Unremembered Empire....initial review

[Kais Klip]

On the contrary, those things on Prospero, among countless others. Unless you mean warp-fueled or whatever, which would include psykers, making them "paranormal" and thus granting them the title of godhood, once again diluting the meaning of the word (whatever meaning it has in the setting). We had a nice discussion regarding the concept a way ago, I can't bring it up on mobile, but the issue boiled down to where you draw a line of "godhood" among the grades of psykers and what could justify any line one would draw. The chaos book that was out waaay back implied rocks and streams once possessed souls, so all those spiritual shenanigans we associate with the warp are along the lines of electricity, gravity etc

[FunkyMonkey]

If I remember correctly, the term "godhood" as it was applied to the Chaos Gods meant that they started out as emotions that were dependent on material beings having that emotion, but then they grew strong enough that they were no longer sufficient on material beings to first have that emotion in order to survive.  They were able to induce material beings to keep having the respective emotion and in a way grafted themselves into the natural nature of the material beings in question.

 

In short, godhood for the Chaos Gods meant going from a product of a material emotions to becoming an essential part of the material emotional spectrum.

[Kol Saresk]

On the contrary, those things on Prospero, among countless others. Unless you mean warp-fueled or whatever, which would include psykers, making them "paranormal" and thus granting them the title of godhood, once again diluting the meaning of the word (whatever meaning it has in the setting). We had a nice discussion regarding the concept a way ago, I can't bring it up on mobile, but the issue boiled down to where you draw a line of "godhood" among the grades of psykers and what could justify any line one would draw. The chaos book that was out waaay back implied rocks and streams once possessed souls, so all those spiritual shenanigans we associate with the warp are along the lines of electricity, gravity etc

The psychneuein just telekinitecially implant their young.

 

They can't look at a world and cause it to become bowl-shaped, or take a microscopic bacteria an mould it into a massive leviathan of tentacles and limbs that can tear apart entire worlds and devour suns.

 

Unless I've missed something.

[Kais Klip]

Yeah I'm on the same page as you then, my personal point regarding the setting boils down to the warp gods and such being leeches, no different in basic function than a blood leech or some leech of warmth or some like I'm sure the writers could come up with.

In my mind, there are two possible options for me to take regarding the warp and what truth was the absolute, binary "truth" that separates the pre-lorgar word bearer "iconoclasts" and post-Lorgar Word Bearers. Option One is the warp is another dimension with its own laws (or lack thereof, whatever glossary we may use may be unacceptable since again, wrong dimension) and therefore that which resides in/on it is extra-dimensional Xenos, but Xenos nonetheless. Option 2, a neutral narrator acknowledges they are gods in the full meaning of that word, whatever it may mean, (something that a lot of sources have, but they all have been extremely biased or misinformed in my eyes) at which point every one and their mother becomes a level of "god", the baseline for "godlike status" is reset and, once again, the gods ask if there are gods.

[Wade Garrett]

Every one and their mother can now grant someone an eternity of power as a champion of their cause or condemn them to an eternity of torture in a non Euclidean hell dimension?

 

I think you've skipped a couple of steps in your chain of logic.

[FunkyMonkey]

Yeah.  Most, but not all warp beings could probably be called daemons, in the Greek sense of the word meaning emotion made manifest.  Everything that is emotion made manifest is a daemon, including the Chaos Gods.  However, as I've said in a previous post, not every daemon is a god.  The primary difference, if I remember correctly, is that to be a god, a daemon must have grown to the point that it's no longer dependent on a particular emotion in order to exist but instead grafts itself into the emotional spectrum of material beings so that it becomes self-perpetuating, and only the simplest, most base emotions are able to become self-sustaining.  Of course, now you have the current version of daemon which is different because they derive their essence from the god-entity and thus only indirectly the material being's emotion.

[Kol Saresk]

Yeah I'm on the same page as you then, my personal point regarding the setting boils down to the warp gods and such being leeches, no different in basic function than a blood leech or some leech of warmth or some like I'm sure the writers could come up with.

In my mind, there are two possible options for me to take regarding the warp and what truth was the absolute, binary "truth" that separates the pre-lorgar word bearer "iconoclasts" and post-Lorgar Word Bearers. Option One is the warp is another dimension with its own laws (or lack thereof, whatever glossary we may use may be unacceptable since again, wrong dimension) and therefore that which resides in/on it is extra-dimensional Xenos, but Xenos nonetheless. Option 2, a neutral narrator acknowledges they are gods in the full meaning of that word, whatever it may mean, (something that a lot of sources have, but they all have been extremely biased or misinformed in my eyes) at which point every one and their mother becomes a level of "god", the baseline for "godlike status" is reset and, once again, the gods ask if there are gods.

Well, in theory, the Chaos Gods in particular can be both. Most of the warp denizens usually subvert or bend the laws of physics. Their specials powers aren't simply bound by those laws. But the Chaos gods, and their daemons by a lesser extension, are able to remake and reshape those laws, much as some of our own gods can.

[Kais Klip]

Heheh, I'm generalising there but what I mean is 2) "Tzeentch is a god, to the full meaning of the word, no ifs and buts Kais" Ok, if psychics powers are manifestations of these "gods" proportional, and Tzeentch is Level Tzeentch, is the Emperor, who we assumed is above alpha, a god? What about alpha then, and beta? Where do you draw the line, and why there? Is Sevatar the god of awesome? If you still haven't drawn a line and tried to justify it, is the lowest level of psyker a god? Say, a kinetikine, lifting a rock. Is Omegon placing that rock on a platform and using his hand to pull a lever, pulling said rock up "godly"? What if we control the pulley mechanism by remote? What if we remove the stand, and change the method of lift to magnetism (perhaps considered godly by some long ago, not unlike 40k citizens might consider a kinetickine) What if we put the switch in the Lifters brain, via implant? What if we break down this implant into a biological counterpart, with non mechanical elements? Ok, those who are still with me, what if we encode a human genetic structure to grow said biological implant along with normal brain processes? Given that we _know_ psyches are genealogical mutants, how is this different from a kinetic psyker lifting up our rock? So didn't we just create a god? If we did, is fair Omegon there lifting the rock on a stand not a god by that sole action as well? So who isn't one then?

 

That's what I mean by the line being reset, in that the term "godly" is at heart a _relative_ term, and thus to us useless, in the same way words like "big" and "fast" are. A big Astartes isn't big next to a Carnifex. Neither is a "godly" librarian a god next to Tzeentch, so what will we consider Tzeentch when something bigger and badder comes along. Thus, no god tag for you little xenos.

[Kais Klip]

 

 

Yeah I'm on the same page as you then, my personal point regarding the setting boils down to the warp gods and such being leeches, no different in basic function than a blood leech or some leech of warmth or some like I'm sure the writers could come up with.

In my mind, there are two possible options for me to take regarding the warp and what truth was the absolute, binary "truth" that separates the pre-lorgar word bearer "iconoclasts" and post-Lorgar Word Bearers. Option One is the warp is another dimension with its own laws (or lack thereof, whatever glossary we may use may be unacceptable since again, wrong dimension) and therefore that which resides in/on it is extra-dimensional Xenos, but Xenos nonetheless. Option 2, a neutral narrator acknowledges they are gods in the full meaning of that word, whatever it may mean, (something that a lot of sources have, but they all have been extremely biased or misinformed in my eyes) at which point every one and their mother becomes a level of "god", the baseline for "godlike status" is reset and, once again, the gods ask if there are gods.

Well, in theory, the Chaos Gods in particular can be both. Most of the warp denizens usually subvert or bend the laws of physics. Their specials powers aren't simply bound by those laws. But the Chaos gods, and their daemons by a lesser extension, are able to remake and reshape those laws, much as some of our own gods can.

That's exactly my point actually, what I don't get is why that deserves the label and awe of "godhood", when human dimension effects the warp in just the same way. Don't "our" laws expel daemons eventually anyway?

 

That's my point I think: breaking physical laws =\= divine/godhood, since I doubt we are correct to assume physics is absolute in any sense, given relativity/daemonic entrusion etc

[Kol Saresk]

I put godhood at the level of literally being able to shape reality and the laws of physics. IIRC, that is also where the old Slaves to Darkness and the Lost and the Damned books put it. So the Emperor, the alpha-level plus psykers from the Eisenhorn series, yes. The psychneuein who kust telekinetically implant their young, no. The Nephilim or Enslavers who just possess bodies, no. Sevatar who has a sixth sense that helps him stay a few seconds faster in combat but also suffering brain damage, no. Astral Hounds who use the warp to hunt their prey while psychically tracing them? No. The daemon princes who are able to restructure entire planets to their will and also alter the very laws of nature and physics(ie turn rain into blood; a volcano spew squabbits of death and destruction)? Yes. Maybe not on the scale the actual Chaos gods can, but definitely in that neighborhood.

 

EDIT: Yes and no. It's not that our realm pushes them back. It's that they can only live in it for so long. Like fish out of water. The daemons are fish, our reality is land. If enough warp-space can be super-imposed or a permanent breach left open, they're good to go.

[FunkyMonkey]

Personally, I don't think power level determines godhood.

 

 

 

A warp entity is not necessarily emotion made manifest (Enslavers)

 

A daemon is an emotion made manifest (as in the Greek sense of the word), or is a derivative of a prime emotion made manifest (as most Chaos daemons are)

 

A God is a daemon made from an emotion so simple and pure that it can perpetuate itself by ingraining itself into the emotional spectrum of material beings and thus have a lifespan past the fleetingness of a complex emotion.

[Kol Saresk]

IIRC, the daemons are mostly the souls of those beings from the material realm that have passed on. Furies are basically anyone that a god did not claim as their property while the aligned daemons are split between their owners. Greater Daemons are Lesser Daemons that have reattained a degree of self-awareness and will and become somewhat "independent". Daemon princes are those who ascended and skipped the entire process. Minor Warp Powers are those who have complete independence from the gods. May or may not necessarily feed off of emotion, but still do feed off of the material realm, as does the entire warp.

[Kais Klip]

For me, "godly" is the biggest title one can achieve, an absolute of sorts, otherwise as with all things non-absolute it becomes relative, and thus loses its meaning. Me looking at something others call godly is the same way I imagine animals look at us with our opposable thumbs and all the things we managed to do with them.

 

Fair enough, us is why words such as "heresy" exist; when one guy gets tired of converting the other or, in my case, runs out of battery :)

 

IIRC, the daemons are mostly the souls of those beings from the material realm that have passed on. Furies are basically anyone that a god did not claim as their property while the aligned daemons are split between their owners. Greater Daemons are Lesser Daemons that have reattained a degree of self-awareness and will and become somewhat "independent". Daemon princes are those who ascended and skipped the entire process. Minor Warp Powers are those who have complete independence from the gods. May or may not necessarily feed off of emotion, but still do feed off of the material realm, as does the entire warp.

On another note I thought daemons were purely emotions given form, with the bigger ones absorbing the complex emotions into the baser emotions (up to the level of absolute base, the 4 gods, which I want to say you wrote in another thread, not sure). The souls bit hasn't been touched on in my memory, hence my excitement about Cyrene's you-don't-know-what's-on-the-other-side arc (Don't you dare pull the "I don't want to talk about it" card, Mr Certain Someone). Save for them being nommed or the bigger ones being turned into daemon princes/emperors.

[Scribe]

Emotion isnt really the fuel, in the final sense so much as it is the soul. The corruption/taint/alignment/scaring of the soul is what ultimately fuels the Warp, the Big 4, and so on.

 

Big 4 (and Assorted Daemons which truly are segments given sentience) are the Warp in the broadest sense. With their domains being the same stuff as they are.

 

Then you have entities within, these could be classed as a Xeno's breed really, things that can get into the material realm.

 

Daemons and the Chaos Gods are a breed apart though, not so much a species, as they are the gesalt representation of the soul of the material creatures.

 

EDIT: Really I would just search for anything MvS has posted in the 40K background section of Warseer on this stuff. Its the new's letter I subscribe to.

[Conn Eremon]

IIRC, the daemons are mostly the souls of those beings from the material realm that have passed on. Furies are basically anyone that a god did not claim as their property while the aligned daemons are split between their owners. Greater Daemons are Lesser Daemons that have reattained a degree of self-awareness and will and become somewhat "independent". Daemon princes are those who ascended and skipped the entire process. Minor Warp Powers are those who have complete independence from the gods. May or may not necessarily feed off of emotion, but still do feed off of the material realm, as does the entire warp.

Source on that?

 

I seem to remember reading in the latest. Chaos 'dex (Daemons or Marines, can't remember which) that said Daemons were literal manifestations of the God that birthed them, making them little more than extensions in body and will, with Princes and Spawn being what happens when a mortal tries to attain daemonhood.

 

I remember it giving an explanation for the unclaimed Daemons, but I can't remember at the moment.

[Wade Garrett]

*Reads post by Kais Klip*

 

WHAT SEMANTICAL NITPICKERY IS THIS?

 

I mean, really? So if I say a Death Guard Grave Warden is "a big guy" I might as well have gone "hoodoo booboo juju Grave Warden" because while he's larger than a Chaplain he's smaller than a Contemptor Dreadnaught.

 

What.

 

And this is why philosophy majors should be drowned upon getting their diplomas.

[depthcharge12]

*Reads post by Kais Klip*

 

WHAT SEMANTICAL NITPICKERY IS THIS?

 

I mean, really? So if I say a Death Guard Grave Warden is "a big guy" I might as well have gone "hoodoo booboo juju Grave Warden" because while he's larger than a Chaplain he's smaller than a Contemptor Dreadnaught.

 

What.

 

And this is why philosophy majors should be drowned upon getting their diplomas.

 

 

The only good philosophy major....is a dead 'un.

[Kais Klip]

*Reads post by Kais Klip*

WHAT SEMANTICAL NITPICKERY IS THIS?

I mean, really? So if I say a Death Guard Grave Warden is "a big guy" I might as well have gone "hoodoo booboo juju Grave Warden" because while he's larger than a Chaplain he's smaller than a Contemptor Dreadnaught.

What.

And this is why philosophy majors should be drowned upon getting their diplomas.

I keep as many heavy chains in the garage as any other concerned citizen, but not as many of those same citizens can name the second highest waterfall in the world to plunge said majors into as those that can name the first (can you?). Absolutes, things like "the most highest/largest/fastest/densest" are what stirs the soul, it's why as kids we were all into the Guinness book of records. It's why we have different words for each shade of colour, why there's an 'ultramarine' and 'aquamarine' instead of 'light blue' and '"slightly lighter blue".

 

With gods, the expression is already starting to evolve into "Demi-god" and "god". I'm arguing for the words to finally coalesce into a solid order, ie "pariah, man, omega psyker, ~ alpha psyker, daemon peasant, daemon noble, daemon prince, Demi-demigod etc all the way up to the zenith, with the word "god" being relagated to an adjective, simply because there are so many "gods" in our life of varying orders that the word has lost meaning from what it first meant, which I assume to be beings of alpha level power. You can't be semi-alpha. You're either alpha in your power (my "god"), or you are beta and below.

 

The whole thing boils down to wherever you subscribe to "if you ain't first, yer last" train of thought when using adverbs, which I personaly do. You don't use "big" and expect a notable effect, you say "as big as".

 

Ok fine, yes, no one cared about my silver childhood medal *kicks chain*

 

Damn, forgot to give him the umbrella.

 

Edit: to bring it back full circle, I don't consider the Chaos Gods as gods because Eldar gods exist/existed, opening the possibility of gods belonging to other cultures existing, thus making so many beings carrying the label "god" that you might as well term these gods into a xeno species (Type: Daemonis Majoris Inhabits: Warp dimension, Extermination Instruction: Feckhueg gun, ammunition "Draigo").

 

If you don't, then give me another word to use that stands for non-human/non-Terran origin, and xenos and gods become subgroups of that group, like eldar and tau are subgroups of Xenos.

 

At the end of the day, if it isn't from Old Earth, be it with hellfire or null rounds, all His Benevolence requires of His Most Glorious Field Artillery is for us to shoot it.

[FunkyMonkey]

I was under the impression that Eldar Gods actually existed independently of the Eldar, and that only Slaanesh and Ynnead were born from Eldar emotions/souls.  In this case, I'd call them extremely powerful Warp Xenos worshipped by the Eldar.

 

Gork and Mork, on the other hand, are a class of gods similar to the Chaos gods because they come from a similar source as the Chaos Gods.  In my opinion, the only reason why the Gork and Mork aren't normally included in the list of Warp gods alongside the Big 4 is because the emotions that G&M stem from are so primitive that they can be described by nothing but smashing things and Waaaaagh and are representative of a concept so utterly foreign to most other intelligent life.  Slaanesh, on the other hand, although being birthed by the Eldar, comes from pleasures and perfection, which despite the orders of magnitude of the Eldar emotional spectrum over the human spectrum, are still familiar enough to be comprehended.  Given the humano-centric nature of Warhammer 40K lore, I'm not surprised that only the Gods that humans are familiar with are treated with any great detail.

 

Other than that, yeah, there are Warp Xenos.  The Enslavers being the prime example.  

[karden00]

Whats up with Marius Gage and the Macragges Honour disappearing? Im not finished the book yet...but...

In KNF it described Gage's pursuit of KP and the Infidus Imperator as one of the most notable space duels in Imperial history, and all we get here is a disappearance? 

Was this covered in that weird German release? 

Man though,, I am loving it so far. 

I can see why people dont like Guilliman's less celebratory moments, especially given a certain other primarch's prowess in space...But it didnt bother me that much. Just before the vulnerable part happens, Roby-G is described as Really kicking some ass. 

[Yemson]

Hi there, new to the forum. After reading the entire thread I wanted to share some points of view about the Unremembered Empire.

 

I must admit I had very high hopes for UE, mostly because of the superb cover art it sports. I fully expected a book in which the Imperium Secundus was formed and the conflicts these two primarcs fight to stay true to the Emperor (Gulliman and Sanguinius)

 

Well what I got was something completely different. UE is a book about other books, is a marshalling point for the cliffhangers of other books in the series. It's about the characters that were born in other books and needed to close the oh-so-many loops left open in previous novels. It's about everything except Imperium Secundus, in fact the inclussion of Imperium Secundus feels like a very shallow side story, something the author just thought about in the begining and remembered he had to write at the end of the book to justify the title. In fact when I finished the book, I wondered what Dan Abnett actually meant by titling this book the Uremembered Empire. Was it perhaps because he actually forgot to write about it in the first place? I have to say, I expected Sanguinius to show up halway through the book, play a more important role, duscuss, argue, fight. He is after all the chosen one to succeed the Emperor, he is the most noble of primarchs, he was the choice for Warmaster of many of his brothers. Instead he shows up unceremoniusly by the end of the book, very poorly depicted and just like that accepts a responsiblity so big, even Horus' treachery is eclypsed by it. Just like that. Oh and end of the book by that point.

 

While this is the book major flaw, it doesn't mean the book isn't entertaining. It's fast and it's good narrative helps make the book a page turner from the start, even if you're not familiar with the other 9 books this one tries to tie-in. On has to enjoy the twists and turns (some very predictable because we all know major characters DO live through the Hersy and beyond) and specially the action scenes where Abnett's narrative shines. I'm even inclined to think that even if you didn't read the previous novels, UE is a great read, entertaining and easy to digest. In the end though, you are left with a sense of emptiness. The sense that nothing has been truly resolved, that you are still left in the dark and that you have to continue to endure mysteries in order to catch the grand picture. Curze is still at large (ridiculously unscathed and unchallenged), the Cabal is so annoyingly misterious it gets boring, the loyalist primarchs are so ridiculously fragile it makes you wonder if Horus really picked the best of them to follow him down THAT rabbit hole, and of course the rushed resolution of the actual founding of Imperium Secundus,

 

I must agree that, as a resolution "mechanism" this book works very well. It gives you the sense of closure you didn't get in the previous novels. But I rather prefered that this novel was titled differently, since Imperium Secundus is nothing more than a reference. A simple act of creating a second empire, no remorse, no regret, just a side plot. Perhaps if this is considered a major plot by BL, the next novel should be called Remembering the Empire.

[Stonerhino]

The book is about the establishment of Imperium Secundus and Guilliman's struggles with it.

 

For example the part about the Lion showing up.  It is needed to show how the Lion goes from "Only the Emperor or eternal war".  To having some acceptance of the idea.  Even if it only aids his own plans. 

 

If the Blood Angels showed up at the beginning of the book and Imperium Secundus was declared.  Then there would be a lot of missing information.

[Scribe]

Or it could have documented the fall out of that, and discussion, and development of the arc.

 

Or yeah, just an empty declaration with a cliff hanger ending. Which is what we got.

 

EDIT: To be clear, I was entertained, and it was a fun book, but it wasnt 'hey guys, I have this idea.' nor was it the discussion and fall out of that idea.

[Blood Angel Scout]

I took it to be that only those who were there would remember that Imperium Secundus happened but no official record, as it was only until they heard from Terra, which has to come at some point soon, possibly Khan or Russ as Space Wolves and Dark Angels need to meet up as well as Blood Angels and White Scars heading to Terra, leaving Ultras to no doubt hunt "Alpharius", who is an entire legion....but once contact is made then it will be a case of Sanguinius saying " I renounce my position and declare it void as we have heard from Terra, Emperor lives" etc

 

The real Secundus is after the consequences of the Horus Heresy....and going on from reading so far...maybe pre-scouring? but it is what the Imperium became after the Emperor was plugged in

[b1soul]

We could point out so many things that show at this point in time, in this particular fight, Lorgar was outclassed to the extreme. Where he had only put a dent in Corax's breastplate and break a(singular here) claw, Lorgar had been cut by the Raven's wing blades repeatedly, his faced scarred by the Raven's claws and then stabbed and sawed through by those same claws afterwards. The exact wording was that "the Raven Lord was carving his brother in half." When Corax removed his claws, he snagged bone and it is said that the removal did more damage than the impalement. Page 458 describes how Lorgar was shaky and weak as he picked up his crozius, after he used Curze as a crutch to get up and Curze shoved him away.

 

So yes, by the time he recovered enough to contribute to the battle between Corax and Curze, I fully believe it would have been over and any help Lorgar could offer would be redundant as he would either be finished off, or told off.

 

What are you talking about? A marine...a lowly Astartes was enough to completely mess up Curze when he fought the Lion. I'm sure Curze outclassed that marine by many miles, yet that marine was able to make a difference. A "shaky and weak" Lorgar is still much more powerful than a marine.

 

Curze and Corax exchanged a few words, Corax flew off, and almost immediately Lorgar was able to stand with Curze's help. How do you know that Lorgar wouldn't have recovered in time to trip up Corax from behind? You don't. You don't know how long a fight between Corax and Curze would've dragged out. Such a fight likely would've been much longer than the fight betwen Corax and Lorgar. The longer the fight drags out, the more likely Lorgar will be able to interfere. I'm sure Corax was aware of this.

 

It's also ridiculous to suggest that Corax could've relied on Curze to prevent Lorgar from interfering. I mean...really? Why would Corax trust Curze to "tell off" Lorgar? That would be supreme folly on Corax's part. If there's merely a chance that Lorgar might attempt to backstab, that's enough of a risk to give Corax pause before engaging an opponent as formidable as Curze.

 

Note: I'm of the impression that Lorgar cracked open Corax's breastplate and that he basically disarmed one of Corax's hands (breaking the lightning claw [if you want to use the singular] on one of his hands, which probably means breaking the three blades on that hand). Note that Corax had to replace the broken lightning claw with a power whip, which likely means that the broken lighting claw was rendered useless by Lorgar's blow.  

 

 

Well let's be fair... Dorn was 'trying to talk sense into him', Dorn was berating him and more or less calling him a heretic. Dorn and level headed didn't always go together well.

I just don't see Konrad going "RARHR IMA CRAZY MAN EAT YOUR FACE" in the middle of Dorn nagging him like a stereotypical Jewish Mom as evidence of great badassery on Curze's part.

 

LOL...I must second this

 

 

Curze didn't "fight" Dorn. He sucker punched him by way of having one of his "Little Moments" while the Praetorian was trying to talk some sense into him. (And sucker punched doesn't do it justice, "Sucker lit him up like Floyd Mayweather working combinations on a heavy bag" is closer.)

 

Nor did he beat Corax in any meaninful sense. The Raven decided his priority was getting his sons out of the trap, not slugging it out with Konrad. It's the opposite of how Night of the Wolf played out.

 

Yes...though the story doesn't explicitly describe the physical beatdown (as in there's no "play by play" description of Curze wrecking Dorn), what we do know is that Curze blacks out and "wakes up" on top of poor ol' Dorn. The most logical deduction of what happens (if you're not trying to drivel Curze as hard as possible) is that Curze snaps in the middle of Dorn's lecture and suddenly attacks him (similar to how the Lion suddenly punches out Russ while the latter is having a good laugh).

 

Well, it shows he's massively dangerous if he beat a brother Primarch while not even 'awake'.

 

We have no idea what Curze is like in "crazy vision mode". It might grant some sort of insanity bonus to his strength and speed. Your assumption is that he's even more dangerous when he's lucid. For all we know, he might be less dangerous when he's lucid and more dangerous when he's in the throes of insanity (having a vision about the Heresy).

 

Anyway, it doesn't really matter because Curze likely beat Dorn by sucker-punching him while he was talking. If that were the case, which seems likely, it doesn't really give us any idea how a proper duel would go.

 

Even if Curze were a less effective fighter when having visions, the incident would only show that he's still able to pull off a sucker-punch in this less effective state.

 

You're trying to spin everything in Curze's favour when the evidence points to a sucker-punch, which is hardly impressive.

 

 

Konrad Curze aka Night Haunter aka Gypsy Fortuneteller

 

LOL this is gold