What happened between Kurze and Vulkan?

[Emperor's Furor]

 

The Ultramarines did give the people of Monarchia a deadline. However, they enforced that deadline with lethal force. Cyrene even recalls how at one point a land speeder was pointing a gun at her from her balcony. It wasn't an evacuation the people of Monarchia did not agree to and were forced into.

 

And while Guilliman regrets it, there is no guarantee the Ultramarines do. The events concerning the Interex are a perfect reason for showing this. Horus wanted peace. The Luna Wolves wanted war.

 

And true, the Blood Angels do have noble ideals. But correct if I'm wrong, when they do become monsters, don't they just use the monsters as weapons of war? And like any good Astartes, they hide behind their nobility when they kill women and children.

 

But that is just how I perceive it. I meant to point out that when we choose a faction in this universe, we are inevitably forcing our own ideals and beliefs onto it.

 

Vulkan Lives shows the Night Lords for what they were when they were working with the Salamanders.

Any piece of writing involving the Night Lords "shows them what they are for". They have no "great ideals", no nobility, no nothing.

It was more the suggestion that the Night Lords deliberately let the Eldar escape to cause mayhem and chaos and to goad Vulkan, in fact it appears that whole campaign was done to goad Vulkan, I don't expect the Ultramarines would do such a blatant thing, in the case of Monarchia the Emperor himself was commanding them.

[Emperor's Furor]

Cyrene survived because she ran.

 

Seriously, it's on page...3-5 of the First Heretic. The Ultramarines land and deliver their ultimatum, Cyrene questions them, the crowd presses in, and she runs as bolters begin to bark behind her.

The Ultramarines are moving the people out of Monarchia, they don't just land and start shooting, if anything they only shoot at those who attack them. Cyrene goes blind because she turns to look at the lance strike against Monarchia after her people had been moved on.

[Wade Garrett]

The Emperor told the Ultramarines to gun down women and children at Monarchia.

 

Well, that justifies everything then.

 

"I was just following orders. Humanity's weakest souls will always cower behind those words, making cowardice into a virtue."

[Blindhamster]

its quite interesting that people on each side of the debate feel so strongly about their fictional plastic soldiers stories :D (me included)

[Kol Saresk]

No, they did land and they did start shooting. They did i for no reason than to disperse the crowd and begin the evacuation. It was a forced evacuation and people did die for no real particular reason.

 

And like I said, anything written with the Night Lords shows them for what they are. Vulkan Lives attempted to be a "They are who they are because of this" piece and it basically failed its intent because it didn't show any true motivations behind anyone. As something to read, it was okay. Well written, but had no true charisma behind. As added background material... Iffy. The Word Bearers acted like Night Lords, the Night Lords, well we didn't even see the Night Lords and it all it keeps spiraling from there. It was okay, but if the Horus Heresy was a musical piece, it would ultimately be a flat note.

[Blindhamster]

I disagree on hiding behind a facade of nobility, and I'd like to request some quotes or similar to back it up, I can quote actual rules (let alone fiction) that depicts the nobility if it would be appreciated.

 

I concur that the Nighlords have always been portrayed as very bad people, but thats because its exactly what they were supposed to be, they took it too far, presumably because of the world they started getting recruited from.

 

 

on the note of The emperor ordering the Ultramarines to gun down women and children, I highly doubt that those were his exact orders. I dare you to name a single conflict in the real world where there have not been civilian casualties. And yes the Emperor leads a dictatorship, thats why he's an Emperor and not a council member or something similar. As to whether that is a truly negative thing or not... really comes down to perspective as Kol has mentioned a few times. He is depioted as caring about humanities future and his sons in the few scenes we've had, but he is indeed also depicted as a warlord, he also has made a number of bad decisions (his heavy handed rebuff of Lorgar being one of them) But he still ends up being the lesser of two evils, which is exactly why the Khan ends up siding with the Emperor rather than Horus.

[Deus Imperator Vult]

Yes they started shooting if you're forcing people to abandon their homes and livelyhoods even in the face of astartes very few are going to do it willingly. Especially when they have been so deluded by Lorgar they probably started bowing down shouting 'let us worship you oh mighty sons on the god Emperor. The Ultramarines had to prove their intent BUT do you honestly think if the 150 0000? Strong leigion were ordered to kill everyone that anyone would have escaped let alone a 17yr old girl. Exactly brother also do we actually know for sure how many times the Word Barers were given the message more subtly? I don't think the Emperor is perfect but I also don't think he would go from 0 to 100 like that it's more likely he had others try to speak to Lorgar subtly but he kept being his Zelot self until the only choice the Emperor had left was to slap him round the face so to speak.

[Kol Saresk]

I disagree on hiding behind a facade of nobility, and I'd like to request some quotes or similar to back it up, I can quote actual rules (let alone fiction) that depicts the nobility if it would be appreciated.

 

 

As I said, just my perception.

 

But if you want, when I first mentioned it, you brought up the mortal crew and how it was already damned, just by association. That is exactly part of what I mean. When the Blood Angels realized they weren't going to take the ship, one of them went gallivanting off, killing everyone he could find. One of them was a little girl. She did not worship Chaos. Her parents did not worship Chaos. In fact, the only two people on the whole ship who worshiped Chaos were the captain and Uzas.

 

I ain't saying anyone who chooses servitude to someone like the Night Lords over death is a good person. But does their child deserve to die for it? And is that killing truly justified, just because she was damned anyways?

 

As I said, this is my perception. No more, no less. It isn't any different from when one person says "the sky is blue" and another says "the sky is red". Both are right. It just depends on how you look at the sky. And what time.

[Blindhamster]

I'll hang my head in shame here and admit I've not read the night lords books since they each first got released, but I thought that one was hunting for traitors? Rather than actively hunting anyone and everyone, I can't remember the scene where the little girl dies, I remember it being sad, but I could have sworn she just happens to be in the way when he's killing someone else?

 

And, they may not all worship Chaos, but they are all still traitors. Technically in the UK the only crime still punishable by death is treason (doubt it'd ever go that far though) and I imagine in many other places treason has similar punishments. The people on that ship are supposed to have turned from the Imperium, and thus are traitors.

 

but as you say, that starts going even further down the lines of perception, as by that analogy, most countries in the world are evil (which I don't agree to be the case... greedy, sure, but not evil, and certainly not entire countries)

 

p.s. Kol, Wade, you're both awesome :)

[Kol Saresk]

It reads as saying that

Quote

She had no legs. These were lost to a Blood Angel chainblade as one of the Imperium's heroes had sought to exterminate his way through the heretic crew of the Covenant. His grinding chainblade had claimed the lives if many before he was finally slain by Astartes from onw of the Covenant's claws.

Of course, next book we find out that it was Talos who had killed that Blood Angel for killing someone who was under his protection.

[Blindhamster]

Okay, so no context just the aftermath, that all the description given on what happened? Not surprised I couldnt remember what happened exactly if so lol

[Wade Garrett]

I dare you to name a single conflict in the real world where there have not been civilian casualties.

Monarchia wasn't an act of war.

 

When armed soldiers march into a city they are allied with, order the civilian population to abandon their homes, and machine gun unarmed protesters that is a war CRIME.

 

Also, "Name me a conflict where there haven't been civilian casualties"? You do realize this excuse serves the Night Lords and World Eaters as well as it does the boys in blue.

[Blindhamster]

Depends on number of casualties, there is a huge difference between killing people that are fleeing then wiping out all those that are hiding then wearing their faces vs killing people that charge you, that being said, I think I will reread that scene before commenting further, to be honest I didnt like the book at all (which is odd as ive loved everything else ADB has written)

[Wade Garrett]

If I recall correctly, someone throws a rock at one of the XIII before the shooting starts.

 

But it would be frowned on for normal riot police to respond to a thrown rock with gunfire, and those guys aren't superhumans as heavily armored as a main battle tank.

[Kol Saresk]

Okay, so no context just the aftermath, that all the description given on what happened? Not surprised I couldnt remember what happened exactly if so lol

Well there's about two paragraphs' worth of writing just before. It mostly describes the various ways the mortal crew were dying from some being collateral with the ship being attacking, others being shot down as they fled from the Blood Angels boarding parties and where even a few of the gangs used the cover of battle to take out some of their rivals. But yeah, no specific context to it other than a seemingly random rampage through the mortals that ended with a child dying. I want to say a little more is given in Blood Reaver so I'll try to look that up.

[Blindhamster]

So, read the first heretic scene now im home, yeah the ultra marines do jump the gun with that one crowd, but it is implied that after that the level of actual violence is fairly non existent. Instead they intimidate the rest into leaving, in fairness though, if they worship the emperor as they say they do... why dont they instantly obey? Instead they argue, shout and start throwing things.

[Kol Saresk]

Well hey, if a messenger from your god showed up and told you that you were doing things wrong and were about to be punished for it, wouldn't you might overreact and try to fight them? :P

 

But yeah, for the most part it was "peaceful", but it was still a forced evacuation.

[Wade Garrett]

Peaceful? I'm pretty sure once you have Vindicators leveling buildings that particular adjective is no longer applicable.

:p

 

As far as the Ultramarines as messengers of God, in this case you have angels that, while somewhat similar, nevertheless look different than what you know "real" angels look like, telling you to abandon your home just because.

 

Their similarity to the Word Bearers probably made the unrest worse, with all the undertones of blasphemy and (heh) heresy.

[Trevak Dal]

That's... a more blunt version of basically what I thought of it, Veteran Sergeant.

He's a VETERAN Sergeant, he ain't got time to church it up for the Butter-Bar brigade.

In the end, the Imperium would have been better served if a standard of living was done across every human world to Modern day earth standard-or better. Yep, people are going to be killed, yep bad things are going to have to happen, but you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, and omelettes are delicious things.

One thing I've struggled to picture in my head is how Legions worked. They seem so large and vast that they just can't Lose, but at the same time going by the HH Books from Forgeworld they seem horrifically inefficient-the Imperium's Standard Template Tactics of "Throw a Bunch of Guys at it" switched up to "Throw a bunch of Post Human guys at it".

Now, I don't like the fluff about single squads being able to take over entire planets either

[Emperor's Furor]

Night Lords don't practice forced evacuation, they'd rather do forced annihilation. :P

[Conn Eremon]

They practice forced evacuation. Of the one survivor, to spread the tale.

 

Though, they will also likely kill that survivor anyways, because a ghost ship spreads the tale easily enough on its own.

[Kol Saresk]

Correction. One tenth of the population is evacuated. For example, in the IA articles they save one island by nuking the entire continent, just to save them from the evils of a nascent Slaanesh cult. That the cult was on the islan was of little convern.

[Emperor's Furor]

They also wiped out entire cities and broadcast their screams all over the planet until they gave up, despite them giving up they went to each other planet in the system and wiped out a city to just to underline the point.

[Kol Saresk]

Like I said, decimation. Destroy all but one-tenth of the populace.

[Memento Of Prospero]

Erm aren't there like 14 survivors ? The number is told when they return to Cholsis.