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Daemons & The Invincible Reason


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Ok so considering 95% of you are ahead of me in the Heresy Im not too fussed about putting spoilers in this post, anyone who has not read anything about the Thramas Crusade look away now...

 

 

So big issue for me, Strength of Daemons in the material realm.

In The Lion when the night lords ship tailing the Invincible Reason detonates its Warp engines and causes daemons to spawn on the Dark Angels flag ship, an astartes as skilled as Corswain, who only just in the previous short story attacked and wounded a Primarch, is given pause by a pack of Daemons in the gunnery deck. This a few pages later brings about the issue with Decree of Nikea and The Lions willingness to break it to get the Daemons of his ship (also at the expense of one of the legions poor chaplins, haha)

 

Now i dont have a problem with this, throughout 40k lore all mortals (including astartes) have debilitating side effects when witnessing something that shouldnt exist on our plain of reality, my issue is with Fear To Tread.

 

Not once in the entire novel do I recall any of the Blood Angels being taking pause or being "transfixed" for lack of a better word when witnessing the events in the Signus Cluster, weather it be an entire planet becoming giant living monsters made out of everyday things (which i found comical, worst part which the novel that could have been done without IMO) to and entire planet seething with Daemons.

 

Did Swallow make a massive error in Fear To Tread or is Gav too harsh on the Dark Angels or should there be a healthy mix of hesitation and slaughter

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Agree with Kol.

But also, the nature of the Crusade. Firstly they would assume any daemons, regardless of whatever crazy censored.gif they do, are just xenos. Later in the Heresy the penny does drop, but for the Blood Angels at Signus Prime they are essentially fighting xenos (at least at the start).

Secondly, there isn't really a diverse range of xenos in 40k. We have the 7 or 8 main races, and a couple of other smaller races, and that's it. During the Crusade there were loads and loads of crazy xenos races and messed up human empires that the Crusading forces would have been exposed to. I imagine that daemons aren't really that exotic compared to some other things, especially if you're ignorant of what the daemons actually are and where they came from.

From my understanding, though, daemons will make you feel uneasy whether you think they're daemons, xenos or your mother-in-law. They shouldn't exist in the material universe and everything about them is just wrong.

 

Note that it is what I got from reading this forum. The only book I've read that included daemons was Dark Apostle and I don't remember the imperials' reaction to them other that "AAAAAAHNOONOOOONOTTHEFACENOTTHEFACE".

I believe the Night Haunter was a tad distracted when he ended up being skewered, so stabbing him is impressive but not some indication that Corswain is an unstoppable killing machine. 

 

I agree that daemons should usually project an aura of 'wrongness'.  Most psyker type (and I'm including nulls) phenomenon in 40k come with indications that what is happening isn't just unnatural, but is indeed going against the very laws of the physical universe.  It was an element that Lovecraft included in most of his stories about similar things, and you can't go wrong with more Lovecraft*.

 

* Not counting his racism and xenophobia.

Thirst

 

Will need to re-read it to be sure, but from memory, the BA did show a lot of disbelief in Fear to Tread, from when the scouting party landed on the planet and it fought back before Amit appeared to the rescue, leading to the heated debate after the survivors give their report plus pretty sure they showed revulsion when Kyras (sp) appeared in front of Sanguinius  

I do agree Scout, however I just get the feeling that by the time they assault the Cathedral of the Mark they are seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are facing an entire planet full of beings 'not of this world'. The introduction of Kyriss the Perverse was actually my favourite part as it drove all non astartes insane from witnessing it.

 

@DaveNYC - It wasnt my intention to make Corswain out to be an 'unstoppable killing machine' my point was that he had such courage to not only defy but attack any Primarch (dont forget the astartes are basically engineered to obey Primarchs). When you make the comparison between this and being halted in his step by the mere appearance of a Daemon surely should have given the Blood Angels at least a little pause on Signus

 

Dont get me wrong, I'd love nothing more than to see my boys in red kick some Daemon @$$ but plot armour is the worst kind of armour and signifies laziness on the writers behalf.

Only after Sanguinius was 'knocked out / put in psychic coma' though and by that point the Blood Angels just wanted blood for bloods sake (given the unfortunate circumstance the wolf pack got themselves into)

 

My point is the Blood Angels should have taken an absolute beating until they turn ragesupersayan and completely obliterate the daemons utterly due to power levels over 9000!!!

 

But as Kol was kind enough to point out above, Writers Prerogative

I do agree Scout, however I just get the feeling that by the time they assault the Cathedral of the Mark they are seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are facing an entire planet full of beings 'not of this world'. The introduction of Kyriss the Perverse was actually my favourite part as it drove all non astartes insane from witnessing it.

 

@DaveNYC - It wasnt my intention to make Corswain out to be an 'unstoppable killing machine' my point was that he had such courage to not only defy but attack any Primarch (dont forget the astartes are basically engineered to obey Primarchs). When you make the comparison between this and being halted in his step by the mere appearance of a Daemon surely should have given the Blood Angels at least a little pause on Signus

 

Dont get me wrong, I'd love nothing more than to see my boys in red kick some Daemon @$$ but plot armour is the worst kind of armour and signifies laziness on the writers behalf.

 

Ah, I mistook your point.  I thought that you were talking about the difficulty in fighting daemons vs primarchs, not the difficulty in having the gumption to simply take a swing at them.  Though again, I think Curze is still a bad example.  In Savage Weapons he wasn't exactly inspiring awe in people.  I actually don't think I've read any bit about Curze where he inspires the same awe in people that the other primarchs do.  Scares the crap out of people, sure, but nothing I can remember about the jaw dropping awe that turns off people's brains when they see someone like Sanguinius.

Something I'd like to point out, is that if I'm remembering correctly, what the Dark Angels encountered that made Corswain stop in his steps was that the daemons were inside the flames when he saw them. As in not on fire, they were literally flames taking humanoid shape. Meros noted a few times that the daemons were wrong on an instinctual level he couldn't explain, but they were still physical forms that he could try and rationalize were xenos. The ones Corswain saw hadn't taken physical forms.

  • 1 year later...

Something I'd like to point out, is that if I'm remembering correctly, what the Dark Angels encountered that made Corswain stop in his steps was that the daemons were inside the flames when he saw them. As in not on fire, they were literally flames taking humanoid shape. Meros noted a few times that the daemons were wrong on an instinctual level he couldn't explain, but they were still physical forms that he could try and rationalize were xenos. The ones Corswain saw hadn't taken physical forms.

yep they were getting invaded in their own ship inside the warp! Thats something that would shake even a space marine. Deamonic invasions were not a thing back then. Imagine an enemy just appears out of thin air anywhere on your ship, while you are inside a pocket universe thats just impossible isnt it?

 

*EDIT* sorry for necroposting.... didnt realize it...

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