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Scars by Chris Wraight


cjp180

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According to Forge World, when everyone who wasn't Perturabo started pitching a fit about "Legion not the Luna Wolves? Kill one in ten!"

 

The Emperor was the one to tell them all to shut up and let the boy run his Legion the way he wants to.

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According to Forge World, when everyone who wasn't Perturabo started pitching a fit about "Legion not the Luna Wolves? Kill one in ten!"

 

The Emperor was the one to tell them all to shut up and let the boy run his Legion the way he wants to.

 

I don't think anyone would argue the Emperor isn't a tyrant though. He may be a tyrant for good reason, but he's still a tyrant.

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Yeah, that's kind of one of the central ideas of the whole setting. A desperately flawed, inhumanely cruel regime that must be upheld at all costs for fear of something much much worse.
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What are the Iron Warriors main inspiration? Are they supposed to be Space Nazis? 

 

 

Not at all.  Culturally, they do have some Greek in there as a result of their homeworld -- Olympia, full of mountains -- but aside from methodical, exacting, siege work, they don't seem to have anything else in particular going for them.

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According to Extermination, Olympia is only somewhat Hellenic. It's more steampunk. Perhaps even more advanced...like WWI or WWII level. They have tanks and airships. There are warring city-states...but the tech level way beyond Ancient Greece. 

 

I find Olympian city-states to be more similar to Renaissance Italian city-states with Da Vinci-ish tech and even 20th century level tech. 

 

I might be assuming German influence because of the character named Kroeger, which sounds rather German to me...but yeah, he's only one guy. 

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Hellenistic refers to themes, not tech-level. Are the themes an ideals of Olympia shown match those of the Hellenistic era?

 

And steampunk is retrofuturistic, meaning it can be a cellphone but as long as it was "made" using technology available during the Victorian era, it is "steampunk". Again, it is a theme. It is just usually a theme that takes place during the Victorian era.

 

So from what I have gathered, it is a Steampunk, Hellenistic Rennaissance.

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The steampunk fits with the portrayal of Pert as a fanboy of Leonardo da Vinci. Not that da Vinci's designs were steam powered, but that there is that theme of futuristic/fantastical devices made using older technology.
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I'm still confused at how one takes an ancient Greek culture (warring city states in mountainous terrain, polytheism, philosophy, togas), an elite formation of siege engineers named after the Persians, and the Roman practice of decimation, and arrives at "Obviously, Nazis!"
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Hellenic ≠ Hellenistic.

 

As someone who does not possess Extermination, what Hellenic influences abound on Olympia?

Good point about that. Basically, Olympia's global political set up is divided into various city-states with each one having its own variously sized territories and they all interact with each other through warfare, trade and political intrigue, up to and including minor assassination attempts while at the same time "living the civilized life" and thinking of themselves as a very cultured society. Or at least I think that is what everyone is going with.
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Hellenic ≠ Hellenistic.

 

As someone who does not possess Extermination, what Hellenic influences abound on Olympia?

That was actually a typo on my part, though according to wikipedia Hellenic is a synonym for the Greeks. Meant to say Hellenistic, though.

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Hellenic ≠ Hellenistic.

 

As someone who does not possess Extermination, what Hellenic influences abound on Olympia?

Good point about that. Basically, Olympia's global political set up is divided into various city-states with each one having its own variously sized territories and they all interact with each other through warfare, trade and political intrigue, up to and including minor assassination attempts while at the same time "living the civilized life" and thinking of themselves as a very cultured society. Or at least I think that is what everyone is going with.

 

 

That could also apply to Italy pre-unification. The Iron Warriors do kind of have a Hellenic/istic feel, though I struggle to put it into words. The names are the obvious one, but it's difficult to think of any others. Stoicism perhaps? The political set-up of Olympia is a yes, but it isn't unique to Classical Greece.

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But in terms of modern western culture, its the most well known. You and I cam rattle various Italian kingdoms and duchies, but your average Joe on the street isn't likely to recognize the names. Unlike Italy -- which is taught as "Rome" -- the various Greek city states tend to get a decent look in public education (though Sparta and Athens tend to get the most time center stage).
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The IV Legion, and the Iron Warriors when they reunited with their temperamental, cold, abusive father, are the one Legion who have no unique culture to call their own. Such vanity and nonsensical crap was excised from the Legion at it's inception, to ensure that the IV were always machines dedicated to the death of the Imperium's enemies, and nothing more.

 

War is all the Iron Warriors know of 'culture'. Anything else is a force detractor.

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The IV Legion, and the Iron Warriors when they reunited with their temperamental, cold, abusive father, are the one Legion who have no unique culture to call their own. Such vanity and nonsensical crap was excised from the Legion at it's inception, to ensure that the IV were always machines dedicated to the death of the Imperium's enemies, and nothing more.

 

War is all the Iron Warriors know of 'culture'. Anything else is a force detractor.

 

 

Hmmm. . . . Apothecary!  Check this man's gene-code for Tenth Legion genic markers.  He's starting to sound suspiciously like one of us.

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Hellenistic refers to themes, not tech-level. Are the themes an ideals of Olympia shown match those of the Hellenistic era?

And steampunk is retrofuturistic, meaning it can be a cellphone but as long as it was "made" using technology available during the Victorian era, it is "steampunk". Again, it is a theme. It is just usually a theme that takes place during the Victorian era.

So from what I have gathered, it is a Steampunk, Hellenistic Rennaissance.

What "Hellenistic themes"? Renaissance Italy is famous for feuding city-states as well.
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Naming mechanism, geography and what we have seen of its socio-cultural make-up rather heavily points to the ancient Greeks over Renaissance Italy. While there are historical similarities, such as the city-state schtick that got picked up on, those similarities are the only connection with Italy, which makes it point even further to the Greeks. Heck, even 1000heathens' rather accurate post is reflective of Roman Greek character. That is, Greece during the age of Rome.

 

I'm actually not sure where anyone got Renaissance, as the closest I can think of to that are Perturabo's closet dreams.

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I'm still confused at how one takes an ancient Greek culture (warring city states in mountainous terrain, polytheism, philosophy, togas), an elite formation of siege engineers named after the Persians, and the Roman practice of decimation, and arrives at "Obviously, Nazis!"

 

Generalized grasp of history would get my vote.

 

WLK

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Naming mechanism, geography and what we have seen of its socio-cultural make-up rather heavily points to the ancient Greeks over Renaissance Italy. While there are historical similarities, such as the city-state schtick that got picked up on, those similarities are the only connection with Italy, which makes it point even further to the Greeks. Heck, even 1000heathens' rather accurate post is reflective of Roman Greek character. That is, Greece during the age of Rome.

 

I'm actually not sure where anyone got Renaissance, as the closest I can think of to that are Perturabo's closet dreams.

 

The warring city-states is the only connection to Renaissance Italy that has been mentioned, in reply to warring city-states being called a Hellenic influence alone.

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There's no way to do this without sounding like a smartass. Sorry guys, I know its patronizing but...

 

Hellenic pretty much refers to anything Greek. You could say something has Hellenic influences and that pretty much means it has something *Greek* in its character. The blue painted domes on white buildings that decorate postcards could be called 'Hellenic.' 

 

Hellenistic is a more specific term that describes anything Greek or has Greek influence that dates from the time of Alexander the Great (so 323ish BCE) to the death of Cleopatra, the last Ptolemaic (read: successor to Alexander) monarch in the Mediterranean world. After the death of Cleopatra, most (but certainly not all) historians agree the Hellenistic Age moves over for the Roman.

 

Here's where it gets confusing: The Romans came into contact with the Greeks well before the death of Cleopatra, and assimilated much Greek culture into their own. Greek was spoken in the Roman Senate, Greeks were brought in to educate aristocratic Romans, etc etc. So, if these 'Hellenistic' influences were so clearly present in Roman civilization, can we say that the Roman Republic was a Hellenistic civilization? Probably not a useful label. It was a civilization that existed parallel to Greek ones during the Hellenistic Age, and took on many Hellenistic aspects. 

 

Sorry again guys.

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