair to Abaddon, Cadia wasn't even all that important until the 13th crusade. Prior to that it was just a big hollow planet with a gate in the surface filled with alien tech. C'tan tech specifically. Uh, no? Cadia has always been the gate into/out of the Eye of Terror, making it incredibly important for the last 10K years.
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Aug 23, 2013 16:20
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Cream_Filling posted:Except they're legendary characters often with histories stretching back for hundreds or even thousands of years in an rear end-backwards theocratic society that stretches over the entire galaxy with hideously unreliable communications, so probably perceptions of the characters differ even within universe. My Winston Churchill probably isn't the same as your Winston Churchill either and we're talking about an actual person who really existed just a handful of decades ago. The trouble (and I'm well aware that I'm being  about it at this point) is that it's possible to investigate the reality of Winston Churchill and that if, for example, one historian writes that he was a puppy murderer, or just quotes him as giving a speech full of barely literate word salad, the rest of them don't all have to look down and shuffle their feet awkwardly and go okay, well, that can be your Winston Churchill.Also the real world isn't stuck in 1945 as a result of the hypothetical unknowability of Winston Churchill. Finally, the style of nearly all 40K fiction is written so as to create the impression that it's as immediate and real as any other sort of modern fiction, not myth from a misty past. Hell, one of the entire points of the Horus Heresy series is to be a relatively demystified look at a previously obfuscated section of the lore. Though I do have to admit that I now want to read some 40K fiction (like, full-length, not flavor text) written in the style of epic medieval legends. Sir Gawain and the Grey Knight.
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Aug 23, 2013 17:14
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JerryLee posted:The trouble (and I'm well aware that I'm being Green knight.
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Aug 23, 2013 17:30
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VanSandman posted:Green knight. Whoosh.
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Aug 23, 2013 17:41
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Cream_Filling posted:Abaddon lost a long, long time ago. He just hasn't figured it out yet, or else he's just stopped caring and at this point is basically an automaton. The obsession he's dedicated his life to is worthless and hollow, and everything he once served or desired had been gone for ten thousand years. Even if he actually succeeds and destroys the Imperium, then what? There's nothing left but an eternity of formless nothingness as chaos destroys the laws of the material universe.
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Aug 23, 2013 17:41
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MisterMarmite posted:Whoosh. ARGH dammit.
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Aug 23, 2013 18:11
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JerryLee posted:The trouble (and I'm well aware that I'm being Yeah and that's why it's a bad idea. Demystifying stuff is dumb. I know Abnett in particular likes to allude to historical writing styles a lot more. Most of the shorts in Brothers of the Snake, for instance, self-consciously reference various classical writings modes or early novels.
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Aug 23, 2013 18:53
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My solution to the "multiple interpretations" issues is to just ignore any writer that's not Abnett or ADB. Wraight is fine too and he's not touching any pivotal characters, but anyone I'll treat with dubiousness and whatever bit of lore they bring up I'll be overwriting with the superduo's takes on the matter. I mean, I like wh40k lore but that's little excuse to read anything but the very best BL puts out considering their general quality, and the amount of good fiction books out there that aren't 40k.
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Aug 23, 2013 19:33
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Nephilm posted:My solution to the "multiple interpretations" issues is to just ignore any writer that's not Abnett or ADB. Wraight is fine too and he's not touching any pivotal characters, but anyone I'll treat with dubiousness and whatever bit of lore they bring up I'll be overwriting with the superduo's takes on the matter. This is basically what it boils down to for me, except that I also play the game and so I can't help being exposed to the codex lore  Man if they could get the superduo/trio to somehow cover all of that stuff too, man, that'd be awesome.
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Aug 23, 2013 19:38
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Anonymous Zebra posted:So I've already read A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns, and I'm just starting to read Battle of the Fang, but it seems like a lot has happened to the Thousand Sons since the end of the previous two books. I'm actually kind of lost on some of the details. Are there any books that detail what happened in between the end of A Thousand Sons and the beginning of Battle of the Fang in regards to the Thousand Sons? There's 10,000 years between the first two books and Battle of the Fang. That time period in between is basically just an outline at this point.
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Aug 23, 2013 19:45
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Shroud posted:There's 10,000 years between the first two books and Battle of the Fang. That time period in between is basically just an outline at this point. More like 3000. E: actually I'm not sure. Long enough for Bjorn to be stuck in a Dreadnaught, short enough for Magnus to still have a significant attachment to his kids. VanSandman fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Aug 23, 2013 |
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Aug 23, 2013 19:53
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I tried to re-read the Night Lords trilogy a little while ago, and gave up on it. Not that it isn't well-written, because it most definitely is, but because the protagonists are so irredeemably evil that I couldn't get through it a second time. I finished it the first time because I wanted to find out what happened, and every fight they got into, I just wanted them all to die, despite how well-characterized they were. ADB is a great writer, but I hope his upcoming Chaos-oriented books focus on characters who are motivated by something more than simple desire to torture people to death.
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Aug 23, 2013 20:02
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JerryLee posted:This is basically what it boils down to for me, except that I also play the game and so I can't help being exposed to the codex lore I stopped playing the game  VanSandman posted:More like 3000. It takes place between 1000-1800 years after the heresy. In theory it could be up to 2k years, but by then you start overlapping into the 3rd Black Crusade.
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Aug 23, 2013 20:04
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I thought the Heresy was in M30/M31?
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Aug 23, 2013 20:36
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The Heresy takes place in early m31, the Battle for the Fang in m32. For reference, Leman Russ (the last active loyalist Primarch at the time) disappears into the Eye around 200-300 m31. Nephilm fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Aug 23, 2013 |
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Aug 23, 2013 21:10
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So I'm just supposed to somehow know what's up with Ahriman and the Rubricons or whatever they're called, or why the main Thousand Sons character is waxing poetic about all the characters from A Thousand Sons going somewhere with him? It seems like I'm missing an important plot point here.
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Aug 24, 2013 00:32
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So weird question. Is it ever said what happens to the Legion Flagships after the Heresy?
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Aug 24, 2013 00:40
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Agentdark posted:So weird question. Is it ever said what happens to the Legion Flagships after the Heresy? I recall references to the Phalanx in M41 stories, something that big would be hard to kill and probably worth putting in a novel.
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Aug 24, 2013 01:33
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Agentdark posted:So weird question. Is it ever said what happens to the Legion Flagships after the Heresy? Some are destroyed, some stick around. Specifically: - The Raven Guard lost theirs at Istvaan. - The Night Lords lost theirs in/shortly after the Heresy. - Space Wolves lost theirs sometime before the Battle of the Fang (m32). - The Phallanx isn't so much a flagship as it is a semi-mobile space fortress, and has been the chapter-monastery of the Imperial Fists since the Second Founding. - Abbadon made for the Eye with the Vengeful Spirit and I believe its still in his possession. You can assume all other loyalist flagships (as with most ships of the era for that matter) were lost for some reason or another either during the Heresy or in the next few millenia preceeding it. Traitor flagships are mostly unconfirmed, but some might yet survive.
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Aug 24, 2013 02:09
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Anonymous Zebra posted:So I'm just supposed to somehow know what's up with Ahriman and the Rubricons or whatever they're called, or why the main Thousand Sons character is waxing poetic about all the characters from A Thousand Sons going somewhere with him? It seems like I'm missing an important plot point here. You can read Ahriman: Exile, which brings that up, but it isn't comprehensively covered yet. Basically, Ahriman cast a Rubric to save his brothers from the flesh change. It worked, but it also had the unfortunate side effect of turning his non-psyker brothers to dust and binding them to their armour. Magnus got mad, but exiled him instead of killing him. (This is all established fluff, so not a spoiler)
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Aug 24, 2013 02:56
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Schneider Heim posted:You can read Ahriman: Exile, which brings that up, but it isn't comprehensively covered yet. What I find odd is that as of the most recent fluff the TS were all psykers, unless I missed something.
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Aug 24, 2013 03:00
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VanSandman posted:What I find odd is that as of the most recent fluff the TS were all psykers, unless I missed something. They pretty much all were pre-Heresy. At least as things stand now. In practical terms the Rubric means that for Thousand Suns you run a few sorcerers and a bunch of mindless, perfectly functional killing machines. Those last are the "Rubricae", which are those Sons ruined by Ahriman's folly.
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Aug 24, 2013 03:05
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mllaneza posted:They pretty much all were pre-Heresy. At least as things stand now. In practical terms the Rubric means that for Thousand Suns you run a few sorcerers and a bunch of mindless, perfectly functional killing machines. Those last are the "Rubricae", which are those Sons ruined by Ahriman's folly. That's what I thought. So the Rubric spell turned most of the Thousand Sons to dust, while leaving a few untouched.
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Aug 24, 2013 03:19
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Yes, precisely that. Stopped rampant mutation across the Legion but the vast majority of TSs got turned into dust, their spirits infused into their armor as mindless automata at the command of their more fortunate brothers.
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Aug 24, 2013 03:31
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VanSandman posted:That's what I thought. So the Rubric spell turned most of the Thousand Sons to dust, while leaving a few untouched. More specifically, only all the non-psychic brothers turned to dust.
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Aug 24, 2013 04:05
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So this may be a bit of a silly question but... Are there civilians living in the Eye of Terror? In the fluff it talks about these vast armies and fleets that leave it and go on campaigns, but where do the fresh recruits come from to fill those trivial rolls? I always assumed everyone "living" in the Eye of Terror must be pants-on-head crazy, but it would be interesting if there were semi-normal people there who are try to live a good life/avoid predation
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Aug 24, 2013 04:33
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The chaos empires in the eye are fueled by slaves/cultists. Not exclusively human, either.
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Aug 24, 2013 04:36
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Kylaer posted:I tried to re-read the Night Lords trilogy a little while ago, and gave up on it. Not that it isn't well-written, because it most definitely is, but because the protagonists are so irredeemably evil that I couldn't get through it a second time. I finished it the first time because I wanted to find out what happened, and every fight they got into, I just wanted them all to die, despite how well-characterized they were. No offense but if you think that ADB's Night Lords are one-dimensional torture machines I don't think you did a very good job of reading the books. Additionally, if you're looking for any upcoming Chaos book to be about characters significantly nicer than Talos and Co., I think you're in for a disappointment. It might be that you just need your baseline expectations for Astartes sociopathy recalibrated, in which case I recommend Wrath of Iron. (Serious recommendation, if you haven't read it--it's a good book.)
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Aug 24, 2013 05:37
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I think it's a fair assessment to not enjoy ADB's Night Lord books because the protagonists being evil, but yeah, "motivated by something more than simple desire to torture" is the opposite of what the book aims (and succeeds) to portray - they're complex individuals with diverse personalities and motivations, for the most part clinging to what gives them a sense of identity.
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Aug 24, 2013 06:13
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I wonder what would happen if one of the Primarchs who ran off into the Eye o' Terrah said sod it and came back. A Primarch goes back to his legion (or what's left of it) 10,000 years later. Would he hate it and destroy it?
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Aug 24, 2013 06:49
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He'd have bigger issues with the Imperium at large.
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Aug 24, 2013 12:10
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