A niggle about Deliverance Lost

[Kol Saresk]

True. Of course the same question would naturally arrive if actual clones were used. The only thing I can think of its that while the Astartes were mutated, their gene-seed was relatively pure so they harvested it and later on as natural degradation from the combined genetics of multiple hosts is starting to take its toll and that the unstable gene-seed is more of a larger percentage of the whole stock rather than the whole stock.

[DIDM]

lets just think of this for one second

 

 

 

you are sent on the single most important mission that could ever be granted any member of any legion, and you are not properly trained in simple military commands and tactics of the group you are to impersonate?

 

 

this is sci-fi folks, faceoff times 40,000

[Ubermensch Commander]

Minor threadomancy-

I found the Alpha Legion infiltration aspects of DL to be the weakest part of the book by far.

The fact that one was a high ranking officer was simply the final nail in the coffin. Within the book itself the infiltrators are making mistakes and flat out note they do not speak the combat lingua or know the protocols.

There is no way that would go unnoticed, especially in a situation of massively reduced personnel under the direct eye of the Primarch and others.

At the very least he would have been pulled aside by Apothecaries for examination, wondering if massive head trauma or some such accounted for it. Certainly would not have been left in a command position since he would NOT have been able to command.

 

And the poisoning the gene seed scene! Really? No tripwires, no guards, no NOTHING protecting the future of the bloody chapter? Not even a camera or gun servitor.

Really, just poorly done, especially when compared to the rest of the well written novel.

[Jamafore]

snip snip

 

And the poisoning the gene seed scene! Really? No tripwires, no guards, no NOTHING protecting the future of the bloody chapter? Not even a camera or gun servitor.

Really, just poorly done, especially when compared to the rest of the well written novel.

 

 

 

That part I didn't find all that unbelievable. Figure the geneseed is in a well fortified base, with at least a company's worth of marines on premises, on what is essentually part of the RG Fortress-Monestary.

 

Now tell me what sane person would go after that, much less get that far in the base, that's not in a body bag?

[Master Ciaphas]

Deliverance Lost is the only HH book I have not bought and have no intention of getting or reading - solely because it is Mr. Thorpe who has penned it. His marine stories are (and have always been) lackluster in the extreme, and the misjustice he has done and keeps doing to the Dark Angels has seen his books banned from my library.

 

Oddly, his Eldar "Path" series is actually quite good...

[Kol Saresk]

Well, like you said, his Marine stories. And I was as hesitant as you were simply because it is easy with me to lose focus with the way he writes, but I found that I was able to keep up with this one and that it was not bad. I would not rate it up there with the Top Ten books that I ever read, but I would still recommend it as decent reading material.

[Black Mage 257]

Deliverance Lost is the only HH book I have not bought and have no intention of getting or reading - solely because it is Mr. Thorpe who has penned it. His marine stories are (and have always been) lackluster in the extreme, and the misjustice he has done and keeps doing to the Dark Angels has seen his books banned from my library.

 

Oddly, his Eldar "Path" series is actually quite good...

 

The 'Path' series is actually one of my favourite series of books, they are actually brilliant.

 

I agree some of his marine stuff to date has not been great, but I'd disagree with the Dark Angels statement, 'Angels of Darkness' is a fantastic book and I know few people who didn't like it. (Although thats a bit off topic)

 

Deliverance Lost I found to be quite good, I really enjoyed it as a whole, don't get me wrong this is definetly not one of the strongest HH books, but it is good and I think would be a good base to build more of the Raven Guard HH stuff on. My only grievance with it really as stated before was my slight unacceptance of:

 

 

The Alpha Legion being able to infiltrate such high ranks of the Raven Guard. I found it a bit ridiculous, especially with such unprepared infiltrators who were making quite simple and easily spotted mistakes.

 

Especially after reading 'Know No Fear'.

 

In 'Deliverance Lost' the part with his unique combat move he has to teach the other Raven Guard, as soon as this happned someone should have suspected something, after all Thiel (I think his name was) only suggest the idea of creating a theoretical way of fighting Space Marines and he was censured and would have been strictly punished I believe, yet our friend 'Alpharius' there actually does the practical and nobody bats an eyelid or thinks........ huh..... didn't get that in basic training.

 

 

The only defence I can see as far as how they could have gotten away with it is the fact that it was at that point it was unthinkable that marines were fighting each other, so the idea of marines infiltrating other legions (especially so high) must have been absolutely laughable.

 

Just my 0.02 USD though.

[Bat33.1]

The only defence I can see as far as how they could have gotten away with it is the fact that it was at that point it was unthinkable that marines were fighting each other, so the idea of marines infiltrating other legions (especially so high) must have been absolutely laughable.

 

Just my 0.02 USD though.

 

+1

 

Lets not forget the RG have just taken, ooh I don't know, around 90% casulties on Istvaan - which is going to disrupt them somewhat. Astartes v Astartes is unheard of, and supposed to be unthinkable, until now so the last thing they are looking for is an internal threat to the RG. The focus is on the Warmaster, his threat and, no doubt, revenge with a capital R.

[Ubermensch Commander]

The only defence I can see as far as how they could have gotten away with it is the fact that it was at that point it was unthinkable that marines were fighting each other, so the idea of marines infiltrating other legions (especially so high) must have been absolutely laughable.

 

Just my 0.02 USD though.

 

+1

 

Lets not forget the RG have just taken, ooh I don't know, around 90% casulties on Istvaan - which is going to disrupt them somewhat. Astartes v Astartes is unheard of, and supposed to be unthinkable, until now so the last thing they are looking for is an internal threat to the RG. The focus is on the Warmaster, his threat and, no doubt, revenge with a capital R.

 

But having reduced personnel (bringing tighter focus) and forces that do not even know BASIC TRAINING HANDSIGNS or the COMBAT CODES unique to the Raven Guard is kind of a big deal. There is no way that would have gone unnoticed, even amongst basic foottroopers MUCH LESS with higher ranking individuals.

They are unlikely to have instantly thought "Haha! The Butler did it!" but for them not to at least remark or check on it is unbelievable, IMO.

Oh hey, our reduced ranks are now acting like they never went through our training regime and our officers are incapable of giving the proper sign/countersigns/codes/etc...thats weird...trauma of Istvaan, maybe, or slow acting weapon of the Traitors? Lets send 'em to the Apothecarion to check up on them--OH TERRA THATS NOT THE RIGHT DNA.

[Epistolary Exander]

I think the problem is that the only way the AL could know the intimate protocals of the RG was if they had already infiltrated the RG legion before the dropsite massacre, for which it appears they did not. Also I dont know any military organisation that would openly share all of its operating methods, let alone the legions in 30K lore. Afterall not all of the legions openly shared their tactics etc like the UM, some like the AL actively hid their operating techniques.

 

Also to comfound the issue the AL had been busy doing a lot other activities preparing for the Heresy before the dropsite massacre, which includes infiltrating other legions both loyalist and traitor alike before the dropsite massacre. So it is possible that the marines the AL had left to infiltrate the RG were not their first choice to do the operation. After all it is logical to assume in order to keep up pretenses the AL were also waging wars of compliance in between Legion and the dropsite massacre and so they would lost marines to this aswel.

 

Considering these I think the AL infiltration is quite believable. The gripe I have with the AL infiltration of the RG is that they had no measures in place to stop their indentity being found out by genetic testing, but that is only because the AL should have thought about that. Yet that can be explained by how the AL assumed their plan would have worked and destroyed the RG and discounted the need to counter that threat.

 

In relation to the geneseed flaws from my understanding the Emperor only gave the RG the original 0.0 geneseed and that the RG had to use their geneseed stocks to modify the 0.0 geneseed to make the "uber" geneseed of Corax's line instead of it essentially being of no legion/ primarch lineage. If this is the case subsquently their entire geneseed stock was spoiled by the AL virus.

[Conn Eremon]

I have to agree with Ubermensch. The fact that the Raven Guard suffered such losses makes the infiltration far less believable, not more. The Legion got hammered into a much smaller, much more tightly knit force, and adding random, contradictory variables to a force in that state makes them much more likely to be found out. To the point that it's almost impossible that they didn't figure it out, barring the author refusing to let it happen. If the Legion had grown, like the Word Bearers or Dark Angels have, than such infiltration would make much more sense. You'd be adding random, contradictory variables to a force that would expect there to be at least some of that going on. The only explanation there is for the successful infiltration of the Alpha Legion into the Raven Guard is bad writing. The author took an easy way out, and downplayed one faction for the sake of letting his gambit succeed. I'm not against the Raven Guard being portrayed in a negative light, no Legion was perfect. But the author made them out to be fumbling morons just so that his "Alpha Legion did it" ploy could have a chance.

[Epistolary Exander]

Yes the RG got hammered down to around 3000 marines, but it was not like the legion was that tightly knit force as you are portraying. One of the main affects of the dropsite massacre on the RG was that it forced the marines into different internal camps of the legion to the point where Corax had to bring his Legion together as equalls at the end of the novel. The stress of what the RG went through after the dropsite massacre was such that not even the command council spoke to each other as openly has they should have done.

[Conn Eremon]

The tightly knit force that I was talking about is how the author was portraying it, though. In that everyone knew everyone, fought with everyone, struggled to survive with everyone. The force least able for the Alpha Legion to infiltrate was the force on Isstvan, that got picked up by Bran's force.