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Aries posted:AFAIK, yes. As someone mentioned earlier, I'm really looking forward to how the Emperor rationalises his way out of this massive lie in the HH series. But if the Imperium had actually come to believe it, would the Imperial Truth have actually been a lie? Chaos as I understand it in the 40k "godhood" derives it's Power from the beliefs of sentient races, hence why the Emperor is becoming one. While the Primarchs spent centuries conquering the galaxy and spreading the truth there were no encounters w/ chaos. Aside from Magnus, the first contact with daemons didn't even come until Lorgar literally flew into the eye of terror. In effect the Chaos Gods were basically just badass demons who were extremely limited in their ability to affect reality. Fast forward to the "present" where a significant portion of the Imperium is aware of the Archenemy and recognizes their "godhood", and you can't swing a bat without hitting a world gone dark, with the Chaos Gods spreading their touch liberally among planetary populations. It's quite possible that if the Imperial Truth prevailed the chaos gods wouldn't even be able to threaten the Imperium in any significant way. (the zeal with which the inquisition works to snuff out knowledge of chaos backs this idea up)
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Sep 12, 2013 00:54
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DrFrankenStrudel posted:While the Primarchs spent centuries conquering the galaxy and spreading the truth there were no encounters w/ chaos. Aside from Magnus, the first contact with daemons didn't even come until Lorgar literally flew into the eye of terror. In effect the Chaos Gods were basically just badass demons who were extremely limited in their ability to affect reality. Fast forward to the "present" where a significant portion of the Imperium is aware of the Archenemy and recognizes their "godhood", and you can't swing a bat without hitting a world gone dark, with the Chaos Gods spreading their touch liberally among planetary populations. My understanding was that there was a significant amount of Chaos influence outside the Eye of Terror, though maybe not M41 level (but that goes without saying). I don't have the books with me for reference but off the top of my head: in Horus Rising some Luna Wolf gets chaosfucked on a random planet. Whatever race Fulgrim got his sword from had spent a while being down with Chaos. Granted, both took place after Lorgar et al. went to the Eye, but the implication is that the local cultures in both cases had a long association with Chaos Oh yes, and as was discussed just up the thread, the Chaos gods reached all the way to Terra and stole the Primarchs the moment the Geller field was down. Obviously this wasn't a walk in the park for the forces of Chaos since otherwise they could just pluck the entire planet into the Warp straight up, but they were aware of and able to influence the events. Now, I agree with you that given the nature of the cosmology it's entirely plausible that if the Imperium had kept to the plan of collectively donning their fedoras and believing in atheism really hard, they might have been able to suppress the Chaos gods. However, I think it'd be a mistake to ascribe the Inquisition's actions to pragmatism in any large part, when their ethos as the puritan authoritarian thought police (an archetype that has no shortage of sources in human nature) explains it almost as well.
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Sep 12, 2013 01:12
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Keep in mind that the Warp was somewhat restive in the 30th millennium after the peak that was the birth of Slaanesh, which likely meant less daemonic incursions. That said, both the Eldar and the Interex were really keen on fighting chaos, and several planets had cults and religions that were at least mildly chaos-tainted. The emperor probably thought that seizing the moment to claim the galaxy and shut out all chaotic influence for long enough to either starve the gods or wait until humanity developed some warp resistance was the best course of action. Why he felt he had to exclude his sons from that project is something some poor BL writer will have to sweat to justify at some point.
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Sep 12, 2013 03:55
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Yeah, incidents of chaos-related phenomena were known pre-heresy, although they tended to think of those as warp-related contamination. People have known the warp is full of crazy stuff since very shortly after warp technology was introduced way way back, and various tiers of society (Navigators, astropaths and the like who spend lots of time working with warp-related stuff) and various worlds even knew there were intelligent beings of a sort in that dimension, but they thought of the stuff in more of a sci-fi way: indigenous beings of the dimension we jump our ships through. They didn't think there were ones so goddamn big that they could be called actual Gods by any real measure, or think of them as demons thirsting for our literal souls. The powers of chaos were more or less "strange warp-related incidents," in the pre-Heresy times, and they didn't actually start doing any sort of "invading" with the aggression and larger scope that they do in the year 40k... until they got the Emperor confined to the throne to keep Magnus' fuckup patched up. That, and with all the references the forces of chaos (and a few gods themselves) describing him as "anathema to us," makes me wonder if the Big E had really been keeping them at bay since his early existence, when the chaos gods were (compared to now) apparently weaker at the time, at least not in the sense that they were a serious, impending threat to reality. One Legged Cat fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Sep 12, 2013 |
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Sep 12, 2013 04:11
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It doesn't help that the Emperor is stuck on the Golden throne keeping the results of Magnus' fuckup from eating the Earth. See, the web way the emperor was trying to build got breached allowing warp stuff to pore through, so he's stuck sitting on the drat thing as basically a drain plug. Shutting off the Golden throne might work, but he wasn't willing to test it and now he's stuck on the drat thing, unable to tell anyone in 40k times why he's even there.
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Sep 12, 2013 05:07
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VanSandman posted:It doesn't help that the Emperor is stuck on the Golden throne keeping the results of Magnus' fuckup from eating the Earth. See, the web way the emperor was trying to build got breached allowing warp stuff to pore through, so he's stuck sitting on the drat thing as basically a drain plug. Shutting off the Golden throne might work, but he wasn't willing to test it and now he's stuck on the drat thing, unable to tell anyone in 40k times why he's even there. He had to have left the drat thing to fight Horus, so at some point he needs to take his finger out of the dike. Although, now that you point that out, it would be hilarious if the whole reason he begged everyone to stick him unto the throne wasn't purely out of the desire to stay half-dead/half-immortal but because his final thoughts were that he needed to get back to the breach and start sealing it again. Also, The First Heretic implies that Lorgar and his upper commanders were intentionally organizing chaos-cults along the pathways of the other crusades. Erebus and Kor Phaeron basically admit to Lorgar that they've been preserving cults secretly during the early years of the crusade, and then after Lorgar enters the Eye the entire legion is said to be laying the groundwork for the heresy. The reader doesn't get to see exactly what this implies, but I've always believed that beyond just the Warrior Lodges, they were also organizing and stream-lining the Chaos worship on assorted worlds so that when the other legions got there, they would start encountering daemons, tainted artifacts, and all the other nasty stuff that turned the traitor primarchs.
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Sep 12, 2013 06:12
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Anonymous Zebra posted:He had to have left the drat thing to fight Horus, so at some point he needs to take his finger out of the dike. Although, now that you point that out, it would be hilarious if the whole reason he begged everyone to stick him unto the throne wasn't purely out of the desire to stay half-dead/half-immortal but because his final thoughts were that he needed to get back to the breach and start sealing it again. Uh, yeah. The Sigilite sat on the throne while the emperor raided Horus' flagship and burnt out his life force in the process.
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Sep 12, 2013 06:21
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It's a good thing the Emperor is a dried out husk on the throne cause I'd hate to imagine the leg cramps he'd suffer if he wasn't.
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Sep 12, 2013 06:38
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The Emperor should have looked for a way to artificially propagate the Pariah gene. Cutting humanity off from the Warp altogether might actually kill the Chaos Gods.
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Sep 12, 2013 07:03
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VanSandman posted:Uh, yeah. The Sigilite sat on the throne while the emperor raided Horus' flagship and burnt out his life force in the process. Yes, but supposedly there was some downtime in the throne room when the Emperor was disconnecting himself and the Sigilite was reconnecting (and again, when the Emperor returned to the throne room after fighting Horus). Who knows how much time passed when no one was "plugging the dam" but evidently nothing bad came of that absence!
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Sep 12, 2013 07:05
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Hot Dog Day #82 posted:Yes, but supposedly there was some downtime in the throne room when the Emperor was disconnecting himself and the Sigilite was reconnecting (and again, when the Emperor returned to the throne room after fighting Horus). Who knows how much time passed when no one was "plugging the dam" but evidently nothing bad came of that absence! From Lexicanum, so not gospel, but Lexicanum posted:"Though he was a powerful psyker in his own right, Malcador's mental powers were nothing compared to that of the Emperor, and so when Rogal Dorn brought the severely injured ruler of mankind back to the Golden Throne, he found Malcador sitting wasted, energy lashing across his shrivelled body, tortured by the psychic bombardments of the Webway. He was almost dead. Tech-priests then made the exchange - disengaging Malcador from the machine. As he was removed, the last flicker of life left him and the dust of his corpse blew across the stone floor.[1] Which is not to say there wasn't a bunch of techpriests hovering over the cables with Dorn saying "Ready? On three. one.. two... THREE!!" Dog_Meat fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Sep 12, 2013 |
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Sep 12, 2013 13:43
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Quoting wikis like Lexicanum are OK if you can verify the reference.
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Sep 12, 2013 14:27
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Lead Psychiatry posted:It's a good thing the Emperor is a dried out husk on the throne cause I'd hate to imagine the leg cramps he'd suffer if he wasn't.
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Sep 12, 2013 14:29
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Baron Bifford posted:His nervous system has rotted away so he feels no bodily pain. Post'n stuff like this is OK if you can verify the reference.
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Sep 12, 2013 14:37
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So I'm flipping through a catalogue from a Swedish Sci-Fi and Fantasy bookstore and to my surprise I noticed that Black Library is apparently going to re-release Nightbringer in October in paper format. As well as First and Only. Did not expect this at all. Of course the website says jack all about it which annoys me and perplexes me somewhat.
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Sep 12, 2013 14:38
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Anonymous Zebra posted:Also, The First Heretic implies that Lorgar and his upper commanders were intentionally organizing chaos-cults along the pathways of the other crusades. Erebus and Kor Phaeron basically admit to Lorgar that they've been preserving cults secretly during the early years of the crusade, and then after Lorgar enters the Eye the entire legion is said to be laying the groundwork for the heresy. The reader doesn't get to see exactly what this implies, but I've always believed that beyond just the Warrior Lodges, they were also organizing and stream-lining the Chaos worship on assorted worlds so that when the other legions got there, they would start encountering daemons, tainted artifacts, and all the other nasty stuff that turned the traitor primarchs. For what it's worth, in Aurelian he's explicitly advised by Ingethel to leave xenos worlds for his brothers to conquer, so he can focus on creating and nurturing cults on human worlds.
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Sep 12, 2013 15:50
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Nemesis (I think? The one with the assassin targeting Horus) ends with the emperor walking into the room where Dorn is planning another assassin team, throwing open a curtain, and telling him no more assassins, they will fight this war open and in the light. So not necessarily always on it
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Sep 12, 2013 18:09
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Fried Chicken posted:Nemesis (I think? The one with the assassin targeting Horus) ends with the emperor walking into the room where Dorn is planning another assassin team, throwing open a curtain, and telling him no more assassins, they will fight this war open and in the light. I thought it was more along the lines that the different cadres would no longer operate autonomously and now served under the Imperium. ...least till the Inquisitor Ordos are formed.
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Sep 13, 2013 06:54
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Cooked Auto posted:So I'm flipping through a catalogue from a Swedish Sci-Fi and Fantasy bookstore and to my surprise I noticed that Black Library is apparently going to re-release Nightbringer in October in paper format. As well as First and Only. Abnett put up the cover of the First and Only re-release in his blog, so it must be legit:  Anyone knows what Nightbringer's cover looks like? Not that it's a good book, but if this First and Only cover is our benchmark...
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Sep 13, 2013 08:45
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One Legged Cat posted:God drat, ADB is just writing everything right now, isn't he? I love that he's kinda become the new unofficial rising star of 40k literature, but I hope they aren't burning him out by demanding so much at once! They need to turn him in to wordsmith servitor and chain him to a type writer so we can actually get the final conclusion to 40k in 20 years time.
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Sep 13, 2013 10:33
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So a preview for forgeworld's next heresy book went live. A mins of discussion, the legions will be iron hands, salamanders, night lords, and word bearers. Also, unveiling legio cybernetica. No word on the primarch figure yet. So expect to see all that stuff popping up in stories soon
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Sep 13, 2013 14:39
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Schneider Heim posted:Abnett put up the cover of the First and Only re-release in his blog, so it must be legit: Dayum.  As much as I like the cover for the old pocket one that is pretty drat cool.Also interesting to see they are in fact doing a classic line. Now if they only would bother doing the same for all of their graphic novels/comics as well.
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Sep 13, 2013 14:44
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They've done it for a few. I keep meaning to get Deff Skwadron.
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Sep 13, 2013 14:56
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Fried Chicken posted:So a preview for forgeworld's next heresy book went live. A mins of discussion, the legions will be iron hands, salamanders, night lords, and word bearers. Also, unveiling legio cybernetica. No word on the primarch figure yet. So expect to see all that stuff popping up in stories soon Can't wait to see what they come up with for IH Morlock terminators.
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Sep 13, 2013 15:20
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Arquinsiel posted:They've done it for a few. I keep meaning to get Deff Skwadron. Yeah that one I remember but there is still a bunch of stuff I've seen in the few copies of Warhammer monthly I've got I haven't really seen anywhere else. Then there was the time they just released on Kal Jericho collection before dropping their graphic novel collections completely. Almost glad they offered that one on Print of Demand, even if the actual books themselves are hilariously terribly written at times with the word voluptuous appearing way too many times to describe females characters.
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Sep 13, 2013 18:07
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I picked up the Ian Watson Inquisition War omnibus a while back and just starting getting around to it. 2 words. Holy poo poo. First off, Watson uses language to express the W40k universe no other writer I've read come close to. In the intro he mentions how when he got the job to write the books other BL authors at the time were cranking out the books like stale genre fiction with no attempt to evoke the unique qualities of the 40k universe or try anything challenging or interesting. A lot of the adjectives he uses aren't ones commonly used in the modern English language, but from the way he writes and how he describes things you get a pretty good impression of what he means but using pseudo-archaic terms emphasizes the dark, Gothic feel. Plus, he's talented enough to break standard grammar rules to create a sense of someone speaking an alien language and communicating in different terms while writing the dialogue in English. I've read Eisenhorn, Ravenor, Cain, the Galaxy in Flames short story collection, and the first 3 HH books, and so far Inquisition War absolutely demolishes them in quality and truly evoking the feel of the grim dark future.
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Sep 14, 2013 02:53
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I'm still early in Soul Hunter but goddamn this is written well. It's the kind of book that makes me want to sit there and just go from beginning to end.
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Sep 14, 2013 02:58
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The Inquisition War teilogy is pretty great, in a bizarre way. It definitely evokes a weird, alien future in a way that no other 40k novel can.
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Sep 14, 2013 03:02
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Did they translate the Eldar into English in the newer editions? I read the originals back when they were relatively new.
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Sep 14, 2013 04:12
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Finally got around to reading Angel Exterminatus, The Emperor's Gift, Legion of the Damned, and Betrayer. Holy jesus was LotD a struggle to get through. Just because you know all these big words buddy doesn't mean you have to use them all the time. All of them were very good though.
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Sep 14, 2013 05:11
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Improbable Lobster posted:The Inquisition War teilogy is pretty great, in a bizarre way. It definitely evokes a weird, alien future in a way that no other 40k novel can. One thing I forget to mention, the Omnibus includes the short stories, the first of which is probably the only example in W40k fiction that actually has conversations between several genestealers and first person descriptions of their lair and how they operate. It's the second half of the story, but it does a great job of establishing how a 1st generation genestealer builds up their power base with pretty great descriptive imagery of the physical differences between genestealer generations, and how the various following generation members will feud with each other for favor from the primary. The question "Do any books cover the alien races besides Eldar" gets asked every so often in this thread and the story is called "The Alien Beast Within". I don't know where else you could find it other then the onmibus, and I think its out of print. Amazon has it used from $3 (but the next cheapest is $22) and new at $115.
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Sep 14, 2013 08:36
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"The Alien Beast Within" is available on the iTunes Store for iBook. Is that the gene stealer story? Sounds fantastic.
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Sep 14, 2013 08:56
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Aries posted:"The Alien Beast Within" is available on the iTunes Store for iBook. Is that the gene stealer story? Sounds fantastic. Yeah its the same. Be warned though 150 pages in Itunes book terms is 45 pages in regular BL print. $3 is a bit pricey for a 30 minute read, but it's probably the only legal alternative to buying the omnibus.
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Sep 14, 2013 09:21
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How aware are the Imperium's citizens of the Emperor's state of health? Do they know that he is little more than a corpse who hasn't spoken his mind in 10,000 years?
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Sep 14, 2013 16:10
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Baron Bifford posted:How aware are the Imperium's citizens of the Emperor's state of health? Do they know that he is little more than a corpse who hasn't spoken his mind in 10,000 years? What are you talking about? If you want to know the exact will of the Emperor, all you need to do is have a rousing round of Emperor's Tarot. Or just inquire of your local Inqusitor, they get updates regularly. Less snidely, obviously the fact that the Emperor sits perpetually on the Golden Throne is known (the Throne itself being a big part of the vernacular) but I get the impression that popular perceptions of the Emperor's current level of volition and interactivity are greatly exaggerated.
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Sep 14, 2013 17:37
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Well, in the novel Fire Caste there is this gue'vesa who regards the Emperor as "a corpse that won't die" and he doesn't know what He really stands for anymore. So he's quite aware that the Emperor is a zombie. I thought the Imperium covered this fact up so as not to cause a crisis of faith; the official position is that He's alive and well and approves of every action the Imperium takes, He just is really shy and avoids public appearances.
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Sep 14, 2013 18:34
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The general view of the Imperium is that the Emperor made a supreme sacrifice and appointed the High Lords and other sundry government officials to rule in his stead while he watches over humanity and the walls between reality and the Warp from his throne. They don't really think about it, but there's a reason the Imperium has a skull as a symbol: it's the visage of their god.
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Sep 14, 2013 21:44
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wiegieman posted:The general view of the Imperium is that the Emperor made a supreme sacrifice and appointed the High Lords and other sundry government officials to rule in his stead while he watches over humanity and the walls between reality and the Warp from his throne. They don't really think about it, but there's a reason the Imperium has a skull as a symbol: it's the visage of their god. The symbol of the Imperium is the double-headed eagle. Skulls are a common motif, but that's because they're a symbol of humanity.
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Sep 14, 2013 23:16
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Everybody's symbol is a skull. Except for the Tau. Because skulls everywhere is more Grimdark.
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Sep 14, 2013 23:21
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VanSandman posted:Everybody's symbol is a skull. Except for the Tau. Because skulls everywhere is more Grimdark. Who uses skulls besides humans?
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Sep 15, 2013 02:06
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