Betrayer. Thoughts, queries, equestions. Spoilers, duh.

[Don the Oiler]

I really hope they don't drag Argel Tal back from the dead. Don't get me wrong, i like him, but what they did with Loken and Eidolon made their death scenes entirely pointless. Don't let death become nothing more than a minor annoyance like in Dragon Ball.

I also get the feeling the closer we get to the Siege of Terra, the harder it will be for the authors to write relatable traitor characters. It already looked like the author intentionally kept descriptions of the atrocities done to the populations to the bare required minimum.

The skinning pits were mentioned and reflected on, but a scene of Argel Tal literally dragging babies there and flaying them alive (reluctant or not) would probably be too much for the average reader to still relate to him.

Also, ANOTHER Imperator Titan. I can hardly remember a Titan battle without one, these things seem to be more common than bolt pistols. Though to be fair, their appearance during the heresy shouldn't be as surprising as in 40K.

[Kais Klip]

I really hope they don't drag Argel Tal back from the dead. Don't get me wrong, i like him, but what they did with Loken and Eidolon made their death scenes entirely pointless. Don't let death become nothing more than a minor annoyance like in Dragon Ball.

Unequivocally agree with you, and as I keep prattling on my point of grimdark means dead names, not numbers. One of the narrative's strongpoints, while not as prevalent during the Heresy period, is its scope and scale. If you happen to come up with a brilliant idea but the character is dead, just write it before he died damn it, no need to bring him back.

 

And I understand the reluctance of cutting a plot character that the readers care about, since it means the author put a lot of damn work into him, but the fact that I had to do a re-read of deaths like Argel-Tal, and then finish the chapter anticipating a "this is what would have happened, but this would be heresy. Blam." paints to me the fact that we have long ago departed the grimdarkness station. It's that station that was the reason I began following this narrative and not carebear fairy tales like Star Trek or Star Wars (forgive my ignorance). I admit now it's more space opera, but I demand grimdark space opera, before that becomes the ethos selling point of a new narrative and bam, can you say cycle?

[Deus Imperator Vult]

Is no one happy nykona stuck two swords of lovely blackness into lucius' mind bogglingly irritating torso?

 

Oh I was very happy its lucius' confusion when he realises he's loosing thats priceless. More Raven's like that please! Wraith stepping, Primarch sniping badasses.

I really hope they don't drag Argel Tal back from the dead. Don't get me wrong, i like him, but what they did with Loken and Eidolon made their death scenes entirely pointless. Don't let death become nothing more than a minor annoyance like in Dragon Ball.

I also get the feeling the closer we get to the Siege of Terra, the harder it will be for the authors to write relatable traitor characters. It already looked like the author intentionally kept descriptions of the atrocities done to the populations to the bare required minimum.

The skinning pits were mentioned and reflected on, but a scene of Argel Tal literally dragging babies there and flaying them alive (reluctant or not) would probably be too much for the average reader to still relate to him.

Also, ANOTHER Imperator Titan. I can hardly remember a Titan battle without one, these things seem to be more common than bolt pistols. Though to be fair, their appearance during the heresy shouldn't be as surprising as in 40K.

I agree with you about Eidolon but I personally liked Loken's reserection. I mean if they had bought Tarvitz, Vipus and everyone else from Isstvan 3 back yes it would have been :cuss but Loken hardly came through it unscathed. Besides I think this was done with the final battle in mind I think Garviel is going to play a huge part in the closing scenes of the heresy. I mean we already know Little Horus is having nightmares about him imagine a scene where L H is holding a corridor in the Vengeful Spirit and Loken walks around the corner gunning his chainsword? I also think, I know in the current itteration its a castodian who destracts Horus long enough for the Emperor to land the last blow, how poetic would it be if it was Loken? Remember in Horus Rising when he imagines his own death 'surrounded by enemies fighting at the Emperors side. Horus would be there, of course he would...'

 

I know what you mean about the Titans although it seems to be that every Legio only has the one and you need to take into account that the universe hasn't been busy trying to destroy itself in M31. I mean have we ever had a description of a Titan even being damaged before the Heresy breaks out? Sure Deus Inde (whatever its called the one aboard the Vengeful Spirit) is described as being battle scarred but thats about it. The only other races active at the time who field their own titan varients are the Elder and Orks right?

[Kol Saresk]

Well, Eidolon's resurrection was kind of already supposed to happen since the IA articles mentioned him living up to the siege. Granted, with everything in flux, anything could have happened. And honestly, he's just not that important enough of a character for me to care. As for Loken, he was an awesome character. But his "death" did more to move me than finding out he was still alive. And as a reader, I tend to like what makes me move and react just as much as what is able to paint an awe-inspiring image in my head.

[Wade Garrett]

Well, according to the old Index Astartes articles Ferrus Manus spoke in Rob's favor when he and Dorn were screaming at one another debating the Codex Astartes.

 

So...another returning dead guy to look forward too. Because with Loken, Cyrene, Eidolon, and Torgaddon why not? I can't (gag) wait for Gabriel Santar, Legatus Orfeo, and Hastur Sejanus to save the day at the (retch, dry heave) Siege.

 

In the possibly not as blindingly bright as it could be far future, no important character ever dies.

[Kol Saresk]

Wait, the same IA article that said he died at Istvaan?

[Wade Garrett]

Googling Index Astartes: Black Templars and Index Astartes: Imperial Fists were how I found the relevant section.

 

On the Codex controversy, both have Vulkan and Russ siding with Dorn while Ferrus and Corax back Guilliman.

 

What in the God Emperor's name were you doing out there in the Eastern Fringes, Guilliman?

[A D-B]

Argel Tal's dead for good. Sevatar isn't in 40K. Talos isn't coming back, no matter how much my editors wished I'd not killed him.

 

I'm not big on resurrection storylines. I've got one going on with Cyrene, and that'll hopefully be my Monkey's Paw / Pet Sematary, but that's all I'm interested in doing.

 

And thematically, the main crux of Cyrene's return was the sacrifice's futility. Argel Tal tried to rewrite the past and come back from the precipice, returning to the moment of just before the Betrayal. But he couldn't. He'd gone too far, had too many other responsibilities. He ignored Lorgar's guidance for the first time, put himself in Erebus's circle of influence, and paid the price. 

[Kol Saresk]

Googling Index Astartes: Black Templars and Index Astartes: Imperial Fists were how I found the relevant section.

 

On the Codex controversy, both have Vulkan and Russ siding with Dorn while Ferrus and Corax back Guilliman.

 

What in the God Emperor's name were you doing out there in the Eastern Fringes, Guilliman?

Well, the Iron Hands IA says dead so I'd go with "He's dead". Then again, supposedly the Ultramarines' IA says they were the highest in conquering worlds and yet the IA: Codex Astartes says flat out Horus had the highest tallies and only Lion El'Jonson and Leman Russ came close. Which really seems to support my theory that the IA articles were not written to be "holy grails and doctrine" but something to give an idea as well as not being an omniscient narrative but history as written by a biased and inaccurate narrator with a different narrator for each IA, each with some truth, a little lie and a ton of "I think this is how it went down."

[Conn Eremon]

Well, the Ultramarines having the most conquered worlds and the Sons of Horus having the highest tally of victories isn't necessarily mutually exclusive. Especially since the XVI tended to use other Legions to mop up after them, including the XIII.

[Kol Saresk]

True enough. But "the most conquered worlds" would almost mean the Ultramarines were almost exclusively confined to campaigns of compliance while the XVI, I and VI fought, and defeated, a lot of xenos campaigns. Enough to outnumber the worlds Ultramar conquered.

[Conn Eremon]

Or they had a greater focus on conquering rather than defeating. Bring to Compliance rather than destruction.

 

Or the UM IA was talking about "since Roboute was found" while the other refers to the whole Crusade, for which Horus and Russ, at least, were present for the lion's share of it.

[Trevak Dal]

I was disappointed it wasn't about Khârn...but it is a Heresy book and not a Legion War book so yeah.

[Legatus]

 

Or the UM IA was talking about "since Roboute was found" while the other refers to the whole Crusade, for which Horus and Russ, at least, were present for the lion's share of it.

 

The Ultramarines Index Astartes article does not mention the number of liberated worlds. It merely states that he liberated "countless worlds". The claim that he liberated the most comes from the 2nd Edition Codex Ultramarines (p. 12) and was repeated in the 5th Edition Codex Space Marines (p. 13). It states that "He [Guilliman] succeeded in liberating more worlds than any other Primarch". The 6th Edition Rulebook makes a similar claim on page 187, though here it states that the Ultramarines Legion liberated more worlds than any other Legion.

 

This was reasonably explained in the 2nd Edition Codex (though that explanation was not taken over into the 5th Edition Codex), according to which Guilliman was already making faster progress than any other Primarch right from the moment when he was given a presumably standard sized Legion. And then his Legion started to grow, which would naturally have increased his rate of success even further. By the time his Legion had grown to its well known size, they would be liberating two or three times the number of worlds as any other Legion in the same amount of time.

 

However, every enemy fleet destroyed, every alien world eradicated, every heretic world cleansed would count as a further victory for a Primarch, but not as a "liberated world". Perhaps some Primarchs were more focused on fighting the enemies of mankind, while others favoured saving the lost and isolated worlds.

[Wade Garrett]

Legatus's explanation makes sense to me. For example, the battle with the Diasporex would count as a victory for Ferrus and Fulgrim, but certainly not a world liberated.

[Conn Eremon]

The difference between "liberating" and "victory" is exactly the point I was trying to make, thanks Legatus.

[helterskelter]

The emperor was clearly a greedy soul or humans reached alot further than I imagined, realistically I think Lorgars sanction was out of order if you think about the combined conquerings of 20 legions in a 200 year period. The smallest being around 10,000 marines I think I read some where on here, so I wouldn't have thought you would need more than 1000 marines per expedition, plus the titans and the human elements. I reckon on average a year per planet if resistance was fiercest. Numbers of planets conquered across the entire crusade, not including travelling time/encounters of the 3rd kind etc would be stupidly high. Gotta love the petty human trait of competition in context of I've conquered considerably more than thou, when it was for the benefit of the species.

 

I mean Angron must have given it a good run on his path of slaughter after slaughter

[Kol Saresk]

 

 

Or the UM IA was talking about "since Roboute was found" while the other refers to the whole Crusade, for which Horus and Russ, at least, were present for the lion's share of it.

The Ultramarines Index Astartes article does not mention the number of liberated worlds. It merely states that he liberated "countless worlds". The claim that he liberated the most comes from the 2nd Edition Codex Ultramarines (p. 12) and was repeated in the 5th Edition Codex Space Marines (p. 13). It states that "He [Guilliman] succeeded in liberating more worlds than any other Primarch". The 6th Edition Rulebook makes a similar claim on page 187, though here it states that the Ultramarines Legion liberated more worlds than any other Legion.

 

This was reasonably explained in the 2nd Edition Codex (though that explanation was not taken over into the 5th Edition Codex), according to which Guilliman was already making faster progress than any other Primarch right from the moment when he was given a presumably standard sized Legion. And then his Legion started to grow, which would naturally have increased his rate of success even further. By the time his Legion had grown to its well known size, they would be liberating two or three times the number of worlds as any other Legion in the same amount of time.

 

However, every enemy fleet destroyed, every alien world eradicated, every heretic world cleansed would count as a further victory for a Primarch, but not as a "liberated world". Perhaps some Primarchs were more focused on fighting the enemies of mankind, while others favoured saving the lost and isolated worlds.

Legatus's explanation makes sense to me. For example, the battle with the Diasporex would count as a victory for Ferrus and Fulgrim, but certainly not a world liberated.

So basically, something like this:

 

True enough. But "the most conquered worlds" would almost mean the Ultramarines were almost exclusively confined to campaigns of compliance while the XVI, I and VI fought, and defeated, a lot of xenos campaigns. Enough to outnumber the worlds Ultramar conquered.

Good to know I still have deductive reasoning.

[Legatus]

I only added the last bit since I was already on the topic. It may have been redundant, sorry. I was initially posting to correct on the source for the claim for Guilliman having liberated the most worlds.

 

Edit: Not sure if this needs clarifying: The "five hundred world of Ultramar" are not the worlds the Ultramarines had liberated over the course of the Great Crusade. The Legion would have liberated several thousand worlds. And according to "Unremembered Empire", the Ultramar Empire had existed once before Guilliman took control on Macragge, and he was already in the process of reuniting it when the Emperor found him. Maybe this was not in question at all, but from the phrasing in the previous post I was not sure.

[Conn Eremon]

Considering Calth, however, it seems like there is the potential for worlds conquered during the Great Crusade to become a part of Ultramar.

 

So while it is true that Macragge was the center of a pre-Crusade collection of worlds (I'm not sure if it was an Empire with Macragge as its capital) and that the Ultramarines conquered far more than the Five Hundred Worlds, there is some overlap.

[Kol Saresk]

It might be something like Texas, where the worlds chose to be annexed into Ultramar.

[Don the Oiler]

Cyrene's resurrection probably had more of a point than her death, so i see the justification there. Would have been awesome if her death (and possible beyond-the-veil-experience) would have left her a shivering lunatic, but she's with the Cabal now so i don't know what else lies in store for her. Just saying that "revivification" as shown with Eidolon and Cyrene comes a little too "cheap" for my tastes so far. Like all you need is an appointment with your local crazy apothecary or priest and a few expendable redshirts.

Then again, Lucius in 40K doesn't even need *that*, so i can't blame the authors for compromising in-universe laws.

Really glad to hear Artel Tal's a persistant goner, keeps him in good memory. I caught myself not caring about Loken at all any longer when i read about (listened to) his rise from the ashes, a sacrifice can be awesome, but only if it *stays* a sacrifice and isn't devalued just for the sake of popularity.

As for Ferrus Manus and the IA articles, i think about 30% of those are already retconned anyway. So for all we know about Warhammer consistency, it could be the Angry Marines defending the Imperial Palace by the time we arrive at the siege.

[Captain Idaho]

A little bit of resurrection works well enough in moderation, but bringing back every popular character is a step too far.

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

 

Googling Index Astartes: Black Templars and Index Astartes: Imperial Fists were how I found the relevant section.

 

On the Codex controversy, both have Vulkan and Russ siding with Dorn while Ferrus and Corax back Guilliman.

 

What in the God Emperor's name were you doing out there in the Eastern Fringes, Guilliman?

Well, the Iron Hands IA says dead so I'd go with "He's dead". Then again, supposedly the Ultramarines' IA says they were the highest in conquering worlds and yet the IA: Codex Astartes says flat out Horus had the highest tallies and only Lion El'Jonson and Leman Russ came close. Which really seems to support my theory that the IA articles were not written to be "holy grails and doctrine" but something to give an idea as well as not being an omniscient narrative but history as written by a biased and inaccurate narrator with a different narrator for each IA, each with some truth, a little lie and a ton of "I think this is how it went down."

 

Basically, before Fulgrim, Ferrus being alive or not was supposed to be a mystery, with the Iron Hands IA saying he was MIA on Istvaan, with suggestions he was concealed on Mars after the Massacre - there's even a bit saying that his 'ghost' appeared to all Iron Hands in the psychic backlash after the death of Horus.

 

Fulgrim (or maybe collected visions before it) set Ferrus's death in stone for the first time - with all earlier fluff having (intentionally - the IA mentioned the IHs saying one thng, with rumours about the whole AdMech body-snatching) conflicting accounts of his demise / survival.

 

Although Ferrus is the Primarch who would be the most likely (cannon - wise) to be resurrected (the whole internal necrodermis / dark age of technology metal inside of him; keys of Hel introduced in Massacre, saying he sealed away forbidden tech that could be used to resurrect people, with members of his legion going to find this stuff after his death & the body on Mars rumours), pretty much all the Loyalist Primarchs have some mystery surrounding their deaths / departures. I hope any old fluff about Ferrus can be regarded as part of this mystery if it isn't expanded upon - which I highly doubt, consideringy the Heresy book series' timeline is way past Ferrus's death.

 

I expect BL will let this one dead Primarch lie - his personality isn't especially conducive to expansion, and although there have been some good portrayals in the occasional book, the tendancy towards "Ferrus Mad, Ferrus Smash!", with the only book featuring him as a relatively major character seeing him slapped all over the place by Fulgrim means he probably wouldn't be popular enough to drink the ressurection cool-aid anyway. 

[Kol Saresk]

Well, possibly. Although part of the IA article explicitly says that the Emperor's death sent out a shockwave that reached him out all the way in the warp where he was training daily and that any theories on his revival are utterly denied by the Iron Hands themselves. Not to mention the whole "Returning from the dead to give a vision" section in the Beliefs section. How and when might have been "mysterious" but some effort was put in to point towards "dead".