A Thousand Sons

[The 13th Goat]

Remebered another discrepancy i forgot to mention at the start; Sanguinius's hair and armour! What was THAT about? I think McNeill is just trying to totally flip the Heresy on its head. Did he not like Abnett's description in Horus Rising?

[shatter]

He does things for the ripple of effect through His galaxy. A ripple He knows will occur and He knows who it will affect. It may be His ripples, while perceived by untold multitudes, are the whisper of butterfly wings on His true target's cheek, striking with the force of a supernova.

 

Could it be that it was nothing more than a message such as "I'd sooner cut off My right hand than allow you (sorcerers) to think your chosen course carries My approval or evokes anything but My contempt. You have made your choice."

 

DO NOT PRESUME TO KNOW HIS WILL EVEN WHEN YOU THINK HE TELLS YOU WHAT IT IS!

 

General mistrust of psychers is good for Him and Mankind... and (should one have the wisdom and faith to believe His vision was perfect) he was running out of 'time' and such a simple edict with it's blatant dichotomy could last untold eons.

[Draeden]

Farseers, Weirdboyz, Old Ones, and any other number of Old One Races that were in existance long before the Emperor. All of them are psykers. And none of them are bound to the Emperor.

Since Dark Heresy is a roleplaying game for the Imperial Inquisition, I don't think its descriptions of psykers within the Imperium were ever intended to apply to non-Imperial non-human psykers. :D

That's my point exactly. The description sounds more like Imperial Propaganda than actual Truth.

 

Why does it have to be seen in an absolutist light? Surely it's easy to interpret the entire Dark Heresy quote within its own context and only apply it to Imperial psykers?

 

It's also quite possible for sorcerors to have been around before the Great Crusade. By your current logic, that means 'A Thousand Sons' must be Imperial propaganda rather than actual Truth, since the Thousand Sons sorcery 'issue' could not be true if there were sorcerors beforehand. Or perhaps (like the DH quote) the Thousand Sons problem only applies within the Imperium? :)

 

Never denied in my reasoning that there were Sorcerors pre-Heresy.

 

Psyker = A being using their own psychic conciousness to affect the warp and reaity

 

Sorceror = A being supplementing their psyker powers with warp essence

 

If it just so happens that after the War in Heaven that the safest way to access warp essence is daemon-pact, then daemon-pact it is.

 

Personally, I can see Old Ones, and in the early stages of the War In Heaven, the Eldar being Sorcerors. If I recall correctly, the Enslaver Plague came about Daemonic Possession followed by opening of Warp Rifts. Daemons were a result of the War in Heaven. A previously unknown aspect of the warp. So they wouldn't be prepared for the consequences of their actions. Eldar/Old One goes on about augmenting their own power through Sorcery and low and behold, you have Enslaver Possession.

[Captain Juan Juarez]

Heres another question that A Thousand Sons raises...

 

What the hell was the author playing at?? One of the larger HH books and the ending, from around Nikea felt so rushed!

[Gree]

Remebered another discrepancy i forgot to mention at the start; Sanguinius's hair and armour! What was THAT about? I think McNeill is just trying to totally flip the Heresy on its head. Did he not like Abnett's description in Horus Rising?

 

Sanguinus was depicted as a blonde multiple times in the artbooks.

 

Or he just dyed his hair. I'm sure a primarch can get acess to a bottle of that stff. As for the armor primarchs have been described with multiple sets of armor.

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

Or he just dyed his hair. I'm sure a primarch can get acess to a bottle of that stff.

The real reason for the Heresy:

Emperor: For the last time Horus, no. You are not dyeing your hair, it's bad enough with the amount Russ and Sanginius use, and don't get me started on Fulgrim, he's practically a drag queen, this family already spends too much on beauty products, and I don't have any daughters. And no, Fulgrim and Gullieman do not count, despite what everyone thinks.

[Dark Mechanicum]

Heh, I can so see that.

[Gree]

Or he just dyed his hair. I'm sure a primarch can get acess to a bottle of that stff.

The real reason for the Heresy:

Emperor: For the last time Horus, no. You are not dyeing your hair, it's bad enough with the amount Russ and Sanginius use, and don't get me started on Fulgrim, he's practically a drag queen, this family already spends too much on beauty products, and I don't have any daughters. And no, Fulgrim and Gullieman do not count, despite what everyone thinks.

 

Emperor: And Russ! Poor boy spends most of them all! going to blonde, to copepr to black! He can't make up his mind! I've seen scully maids worse than him! :tu:

 

Seriously, I have see at least three seperate sources give three different accounts of Russ's hairstle.

 

And how does Guilliman dye his hair? He has a crew cut in the artbooks, he obviously does not look like someone who is a hair care man. Sanguinuis has two sperate depictions of different hair.

[Elenaria]

Re: Hair colour and general appearance of Primarchs. If there was a set-in-stone such, I think the authors would all adhere to it. However, we see quite clearly that Magnus changes his appearance at will, and it seems to me that it is hinted at, that the other Primarchs can do this as well.

 

Reading what the authors write on their blogs, as well as speaking to them, "we" (the fans) know that they are all in contact with eachother and with Black Library often. Mr McNeill and mr Abnett have been working especially close with writing their two books - Abnett, for those who didn't know, was originally scheduled to write "A Thousand Sons", but they switched, I think I remember him saying something to the extent of this being, amongst several other causes, because he generally doesn't like the Space Wolves that much (reasons as to why he also explains, see his blog for instance), and it would be much more of a challenge writing about them.

Personally I was thrilled that these two were writing precisely those books, and that mr Abnett went for the more difficult road. Oftentimes that is when one writes the best, with a proper challenge before one.

 

As to the original questions of the topic...

I think there might have been a need banning all and everything like is said in the book. After all, with what He had planned, maybe He needed the currents of the Empyrean to be as undisturbed by other's meddling as possible? Or to calm those upset by the Librarian Crisis.

 

Regarding questions two and three, I find I agree with the second poster.

 

It will also be interesting to see how the other HH books, the upcoming ones, tie in to "A Thousand Sons". Mr McNeill literally wrote that he had handed over the stake to someone else regarding the Remembrancers.

 

 

And is it just me, or is mr McNeill an old fan of Epic? Knights in Mechanicum, and now, a psi-Titan... *delighted*

Come to think of it, I'll go ask.

[Simo429]

i really disliked this book

 

since fulgrim the books really have gone downhill although some parts of tales of the heresy were good

 

i thought the 1k sons decimated the custodes far too easily, id always had the belief that the custodes were more powerful, better trained and generally a lot harder to kill than space marines.

 

also the idea that a psychic shield could stop planetary bombardment seems far fetched.

 

the end of the book sempt very rushed and I was disapointed, i can only hope that in a years time dan abnett does a much better job

 

all in all i was disapointed, out of all the books i got from black library live this was the one i was most looking forward to and the one i was most disapointed with, soul hunter was much better as was hellsreach

[Kodanshi]

The real reason for the Heresy:

Emperor: For the last time Horus, no. You are not dyeing your hair, it's bad enough with the amount Russ and Sanginius use, and don't get me started on Fulgrim, he's practically a drag queen, this family already spends too much on beauty products, and I don't have any daughters. And no, Fulgrim and Gullieman do not count, despite what everyone thinks.

 

Hahahahaha! You know how some people write ‘LOL!’ ? Well this actually had me laughing out loud. Or cackling like crazy, to say it more accurately. Especially the bit about Fulgrim’s family! :) Fantastic.

[Gree]

i thought the 1k sons decimated the custodes far too easily, id always had the belief that the custodes were more powerful, better trained and generally a lot harder to kill than space marines.

 

In Tales of Heresy it's already established that the custodes are not actualy that powerful. It's remarked on by one of the Custodes themselves.

 

also the idea that a psychic shield could stop planetary bombardment seems far fetched.

 

How? It was the effort of the entire Raptora cult, I don't think we were ever given indication of power limits for the entire combined cult.

[Simo429]

i thought the 1k sons decimated the custodes far too easily, id always had the belief that the custodes were more powerful, better trained and generally a lot harder to kill than space marines.

 

In Tales of Heresy it's already established that the custodes are not actualy that powerful. It's remarked on by one of the Custodes themselves.

 

also the idea that a psychic shield could stop planetary bombardment seems far fetched.

 

How? It was the effort of the entire Raptora cult, I don't think we were ever given indication of power limits for the entire combined cult.

in tales of the heresy the custodes also remark that they would be more than willing to go toe to toe with a primarch, theres also the bit in collective visions which discusses there power, 100 of them teleported to save horus was it and only 1 died

 

we didnt get numbers on the entire cult but still i think its very far fetched, planetary bombardment destroys entire worlds and yet when focused by a fleet on one city only they can deflect it

 

one interesting point that i thought was finally confirmed (at least by my understanding) was that Mortarion is the primarch that can turn invisible

[Draeden]

Simo,

 

First of all, Planetary Bombardment doesn't destroy a planet, only smashes the surface to dust. Planetary Destruction destroys planets.... that or Death Stars...

 

Also, Custodes aren't more powerful than a regular Astartes. They're better equipped but not better than an Astartes. So, Well Equipped Astartes vs Psyker Astartes.

[Simo429]

Simo,

 

First of all, Planetary Bombardment doesn't destroy a planet, only smashes the surface to dust. Planetary Destruction destroys planets.... that or Death Stars...

 

Also, Custodes aren't more powerful than a regular Astartes. They're better equipped but not better than an Astartes. So, Well Equipped Astartes vs Psyker Astartes.

the quote im thinking of with custodes is this one it may not be 100% accurate and i cant remember the source but it has always stook

 

the custodes are to astartes as the primarchs are to the Emperor

 

as the Emperor is far more powerful than the primarchs its where my belief that the custodes are more powerful than your average space marine

[Draeden]

Thing is, I don't think there was much difference between the Emperor and the Primarchs.

 

Magnus had the psychic might to match the Emperor, but lacked the training.

 

Horus with some warp assistance managed to match the Emperor blow for blow.

 

The thing was, the Primarchs have much more openly glaring weaknesses than the Emperor, and weren't trained as well... hence why it appears to be such a huge difference in power.

[Simo429]

Thing is, I don't think there was much difference between the Emperor and the Primarchs.

 

Magnus had the psychic might to match the Emperor, but lacked the training.

 

Horus with some warp assistance managed to match the Emperor blow for blow.

 

The thing was, the Primarchs have much more openly glaring weaknesses than the Emperor, and weren't trained as well... hence why it appears to be such a huge difference in power.

this is a different debate altogether and one that I think that would be very enjoyable however I dont think you are right at all especially with the commenets about horus as I think we will see when we finally get there, everything ive ever read is that the emperor didnt evven bother fighting properly until one of of his custodes was flayed by horus just as a side thought and then he decided to fight properly and what he did to horus scared the gods of chaos themselves

 

getting away from this

did i misunderstand that monatorian can make himself invisible

 

?

[whiskeybent]

Well, I have yet to read this book. I am waiting till my friend finishes it then I will read it. But I know that in Raven's Flight they go into detail about how Corax can "become invisible".

[Gree]

in tales of the heresy the custodes also remark that they would be more than willing to go toe to toe with a primarch,

 

No, read it again, Dorn laughs at them. If the custodes were as powerful as a primarch then there would be no point in making the primarchs.

 

theres also the bit in collective visions which discusses there power, 100 of them teleported to save horus was it and only 1 died

 

I never read that in the visions.

 

we didnt get numbers on the entire cult but still i think its very far fetched, planetary bombardment destroys entire worlds and yet when focused by a fleet on one city only they can deflect it

 

No, it does nto destroy entire worlds, it wipes off the surface and it was focused on the entire planet, not a single city.

 

one interesting point that i thought was finally confirmed (at least by my understanding) was that Mortarion is the primarch that can turn invisible

 

No it was not, it was the cloaking fields that all of Magnus's detactors had at the meeting.

[Midwest]

Apologies for the threadomance, but my understanding of the difference between "psyker" and "sorcerer" is that the difference isn't about the source of powers, but the individual's relation to the Warp.

 

Wyrdmake is a psyker because he only uses the warp for energy. He's able to enter it, as shown when he comes to Ahriman's aid, but that seems to be the extent of it.

 

Magnus, on the other hand, seems more of a sorcerer because of his interaction with the immaterium. He speaks w/ daemons, literally, and seems obsessed with understanding it. It's hard to imagine Wyrdmake engaging in such discussion with a warp entity, at least anything beyond "die foul beast!", and Ahriman's repeated observations of how "primitive" the rune priest's understanding of the warp's reality seem to suggest that Wyrdmake probably doesn't bother much with reading all these tomes and grimoires and meditating on its nature the way the Thousand Sons do.

 

To me this seems the crux of what's getting the T-Sons in trouble. Like the Word Bearers, they have taken a tolerated trait (psychic potential vs. faith in the Emperor) to an extreme level, and in their obsession they are not only failing in their duties (the T-Sons are shown as being slow in pushing their crusade movements, similar to what Lorgar was reprimanded for), but they are pushing this trait into an area that far beyond the "Imperial" mainstream.

 

It may really be that the issue here is an echo of Nietzsche's famous warning to avoid the abyss looking back into you. Ahriman condemns Wyrdmake's understanding as primitive, if not superstitious, which I think for most of us would seem like a bad thing, especially given the danger of the warp within the "reality" of 40k. Reading A Thousand Sons, I remember initially thinking that, if anyone's open to the perils of the warp, it would be Wyrdmake, whose primitive conceiving of the warp could hide or confuse the dangers lurking within it.

 

Yet, it may be that Wyrdmake's relatively "shallow" knowledge of the warp - thus making him a "mere" psyker - actually makes him much safer than someone like Magnus or Ahriman, who seek to go beyond the mere utilitarian use of the aether and want to understand the very immaterium itself. "Sorcery", then, may go beyond the powers themselves into the actual study and observation of the warp - the issue being that the warp is so inherently dangerous, "sorcerers" risk damning themselves with any attempt to understand it (let alone control it, which seems to be Magnus' vanity-induced obsession).