We must buy a lot of Black Library books...

[Phoebus]

OK, I have no idea what's up with the formatting.

[Captain Semper]

If you have the original text saved, delete the content of your post and paste again. Sometimes it times out.

[FerociousBeast]

Great summary, thank you Phoebus! There's definitely some development of the Dark Angels' fluff in the book. Good: redactors on the chaps, insight into what makes a traitor Fallen or not. Bad: Grey Knights fully aware of the Fallen? Keeping the secret from the Inquisition and Grey Knights has been a major objective of the Unforgiven since forever! If Draigo knows about the Fallen, the Unforgiven SHOULD be trying to kill him. They don't play fast and loose with the secret. Right, Black Templars?

[Bryan Blaire]

It seems like a somewhat uneasy truce over the subject though, and the Dark Angels aren't mind-wiped either. Perhaps the GK (or some of them at least) are the DA's link to the Inquisition? One of those "We know things about you, you know things about us, we'll always be uneasy, but if we can figure out ways to use you safely and know that you don't reveal our stuff, we will do the same for you" kind of arrangements.

[Phoebus]

Captain Semper, thanks for the advice - it worked!

 

Ferocious Beast, thanks for the kind words.  Personally, I was disappointed the Grey Knights knew the Dark Angels' fundamental secrets.  I thought it was a reversal of some well-established lore.  On the other hand, I don't think it was ever in the cards for Azrael to try to kill Draigo.  On a practical level, I think it would be vain to hope that Draigo - aware as he was of what the Dark Angels had been up to - would not have set up some sort of contingency should he "suffer an unfortunate setback" while deployed with the Chapter he had coerced to come to his aid.  And that's not even getting into the fact that, while the Inner Circle is prepared to do some drastic things, it would appear that Azrael at least does not savor carrying out such deeds.

 

My guess (absent any other information from the author) is that Azrael is being a cool customer with the fact that the Grey Knights are "in the know".  I think he realizes that, if the Grey Knights really wanted to move against the Dark Angels, they would have done so a long time ago.  It's a dangerous assumption, but the Unforgiven - whom the Inquisition has been suspecting of "Legion-building" - must be important enough to the Imperium that the militant arm of the Ordo Malleus is willing to let them go on with their obviously sinister agenda so long as they remain loyal.  Azrael must deal with the fact that the Unforgiven are at the Grey Knights' mercy, but the fact that he knows that they know is, in a way, a victory.

 

Bryan, I found it interesting that the Grey Knights did not even bring up mind-wiping, to say the least.  I wish the author had gone more into detail as to the "why" behind that arrangement.  If there is an arrangement between the two Chapters, then it should be mentioned - since no such precedent exists.  If the ending of 'The Emperor's Gift' is playing into this (meaning, the Grey Knights are no longer a secret not just for the Space Wolves, but for the whole of the Adeptus Astartes), then that should be alluded to.

[Bryan Blaire]

Agreed, Phoebus! I've wondered about some set up like this with the Grey Knights, and possibly members of the Ordo Malleus (how many, who knows), because the DA would probably run guns blazing into a lot of Chaos activity, given the Hunt, if for no other reason than simply the search for Fallen clues. A tense "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" information trading scheme of some kind.

[Aegnor]

That's interesting but definitely dubious about the GK knowing about the Fallen. That's a pretty massive change to the basic fluff re the Fallen and the Unforgiven.

 

I suppose there's a difference between knowing everything and suspecting lots without knowing.

 

The story sounds a little OTT. Abaddon AND Huron attacking the planet AND one of the original 8 GK Grand Masters coming out of stasis or similar? They really just kept it to that modest level? Leman Russ and the Lion didn't also show up as well? ;)

[Varizel]

Pandorax is a dissapointing book honestly... so many things that kinda bugs me.

i.e on top of my head

 

 

Chaplain taking geneseeds

DWK with guns

Deathwing Grandmaster with a bolt pistol

Azrael being REALLY chatty.....

and other stuffs....

 

 

 

most of the stuffs just flew by me, and i can't help but say that Kaldor Draigo is really described as a buffoon in this book.

 

I wouild like to add my own interpretation of what happened about our secret.... honestly imho, the secret of DA is TOTALLY safe. Let me elaborate.

 

 

 

Draigo made a witty retort during an argument with Azrael indicating that he KNOWS that Dark Angels kept prisoners under the rock.

Draigo ADMITS later on, to himself i think,  that he himself don't exactly know who they are, but he have an inkling from "informed guess" 

Draigo later on was talking psychicly with Epiwhatever and in that chat, he was asking this Epiwhatever can confide to him, what he found at the recesses of Azrael thoughts and secrets. In which Epiwhatever said... everybody entitled to secrets man, WTH?

During the last section after Kaldor Draigo, pissed as he was, punched Azrael and slammed him to the ground, he specifically asked Azrael about what those guys under the rock are for, and what did Azrael do to them. Then he asked if Azrael made a deal with Abaddon to give Epiwhatever to the DA in return for DA to allow Abaddon to escape. This is the part that Azrael straight warned him, is Draigo is accusing him of being a heretic? This is the part where the Deathwing Knights primed their GUNS...... and Draigo made his petty threats.

 

 

 

Every chapter got their turncoat .... and honestly the way i see it. Draigo just knows that we kept some turncoat under the rock instead of straight up offing them, that's it.

 

Azrael too was shown as being REALLY clumsy with keeping his secrets, like

 

 

straight up said that his brothers on the successor chapters also owned emperor's armor shard on their crux which came btw... from the emperor's gauntlet. Draigo NOTICED that he didn't say COUSIN, and instead BROTHER. But being a moron that he is depicted in this book, he couldn't even figure out what it meant. I think the word just flew off him and was like... Azrael just dunno how to speak.

If Kaldor Draigo actually you know, used his brain for a bit, he would like catch on to the rumors that the DA is actually still operating as Legion, and thus will not make such petty threats at the end of the book about the whole Might of GK.

 

 

 

Honestly, i felt the whole book is just like that. Such a waste. 

 

This is just my opinion though.

 

My 2 cents.

[Phoebus]

Varizel,

 

Truth be told, I didn't enjoy this book either, but I disagree with some of the statements you made.

 

 

To be fair, it's Interrogator-Chaplains who are collecting the gene-seed of Chaos Space Marines to ensure none of them are Fallen.  That sounds like a good policy; if they used uninitiated Apothecaries for this purpose, at best it would raise suspicions and at worst there's a chance they would collect Dark Angel gene-seed from some traitor and realize it.

 

 

 

I don't remember Deathwing Knights using boltguns or bolt pistols at any point.  In fact, Golathiel pummels a daemon to pulp barehanded, and Azrael's honour guard at the very end is qualified as wielding maces - not guns of any sort.  It's those weapons that are "primed" when Draigo confronts Azrael.

 

 

 

It might have seemed as if Draigo was just holding the threat of knowing the secret of the Dark Angels earlier in the novel, when he blackmailed Azrael into coming to Pandorax.  And later, when he threatened to go to the High Lords and tell them what the Dark Angels had in their dungeons, it might have seemed like a bluff as well.  At the very end, though, consider what Draigo says to Azrael:

 

"Is [Epimetheus] up there in those dungeons of yours, among with all those others you've collected down the centuries?  What do you want with them?  What is it that you do to them?"

 

There's no innuendo there.  If he didn't know about the Fallen, then he wouldn't know to lump in Epimetheus with their fate.

 

 

On the other hand, I do share your frustration.

 

 

Not only does Gabriel use a bolt pistol, but did it really have to be a grenade that ruined his Terminator Armour and put him in a short-term Sus-an coma?

 

Epimetheus - himself clad in Cataphractii armour - was crippled by a pair of boltgun-wielding Legionnaires.  Several Deathwing also good down from wounds inflicted by bolters.  Not the best example of how Terminators die, I think...

 

But hey, along the same lines, in the same battle we saw plague zombies ripping off power armour using their bare hands.

 

[Varizel]

Yeah, brother Phoebus.

 

To address your reply though

 

 

 

They do have a deathwing apothecary which is much better suited to do so. Since it is a whole chapter flying in gunablazing. Even so, normal Apoth can also just straight up take the geneseed to be analyzed later on. So i really held firm to the belief that that Interrogator Chaplain should've no business going about harvesting geneseed. How did a chaplain cleanly takes the geneseed anyway without a reductor that comes with an apoth gear? It seems like a bad edit to me or just CS Goto fluff. 

 

 

 

 

 

On the last part man, when azrael was down on the ground. After Draigo slammed him the second time, and asked if he is in league with Abaddon, the next paragraph started with the Deathwing's Guns rose AGAIN blablabla. But it was specifically said that the only guys with Azrael are DWK, 10 of them as a matter of fact. 

 

 

 

 

 

As i said.... every chapter has its turncoat. We just cage our turncoats instead offing him off straight. As a matter of fact. It wasn't innuendo. The whole book up until that part clearly shows that Draigo doesn't exactly know and have proof. Sure he has Informed guess.... but that's about it at best. Guess. Even that part,  he still doesn't know why Azrael took them. As a matter of fact, Draigo never explicitly say who those guys are under the rock. He just called those guys as them. So you can't really tell if he actually knows who they are too.

 

 

 

and for your last tidbits

 

 

 

It is written i think like the Dark Angels start dying in drove, cuz a few Plague marines showed up. They don't even show up with plasmagun or anything, just straight up Bolters.

 

Ack, i don't know man. This whole book is just frustrating to read. The whole DA chapter too fighting? doesn't matter. The only thing that are being discussed and shown and talked about are about specific characters. So the mega line of the whole chapter of DA were fighting or not, are just reduced to what? 4-6 guys, i think, of Dark Angels? Mr. Dunn i think don't even talk about the normal marines fighting and whatnot?

 

Heck, Mr. Dunn don't even deign of actually giving company masters names. He wrote a lot of times of how a company master did blablalba. But never said the name. It's like some random mook man.

 

The other thing that is jarring to me, was i guess  the way how different the Dark angels speech pattern is from Ravenwing or Purging of  Kadillus. Small tidbits, but annoying after the what i think the best Dark Angels book that is Ravenwing. And even that book has problem.

 

 

[WGXH]

 

Tzula fails to stop the infiltrators, who slay the thirteen psykers who had sustained the last seal. They unwittingly release the guardian of that seal, though - a Grey Knight, and not just any Grey Knight:  Epimitheus, one of the original eight Grand Masters of the Grey Knights. With the psykers slain, though, the Damnation Cache - a Warp rift through which a seemingly endless army of daemons can enter the Materium - has been unlocked.

 

Soon after, said army of daemons arrives at Olympax. Epimetheus bests a Lord of Change, but not before the creature hints that the Grey Knight was, in fact, a Fallen Dark Angel prior to being recruited. The theory floating around the internet at this point is that Epimetheus is, in fact, Zahariel from 'Descent of Angels' and 'Fallen Angels'. The idea being that only one Librarian is shown being on Caliban during 'Fallen Angels' - that is, Zahariel - and thus only one Dark Angel Librarian could plausibly qualify as being Fallen; C.Z. Dunn's dedication to Mitch Scanlon and Mike Lee at the end of his novel is used as further evidence of this.

 

 

Just to verify- Zahariel El'Zuras is certainly one possibility. The other one that could existy as a curveball is Israfael. Correct me if I am wrong, but he too is a Librarian, sent to Caliban, and would be considered 'Fallen'.

 

The characterisation of Epimetheus is much more in keeping with Zahariel, though.

 

[Phoebus]

Varizel,

 

Good points, man.  And you're right about the Deathwing Knights - I totally missed it!

 

WGXH,

 

You're right, he shouldn't be discounted.  Even more interesting than that question, though, is ...

 

 

... figuring out who is the individual that Epimetheus claims "... switched places with [him]" when the Lord of Change says a different path had been walked for him.  Does this mean that Cypher was meant to be one of the first Grey Knights?

 

 

Because, in a bizarre way*, that might make sense.

 

 

* Assuming you hold to the theory that Cypher is working toward the redemption of the Fallen and that his enmity with the Dark Angels is over what they have become following millennia of the Hunt.