Lord_Caerolion Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 TO: Inquisitor-Lord Strohiem FROM: Interrogator Brandik ++CLEARANCE ATMA++ SUBJECT: Stirrings of a Traitor Legion PRIORITY: High, action requested RECIEVED: 999.M41 MESSAGE FORMAT: Telepathic relay ASTROPATHIC DUCT: Pontius Flavian THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Mankind stands on the shoulders of the Martyred. My Lord, you have surely heard of the event on the Eastern Fringe recently. A psychic shockwave of immense proportions was registered, centered on the Cardinal System of Thrax. The last previous reports from the system date from approximately 5 Standard Terran Months ago, and mention only that an unidentified fleet had entered the system. After that, all astropathic communication with the system ended. Obviously something dire has happened there, as nothing short of a system-wide Exterminatus could cause such a disturbance in the Warp. Estimates on the strength of the disturbance predict that the effects will reach even Holy Terra Itself! Most disturbing of all though, is reports from distances sufficiently far enough away for the Astropaths to survive the mental assault. My Lord, they speak of a message. On the cusp of the wave was a message, a message that has burned itself into the brains of those psykers who survived the assault. Of course, I have attached a transcript of this message. If what this message states is true, miltarisation of the northern areas of the Eastern Fringe must be increased dramatically, lest the threat escalate. The Emperor protects... ATTACHED FILE: Transcript of Warp Anomaly/Message SOURCE: Astropath Hastus Ravian (deceased) ADDENDUM: Delete after reading. Failure to do so will result in charges of Heresy. I bring news, Brothers. I, the Dark Saint of the Night Lords, Brother-Captain Orpheo de Caerolion, have taken my place at the head of the Shadow Council of the Night Lords. As such, the Legion shall be reforged. Our Legion has long been shattered, petty warbands cast adrift amongst the stars, the tattered remnants of once-proud Great Companies reduced to shadows of their former glory, ekeing out an existence of piracy and raids. I seek to end that. Under my will, those who left our Legion with the Traitor Acerbus will be hunted down, to be taken back amongst our numbers, or to be put down like the dogs they proved themselves to be. Do not take this as an expression of hostility though, my former Brothers. For now, you have amnesty. Rejoin our Legion, join the Shadow Council, and you will be welcomed back. If you fight us, you will prove to be as worthless as the day you left. Traitor scum have no place amongst our Legion. Those that have the vision to see the goals of our Father, the Night Haunter, accomplished shall be welcomed amongst the fold, and their return celebrated as the lost brothers they are. Our amnesty extends to all others who wish to cast off the shackles of Imperial rule. If you see as we do, and perceive the Emperor as the Corpse-God as he so truly is, you will take your place in the new Nostromon Empire. Freedom awaits you, all you stand to lose are your chains of oppression, and the faith that has so long held you in your bonds, and kept you from realising what you truly are. You will not be harmed by us, no matter what your petty Ministorum liars may preach. There is no hatred between free men. It is only the willing slave that must be scorned, for they hold us back with the leash they so willingly put around their necks, unaware that the leash will one day become the noose. We seek to end the injustice that typifies the Imperium. Just look around you, civilian. Who amongst you has not been wronged by your Master? To your Administratum, the supposed glue of the Imperium, you are nothing but a statistic. To your Ecclesiarchy, you are nothing but another sheep amongst the flock, unable to do anything for yourselves, lest your Emperor cast you into the flames of the Warp for your sins. To your precious Mechanicus, you are a source of temporal power, a fool to be kept mystified by technology so they can keep their towering egos propped up by your wonder and awe. And why do you accept this fate? Because your Emperor supposedly loves you! Ask yourselves, when was the last time 'He' told you this? I could count the number of you who answered that question positively in a clenched fist. The source of your current happiness from your Emperor is none other than the Ecclesiarchy, the same fools who depend on your unthinking servitude for their own power. The Emperor cares not for Man, only for his own agenda, that of an Imperium to call his own, to satisfy his own lust for power and blood. He sits immobile on his Golden Throne, unthinking, uncaring. Your precious Emperor may as well be the gilt statue you keep of him in your shrine, rather than a living being! He answers no prayers, he doesn't save you when your world is invaded by one of the myriad threats that surrounds your Imperium. One by one your worlds fall, overrun by foes, yet your Emperor does as he has always done. He ignores the problem. He allows his subjects to die in his name, content that their worship will become all the stronger from the hardship. So, we come to restore the imbalances of justice. We bring judgement to those who would falsely rule others. We bring the very fires of purgatory to your misguided fools of the Ministorum, who grow fat while their flock starves and huddles in the cold. To your Administratum, who live so uncaring of the plight of others, reducing the lives of human beings to marks on a piece of paper, we bring vengeance. But most of all, to your deluded Emperor, with his dreams of God-hood, we bring vindication. We bring vindication for a murdered son. We bring vindication for a galaxy enslaved. We bring vindication for what he has done for these last ten thousand years! So Brothers, gather your men. The call to arms resounds, and you will not be found wanting. The charade of leadership of the False Emperor will be endured no longer. Welcome our friends where you find them. Annihilate our enemies where they stand. Do not rest until the last trace of the Imperium of Man has been removed, so that the Nostromon Empire may take its place amongst the stars. Little Emperor, deluded little corpse of a God on Terra, hide behind your mindless slaves. Your Custodes cannot protect you, for they live a lie. Your Mechanicum cares not for your fate. Snivel and writhe in the grave-dust that has settled on you these last ten millennia. The stench of death hangs heavily over your head, the weight of the atrocities committed in your name weighs heavily on your shoulders. You will not escape your fate, and remember this... The Night Lords come for what you have done to this galaxy. We come for what you did to a loyal son. We come for you. And neither we nor you will pass quietly into the night. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/161499-inquisitorial-report/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rain Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 Hmm I'm not sure how much Night Haunter cared about freeing people as if you read The Dark King, he was pretty merciless, ordering the execution of unarmed prisoners and destroying his own home planet because he saw them as having forgotten to fear him. Even Zso Sahaal, who is probably the most soft chaos marine you will find, wantonly killed pretty much anyone that came across his path and was only didn't kill that cult because he thought he was using them. Still, it's a well written fanfic, much better than most. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/161499-inquisitorial-report/#findComment-1896370 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Caerolion Posted February 25, 2009 Author Share Posted February 25, 2009 Well, I like to think the Night Haunter still had a goal in his vigilantism. Sure, he was merciless, but he still wanted to get rid of crime. He destroyed those who were in the way of his goals, and the Great Crusade was a way he could extend his vision of the "perfect society" from just a single world to a whole galaxy. To be fair, I don't really like the portrayal of the Night Lords in The Dark King. It makes them too one-dimensional, almost Khorne-worshipping. They kill because they didn't like what they did, with no purpose to it. I want to bring the Night Lords back to a more realistic level. They are merciless, they are callous, but they do it for a worthy goal. They're Col. Kurtz' perfect soldiers. To use the quote from Apocalypse Now: We went into a camp to inoculate the children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for Polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn't see. We went back there and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember... I... I... I cried. I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget. And then I realized... like I was shot... like I was shot with a diamond... a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought: My God... the genius of that. The genius. The will to do that. Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men... trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love... but they had the strength... the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion... without judgment... without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us. The Night Lords are the monster that gets peace in the way only a monster can. Night Haunter fought against fire, and realised that the only way to fight it was with fire of your own. Brutality to fight brutality, monstrousness to fight monstrousness. The Night Lords realise that they are monsters, this is part of what drove Night Haunter insane. But as cruel as they are, they did it so that they can create a better Imperium. I'm just giving a goal to what the Night Lords do. The logical progression of Sahaal, if he hadn't been lost in the Warp for 10,000 years. These are the Night Lords who believed in the goals of the Emperor and the Night Haunter, and now fight from exile to see those goals completed. To me, the Night Lords are Batman at the end of the Dark Knight, but 'darker'. They fully embraced damnation so that others would be saved. Night Haunter destroyed his own planet because he saw it as a failed world. The Emperor had failed him there. He had brought it into perfect compliance, a model society, but the laxity of the Emperor had allowed it to revert. Corruption was too entrenched in the world. As such, an example had to be made. The rest of the galaxy had to be shown the price of continued rebellion from the Haunters law. If you stayed within that law, you were fine, and your life would be pretty good. Sure, you'd never become super-rich, but why would you need to when you have everything provided? He made a working communist state, and I think given more time under the Haunter then it might have lasted longer than it did. Curze was removed before his sociological conditioning could become permanent. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/161499-inquisitorial-report/#findComment-1896382 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Playa Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 Hey, The Night Lords are the monster that gets peace in the way only a monster can Exactly - with a logical method to their perceived madness. Bravo, sir! as cruel as they are Strong! ("The horror ... the horror.") they did it so that they can create a better Imperium. I'm just giving a goal to what the Night Lords do And a proper gift it is. Keep up the good work! Playa Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/161499-inquisitorial-report/#findComment-1896385 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rain Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 I understand the idea, I've read Heart of Darkness as well so if you want to talk source material, well, the Kurtz from HoD also initially wanted to find a way to civilize the people he was sent to watch over (as well as harvest ivory) but ended up deciding that they were basically unfit to live and became an insane despot. The point is, that while the initial cause was pure, the negative traits of humanity get to whoever is trying to carry out the cause and end up manifesting in that person, making them worse than what they fight as they aim to exterminate it. Just like how Kurtz believed that the people that were harvesting his ivory deserve to be exterminated, so did Night Haunter believed his planet was "lost". The point however is that whatever evil the citizens of Nostromo were up to was not necessarily deserving of his response and I think he understood that at some level which lead to the fact that his philosophy left no room for judging the emperor as he had become worse and this drove him insane at which point anything goes. Ergo it is impossible to fight fire with fire without getting burned and likewise one must become a monster to fight monsters. So even if the Night Lords initially wanted to uphold peace, I would think that their methods would inevitably lead to depravity and misanthropy and the only reason Sahaal was the way he was was because he has been asleep for a very long time. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/161499-inquisitorial-report/#findComment-1896396 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Caerolion Posted February 25, 2009 Author Share Posted February 25, 2009 Well, that all depends on your interpretation of Night Haunters last words. You see it as a confession from Night Haunter, that death is nothing compared to what should be done to him. I see it as death is nothing compared to the benefit of having his actions vindicated by the Emperor showing himself as just as barbaric by sending an assassin to kill his son. Both are valid interpretations, both lead to very different interpretations of the Night Lords as a whole. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/161499-inquisitorial-report/#findComment-1896403 Share on other sites More sharing options...
the jeske Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 To be fair, I don't really like the portrayal of the Night Lords in The Dark King. It makes them too one-dimensional, almost Khorne-worshipping thats not khorn that focused [well focused on destruction thats true] . I mean imagine you have visions that your father kills you and the world goes down in flames . You fight against those visions , try to be a good son . And then the assasin . and then a second one , a third etc And then the world burns durning the heresy . Wouldnt you think that your visions were not just a possible future or halucinations , but actuall visions of coming things. Anyone would get bitter then . Cruz didnt even lost his survivial instinct the one which everything that lives has. he didnt care about if he lives or not , just that his vengance happens . Also as brutallity goes . Normal sm , the loyalist ones purge whole cities , whole planets and whole sectors too . The BT razed to the ground 4 planets . Everyone died . Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/161499-inquisitorial-report/#findComment-1896439 Share on other sites More sharing options...
DominusNox Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 Couldnt have said it better myself. Night lords are like the punisher or the Boondock Saints. Your too evil. Your dead. nuff said. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/161499-inquisitorial-report/#findComment-1896466 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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