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The Master of Mankind


Mantras

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Nothing of importance.

 

It's about the Emperor sitting at the table with the II and XI Primarchs planning for the super secret project at the end of the Crusade.

Plus a subtle hint of Omegon secretly working for the Necrons after meeting the Great Ork Chief at Ullanor that everyone thought dead but instead was a secret servitor of the Emperor.

I'd love to see some pretty gaping holes filled in the Emperor's master plan. At least let us in on why he did some of the things they way he did:

 

-Why did he handle Lorgar the way he did when he (E) denied his divinity and chastised him (Lorgar) for not moving fast enough during the Great Crusade? This event was an inciting-incident of the HH! If he had any sense of this "son" at all he must have known Lorgar would find a replacement belief-system, after the way E treated him. The E pushed him into it. If the Emperor instead would have taken him aside and spoken gently with him, away from his hated brother Guilliman and not in front of the Ultramarines or WB's, and had a long heart to heart, perhaps things would have gone differently? (Of course, there's no way to know what might have happened).

 

Until we get some clarification on this point it's hard to argue with those who shout: "the Emp is an idiot!" (I don't hold to this view, btw).

Mind telling me what the Horus Heresy was about then? If not fear? Lorgar was afraid of a life without worship. Horus was afraid of being forgotten. The legions were terrified of fighting another brother. Every space marine felt fear of losing their primarch.
You have to remember though, the Primarchs aren't Marines.
Mind telling me what the Horus Heresy was about then? If not fear? Lorgar was afraid of a life without worship. Horus was afraid of being forgotten. The legions were terrified of fighting another brother. Every space marine felt fear of losing their primarch.
You have to remember though, the Primarchs aren't Marines.

 

True enough. Every other example would come from BL stuff, and you have already discounted that.

 

Unless...

Would you count doubt as a fear? Because space marines have shown doubt. And that is in the codex.

Perhaps a short collection of the Emperor's private writings will open each section, a bit like Dan Abnett did with Guilliman's proto Codex in Know No Fear?

As for the Custodians lacking internal conflict..we are talking about Aaron Dembski Bowden, the man who wrote a Black Templar POV character with doubts and fears.

Did he miss the part about them knowing none?

 

 

This is the trap that a lot of authors, and many fans as readers, fall into. Space Marines should make relatively bland characters because, realistically, they aren't very interesting dudes. They shouldn't be subject to the same fears and doubts and concerns as a normal man. That's part of their mythology. They get psychologically conditioned for their entire lives, and exist in an encapsulated world of like minded and like-thinking people who have had that very same conditioning. Once you start writing "good" Space Marines, you're often no longer writing good Space Marines.

 

I assume that you refer to Helsreach. To be honest, I started skipping a lot of his narrated parts because they weren't very believable.

 

Aah but if you put that into the game context, in the HH rules ATSKNF is not a special rule so it does not yet exist. Maybe because they've not faced down the ultimate heresy itself of marine v marine at that time and what that scenario does to their psycho indoctrination as it was something not foreseen even by the Big E.

 

In my view they need some kind of recognition of fear even if it just works to let them know walking straight out into lascannon fire will not really help you to complete your current mission. A fter all a smouldering, dead Space Marine is not much use to anybody.

An example of the "Know no fear" effect works for the space marines is the first part of Fear to Tread when the scouting group sent to the silent planet were attacked by unseen enemies.

 

The characters in the story were confused and shocked by those attacks, but they press on and continue to fight.

 

Shaken and confused but not broken and running...

I don't know because I haven't read the book.

 

But the lore and the books are different from the rules for gaming. For example in the game 4 Imperial Troopers can kill a marine while in the books the marine kill them in only one strike.

 

I think every marine already have this "power" because it belongs to the brotherhood and the continual training... it's not a special power acquired after a certain level but it comes out from the bonds with the other brothers.

In the deathwatch rpg fear affects a space marine, just not in the same way it does a human. Normal instances that cause a man to flee etc do not affect a marine, however things that would be terrifying to encounter still have a negative affect on a marine. They don't run away but their performance is impaired, demonstrated as either a reduction to the marines willpower or to the squads cohesion (anything with a fear rating in deathwatch, which usually correlates with things with enemies that have the fear USR in 40k). Without going and finding the rulebook I'm not certain but I believe there is a chart of other affects a marine may be subject to in extreme circumstances
I don't know because I haven't read the book.

 

But the lore and the books are different from the rules for gaming. For example in the game 4 Imperial Troopers can kill a marine while in the books the marine kill them in only one strike.

 

I think every marine already have this "power" because it belongs to the brotherhood and the continual training... it's not a special power acquired after a certain level but it comes out from the bonds with the other brothers.

 

Betrayal is as close as you will get to an official 30K rule book and the Legion marines during the HH era do not have ATSKNF. Chaos marines still do not have fearless or ATSKNF as a standard rule and many of these are old enough to have fought at Terra and reside in the eye of terror. Not that this matters in terms of Black Library works which are still not acknowledged as official canon as far as I know...

Aah but if you put that into the game context, in the HH rules ATSKNF is not a special rule so it does not yet exist. Maybe because they've not faced down the ultimate heresy itself of marine v marine at that time and what that scenario does to their psycho indoctrination as it was something not foreseen even by the Big E.

My post was referring to a 40K era novel that was referenced by an earlier poster.

 

As far as the rule not existing in 30K, I guess that's debatable (whether or not it should be there, lol).

In my view they need some kind of recognition of fear even if it just works to let them know walking straight out into lascannon fire will not really help you to complete your current mission. A fter all a smouldering, dead Space Marine is not much use to anybody.
Right, they would have an acute understanding of the need for self preservation and their value as an asset.

 

Remember, not having fear doesn't mean that you lose cognitive reasoning ability, lol.

 

A Space Marine might not be afraid of death under normal conditions, but he'd still understand that he cannot serve the Emperor as a corpse. His decision to take cover from the lascannon is a practical one, not one done because he's afraid of being killed. He knows, and probably strongly prefers (remember, they know no fear. They probably know satisfaction, lol) to outwit and outmaneuver that slob with the lascannon and then see if he can insert the barrel inside any available orifices of the offending user. Because then he can also go onto murder more of the Emperor's foes.

Betrayal is as close as you will get to an official 30K rule book and the Legion marines during the HH era do not have ATSKNF. Chaos marines still do not have fearless or ATSKNF as a standard rule and many of these are old enough to have fought at Terra and reside in the eye of terror. Not that this matters in terms of Black Library works which are still not acknowledged as official canon as far as I know...

The way I always understood the lack of ATSKNF for Chaos Marines was that they do not endure the same kind of psychological indoctrination as normal Space Marines, and also lack that unified vision and belief that allows them to ignore their more self-centered instincts. Basically, a Space Marine has a purpose that he recognizes. A Chaos Marine is just an individual.

 

As such, I'm not sure that I fully agree with the Marines of the Heresy books not having ATSKNF, because it seems that prior to the Heresy, the Marines would have had that unified vision. The Codex Astartes didn't invent the processes for recruiting, creating and training Space Marines. It just standardized them so as to eliminate some of the variables that Guilliman believed might have led to the corruption of the Traitor Legions. This implies that the process Guilliman codified as rule already existed.

 

Though, ultimately that brings up an interesting conflict for the future books. If the idea was that ATSKNF was something that came out of the Codex Astartes, shouldn't the Ultramarines Legion gain the benefit of it once their rules book comes out since it stands to reason that Guilliman would have already been using those standards for his Marines?

Fear is a useful biological process to help ensure survival it sets things like adrenalin loose in the blood stream which is useful if you are in danger of injury, etc. I know space marines have other process that do this job but I still think that a residual form of fear would be useful, we are not talking paralysing fear with marines but some some form of apprehension of consequences.Take a look at some of the things young children try when they have no fear of the consequences, without fear they are on a path to extinction.

Found some support of Veteran Sergeant's view of Marines from the words of Heresy era Dark Angels commander Luther, of all people (actually, from author Aaron Dembski Bowden in the short story "Savage Weapons", where Luther is quoted).

 

I'm paraphrasing, since I don't have Age of Darkness in front of me, but the quote is something like

"The needs of Imperial soldiery have bred, not warriors with the warm hearts of men, but cold angels with souls of weapons."

And so the infuriating literary movement known as 'loose canon' continues.

 

Well, it is a quote from LUTHER, who would later go on to show that he might possibly have had one or two problems with his judgements, and it was thrown at the Dark Angels as a taunt by Konrad Curze. I just thought it was neat since it tied into the discussion we were having on the Bolter.

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