"Legion" Novel...

[Senseilord Ashahara]

"why did everyone just accept that the Cabal was right? I mean, you've got this group of aliens who say that they can see the future and that humanity is going to herald the victory of Chaos over the Materium, and they say that humanity can save the galaxy if it sacrifices itself on the altar to stop Chaos. . .okay, so what?"

 

I would presume the same reason anyone falls to Heresy. Horus saw the (broadly true) future of mankind living in an apalling Emperor alone venerating theocracy. It spiked his pride and he Fell.

Alpharius and Omegron saw the triumph of Choas defeating Chaos or the slow entropic decline that leads to a total Chaotic victory and that spoke to their idiom of Warrior-Philophers and so they Fell.

 

Also it doesnt nessessarity have to be true to cause their heresy.They just have to belie it. Indeed Horus' vision cause the war that caused the vision to become a reality.

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

Given the fluff that the Horus Heresy series has given us, I wouldn't buy that with someone else's money. The Imperium was a rational construct, where empirical evidence and scientific fact reigned supreme. Having the Primarchs, these gene-crafted masters of the Imperial Truth, just buy into all these "visions" and "prophecies" at face value makes no sense whatsoever. To make matters worse, they just do it; at most, it's half-hearted denials without even a later glimpse of a logic process to justify their decision. They just accept it as if they were etched into the fabric of physics.

 

Daemon: "See, Horus? Here's the plan your Emperor has for the galaxy." *insert Warp hoodoo* "If you don't stop him, this will all come to pass."

Horus: "Oh, okay, yeah, I can see that. I hate Daddy." *goes off to plan the Istvaan Massacre*

 

Cabal: "Horus is going to betray the Imperium and bring about a Chaos-spawned Apocalypse on the entire galaxy unless humanity kills itself to stop him. That means all of you, your whole species, has to die, and you have to help kill them."

Alph/Omeg: "Oh, okay, if you say so." *goes off and executes the Fleet* "For the Emperor!"

 

Bunk. Flimsy reasoning at its worst, and alters the nature of the Primarchs to boot. Even if, like Magnus and Lorgar, they saw the Emperor as being more than what he was and saw the universe in a different way than the Imperial Truth dictated, to simply buy into irrationality as justification for their actions throws out everything about the Primarchs' relationship with the Emperor. I admit, Magnus got burned, was going to be taken to Terra to explain himself, Russ got a new set of orders from Horus and lit Prospero up instead of just collecting Magnus and playing taxi service. Bad luck for Magnus. But no one else thought "Hey, why don't we go talk to the Emperor about this? These whackjob xenos and figments of the Warp are talking mad crap and inciting treason, let's get the Big Man on our side and maybe he can make heads or tails out of this first." Even the ones who knew what Horus was up to, Fulgrim, Dorn (sort of), Mortarion. . .none of them managed to dissuade Horus to bring it up with the Boss, or even go around Horus and do it themselves. They just said "Yeah, it's treason, but you're the Warmaster so go ahead and do it," or they got lost in the Warp. You can't even chalk it up to a trust issue, except with Lorgar who got spanked early on for doing preachy things when he shouldn't have been, because when you take in the concept that Horus stopped trusting the Emperor and got others to do the same, why should those others have trusted Horus?

 

Horus: "Brother, our Dad is selling us downriver for godhood. The voices in my head told me. Let's go kill him and take over."

Mortarion: "You've been drinking bleach again, haven't you?"

 

And it goes even further, when all of it could have been avoided with scenes like:

 

Daemon: "You have to kill him, Horus. His Astronomican hurts us."

Horus: "Yeah, he's mapping the Warp, and we're terribly sorry about that, but frankly, you're an aberration that doesn't deserve to exist, and if you don't like it, do something about it yourself. Ta, now."

 

Cabal: "It will take the deaths of all humanity to stop this from happening. Horus must win and the Emperor must die, in order for this to happen. We have foreseen it."

Alph/Omeg: "So what you're basically saying is that all you clowns botched the job for millennia, are too pathetic to reclaim what you've lost through your own stupidity, and now you expect humanity to eat the grenade you couldn't swallow? What happens afterwards, all you guys just move in and take back what humanity's sitting on now? Or is that not a motivation for all of this foolish back-alley weaseling you've been doing for hundreds of years, now that we're on the up-and-up and no one even remembers what your species' names are? Cram it, xenos. . .we're going to go tell Pop, put a bolter round into Horus's face if he doesn't snap out of it, and war on the Warp ourselves if it comes to that, and we're going to add you into it as dessert because killing you is what we do. You want mindless sacrifice that doesn't involve you, go talk to the Orks. They'll fight your little wars for you. Peace out, and watch your backs, scum."

 

The blind faith Horus and Alpharius/Omegon put in these "other" things was what they should have applied to the Emperor, or at the very least questioned the motives behind why the Warp wanted the Emperor dead, and why the Cabal needed humanity to bear the burden of sacrifice for the galaxy and no one else had to pay the butcher's bill. I can almost believe Horus was a little bonkers after Davin, so the Warp caught him at a bad time, but at what point did he simply stop and not think before acting? I'd give Alph/Omeg the benefit of the doubt and believe that they bought into Horus' fall, but that their plan all along was to play both sides until the truth was revealed in actuality and not in some prescient xeno vision. The Fall of Alpha Legion didn't occur until after the Heresy, when Guilliman slew half their Primarch(s), probably without ever asking why because he despised Alpharius anyway, and the other one then had all the rationale he'd ever need to foresake the Imperium forever after that.

 

It was about belief, but belief requires evidence, and the evidence presented to both Horus and Alpharius/Omegon doesn't stack up to their actions afterwards beyond a reasonable doubt. /end soapbox

 

What's fluff is fluff, though, so it's not like my doubts as to the veracity of the events will change the course of GW's tale any, but Fluff Monster hates a loose end. :lol:

[Octavulg]

*snip beautiful soap-boxery*

 

That was awesome. Absolutely awesome.

[Senseilord Ashahara]

"It was about belief, but belief requires evidence"

 

Isn't belief something you have when you don't have evidence? Anyway that's beside the point.

 

Inshort I agree with your analyisis but suspend a portion of disbelif to run with the story.

Prahaps the main problem is that the Heresy books arn't long enough?

 

Eisenhorn's trek down the radical path takes place over 3 fairly weighty tomes and feels organic. The Heresy books seem in kinda a rush.

Which is a pain because they're supposed to be explaining the most important events of the Imperium's history.

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

"It was about belief, but belief requires evidence"

 

Isn't belief something you have when you don't have evidence? Anyway that's beside the point.

 

Inshort I agree with your analyisis but suspend a portion of disbelif to run with the story.

Prahaps the main problem is that the Heresy books arn't long enough?

 

Eisenhorn's trek down the radical path takes place over 3 fairly weighty tomes and feels organic. The Heresy books seem in kinda a rush.

Which is a pain because they're supposed to be explaining the most important events of the Imperium's history.

 

I don't have to believe in gravity to know it's going to hold me on the ground. That's what faith is for.

 

I definitely agree that they seem short, but I don't know if that's the authors or the publishers making that decision. I just feel that as the HH series continues, I have to suspend more and more belief to buy into the weakening fluff that's being generated around the Heresy. It's almost schizophrenic, as I enjoy reading the books, and some of the stuff they've concocted has been brilliant, but it's like they didn't bother to sit down and flesh out the little details before they attacked the series, and the rust is starting to show through the paint job.

[Inquisitor Kravin]

Great rant post Khestra. So far my feelings on the reasons for the different primarchs falling are as follows:

 

Horus only became vulnerable after being wounded by the Daemon Weapon which is enough to sap even his will. I think that the outside influence of the visions really only exarcerbated flaws that were already there - specifically his ambition and a sense of abandonment and fear after Ullanor, not fear of harm to himself but of failing in the duty of bearing the enormous burden placed on him.

 

Fulgrim was already corrupted by the daemon sword he acquired on Laeran.

 

Lorgar's religious upbringing was his downfall - works for me.

 

Perturabo was bitter at a lack of recognition - when people feel unvalued and unrecognised that can be a very corrosive force for morale.

 

Night Haunter was haunted by visions that his death would be ordered by his own father - that's gotta mess with anybody.

 

Magnus - he tried to prevent the Heresy but after what Russ's forces did who can blame him for turning?

 

Those are the ones that I get. Now the ones that I don't:

 

Alph/Omeg - I love Legion as a novel and the way that the Alphas are portrayed. I also love the suggestion that the Alphas helped Horus for the ultimate goal of stopping him but your speech about swallowing the grenade that the Cabal couldn't is spot on. I just don't see why they would serve the Cabal - hence my Alpha Legion have become a splinter group.

 

Mortarion - I don't really see why he turned - what was in it for him?

 

Angron - was he ever good or was he just a a perpetual stress bunny of anger?

[Senseilord Ashahara]

"Mortarion - I don't really see why he turned - what was in it for him?"

 

They were becalmed in the Immaterium and aflicted by Warpspawned plague.

[BrotherLoki]

I too loved Legion, but I'm desperately hoping that Alpharius/Omegon had their own plan which will be revealed later, and that they only seem to be doing the Cabal's bidding. I'm betting that they are working towards a third possible outcome, that the cabal haven't foreseen.

[Inquisitor Kravin]

"Mortarion - I don't really see why he turned - what was in it for him?"

 

They were becalmed in the Immaterium and aflicted by Warpspawned plague.

 

That's how they became Plague Marines but it didn't happen until AFTER Istvaan when the Traitors headed for Terra. Mortarion had already thrown in his lot with Horus months earlier.

[Contaminus]

Mortarion - I don't really see why he turned - what was in it for him?

 

There was nothing really in it for him but he was always a bit of an outcast and a loner among the primarchs. He only truly felt comfortable around Night Haunter and Horus so when Horus tells him their father has abandoned them, he sides with the two primarchs he felt most comfortable with. Also, Horus had promised Morty a new empire free of slavery, something which he abhorred greatly.

[Rain]

Mortarion came from a planet in which a small group of warlords ruled over most of the people and Mortarion lead the plebeians to revolt and victory. Anyway this caused him to highly value individual freedom and self determination, Horus appealed to his sense of honor and convinced him that under Horus humanity would be completely free as opposed to having to bow before the Emperor. This wasn't really true of course, but Horus was quite charismatic.

[Senseilord Ashahara]

damn that handsom rogue

[Hally]

I believe they may have *started* with good intentions, but now (in 40k) they're nothing more than renegades really. Semi-chaos, if you will. I also think that they were manipulated by the Cabal. I think The Emperor would rather have Mankind and Chaos than nothing. I just don't believe He is willing to sacrifice His people to defeat Chaos.

 

EDIT:

It's sort of like "FOR THE GREATER GOOD". They sacrifice their whole population for whom? The xenos-scum we've been trying to exterminate for centuries? Ritually sacrificing ourselves to save xenos from Chaos is not very Imperium-ish.

[Rain]

Although I agree with the issues you brought up Khestra, I also think that by and large the HH series does its job as far and providing a nice pulpy read full of explosions and the melodramatic grandstanding that makes 40k the tongue in cheek ride that it is as long as you don't take it too seriously. My point is, that if you want internally consistent literature, you should probably look somewhere other than the publishing subsidiary of a toy soldier manufacturer.

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

Although I agree with the issues you brought up Khestra, I also think that by and large the HH series does its job as far and providing a nice pulpy read full of explosions and the melodramatic grandstanding that makes 40k the tongue in cheek ride that it is as long as you don't take it too seriously. My point is, that if you want internally consistent literature, you should probably look somewhere other than the publishing subsidiary of a toy soldier manufacturer.

 

A publishing subsidiary that doesn't hire toymakers to write their books. GW provided the land; all the authors had to do was pick the seeds to sow and not get the crops mixed up. There were perfectly viable ways to have Horus fall that didn't require suspension of belief to buy into. There were perfectly viable ways to have the Alpha Legion turn that didn't require suspension of belief to buy into. It's sloppy, lazy, makes for bad fluff, and the game and the metauniverse suffers for it. A "nice, pulpy read full of explosions and melodramatic grandstanding" is a GI Joe comic. . .my expectation was something significantly more satisfying than someone's marshmallow hack novel. Black Library has produced too many good books in the past to excuse this behavior; I wasn't anticipating them to have suddenly hired all the clowns who write Star Trek novels to write what could have been their opus magni.

 

I don't expect to take it seriously; I just expect it to make sense afterwards. ;)

[Rain]

Oh come on, as if Warhammer is really that divergent from GI Joe. I mean the main difference is just that WH has more gore and genocide and is therefore slightly less kid-friendly, but the general idea of improbable soldiers fighting wars of absolute or near absolute good and evil and the plastic figures that go along with it are pretty similar. Also Warhammer has none of that cheesy "hooray for America!" BS but that's because it was made by Brits and Brits tend to be wittier and less dogmatic that us.

 

Anyway, as I said I agree that the HH has plot holes that you could fly a 747 through, but at the same time, I really don't expect any literary achievements from Black Library and I think it would be silly for anyone to have such expectations. I mean think about it, Space Marines are so outlandish and different from us that they are more similar to the titans or minor gods of Greek mythology then they are to humans and as such it is quite difficult to make sympathetic characters out of them. Furthermore, the universe itself is very tongue in cheek and so an overly serious book on the subject would just appear campy. Oh and by the way, even though they do hire "real" writers to write the books, almost all "real" writers are complete quacks so it makes little difference.

[Khestra the Unbeheld]

Oh come on, as if Warhammer is really that divergent from GI Joe. I mean the main difference is just that WH has more gore and genocide and is therefore slightly less kid-friendly, but the general idea of improbable soldiers fighting wars of absolute or near absolute good and evil and the plastic figures that go along with it are pretty similar. Also Warhammer has none of that cheesy "hooray for America!" BS but that's because it was made by Brits and Brits tend to be wittier and less dogmatic that us.

 

You weren't alive for the Cold War, were you? ;) The general idea of GI Joe was propaganda, but no one ever held an expectation for it to be anything else. It was meant to sell toys, and COBRA never got to win; simplicity without much purpose. GW has put a thousand times more effort into their creation than anyone ever did GI Joe, even though its purpose was basically to sell a game. Why go through that much effort to only give out what GI Joe did? I suspect someone in GW had a higher motive than the mere selling of minis, so yes, it is divergent from GI Joe, or would be if someone was minding the store.

 

Anyway, as I said I agree that the HH has plot holes that you could fly a 747 through, but at the same time, I really don't expect any literary achievements from Black Library and I think it would be silly for anyone to have such expectations. I mean think about it, Space Marines are so outlandish and different from us that they are more similar to the titans or minor gods of Greek mythology then they are to humans and as such it is quite difficult to make sympathetic characters out of them. Furthermore, the universe itself is very tongue in cheek and so an overly serious book on the subject would just appear campy. Oh and by the way, even though they do hire "real" writers to write the books, almost all "real" writers are complete quacks so it makes little difference.

 

Is it silly to have the expectation that every book the Black Library publishes be at least the caliber of Dark Apostle, or Lord of the Night, or the Gaunt's Ghosts series? I think not. Black Library have multiple instances of publishing non-hack, solid fluff work that helped expand and advance the metauniverse in which the tales were written. They dropped the standard for Horus Heresy, probably the best work they've done to really bring to light what it's like to live as a Space Marine, how they socialize and interact with each other and those not like themselves, their motivations and their doubts, and do it in such a fashion that the average reader can comprehend it. That isn't the marker of a "tongue-in-cheek" work; they were billing this as being epic in scope, and thus my expectation is for it to be epic in craft as well. It isn't too much to ask, and it's within their capability as shown time and again in other publications.

 

As for all "real" writers being "complete quacks", that's a pretty broad generalization, and doesn't serve a purpose in this discussion.

[Rain]

I was alive during the Cold War, though I admit I missed most of it, as I imagine you did as well. Oh and by the way, The general idea of 40k was making money, but no one ever held an expectation for it to be anything else. It was meant to sell models, and CHAOS never got to win; simplicity without much purpose. Point is, just like how GI Joe was made for the average chest thumping American, so 40k is marketed toward GW's primary base of Space Marine playing adolescents who have deep pocketed parents.

 

Back on topic, I really don't see that much of a disparity of quality between books like Lord of the Night and ones like Galaxy in Flames; sure LotN was more entertaining, but in the end it's all dimestore purple prose.

 

Anywho, I don't see this as a particularly important discussion and so this is going to be my last post here, especially since I agree that the HH novel plots are outlandish and very liberal with their use of deus ex machina developments and resolutions, I just don't expect much better from BL and don't see much reason to.

[Senseilord Ashahara]

so...back to losing ourself in the backstory to our nerdish games anyone?

[Assault Brother Pervazius]

" first is the name Omegon" i dont know, i kind of liked it. I am the Alpha and Omega the beginning and the end. I thought omegon kind of fit if you were thinking of it that way.

[Guerilla Commando]

That all sounds very silly and half-baked. I'm a little bit surprised, actually. I won't be taking it as canonical, that's for sure.

 

I suggest you wait until you have read it first. most of the early reviews have been positive but there are always going to be people who dislike somthing. The book is well thought out and the Alpha Legion are well portraid.

 

 

There were only two things that didn't seem quite right to me, the first is the name Omegon the second was how quickly the Alpha Legion seemed to accept that the two visions presented were both true and the only possabilitys. This is why i believe they have some other agenda

 

 

 

 

i believe that Alpharius was confused when he turned to chaos and only chose the path becuase it said that if he joined the chaos at the cost of humanity chaos will be destroyed.

[Brother-Kezek]

Cabal: "It will take the deaths of all humanity to stop this from happening. Horus must win and the Emperor must die, in order for this to happen. We have foreseen it."

Alph/Omeg: "So what you're basically saying is that all you clowns botched the job for millennia, are too pathetic to reclaim what you've lost through your own stupidity, and now you expect humanity to eat the grenade you couldn't swallow? What happens afterwards, all you guys just move in and take back what humanity's sitting on now? Or is that not a motivation for all of this foolish back-alley weaseling you've been doing for hundreds of years, now that we're on the up-and-up and no one even remembers what your species' names are? Cram it, xenos. . .we're going to go tell Pop, put a bolter round into Horus's face if he doesn't snap out of it, and war on the Warp ourselves if it comes to that, and we're going to add you into it as dessert because killing you is what we do. You want mindless sacrifice that doesn't involve you, go talk to the Orks. They'll fight your little wars for you. Peace out, and watch your backs, scum."

 

I loved every word.lol

[Epic Thoughts]

FOREWARNING; There will be spoilers included in this post. If you have not read the book, please do not read this post.

 

 

 

I've read through Legion just recently (I know I'm late to the party, but it's hard to get your hands on GW/BL stuff up here in the boon docks), and, I have to say I'm rather bothered by the amazing amount of disinformation involved in the entire book. Now, don't get me wrong; it's a great story wrote by a great author. Out of all the Chaos Legions, The Alpha Legions ranks among the few with fluff I actually enjoy. But... when Dinas Chayne was asked by Namatjira what he thought in regards to the conferance held between Namatjira's forces and The Alpha Legion, Chayne responded by saying, "Every single one of them was lying".

 

It's this sentence that completely depicts the entirity of the book. I don't trust anything that we where told. I don't trust Namatjira or his forces. I don't trust The Chiliad. I don't trust Grammaticus, I don't trust The Alpha Legion. And I most certainly don't trust the hodge podge of xenos, lead by an Eldar none the less. I can't help but feel that everything everyone in the book said was ultimately intended to only further their own advances and to limit the advances of their foes.

 

Just how much can be trusted when so much lieing and deciet goes on in four hundred pages?

[NemFX]

See, the point of the Alpha Legion is to confuse. To the point where even the truth is doubted (take for example, Alpharius's death)

 

You don't know. We don't know. The creators don't know. Ultimately, it really doesn't matter what's truth, and what's fiction. The only 'truths' are in history books, and those are written by the winners.

[Chyttering]

The book reminded me very strongly of the Alpha Legion IA article - it bases most of the information it gives off the research of Inquisitor Kravin, and then 2/3 of the way through the article it announces that in fact Kravin was probably working for the Legion and nothing from the article should be believed.

 

A lot of people are taking the book as fact and are completely convinced of the existence of some spooky Cabal that, in the course of trying to make the universe a better and happier place, convinced the Legion to rebel (but not really rebel - they're actually still loyal). And of course the question of this second primarch - it's made people question everything they know about the Legion, which is great, but people don't seem to be taking it with nearly enough salt.

 

Frankly I had expected the last page to read "This manuscript was found in M36. Its veracity cannot be confirmed" and as it stands I take that as implied. Xenos cabals who teamed up with the Alpha Legion to defeat Chaos? An extra Primarch who's still alive? The Alpha Legion being the most loyal of all the marine legions? Sounds like Alpha Legion trickery to me.