The Dark Angels in Savage Weapons

[FerociousBeast]

It's come up in a number of different places, so I thought I'd pose the question here: What do you think of ADB's take on the Lion and the Dark Angels in Savage Weapons?

 

If you haven't read the story yet, you should, because it's quickly becoming an important work in the Dark Angel canon, perhaps just as important in its way as Angels of Darkness was. Not necessarily because it's good, but because it's influencing how the other BL writers, like Gav Thorpe, have written and presumably will be writing the Dark Angels in their own stories. It's also a pretty popular story among the fans, as far as I can tell.

 

However, I found the story controversial. Candleshoes recently brought Graham McNeill's philosophy on owning the legions he writes to this board, and it's safe to say ADB shares McNeill's perspective. To me, ADB has wrenched his Dark Angels in Savage Weapons thematically pretty far away from the Dark Angels of the 41st Millennium.

 

The Lion's part in the story is pretty small, surprisingly. It's really much more a story about Corswain. We do get a depiction of the Lion in his knightly splendor and we hear from his own lips that "loyalty is its own reward," but the story primarily follows Corswain and Alajos, and accordingly says much more about how ADB views the Dark Angels than about how he views the Lion.

 

And how does ADB view the Dark Angels? As knights, first and foremost. For ADB, the Dark Angels' inspiration comes from Arthurian romance. But I don't see that in the Dark Angels' codexes and Index Astartes article. In the older material, Dark Angels take the names of angels of terror and death, like Azrael and Asmodai, not medieval-sounding names, like Corswain or Alajos. In the older material, Dark Angels are primarily monastic and brooding in theme; the Order consisted of knights, yes, but one feels they would not have felt at ease among the pageantry and pomp of Camelot. In Savage Weapons, there's not a drop of the monastic to be seen among these noble warriors.

 

In Savage Weapons, the Dark Angels are knights in shining armor (which just happens to be painted black), Galahads in Space. These aren't the Dark Angels that I first knew and fell in love with. What about you?

[Jehoel]

Lets see, during the Great Crusade the Dark Angels were knights bringing the light of the Imperial Truth to dark worlds. But after the Heresy and the loss of Caliban, the Dark Angels had a terrible secret in the form of the Fallen, so they became brooding and reclusive to the point of monastic. Sounds right to me.

 

In Savage Weapons, you see the way the Dark Angels were during the ending of the Crusade and the beginning of the Heresy, from the point of view of one of the Dark Angels. You also see the Lion's descent into a dark and brooding nature that presages what will happen to the Dark Angels themselves. I think A D-B has done an awesome job of giving us a look at the origin of the Dark Angels secretive nature.

[Kanis]

Having not read this one, but the other novels, I personally find this new direction of Knightly orders a most welcome view. What's cooler than knights and their codes? It might not be what we all fell in love with the Angels at first for, but I don't feel it takes away anything. They gain interesting structure, and the entire background culture of Caliban was extremely cool. Now our legion has some established history we lacked before, that other Chapters have been able to get fleshed out in recent renditions/novels. Since childhood knights of the realms have been a favorite subject, and then authors go and combine that aspect with the Sons of the Lion! Truly we've been given the best of possibilities.

 

Where others are viking-wolves or Greko-Romans, we get to be loyal, but secretive knights with unmatched skill in blade and honour. Sure we're not all taking the changes openly, but I think finally getting fleshed out in the Heresy is a great step for our fluff, because we'd long been non-existant within its history. What better image is there, than Dark Angels who are also "dark knights" that seclude others for the sake of regaining their honour in His eyes?

 

Also, I feel the Dark Angels of "today" are still the grim-dark Astartes we came to love, but now they'll have a solid design. Orders instead of companies? Yes please! I do however hope that the retain that darker feel that we enjoy. Combining the knights with "dark/grim" names as mentioned in fluff, would really make for truly the coolest legion out there. No other Chapter/Legion can touch that in my eyes, and Arthurian background gives so much to work with. Now this is all just my view on these guys, and I don't post as much as I like, but I do take my fluff to heart and I find the directions taken in the HH series to be good ones for the Dark Angels.

 

I only hope that when our Codex is redone that we get that new direction included within it somehow, giving us the must deserved flavor our Brother Chapters have received thus far. Hooded Knights with swords, organised within Orders of battle; that sounds pretty epic to me. Just my thoughts, thanks for starting an interesting topic!

[Candleshoes]

There have been quite a few discussions surrounding the story, most of the good ones taking place shortly before and after it first came out.

 

I'll bite i guess, at the pomp and Camelot comment, as I think you might make others misunderstand.

 

Below is from Nov 2010, I'm afraid this view and outlook doesn't show the pageantry you imply, nor does the story. If anything it hits home the grimdark. Galahads is a little too far good sir.

 

Caliban. It was dangerous for far, far more than the Great Beasts. It was classed as a Death World in Imperial archives, and every Dark Angel will have a wealth of tales of hardship and struggle while he grew up there. Think of everything that went wrong in medieval Europe and the Dark Ages, and magnify it by ten. The Order's wars with other knightly orders were crusades that spanned continents and killed hundreds of thousands. The forests stretched on forever, making travel between settlements no easy feat, and communities struggled year after year at the wilderness' edges. The trees bled poisonous sap once you split their bark, making quality lumber even harder to come by, and the beasts in the woodland were all born of savage, lethal breeds - from vermin with no fear of humans, right through to packs of beasts that leave isolated villages devoid of life after they hunt. Locust swarms would leave towns suffering and starving, while outbreaks of Black Plague would devastate entire towns, and knights would have the grim duty of marching in with torches to burn the dead in massive funeral pyres. And the Dark Angels would all be warriors that grew up in this, and survived it. While Caliban would be changed by the Lion's crusade against the Great Beasts, it would still have strong echoes of its Death World roots.

[Arioch]

As Candleshoes said, I dont think the Dark Angels is portrayed as "knights in shining armor" in Savage Weapons. That they are portrayed as knights in the first place is not strange either, because it has always been known that the legion was founded on the remains of the old order, a point I have often sougth to make. The Dark Angels have always been "knightly" and "monastic" in feel, ADB just did more with this than the two previous books did and finally dared to give the DA a more solid theme, which I think is great. That, and the fact that this story gave us a Lion with unquestioning loyalty (at last!) should be seen as the stories greatest contributions in my opinion. And I think the gregorian chant was a good way to hint at the strong monastic theme in the legion, but it was not really that important in this short story.

 

The orders of Caliban are as mentioned not just a bunch of Galahads. Some could be called Lancelots at best, but he to had his sins. Sure they see it as their duty to protect the population from the beasts, but between this we have the wars between the orders and the fact that some hunt and kill the beasts for their own glory or amusement, not for the common people. The influence of the legends of Camelot sure is there, but compared to many other legions (like the spacewolfs being obvious vikings) the influence of it is not so strong as to be the only inspirational source of the Dark Angels.

[cernunnos]

My personal take is that pre-heresy and post-heresy the Dark Angels were very different chapters. There is a theme within Space Marines in general and the Lion in particular of a feral savagery kept in check though certain disciplines. In the case of the Dark Angels pre-heresy this was through knightly codes of conduct. The fall of half of the chapter to Chaos showed these knightly traditions as insufficient for containing the potential for darkness within. This led to the chapter becoming more introspective in nature, looking inward at their own fears, hopes and motivations in an attempt to master the darkness within rather than rely on the now clearly inadequate knightly codes of conduct. Over the millennia this saw the chapter take on a more monastic character than a knightly one, although echoes of this knightly tradition do remain.

[Akatriel]

As I see it, the knightly theme is there (altough more in a sour armor than a shiny one), but also the monastic theme, the paranoid theme, the intelligence-gathering theme... the keys are both evolution and aggregation.

 

For one thing, we are seeing some of the evolution of the Dark Angels: from First Legion to knights in the tradition of Caliban, to realizing the internal fractures resulting from both the clash between Terran-born and Caliban-born marines and the trust issues of their Primarch, to the Betrayal and the ensuing shock: paranoia, shame, vows of redemption, and a shift of focus: from focusing outward, in honor and killing the real Beasts that menace mankind, to shame and killing the metaphorical Beast that menaces the soul of the Chapter: their Fallen brethren. Then they found out that these Beasts are scattered and in hiding. They must find them. They must not only hide their shame, but also actively lie and manipulate others into unknowingly help they found their prey.

 

But all those elements do not overwrite each other. The vow to chase and pursue the Fallen is knightly in essence: a search for the Grail, and a quest to restore honor. Hence trappings like swords, Paladins, or personal heraldry. Add to this mistrust and paranoia and you have a community closed to the exterior world, where only those who "know" are to be trusted: a sect of initiates and monks, who hide their shame behind hoods and use chanting and prayer to strenghten their minds, so that they do not deviate from the "right path". Monks which are also knights. Which are also slayers of monsters, real or metaphorical. Which also are spymasters and manipulators, adept at lying and working in the shadows.

 

I really see this multiplicity of themes as one of the key aspects of the Dark Angels. They are not straightforward and clear, but bendy, elusive and convoluted. They are not space-werewolves-vikings, nor space-vampires, nor space-romans. They are space-monk-spy-hunter-knights-liars-mystics, and so on and so forth.

 

In my opinion, in Savage Weapons we see a step in this process of transformation and aggretation. The fracture between Terrans and Calibanites is done; Luther and his party are already "exiled" to Caliban. Horus, and who knows who else, has betrayed the Emperor. They are still knights first and foremost, not monks, but the mistrust, the paranoia and the secrecy is taking hold, and rooting itself in the hearth of the Chapter. It has always been here, as we see in Descent of Angels (which I think is a wreckage, although with some redeeming qualities), but now it is rising to the foreground.

[Isiah]

I think Savage Weapons is too short a story to be able to accurately exprapolate a developing "theme". We have already seen a slight shift in positioning in the newer The Lion anyway.

 

Saying the DA are "Galahads in Space" (nice phrase btw - wished I'd thought of it :cuss) is something you could say about a lot of other Chapters too in that they see themselves as organisations rooted august military orders (of various names) with their own rich heritages and fighting for a 'good cause'.

 

The DA don't have the monopoly on that.

 

Waht I do feel is that overall there has been a boredom in where they were for the last 20 years and a recognition that that should change. Particularly in regard to where the Lion sits regards the Horus Heresy. He was long castigated for fence-sitting and dawdling. Savage Weapons and The Lion both go some way to knock that on the head well and truly - and paint him as something of non-trusting-of-everyone independent - not the easily lead or coerced cycophant. He's been duped before - but not again.

 

The Lion has matured and I ljke that.

 

In Savage Weapons, the Dark Angels are knights in shining armor (which just happens to be painted black), Galahads in Space. These aren't the Dark Angels that I first knew and fell in love with. What about you?

 

Like you FB I've always thought them mysterious outsiders so "Galahads in Space" would be an uneasy fit for me.

[Phoebus]

I hesitate to see how Arthurian romance has been introduced in the series - I really do. Maybe I interpret that statement too literaly, but I have trouble seeing Malory, etc, in what A-D-B wrote.

 

I don't have a problem with the Dark Angels being shown as knights born of a grimly, quasi-medieval Death World (think of Europe as shown in "Flesh and Blood", but with primitive bolt pistols and chainswords and set in massive forests inimical to human existence), because it reconciles with what the Legion would have been post-Caliban but pre-Heresy. It's important to remember that timeline. The time has not come yet for secrecy, etc.

 

Personally, I also like it because I've always had a hard time reconciling the Unforgiven with their motif. The vast majority of the battle-brothers of those Chapters descended from the Dark Angels have no business knowing about the Fallen or the truth behind their Legion's history. Ergo, they have no real reason being secretive, paranoid, or dour toward other Astartes. Those that HAVE ascended to the Deathwing, the Inner Circle, etc., though, do have reasons to be thus. Even then, though, it's not a universal thing - Azrael, for instance, is considered quite the charismatic leader.

 

Thus, to me at least, it always made sense that MOST of the Dark Angels and their Successors would be these "space knights", though they certainly would not be "Galahads" by any means. I pictured them being more akin to the Militant Orders of pre-Renaissance Europe. They would be honorable, not prone to excess or boisterous behavior, stoic in their approach, and proud (if in a subdued, solemn way) only of their adherence to their vows, the legacy of their Chapter/Legion, and their individual martial mettle. Theirs would be a cold, calculated hate of the various foes that beset mankind.

 

The Inner Circle, of course, would embodie the more popularized, secretive themes of those orders, to include the willingness to do foul deeds for a greater good. They would possess the harsh, even murderous conviction for their cause that could be seen in the "Kill them all; God will know His own" mentality of high-ranking knights in centuries past. The rank-and-file might often find it difficult to understand their leaders' direction, and might even balk at the indifferent, heartless, or even cruel tack their Masters and Interrogator-Chaplains sometime take with the greater Imperium, but as loyal Astartes-knights, they would do their duty.

 

So, all that having been said... more of the "Savage Weapons"-style stuff, please, but less of the Lion's tactically/strategically questionable stuff. Seriously, letting Typhon walk? For what?!?

[FerociousBeast]

...

 

Below is from Nov 2010, I'm afraid this view and outlook doesn't show the pageantry you imply, nor does the story. If anything it hits home the grimdark. Galahads is a little too far good sir.

 

Caliban. ...

Caliban is fine in ADB's story. I think he did a good job with it. Caliban doesn't feel much like a Death World in the other books.

 

But I object to the Dark Angels saluting their enemies before fighting, talking about honor, calling the Lion "My Liege," etc. None of that jives with the Dark Angels of the 1990s, 2000s, and 40,000s. Instead, the Dark Angels take cheap shots, abandon allies, and call their superiors "Master." I don't recognize the DAs in ADB's story.

 

Now you could say that this is how the Dark Angels started out, and the events of the Fall turned them into what they are "today," but I just don't like that interpretation. It separates the Dark Angels Legion too far from the Dark Angels Chapter.

[Interrogator Stobz]

I don't have a problem with the Dark Angels being shown as knights born of a grimly, quasi-medieval Death World (think of Europe as shown in "Flesh and Blood",

 

Many thanks for reminding me of the title of that film, I saw it yonks ago and always considered it a gritty and 'realistic' depiction of the medieval life.(and a soft version of life on Caliban :unsure: )

I've had several mind scrubs since then and you've given me a bit of a reboot.

 

Cheers

 

 

OT: FB, I think with the loss of the prime(arch) nutter to call us "little brothers" and give us 'guidance' as a Legion we devolved into the even more lovable, paranoid psycos of the DA Chapter(s) in the 41st m.

I absolutely agree that ADBs depiction took us out of our 'known' space but I like it, for good and bad. Depth is depth, it is not always safe or comfortable, we are being challenged quite a bit and I prefer it to the stale backstory we've been hanging onto for two decades.

 

 

stobz

[Phoebus]

Caliban is fine in ADB's story. I think he did a good job with it. Caliban doesn't feel much like a Death World in the other books.

 

But I object to the Dark Angels saluting their enemies before fighting, talking about honor, calling the Lion "My Liege," etc. None of that jives with the Dark Angels of the 1990s, 2000s, and 40,000s. Instead, the Dark Angels take cheap shots, abandon allies, and call their superiors "Master." I don't recognize the DAs in ADB's story.

 

Now you could say that this is how the Dark Angels started out, and the events of the Fall turned them into what they are "today," but I just don't like that interpretation. It separates the Dark Angels Legion too far from the Dark Angels Chapter.

To each their own. :unsure:

 

Me, personally, I would have a hard time seeing the pre-Heresy Dark Angels being schemers, cheaters, etc... for the same reason I have a hard time accepting that ALL modern-day Dark Angels being like that. Again, if most of the rank-and-file are not in on the secret, why would they act that way? I can't reconcile with the idea that they learn to be that way from members who have ascended into the Hidden Mysteries, either. If the reason the Interrogator Chaplains and the rest of the Inner Circle act that way is because half the Legion went traitor, the last thing they'd want to do is instill in their pupils and followers secretive and reclusive behavioral patterns; what a way to make it easier for the next bad apple to rise to prominence!

 

Hence, IMHO, (Aspirant/Neonate/Scout) idealistic squire > (Battle Brother) solemn knight > (Deathwing) solemn knight who balances his honour with the terrible secrets he knows > (Inner Circle) master of knights who will do terrible deeds in the name of unknown mysteries, and whose demeanor/character often reflects this. In other words, a Dark Angel might start as what passes for a bright-eyed idealistic young warrior among the Astartes... but will ultimately end up as Torquemada (exceptions such as Azrael aside).

 

The Dark Angels weren't the only Legion to change drastically following traumatic events, either. The World Eaters went from "standard Legion" to shock troops embracing warrior ideals born of Angron's gladiatorial life, and finally became berserker cultist genocidal fighters.

[The Shadow Guard]

Caliban is fine in ADB's story. I think he did a good job with it. Caliban doesn't feel much like a Death World in the other books.

 

But I object to the Dark Angels saluting their enemies before fighting, talking about honor, calling the Lion "My Liege," etc. None of that jives with the Dark Angels of the 1990s, 2000s, and 40,000s. Instead, the Dark Angels take cheap shots, abandon allies, and call their superiors "Master." I don't recognize the DAs in ADB's story.

 

Now you could say that this is how the Dark Angels started out, and the events of the Fall turned them into what they are "today," but I just don't like that interpretation. It separates the Dark Angels Legion too far from the Dark Angels Chapter.

 

As a person who strived very hard to find information on my beloved Dark Angels when I first entered the hobby during the sunset years of second edition, I can't but help think that the issue that you point out is due to the simple fact that the origins of the Dark Angels Legion and it's development until the Horus Heresy was scarcely touched in the old canon. I have no problem with the way they are being depicted (being called Liege etc) as Jonson was in fact the uncrowned king of Caliban before the Emperor's arrival.

 

SG

[Brother-Sergeant Bohemond]

I loved the short story and the Knightly theme coming through, id like to see more of this to be honest. I see the DA as being, pre-Fall, as very knightly crusaders bringing light and faith to the lost worlds of mankind, buy the time of the 41st Millenium, they have evolved into what we know, love and associate, with 'grimdark'.

[Marshal Rohr]

The two themes arn't mutually exclusive. A 'liege' is a master, and adding a bit of formality is nothing huge. It just shows the Dark Angels as, you know, kind of acting like a military order. As for the 'monastic' theme, they still are. All knightly order were warrior monks, all knightly orders had various levels of progression through the rank spiritually and martially. To become upset over one authors vague descriptions and differing language hardly seems like something to get up in arms over. Gav writes stories exclusively centered around some event, piece of knowledge, or technology that would always change the game of the 40K universe, but nothing ever comes of it.

 

The Lion, his short in ToH, Deliverence Lost, etc, they are all not character driven stories, but plot driven pieces.

 

Savage Weapons was purely about its characters. Everything else was flowery language. It did more for the Night Lords than the Dark Angels. It was the first time you see Sevatar's gauntlets, his chainglaive, the Night Haunter in discussion that isn't prophecy driven rants, Tsagualsa, etc.

 

It is unbecoming to declare one short story A D-B wrote for a few extra thousand bucks to his income and not some lifelong, passion fuelled exposition on the true character of the first legion as detrimental to the overall theme of the Dark Angels, simply because you guys have no clear theme, no clear history, no clear outline of who you are, nothing solid about your traditions or terms of address, no examples of characteristics of beliefs outside of the Hunt for the Fallen. An author wrote a short story about the Dark Angels HE wanted to write about. Its not like Graham McNeill intentionally disparaging another Legion to make his look cooler, its not like Dan Abnett reimagining everything a Legion is. It was A D-B writing a short story to pay the bills and take care of his family, it was not written for your personal edification or enlightenment. Treating it as a commissioned piece that failed to meet your expectations is a waste of time and effort, since it is none of those things.

 

He had no greater responsibility to previously established canon (since the Dark Angels have none in the scope of his intent) and he was tasked to write an interesting short story for an anthology. Something I think none of you will deny.