Fear to tread

[Morollan]

The Space Wolves were, as ever, an annoyance. It seems the entire HH series from Prospero Burns onwards is now an excuse for why their codex is SM+1. Apologies to any SW fans out there but this whole "Emperor's Executioners" thing is starting to get on my nerves. And the fact that the author had to explain their presence in a blog post doesn't really give a good impression of his writing skills. Show, don't tell. We should know this from reading the book, not from footnotes, blog posts or directors commentaries.

 

 

Wait, why would he need a blog post for that? I thought it was made crystal clear in the book during their conversation inside the temporary rooms the Angels gave them upon the ship. Paraphrasing, but didn't one of them even say 'If Magnus can fall, then who else?', and then the talk about if they did kill the Angel, the rest of the Legion would kill them where they stood...one way trip and all that.

 

I was more taken aback with the arrogance of Russ and the Sigilite thinking a couple of space puppies could take down a Primarch, especially of one the Angel's skills, than being confused as to their orders. Don't get offended Wolves - if we sent a Librarian and some Sang Guard to knock off Russ, I'd have the exact same reaction 'C'mon, no way are they taking him down with that'.

 

I didn't mean why they were there. That was indeed made obvious. The part that was unclear was how they intended to accomplish anything. The idea put forward in the novel was clearly that they were to take down Sanguinius if he showed signs of treachery but there is no way in hell that they were actually physically able to accomplish that. Swallow therefore had to explain in a blog post that this was not what they were supposed to do and went onto expand on the idea. My point being that this should have been shown to us in the actual novel.

[Mykra]

I didn't mean why they were there. That was indeed made obvious. The part that was unclear was how they intended to accomplish anything. The idea put forward in the novel was clearly that they were to take down Sanguinius if he showed signs of treachery but there is no way in hell that they were actually physically able to accomplish that. Swallow therefore had to explain in a blog post that this was not what they were supposed to do and went onto expand on the idea. My point being that this should have been shown to us in the actual novel.

 

Well, the 'explain their presence' line threw me. Your follow-up does make more sense, in that it made no sense how they planned to accomplish it if they had to make a move.

 

Edit: I looked on his website Red Flag, and saw no mention of the Space Wolves. Mind giving me a link so I can check out what he said, I'm probably just blind but not seeing it on the site or the Livejournal links.

[Haranin]

on the Lion v. Curze, the rematch has the Lion destroying Curze fast.

[Wade Garrett]

on the Lion v. Curze, the rematch has the Lion destroying Curze fast.

 

 

 

Second fight, Lion manages to keep it a contest of blades (not blades, fists, feet, elbows, teeth, head butts, etc., which is how Konrad learned to scrap on the mean streets of Nostromo) and he succeeds in hacking Night Haunter to bits.

 

Now, the real question is would Corax or Perturabo be better at doing crossword puzzles.

[Kol Saresk]

Hmm, Magnus. Hands down.

[Wade Garrett]

Hmm, Magnus. Hands down.

 

How in the eight hells of Khorne is Magnus going to win a crossword puzzle contest between Corax and Perturabo? That would require some sort of master infiltrator...wait a second...

*throws head back and screams at the sky*

 

ALPHAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRIUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

[Wade Garrett]

Or possibly

 

OMMMEEEEGGGOOOOOONNNNN!!

[Morollan]

I didn't mean why they were there. That was indeed made obvious. The part that was unclear was how they intended to accomplish anything. The idea put forward in the novel was clearly that they were to take down Sanguinius if he showed signs of treachery but there is no way in hell that they were actually physically able to accomplish that. Swallow therefore had to explain in a blog post that this was not what they were supposed to do and went onto expand on the idea. My point being that this should have been shown to us in the actual novel.

 

Well, the 'explain their presence' line threw me. Your follow-up does make more sense, in that it made no sense how they planned to accomplish it if they had to make a move.

 

Edit: I looked on his website Red Flag, and saw no mention of the Space Wolves. Mind giving me a link so I can check out what he said, I'm probably just blind but not seeing it on the site or the Livejournal links.

 

Gree posted it earlier (pg 4 of this thread).

 

"It was never the intention that the Wolves were being sent out as assassins; they were never "expected to be able to kill the Primarchs". It seems that there are some mistaken assumptions being made here, so let me explain.

 

After Magnus breaks the Nikaea edict, Malcador orders Russ to send a small contingent of Wolves out to each of the other primarchs. Their primary mission is to observe those primarchs and report back on any behaviour that might show sympathy to Magnus or anything that smacks of similar rebellion. Note that this is Malcador who gives the order, not the Emperor. At this point, the Emperor still trusts his sons; but the Sigillite doesn't trust anyone.

 

The Wolf "observers" (and Russ) know full well that this is potentially a suicide mission, because if any of the primarchs have turned, they could be killed on arrival or not long after - but if that happens, Russ and Malcador will know something is rotten when they don't report back at the appointed time. The Wolves know that if they find a primarch who has gone bad, their mission is to A) send a warning and B try to kill him.

 

None of the Wolves have any illusions about the fact that they will all die if they draw their weapons against a primarch; the SW captain Helik Redknife says exactly that in FTT. Even as "the Emperor's Executioners", the best they could possibly do would be to wound a primarch, perhaps slow him down. They know this going in, but they accept this duty because they are the Wolves of Russ and they do as he commands them.

 

So why send the Wolves instead of the Custodians?

 

First, it's a simple question of logistics. There are simply more Wolves than there are Custodians, and the Wolves are scattered out in the galaxy already at large, closer to the primarchs on the Great Crusade, whereas the Custodians are largely centred on Terra. It's just quicker and easier to re-task Space Wolf elements to hook up with the primarchs than to send out Custodians "the long way round".

And of course, not all of those Space Wolf squads will actually be able to fulfil their mission. Some won't be able to find the primarchs they are sent to observe, others will be killed as the heresy kicks off. Malcador will find out the hard way that his plan is too little, too late.

 

Secondly, if the intent was just to send out teams capable of killing a primarch, you'd need at least two Custodians to do the deed, probably three to be certain. That means sending more than fifty Custodians out into the galaxy, away from the actual job they are trained for and assigned to do, which is to protect the Emperor. Don't forget, the Custodians are a defensive army, not typically assigned to pro-active missions. Considering that some Custodians will already be leaving Terra to join the Wolves at the punishment of Prospero, do you really think that the Custodian Guard would accept an order from Malcador to leave their master with an even more reduced protection detail, especially at a time when one of his sons has just turned renegade and psionically invaded the Imperial Palace? Doesn't seem likely to me; not to mention the fact that the Custodians take their commands from the Emperor, not Malcador. The Sigillite doesn't actually have the right to give them that order.

 

The Wolves get the mission because they are the best tool for the job, in the right place at the right time, because they do the deeds that no others will accept, without question; and because, pragmatically speaking, Malcador sees them as disposable."

[Sanctimonius]

Reading that it makes a bit more sense as to why the Wolves were there, although not sure I agree with his assessment that only two or three Custodians could take down any Primarch, never mind one as strong as Sanguinius. He should have made that all a bit clearer in the book, but I wonder if he is a bit hamstrung by chronology. The books are a little out of sync with each, sometimes necessarily so (why are half of the stories from Shadows of Treachery from so far behind the 'current' events of the heresy?), as things happen at roughly the same time, or some books span the same length of time it takes two or three of the others to happen. Maybe we'll get more information on Malcador's orders to the Wolves and his attempts to make sure this heresy doesn't spread.

 

Fear to Tread was a decent one, some good twists and characterisations, although it was a little hard for me to tell some of the characters apart, being little more than names that cropped up once every fifty pages or so. A good introduction for the Blood Angels, now on to the Khan.

[Anvilarium]

Am I the only one who thought that the fact that the Red Tear was still flight-worthy at the end was absolute rubbish? It completely ruined an otherwise OK book for me, due to its sheer unbelievability.

 

A ship the size of a city, which was never designed to encounter the stresses of planetary gravity, crashes heavily on a world (after bouncing across a mountainscape!), and ripping chunks of itself off on impact... And yet its still able to take off?!?

 

Its like saying that the Titanic is still capable of floating!!

[Morollan]

Am I the only one who thought that the fact that the Red Tear was still flight-worthy at the end was absolute rubbish? It completely ruined an otherwise OK book for me, due to its sheer unbelievability.

 

A ship the size of a city, which was never designed to encounter the stresses of planetary gravity, crashes heavily on a world (after bouncing across a mountainscape!), and ripping chunks of itself off on impact... And yet its still able to take off?!?

 

Its like saying that the Titanic is still capable of floating!!

 

Yeah, that kind of got me too. Not to mention that if something that size hit the planet more or less intact it would have annihilated the entire population anyway!

[latch66]

Reading that it makes a bit more sense as to why the Wolves were there, although not sure I agree with his assessment that only two or three Custodians could take down any Primarch, never mind one as strong as Sanguinius. He should have made that all a bit clearer in the book, but I wonder if he is a bit hamstrung by chronology. The books are a little out of sync with each, sometimes necessarily so (why are half of the stories from Shadows of Treachery from so far behind the 'current' events of the heresy?), as things happen at roughly the same time, or some books span the same length of time it takes two or three of the others to happen. Maybe we'll get more information on Malcador's orders to the Wolves and his attempts to make sure this heresy doesn't spread.

 

Fear to Tread was a decent one, some good twists and characterisations, although it was a little hard for me to tell some of the characters apart, being little more than names that cropped up once every fifty pages or so. A good introduction for the Blood Angels, now on to the Khan.

 

 

I hear you. It didn't ruin the book for me though. I just chalked it up to writers previledge and went on with the rest of the story.

[KarkassBC]

Am I the only one who thought that the fact that the Red Tear was still flight-worthy at the end was absolute rubbish? It completely ruined an otherwise OK book for me, due to its sheer unbelievability.

 

A ship the size of a city, which was never designed to encounter the stresses of planetary gravity, crashes heavily on a world (after bouncing across a mountainscape!), and ripping chunks of itself off on impact... And yet its still able to take off?!?

 

Its like saying that the Titanic is still capable of floating!!

 

I think the book is very good... I enjoyed a lot the approach at the hidden horror in the planet... It's very difficult to create horror stories in a SF scenario, but the author made a very good work (I think about the frozen planet and the possessed city against the "red" advance party... it remind me the novel "Phantoms" by Koontz)

 

Turning back to the ship, no one said that the ship remained without damages... I think a capital ship, made to sustain thousands of battles, can leave the orbit after a crash landing on the surface... maybe they need 10 years or more to repair every received damage.

 

No one wrote that the ship, after the planet crash, met the enemy fleet in orbit and destroyed everyone thanks to his guns... I thought of the ship still flight-worthy but not combat operational...

 

Even during World War II, capital ships sustained a lot of damages during many hours of fighting. The sinking was fast only when the munition storage was hit.

[Mykra]

Reading that it makes a bit more sense as to why the Wolves were there, although not sure I agree with his assessment that only two or three Custodians could take down any Primarch, never mind one as strong as Sanguinius.

 

What we knew of the Custodes before the series, I might have accepted it as a possibility, but having seen them so far in the HH...I'd believe any of the Primarch's would smack around two or three of those guys.

 

 

Am I the only one who thought that the fact that the Red Tear was still flight-worthy at the end was absolute rubbish? It completely ruined an otherwise OK book for me, due to its sheer unbelievability.

 

I was under the impression they spent some time repairing it before lifting off again. I mean, they went around the entire planet even collecting the spent bolter shells they could find so no trace of the Legion would remain on the planet. That had to take a little time.

 

"It was never the intention that the Wolves were being sent out as assassins; they were never "expected to be able to kill the Primarchs". It seems that there are some mistaken assumptions being made here, so let me explain.

 

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree that was the writers fault. Going back to read their conversation with these bits from Swallow, I can see how he was trying to push that idea forward, but without them it sounds like they were more coming to grips with the fact that if they had to take Sang down, they'd never make it off the ship alive.

[EPK]

Am I the only one who thought that the fact that the Red Tear was still flight-worthy at the end was absolute rubbish? It completely ruined an otherwise OK book for me, due to its sheer unbelievability.

 

A ship the size of a city, which was never designed to encounter the stresses of planetary gravity, crashes heavily on a world (after bouncing across a mountainscape!), and ripping chunks of itself off on impact... And yet its still able to take off?!?

 

Its like saying that the Titanic is still capable of floating!!

 

This was my response in an email with a friend regarding this very subject...

 

Yes, I agree, that part actually did not sit well with me, but I dismissed it. I just couldn't fathom how something so large could make a horizontal take off (with no sort of wheeled landing gear to cut down on friction). Lifting it up for a vertical takeoff would have been more believable. And yes, it goes against what we have been told about void-only type barges

 

The only way I could rationalize it was that it could somehow use the actual curvature of the planet itself like a ramp. So at some point it starts to get air and defy gravity by the sheer force of it's engines after 1000s of miles and finally beats gravity and launches itself into the sky by staying on it's horizontal course rather than curving with the planet. Still challenges the realm of comprehension. I honestly thought it would be left behind.

 

That said, I wouldn't go as far as to say it "completely ruined" anything.

[Kol Saresk]

Don't the "void-only" barges, specifically Space Marine ships have to enter the High Altitude Low Orbit zone in order to bombardments? I know I read somewhere that they had atmospheric thrusters. Now, a horizontal take off is a little unbelievable, but not entirely. Fire up the main engines, start moving forward. Fire off ventral thrusters, start moving up. Combined movement creates horizontal takeoff. Lack of wheels and other landing gear simply means that the ventral hull is going to be pretty ugly afterwards. It's just a matter of rationalizing it and it actually isn't that hard to rationalize.

[2000AD]

Its not possible..... something with that much metal in it would cause unbelievable chaos due to interactions with planets own gravity and atmospherics... leaving aside the fact that the engines would have to beyond powerful to move it up from a prone position within the planets gravity.

 

and we all know how 2 traitor primarchs are the best source for unbiased opinions...

 

heck, even before they were traitors, both Magnus and Lorgar earned the dislike of their siblings. for instance, Corax refused to fight alongside Magnus and his Thousand Sons.

That had been just one of five examples I cited where the authors have their protagonists or factions express a dislike for Guilliman or the Ultramarines. And of course I was mentioning it because of Magnus, not because of Lorgar. (Neither did I cite 'Legion', since the Alpha Legion similarly do have a legitimate history of animosity towards the Ultramarines.)

 

And why should Magnus dislike Guilliman in particular? During the Council of Nikaea it mentions an Ultramarines Librarian who speaks up in defense of the Librarium project. The Ultramarines were known to preserve the culture of the worlds they conquered, and Guilliman was described as willing to learn about the doctrines of others. Ahriman is even speaking of those traits in a seemingly appreciative manner in 'A Thousand Sons'. In 'Battle for the Abyss' when an allied Thousand Sons Librarian uses sorcery, the Ultramarines Captain steps in and defends him when the allied Space Wolves and World Eaters went for his throat.

I can imagine that Guilliman was as weary about the questionable rituals of the Thousand Sons as the next Primarch, but among Magnus's brothers, he was one of the more progressive and open minded. I could even have seen Magnus appreciating Guilliman over Lorgar by a long shot. But in 'The First Heretic' A D-B has him think of Guilliman mainly as one of the arrogant ones instead. (To be fair, Magnus is not very explicite. It is still possibele he was simply "not disagreeing" with Lorgar at that moment and tried to wave away the issue of Lorgar's dislike to go back to the important topics. But it certainly is easier to cite this incident as an example of disapproval of Guilliman rather than to dismiss it on grounds of Magnus simply politely dancing around the matter.)

 

 

Magnus views Lorgar as a bit of a petulant and sulky younger brother IMO...

[Kol Saresk]

I think they're beyond caring about the planet and its atmospherics.

[2000AD]

I think they're beyond caring about the planet and its atmospherics.

 

 

You misunderstand.... it would cause absolute chaos for them!

[Anvilarium]

Don't the "void-only" barges, specifically Space Marine ships have to enter the High Altitude Low Orbit zone in order to bombardments?

 

IMHO theres a HUGE difference between a "void-only" barge and a Void-Only Capital Ship which is the SIZE OF A CITY and has crashed at high velocity, hitting a mountain range on the way.

 

Sci-Fi Fantasy or otherwise, there's no way that ship would have been flight capable, ever again. Silliest part of the entire series so far!

[DarKnight]

I think normally we wouldn't mind what happened with the Red Tear, but the other authors of the Heresy and BL in general have set a very high bar when it comes to theoretical void battles and principles of star craft. I'd really like to know where they do their research. I forget the Gaunt book in particular, but when the IG assaults Gereon and all of the planetary effects of having all of those ships in the atmosphere, as well as in Know No Fear with the effects of heavy bombardment etc. This doesn't set a good precedent for Jim Swallow just saying the Tear would fall from atmosphere and then rise back up.

[Kol Saresk]

Out of curiosity, where would one do reaearch for void warfare? Star Trek, where ships escape Black Holes all the time? Star Wars, where moon sized space ships orbit planets without affecting gravity? Battlestar Galactica, where humans created robots who created humans before humans invented the Stone Age? Or maybe it's in one of Raymond Feist's books, where in some cases magic is technology. Or maybe the Darkover series. I mean seriously, where is the precedent for any of this being impossible or only being possible in certain ways in modern history? There are theories, yes. But can neither prove nor disprove them.

[Wade Garrett]

You misunderstand.... it would cause absolute chaos for them!

 

Sanguinus punches said Chaos in the face until it flees back to the warp crying. Problem solved.

[DarKnight]

Out of curiosity, where would one do reaearch for void warfare? Star Trek, where ships escape Black Holes all the time? Star Wars, where moon sized space ships orbit planets without affecting gravity? Battlestar Galactica, where humans created robots who created humans before humans invented the Stone Age? Or maybe it's in one of Raymond Feist's books, where in some cases magic is technology. Or maybe the Darkover series. I mean seriously, where is the precedent for any of this being impossible or only being possible in certain ways in modern history? There are theories, yes. But can neither prove nor disprove them.

I don't know if this was being skeptical of the authors or of us criticizing the authors, but I'd imagine physicists, aeronautical experts, and theorists etc. would have the knowledge of what would happen. The tech is nowhere near possible yet of course, but the effects of said tech can be theorized. Those people are nerds anyhow so they're probably into 40K and the like and think about that stuff for fun.

[Kol Saresk]

Skeptical of the criticism of the authors. Yes, physicists, aeronautical engineers and other theorists can theorize on a ship built 28,988 years can or can't do with technology that while backwards to the Golden Age of Technology, still strips out our own technology, but at the end of the day it is theorizing. We understand that the ships have weaponry that fires nukes like ratshot, is the size of a city and has the population to match, and has engines capable of moving said city-ship at lightspeed(after all, it does take months to travel across systems and IIRC, it takes light-months just cross ours) and also has the capability to not only tear a dimensional bridge into existence, but protect itself from the hazards of said dimension. But at the end of it, it is all theorizing. Until we start building similar technology and experience that technology under the same conditions, we can't say what will or will not happen to the technology. That's all a theory is, something that sounds plausible, but can be neither proven nor disproven. You theorize that ship shouldn't be capable after take off. I theorize it can. Neither of us is wrong, neither of us is right. We are both theorizing. Not only are we theorizing, but we're theorizing about science fiction. And the authors are writers of science fiction. The only research done on science fiction is what author science fiction authors have written.

 

EDIT: All I'm saying is that yes, we do know a little of the technology used in 40k spacecraft, basically engines and weapons. We don't even know half of the technology that runs through them. With so few variables, we can't theorize on it properly. No one had a problem with A-D-B firing a couple of missiles into the center of a moon, blowing up said missiles in said center of the moon and all the debris heading in one direction instead of outwards. But as soon as a starship that is supposed to be capable of withstanding multiple(as in hundreds) nuclear impacts and detonations, it's a problem.

 

Disclaimer: I am not saying I do not like or approve of A-D-B's little scene. It was cool and I liked it. Although it did cause the scrapping of a fanfic piece.