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SlaveTrader posted:You mean one Primarch in two bodies. gently caress, i got those two reversed. Yeah, one soul in two bodies. Whoops.
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Sep 3, 2012 20:12
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Brotherhood of the Snake is a collection of short stories, not a novel.
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Sep 7, 2012 02:05
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berzerkmonkey posted:
Probably someone or a group of people who didn't calibrate their monitor properly. Those mid-greys have a lot of variance depending on monitor performance, gamma, etc. I demand Lexicanum be THX certified.
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Sep 7, 2012 21:20
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Kegslayer posted:Ah not quite, from memory, I think only conclave can declare you've gone rogue and that could be anything from not answering a conclave summons to actively working against the Imperium. Also, those rules vary based on what section of the Inquisition you're talking about - region, era, etc. Most of the time, they're sort of making stuff up as they go along, and most rules are more traditions than they are actual hard rules, and are only as strong as their hold on people or the ability of people to enforce them. It seems that the greatest damper on the actions of individual Inquisitors is the disapproval of other inquisitors, and the various covert, overt, or official attempts at assassination that come along with that displeasure.
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Sep 10, 2012 01:59
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It's possible it works either way. It doesn't matter, anyway. Progenoids exist because somebody asked where Space Marines come from, and there needs to be a plausible reason why they're so rare and aren't just being cranked out by the billions. In fluff, honestly, probably half the chapters don't really know how they work either, and even the other half is pretty fuzzy on the details beyond what they've learned by rote and ritual from 10,000 years ago. And probably the slow maturation is a safety feature designed into the marines from the start to make sure that once the Emperor stopped the initial creation process for the legions, they would be able to independently replace losses from battle so as to be self-sufficient, but no-one could ever make their own legion in any reasonable amount of time without the technical secrets for mass-production of gene-seed that are known only to the Emperor. I believe the book Deliverance Lost in part revolves around this.
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Sep 11, 2012 02:35
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Fried Chicken posted:Well yes, in theory there isn't anything that is stopping your from growing a marine for 10 years, killing him, then growing 2 for 10 years, killing them, etc, getting an exponential increase in geneseed and creating a massive number of space marines. A mere 200 years would give you a million marines, 300 years a billion, and 400 would give you a trillion. Both make plenty of sense for the Imperium or Chaos, they work on long time scales. It would be slower than the rapidgrowth techniques they have attempted before, but without the unstables problems that arise from fast growth. The Imperium already does that, more or less, except the universe is pretty good at killing marines anyway. Where do you think they get new chapters from? Your plan also ignores the enormous amount of time and resources it takes to culture the gene-seed from a single progenoid into usable implants, as well as the fact that the success rate for implantation is not particularly high, and that the creation process itself takes a huge amount of time and resources. So while it takes 5-10 years for a fully matured and implanted marine to produce a useful progenoid, getting from a progenoid to a new marine takes an unknown but likely quite long time and tons of resources. You're trying to math stuff out, but you've failed to completely grasp the whole picture. There are plenty of silly plot holes and head-scratchers in 40k, but this is not one of them. The Emperor first grew his legions using special techniques for the mass-productiob of gene-seed, which he then locked away. Alternatively, he did the thing you propose except he didn't kill them afterwards because that would be stupid. There were 20 primarchs because the Emperor intended to conquer and unite an entire galaxy's worth of humanity. The Emperor is still just one man, which is why he created the primarchs to delegate the enormous task of the great crusade, with each primarch given a unique set of talents and approaches to war. It's sometimes implied, depending on the fluff, that the Space Marines themselves are an offshoot of the Primarchs project that was green-lighted only after the Primarchs themselves were lost, but this is one of those hazy areas that GW doesn't really care about clarifying. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Sep 11, 2012 |
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Sep 11, 2012 04:51
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Fried Chicken posted:The create them from the tithed geneseed, stored under the polar caps of Terra. They do not fast grow it - the ones who try are individuals like Corax, and fast growing doesn't work out well. You missed the joke. Fried Chicken posted:No, I specifically called out the time. A few hundred years is nothing when you operated on the tens of thousands. You still don't know how long it takes to culture the organs from progenoids, making your calculation incomplete. Very little is known about the actual work of creating a marine, but one of the books you cite actually explicitly talks about high rates of organ rejection, so even from a purely fluff standpoint, you're wrong. You also miss the real big picture reason which is that your idea isn't cool and sounds stupid the way you presented it. Fried Chicken posted:So it isn't clear, but you know what the plan really is. Your speculation is stupid and you're stupid. How's that? I can't tell if you're trying to be cute with math and doing the standard dumb thing of thinking 40k is science-fiction (it's not), or if you actually think this fits thematically with the rest of the universe. Either way, it's a stupid thing to discuss and the way you presented it, as if it were some giant plot hole that you dissected by your mastery of maths, was bad. Exponential growth is something basically everyone understands, and there's a lot of reasons why you don't actually see it in real life, too.
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Sep 11, 2012 13:55
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Therion posted:I wish Abnett killed off one of his books' main characters or had something irreversably lovely happen to them, since I have trouble feeling any tension at all while knowing that his protagonists have the thickest Plot Armor this side of Salvatore. I know that 40k novels are intended for the ARGH BADASS KILLS EVERYONE teenage crowd but there are only so much cliches one can use before the reader starts to recognize the patterns. Err how many of the Gaunt's Ghosts series books have you read?
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Sep 17, 2012 00:17
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Arquinsiel posted:We already know how it ends (Hint: Hitler loses) so really they can just keep on backfilling detail until they run out of trees to print on. Then they can say that it's all apocrypha and proceed to retell the REAL story.
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Sep 17, 2012 15:25
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Mechafunkzilla posted:For fans of 40k, I'd say this is true when you compare their current work (though Know No Fear was really great), but ADB's books are really heavily steeped in backstory. Part of what makes things like Eisenhorn and Gaunt's Ghosts so great is that they'd be incredibly enjoyable even if the person reading them knows nothing about 40k. Abnett does some interesting stuff with language, whereas ADB is much more about characterization and interpersonal relationships. Both are pretty uncontestably the best Black Library authors.
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Sep 18, 2012 00:36
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Big Willy Style posted:This is basically the primarch finishing move. Russ did it to Magnus and I fully expect Horus to do it to Sanguinius. Call it the Batman effect.
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Sep 18, 2012 15:27
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Trast posted:Leopards actually swim quite frequently so the whole phrase is bogus. Well, "phlegmy leopard growl" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
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Sep 19, 2012 19:18
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jadebullet posted:Well gently caress. I just can't read further in Kadilus. It is like pulling teeth and reminds me of trying to read the Dawn of War omnibus that I bought before I knew better. Legion of the Damned is decent.
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Sep 22, 2012 23:37
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Lincoln`s Wax posted:It may be weird, but it is my favorite BL novel. It was so totally different than what I was expecting it to be and something about it just really clicked with me. As I've been reading other novels (just finished For The Emperor, about to start Helsreach and the nightlords books), I've actually re-read Legion three times. I also liked it. The way the Legion was handled was probably the best way to do it and way better than what I was expecting.
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Sep 23, 2012 01:20
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Mowglis Haircut posted:Well if you think you're good enough (hahahahah) then Black Library actually have a segment of the year when they take open submissions for short stories and (rarely) novels. Go for it. In a video blog Abnett actually says that BL are trying to move into different types of story, like in Atlas Infernal or 40k's first ever plausible romance in the Night Lords books, so don't be afraid to try something new! Clearly, he should do a teen coming-of-age romance/comedy. With orks.
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Oct 1, 2012 19:32
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Big Willy Style posted:This has been done already. Space Marine by Ian Watson. Sadly, it focuses on the Imperial Fists and not orks. Yeah but that was written in like the 80s. Kids these days like beautiful vampires. So Blood Angels, I guess. Or else madcap hijinks at the Schola Progenium.
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Oct 1, 2012 20:34
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He's a Daemon Primarch. He's basically the closest thing to a literal physical incarnation of a god in 40k.
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Oct 16, 2012 00:29
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Mechafunkzilla posted:Yep. Khorne didn't burst into existence because lots of people started believing in a God of War and made it so, but rather because lots of people were killing each other. Also, it's implied in one of the chaos fluff sourcebooks that the origins of the chaos gods were either as weaponized warp entities created by the old ones and the eldar, or else spontaneous products of that process, followed by a massive multisided war in heaven (along with the ctan, etc.) where most of the entities killed each other, with the survivors being the gods of the eldar.
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Oct 17, 2012 14:58
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Schneider Heim posted:I think Perturabo got the short end of the stick in that story, he got painted as this really pathetic character with a tantrum problem. Not to mention Polux had a real chance of winning and killing him if he didn't receive that order to withdraw Both showcase the character flaws of their respective chapters. The Iron Warriors are siege specialists, which means that they're patient and determined to the point of fault, since they become incredibly bitter and passive-aggressive instead of actually expressing their displeasure at their role in the crusade, which eventually explodes into a bunch of tantrums. They're methodical and mechanical and thereby neglect their human side until it explodes. Perturabo is that one roommate who silently grumbles every time you don't do the dishes until one day he snaps and burns the house down. In the heresy itself, the Iron Warriors basically gently caress up on every single campaign they're on. The Imperial Fists are loyal and obedient to the point where Pollux throws away a huge potential victory and instead suffers huge avoidable fleet losses purely in his blind drive to obey as quickly as possible without thought to the circumstances. Tragically, Sigismund could have created a huge victory for the loyalists via his 'disobedience,' but ultimately due to the inflexible nature of "never tell a lie" Dorn and his Fists, his development will be retarded and he will become an even more insane, blind fanatic. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Oct 25, 2012 |
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Oct 25, 2012 17:36
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Shroud posted:That's the one of the things that bothered me. Here I am, a Space Marine, on track to defeat and kill a traitor primarch and his stupid fleet. Dorn can piss off. I don't care how mad he gets, I can tell him "Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of bits of Perturabo stuck in my helmet. Also, you can tell the Emperor I took care of the traitor legion that would be the most effective in breaching the Imperial Palace. You're welcome, though." Withdrawing the fleet was Pollux's decision, not Dorn's. All Dorn did was tell Pollux to get his rear end back home ASAP. In wartime, it's always up to commanders to interpret the orders given by their superiors. It wasn't a two-way message, and Dorn had no idea of the specifics of the situation. While it's implied that Sigismund would have been defeated by the Iron Warriors fleet because of his impetuousness, it can also be said that if it were Sigismund there in command, he probably would have stayed to finish the fight instead of withdrawing immediately as Pollux does, since it's clear that Sigismund is more independent and less blindly obedient than the junior commander. Additionally, the reason Sigismund gives is basically that he didn't go as he was commanded to because he thinks he'll die out there as a historical footnote and selfishly wants to be by Dorn's side to the glorious end. Even though, in hindsight, his presence and ignominious death in deep space may actually have saved much more of the fleet. And he makes this decision based on basically magic. Keep in mind that the warp is not at all trustworthy, and it's the home of the gods of chaos. The Primarchs do seem to know that the warp is home to alien and hostile intelligences. Which makes basically any suggestions from the warp untrustworthy at best. Add in the whole "imperial truth" they've been sworn to fight for and it's understandable why Dorn is angry. Not only was his son one of the first to abandon the Imperial Truth, but then the decision he makes based on the info he gains is for basically vain and selfish reasons instead of putting the good of the Imperium first. That's the whole thing about that story - at first, you're led to think that Pollux going instead of Sigismund will save the fleet, but then, as the story progresses, you realize that it may be the other way around, and Sigismund's presence might have been what was needed to save the fleet and/or successfully strike a massive victory against the rebels by crippling or killing a traitor primarch. But this outcome is derailed because of Sigismund's vanity, because although he doesn't fear death, he can't stand the thought of being blown up in a fleet action in the middle of nowhere at the start of the war instead of dying gloriously by his primarch's side at the end of the war, even though, on the long run, that fleet action might end up being strategically much more important. Dorn knew that he would need his most brilliant, experienced, and independent commanders out there handling things because they could easily be cut off from communications and left to make decisions for themselves without his guidance. He can handle poo poo on earth, and he doesn't need great commanders at home since he's there to coordinate everything. Sigismund refusing to go out even though he could do more for the war effort out there instead of by Dorn's side stuck on earth is really selfish. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Oct 25, 2012 |
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Oct 25, 2012 19:43
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Shroud posted:Thanks for the response. He seems a lot more reasonable the way you tell it. Yeah, but the key infraction here is not the source of Sigismund's information, but rather the choice he makes, based on those beliefs, to place his feelings before his duty. Note that Dorn doesn't publicly censure Sigismund in any way. All he says is that he's secretly super-disappointed. Dorn's whole credo is about total commitment and loyalty at any cost. Sigismund loves his father and just wants to stay by his side until the end. But all Dorn can see is that Sigismund is placing his love for his father before his duty to the Imperium, and Dorn is heartbroken that his son doesn't understand this when it's at the core of who Dorn is and why he does the things that he does. Despite his reputation as a blunt dickhead, Dorn is portrayed to have a rather sensitive heart - he has strong sentimental attachments to things like his foster father's old fur robe (he literally sleeps with it every night like Linus and his blanket) or the artistic masterpieces of the imperial palace - but, despite this sensitivity, his loyalty and love for his own father is so great that he is willing to sacrifice anything and everything in order to uphold his duty. Moreover, to Dorn, Sigismund's failing is rendered worse because choosing loyalty to Primarch over loyalty to the Imperium is basically what the rest of the Traitor legions have done. Clearly, this was inevitable, but the realization that his own sons are subject to this same weakness is also part of the reason for the strength of Dorn's reaction. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Oct 26, 2012 |
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Oct 25, 2012 23:50
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Fellblade posted:Now I don't know a massive amount about printing and publishing but I'm pretty sure that's not how it works, especially when the authors are being forced to cut down stuff they already have written to fit. Or just publishing costs. Here's a little informal discussion on book lengths: http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=3412 http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/03/cmap-5-why-books-are-the-lengt.html quote:The rules differ somewhat for A-list titles (if you can order a big print run, economies of scale ensue) and Epic Fantasy, where bloat has been de rigeur ever since "The Lord of the Rings". But in general there's a harsh brake on the length of hardback SF, and it's imposed by the step-up in binding costs at one end, and the booksellers at the other. One of the large chains did a study in the early 2000s and determined that for every $1 increment above a cover price of $24, a book's sales volume fell by roughly 25%; price it at $26 and it would sell only around 60% as many copies as at the $24 price point. (The price elasticity of demand for hardback fiction falls off a cliff above the $24 point; alas, it doesn't work the other way!) For this reason, they issued a diktat: no hardcover novels would be bought at an SRP over $24 unless they were from a really big-name author. And so the publishers were caught between readers who for three decades had been trained to expect ever-longer books, and a bookseller-imposed guillotine on prices. Production costs for a book scale pretty differently based on length compared to the price per book based on length. People aren't willing to pay double for double the pages, even though it might actually cost twice as much to print, bind, and shipt it. So BL probably found (or thinks they found) some magic optimum length to maximize profits by optimizing for sales versus production costs at their desired price range. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Nov 5, 2012 |
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Nov 5, 2012 19:29
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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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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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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
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Rhymenoserous posted:From my understanding the only people that can tell an inquisitor to stuff it and expect it to stick is the leadership of a Space Marine chapter. Or another inquisitor. Which is why most people of high enough political station are often buddies with an inquisitor or two.
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Nov 21, 2012 23:23
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Yeah, the whole "overlapping power networks, each with close to unlimited power on paper" thing resulting in informal networks of restraint and governance instead of any sort of formalized checks and balances between the different arms is definitely something you still see both historically and even now in a lot of third-world countries (e.g., China).
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Nov 21, 2012 23:28
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berzerkmonkey posted:Yeah, but he's no more a "god" than the Emperor is (or do the books specifically state he is?) He's a superhuman who became a god through stories and legend. Yeah, he's obviously one of the lost primarchs 
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Nov 26, 2012 22:51
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dongsbot 9000 posted:WOW, that's a really lovely sentence for prose. The original work was serialized in Black Library's monthly short fiction magazine. In other words, it's shameless word count filler. Pretty pathetic, really. I also enjoy the subcategories separated by semicolons, presumably organized by proficiencies or whatever from the D&D sourcebook he copied from.
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Nov 30, 2012 20:40
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The fluff fiction is sometimes bad about this, especially when they do the whole "describe a fight scene like a game" thing, but a model being removed means the model's no longer in combat, not necessarily that they're dead. I feel like the death rates we see for Space Marines in most 40k fiction, which is usually a minimum of 1-2 per fight scene, would be unsustainable otherwise. But whatever, it's 40k. Just like I assume a big chunk of those backpacks they wear is just filled with ammo. OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Dec 10, 2012 |
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Dec 10, 2012 16:57
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Nephilm posted:I bet this could lead to some awkward moments. Sorry, my favorite is still the warboss attacking his past self so he can have two of his favorite gun.
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Dec 10, 2012 21:28
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Emnity posted:After finally finishing Pariah I can only say that I am terribly underwhelmed and I hope it all clicks in the next book, joined for old school inquisitor bolter porn, left feeling like I had been given flick-knife soft-porn. Inquisitor books are usually going to be space fantasy versions of detective fiction and/or adventure fiction, not war fiction or fantasy neo-epics like the typical bolter porn. It's a genre thing, and you should change your expectations.
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Dec 13, 2012 21:40
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Mechafunkzilla posted:Inquisitors don't even use bolter weapons most of the time Not entirely true: the bolt pistol seems like the standard pimp-rear end status symbol for the outgoing Inquisitor. It's a personal weapon (i.e., a city weapon and not a rifle) that's extremely expensive, extremely loud, and extremely unsubtle, since it's usually pointlessly overpowered against normal human targets. It makes a statement.
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Dec 13, 2012 21:50
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Mechafunkzilla posted:"most of the time" Hey, it's not conspicuous consumption unless it's conspicuous!
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Dec 13, 2012 22:04
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Mechafunkzilla posted:Yes, I know. Are you just being obtuse or do you not realize that the general connotation of the word "digital" is "relating to computers"? Especially in the context of space men with laser guns and stuff. I actually enjoy Abnett because he's pretty good at re-purposing (or at least re-spelling) archaic terms and then using them to do world-building. It's fun for language nerds buried in his pulp fun for space fantasy nerds.
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Dec 14, 2012 02:43
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Arquinsiel posted:Shut up, everyone knows the dictionary wins arguements Yeah, but nobody's quite sure how they work and they're mostly made by inscrutable alien orangutans who just spontaneously construct guns for no known reason. It's from the non-grimdark, weird part of 40k.
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Dec 14, 2012 17:12
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BlueInkAlchemist posted:My wife (good Goon that she is) saw the Word Bearers omnibus arrive at our doorstep and said, "This isn't Eisenhorn. What's wrong with you?" First Heretic and Betrayer are both Word Bearers centric Horus Heresy books by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, who's one of the few good BL writers. Definitely put them at the top of your list. Also Know No Fear by Dan Abnett, the other good BL writer.
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Dec 18, 2012 01:24
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They also have futuristic hypno-therapy to treat/recondition/brainwash those kids as needed.
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Dec 19, 2012 03:25
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JerryLee posted:Wrath of Iron was interesting because of how it had a short scene describing the way the Iron Hands actually have some sort of body dysmorphic disorder, with all the emotional issues and distress that can go along with that, rather than just saying "they replace their bodies with machines because GRIMDARK." That's something that I know how much it sucks, so I was really interested in seeing that developed. It was sort of a disappointment when the follow-up was "they're still irredeemable assholes anyway." What else were you expecting?
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Dec 19, 2012 05:02
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Mechafunkzilla posted:I'm only a little bit into The Siege of Castellax, but it's very entertaining so far. Much, much better than Path of the Renegade, which I just finished and was a joyless slog throughout. I rather enjoyed C.L. Werner's Fantasy stuff, so it's good to see that he's still on form in 40k. He's definitely one of the best B-tier BL authors, and probably the funniest when he wants to be. He's kind of the successor to William King. I sort of like the Chaos vs. Orks match-up if only because neither side really has any plot armor, and the book could legitimately go anywhere.
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Dec 19, 2012 05:19
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