The Seventh Serpent by Graham McNeill

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

Magic. 

 

It's worked for the AL so far.

 

WLK

[DarKnight]

 

Okay, so how we saw them in Unremembered Novel, Deliverance Lost, The Serpent Beneath, "Face of Treachery"... should I go on?

 

It's a boring, stupid, overused trope that has ruined the majority of Alpha legion fluff written about the Heresy.

 

Didn't read Scars. Legion has it's own host of other problems, even if the Alpha Legion weren't busy impersonating Space Marines. So not every novel. Welcome to the English language concept of hyperbole. Either way, finding two examples that don't use the Alpha Legion as a gimmick plot device doesn't really disprove what I said anyway. How do we not guess the Alpha Lesion is secretly the Iron Hands guys? Because honestly, short of a self-applied drill press lobotomy, there's no way I didn't see the end of that story. I didn't even read his review, so I knew nothing about the story other than the brief synopsis at the beginning. I literally skipped to the end, just to see if I was right. That's how predictable Alpha Legion stories are. And they aren't getting any better. It's an arms race to see who can write the worst Alpha Legion story yet with the flimsiest premise, with each author who takes up the scaled mantle resolving to do his damnedest to be the one. It's like Highlander. Except you only get to watch Highlander 2 over and over again.

 

 

I am, however, very proud of that picture. It really does capture just how stupid the Alpha Legion fluff is.

 

Oddly enough, I was just yesterday explaining hyperbole to Jeske in a thread since he didn't seem to grasp the concept. . .  Oh, and they weren't dressed up as a different Legion in The Serpent Beneath, either.

 

You're right, some authors have boned up doing Alpha Legion stories.  Yes, this one seems (I haven't read it yet) like the twist was no twist at all (like the campaign from COD:AW; it's obvious from the start that Kevin Spacey knew what was coming...).  Would it have been a better story if Sharrowkyn was wrong, that Meduson was himself, and Alpharius popped up some different way?  Maybe.  We'll never know.

 

The problem with writing a really good infiltration story about the Alpha Legion is that it's not your average 40K novel.  Look at Legion compared to False Gods or Mechanicum or almost any other novel in that series.  They're bolter-porn, chock full of epic fight scenes.  Helsreach is almost universally lauded, but it's full of bashing in ork faces.  Priests of Mars interrupted a training exercise so that a Titan could go bonkers and blow a hole in the side of the ship.  Every other chapter is full of explosions and the whir of chainblades.

 

Legion has exactly five fight scenes: the ambush of the Dancers at the beginning, the escape from Visages, the raid on the House of the Hydra, the counter-attack at Mon Lo Harbor, and the boarding of the Blamires at the end (and of those, only half involved Space Marines).  I'll even throw in Grammaticus' one-on-one with the Luficer Black to make six.  That's downright paltry compared to your average 30K/40K novel.  Spywork -- real spywork, not James Bond stuff -- is really, really boring to read about.  It's long periods of waiting, the occasional conversation, hitting a drop point or cut out. . . almost anything except guns, blades, and explosions.  Writing about that kind of stuff and making it interesting is really hard.  It's also not what people expect from a 40K novel.  I pick up a Horus Heresy novel, Alpha Legion or otherwise, and somewhere in there I expect to see a bolter round pasting gray matter all over a wall.  A real Alpha Legion-y novel shouldn't have much of that sort of thing in there at all.  But it will, and they have to shoehorn it in there somehow, because these are Space Marines.  It's what Space Marines do.

 

To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, think back to the story Liar's Due from Age of Darkness.  It's an Alpha Legion story.  It's about the Alpha Legion doing what they do best and fomenting unrest.  Yet it never, ever gets mentioned in the litany of the Alpha Legion, either as a pro or con.  Why?  Because there's no combat in it.  Hell, there's no Alpha Legionnaires in it!

 

So anyway, before I get too wall-of-text-y here, I'll close by saying that we as a fan-base are never going to have our expectations met.  This particular subject matter just doesn't mesh well with the point and purpose of 40K fiction.

 

I understand the point you're making and perhaps that's true for some of the fanbase, though we are a splintered and fractious lot. But I think you're selling us, and the actual modus operandi of the AL short. So far in the baseline Horus Heresy series the only appearance of the XXth that doesn't have them pretending to be another Legion or having some similar deus ex, was Legion. To be frank this trope has been whored to DEATH. The best (in my very humble opinion) piece of XX Legion storytelling is the Battle of Paramar, where the Legion actually commits to WAR but uses subterfuge to accentuate that. It's not a lust for bolter porn (god I hate that term) its an actual depiction of a fully formed Legion with artillery, armor, and other Legion resources, as opposed to guys just skulking around in other people's armor.

[Nineswords]

Part II: LET ME BE THE SERPENT BENEATH, HIDDEN AND WAITING TO STRIKE

 

The Alpha Legion has always, always, been for the Emperor.

 

Dan Abnett describes his 2013 novel The Unremembered Empire as a nexus novel, for good reason. It’s a book that largely ties together a number of different strands into a single narrative, in a single location, then provides enough material to let other authors take these trajectories and run with them.

 

In its own way, I’d like to think of The Seventh Serpent as a nexus novel for any fans of the Alpha Legion, not because of what it says, but also because of what it doesn’t say. If you haven’t been paying attention, the Alpha Legion haven’t been playing ball for some time, and the Astartes that ‘present their enemies with one face’ have begun to split at the seams, with an implied divide between Alpharius, and Omegon, who appear to now not only let each other know what they’re up to, they’re now actively killing each other, and we see glimpses of which Legionnaires belong to which faction.

 

There are of course questions, many, many questions, but I’ll try and piece together this timeline that includes the events of The Seventh Serpent, and how it fits in with current Alpha Legion lore, and try and understand why this is even happening.

 

We’ll begin at the source of the schism within the Alpha Legion’s ranks, at the halting site on 42 Hydra/Eolith, roughly a year and a half after the Nurthene catastrophe and four months after Horus is crowned Warmaster at Ullanor.

 

If you recall the events of 2008’s Legion, we know that Alpharius, Omegon and two other humans are shown the Acuity, a psychic farseeing entity, in which the fate of the human race and the galaxy is shown to the Alpha Legion Primarchs. The Acuity shows an impossible paradox, as reflected on in Rob Sanders’ The Serpent Beneath:

 

Whenever he closed his eyes he found the horror of inevitability waiting for him – the scalding truths that the Acuity had presented to him and Alpharius. The Third Paradox...

 

A paradox is a statement or proposition which, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems logically unacceptable or self-contradictory. We know there are three paradoxes that vex the Alpha Legion as shown by this statement. 

 

We can conjecture the following then from Legion and The Serpent Beneath, assuming that the Acuity has not lied to them (and that’s a big ‘if’):

 

The First Paradox - THE ACUITY 

If the Emperor is victorious, stagnation will take hold in the Imperium - over the course of thousands of years Chaos will gradually be allowed to fester in decay and the Primordial Annihilator achieves ascendancy and the galaxy ends. Should the Warmaster achieve victory, a ‘brief’ century or two of violence will end the human race and the Primordial Annihilator is denied. The races of the galaxy live on due to the destruction of the human race.

 

The Second Paradox - FOLLOW BOTH PATHS

It is entirely possible that Alpha Legion can create a more desirable outcome for themselves by serving both sides at the same time. The Alpha Legion follows a course of action that engenders the first two paradoxes, and therefore fulfil both and neither simultaneously - The Alpha Legion creates its own agenda, demonstrated further by Omegon’s theft of the corrupted Raven Guard Raptor gene-tech and rejecting the Cabal’s agenda outright in Gav Thorpe’s 2012 novel Deliverance Lost.

 

As they had done so many times before, Alpharius and his Legion had stepped upon a narrow path, playing a part to two opposing sides to achieve a third, more desirable outcome. 

 

The Third Paradox  - THE HEAD THAT SPLITS

Third Paradox, and key to what follows, is that the Second Paradox can only be achieved by conscientiously splitting the legion in half and each primarch is leading their half down one of the opposing paths of the Acuity. I've always viewed the Alpha Legion's ultimate interpretation of the Emperor’s plans is to maintain humanity's flaws and yet elevate the human race above all other galactic species. Notably, this does not mean the Imperium, which is a theocratic culture (certainly in the 41st Millennium), rather than humanity, the species. 

 

Reading The Serpent Beneath, I think it is Omegon who has come to this conclusion first, and has simply accepted that an ideological division needs to happen in order to best achieve the long term goals of the legion; in that the best course of action is a paradox, but one that is in keeping with legion doctrine of many heads, ‘indulging variety over prejudice’.

 

However, in doing so, a schism forms within the Legion as the twin primarchs’ begin to differ ideologically on which course of action to follow, as they can’t tell each other what they are doing lest they compromise their (respective missions). In The Serpent Beneath, Sheed Ranko who has consumed Omegona’s blood several times, is aware of Omegon’s personal conflict on following a course of action that is not unified with Alpharius’. 

 

As my fellow Legionnaire Aristeo points out, 

‘they are each trusting the other to carry out their mission and to betray any details to the other would utterly compromise the overall mission, which is basically to manage humanity's flaws while playing one side against the other.

 

That's why Omegon doesn't tell Alpharius about destroying the Tenebrae facility in The Serpent Beneath, and why Alpharius says that trust is the most precious currency in the galaxy. They're doing what the Emperor couldn't do for himself, which is to manage the human race on a galactic scale. The Emperor only dreamed of a utopia, which was unrealistic, and he couldn't be in two places at once either.’

 

So, when did this schism occur? I think it happens after the events of Deliverance Lost. If we look at where the Alpha Legion pop up after that, we really have The Serpent Beneath, Chris Wraights 2013 novel Scars, and now The Seventh Serpent (and, perhaps, Guy Haley’s 2014 Audio Drama Hunter's Moon).

 

From what can be pieced together, the Alpha Legion knowingly throw in their lot with Horus at Istvaan V, this much is known, and we pick up their trail as they infiltrate the Raven Guard - going as far as let the survivors leave Istvaan V as we see in both Deliverance Lost and the short story The Face of Treachery by Gav Thorpe in 2011s Age of Darkness, so that the Alpha Legion can claim the gene-tech prize and ‘give’ it to Horus. 

 

It’s clear that Alpharius and Oregon are in agreement about taking the gene-tech for themselves, and even bringing aboard Magos Unithrax. What is not expected is the corruption inherent in the gene-tech after its contamination by Unithrax and renders it pretty useless by the end of Deliverance Lost (at least for its original purpose).

 

At the end of The Seventh Serpent, Sharrowkyn is told by Alpharius, 

 

‘Clearly, you haven’t heard of what’s been happening on Deliverance.’

 

It’s unclear at the end of Deliverance Lost whether or not when Omegon expels the Cabal agent out of the Alpha if he is doing so on his own accord. In either case, by the events of The Serpent Beneath in which ‘Omegon’ played by Sheed Ranko leads a insertion force to destroy the Tenebrae, a pylon array that is responsible for the warp storms that trap the White Scars in the Chondax system is the first clear indication of an active schism. 

 

There is a strong implication that Omegon orchestrated a fictitious leak of information and lied to Alpharius outright to further his own (as yet unknown) agenda. Alpharius simply trusted his twin to resolve the problem, knowing that the destruction of the Tenebrae installation would possibly allow the previously isolated White Scars to re-group and accepts this as foreseen consequence.

 

‘We do,’ Alpharius said. ‘Perhaps it’s Malcador, or the Angels of Caliban – somebody has gotten to the Tenebrae installation. We must accept that and move on. We must read the moves ahead of time, and position the fleet to the greatest advantage. Dorn will recall the White Scars, and the Khan’s loyalty is still firm. If the Warmaster is to succeed then we cannot allow the V Legion to reach Terra. Are we in agreement, brother?’

 

This singular action has huge implications for the course of the war, as the White Scars became instrumental in Terra’s subsequent defence during the Siege of Terra. As noted by the Alpha Legion’s confusing fleet actions during Scars, I conjecture this may be Omegon’s faction (who destroyed the Tenebrae installation) pushing the White Scars in a particular trajectory.

 

If Omegon has struck the first blow as it were, what of Alpharius’ movements? We last see the real Alpharius (not counting ‘Alpharius’ seen in Hunter’s Moon) stalking off the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit after he hands the gene-tech to Fabius Bile.

 

Tellingly, the fate of the Iron Heart is mentioned in passing:

 

‘Listed in Tenth Legion fleet registry as occupying a vanguard position in the Gorgon’s retribution fleet en route to Istvaan Five. No record of the Iron Heart exists subsequent to Istvaan.’

 

If it has transpired that Alpharius has killed Shadrak Meduson (even after acquiring the Iron Heart in the aftermath of Istvaan V), then this implies that the Alpha Legion in the Dwell, Momed, Instar and Oqueth sectors supporting the Sons of Horus. We know that the events on Dwell also occur after the events of Scars as Hibou Khan has been placed in the Sagyar Mazan, a suicide mission kill team to redeem himself for siding with Horus in Chris Wraight’s short Allegiance in 2013’s anthology Sedition’s Gate. The same kill team that teams up with Shadrak Meduson and take on Aximand on Dwell.

 

Noting the internal restructuring of the Iron Heart as noted by Sharrowkyn, one of three things is implied: either the Sons of Horus did board and kill Shadrak Meduson, whose bodies were used by Alpha Legion. Or, that the Alpha Legion were responsible. Or the Alpha Legion recreated a facsimile of the Iron Heart. I’m wagering on option two.

 

In whatever case, we pick up Alpharius’ trail after they are already disguised as Iron Hands, after Chondax, after Dwell and after Istvaan V. Taking Meduson’s/Alpharius’ explanation of what they were doing at face value, we know the Iron Heart was following the Maliquent to find this secret conclave of what may be Omegon’s faction of the Alpha Legion at Eirene Septimus. Implied by the fact they control the Maliquent by e-mag tethering, at some point, the Alpharius’ faction must have stormed and killed Omegon’s faction on board the Maliquent, having gained the coordinates for Zeta Morgeld’s rendezvous point and finally onto Septimus.

 

But why go to all the trouble of taking Iron Heart? Why target the Sisypheum if the Alpha Legion have control of the Maliquent? Its because they didn’t know where to go beyond the rendezvous point and they needed the Kryptos to find out. Which means at some point, the location of the Kryptos engine on board the Sisypheum was made known to Alpharius. This is implied several times on careful reading, and explicitly at the finale:

’He's right, Cadmus,’ said Shadrak Meduson. ’And, were our circumstances reversed, I'd have done the same.’

’So why didn't you?’ asked Sharrowkyn.

’Who says I haven't?'

…

‘I’d have known,’ repeated Sharrowkyn.

‘Really? Then how is it that Ashur Maesan was able to gain entry to your vessel and see your Kryptos beast for himself?’

 

and,

‘You needed the Kryptos to find him,’ said Tyro.

‘I’d have caught him eventually,’ replied Alpharius, folding his arms across his chest. ‘But, yes, the Kryptos definitely made things easier.’

 

Was this where the Kryptos storyline was heading all along?

 

The Seventh Serpent is also significant because we see for the first time how distasteful Alpharius finds having to kill members of his own legion.

‘That it should come to this,’ he said with real regret.

‘What’s that?’ asked Tyro.

Meduson shook his head. ’Brothers killing brothers.’

 

Although it appears the Alpharius’ faction was here to assassinate Legate Chaitin (a mirror counterpart to Arvas Janic, the Tenebrae installation’s commander), what is implied throughout is deny Omegon’s faction and their allies an important, hidden resource in the coming war - a direct counterpoint to Omegon’s destruction of the Tenebrae facility which engenders the White Scars ultimate actions on Terra.

‘But it’s those clouds that make Eirene Septimus valuable’

‘Valuable to who?’ said Tyro, looking like he was imagining how it would be possible to fight within such a biosphere.

’To anyone who knots its truth’, said Wayland. ‘Eirene Septimus was entered into the Carta Imperialis by the Twentieth, yet the aestimate describes it as a dead world of no value.’

‘Keeping it for themselves,’ sneered Meduson, his image wavering with static.

 

An eye for an eye.

Thoic stepped past Cybus and addressed his words to Alpharius.

‘Who do you think is waiting for you?’ asked Thoic.

 

The wording is ambiguous, but it is implied that Legate Chaitin was here to meet Omegon, who makes no appearance at all. Was he supposed to be here? It’s impossible to say, and there are other unresolved questions, chief amongst them is who is the loyalist faction? Omegon’s, or Alpharius’?

 

This review can’t possibly comprehend the subtleties of the Alpha Legion’s ultimate goals, suffice to say a re-reading with the background information supplied paints a very different narrative - one, I think is truly appreciated if you read The Serpent Beneath and The Seventh Serpent back to back. It’s also impossible to say where McNeill gets his title from, but the Greek Goddess of peace Eirene is the mother of Ploutos, the god of wealth - a rather apt title considering the hidden narrative is a violent action that directly destroys a source of wealth, the irony isn’t lost on the reader.

 

If the story read at face value got a 6.5 out of 10, then this re-reading through the eyes of Alpharius deserves another 3 for the sheer complexity McNeill has tried to piece together into a cohesive story. The novella is complex, no doubt and requires re-reads to appreciate its subtleties, in the context of all this other material that this review can’t hope to communicate, but it is a solid attempt at a narrative that ties together some strands and creates new ones.

 

In the context of the story, I think the well used trope of the Alpha Legion disguising themselves as someone else is appropriate, despite other commentators dismissal of the basic premise. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

 

9.5/10

 

Hydra Dominatus!

 

Appendum

 

Graham snuck in this description of Shadrak Meduson. Check out Alpharius' load out in the Forgeworld book...

 

One shoulder guard bore the personal heraldry of a coiled silver warm devouring its own tail, the other the proud fist of the the X Legion. A long, twin-bladed snake-spear with leaf-shaped blades of porcelain white were slung at his shoulder.

 

[b1soul]

Alpha Legion = smart and smarter

Rest of the Imperium = dumb and dumber

 

It takes AL to think on the same level as AL. I'm not surprised AL fans are lapping these stories up. 

 

No wonder ADB says he wouldn't have taken the AL in this direction. It's getting more and more absurd with each new story. 

[Phoebus]

I don't think it's absurd; it's about context. Personally, I think it's absolute folly to assume twenty distinct groups of warriors are going to be equal in every respect when they subscribe to different mindsets, are brought up in different environments, have different priorities, etc.

 

Not all legions have the same priorities in terms of how they train their warriors. The Ultramarines, in their own way, are probably as cerebral as the Alpha Legion, but they restrict themselves to conventional warfare.

 

With all that in mind, the Alpha Legion being devilishly cunning is about as "absurd" as the World Eaters largely being a bunch of savage, berserk killers. Alpharius and Omegon were the last to get a legion, and that was always treated as a disadvantage of sorts. But what if it was exactly the opposite? What if they were able to lean from all the mistakes made by nineteen other primarchs, and decided to go along a far subtler, unconventional route?

[Nineswords]

Exactly. I'm an Alpha Legion fan, no doubt and this is great, but it's no more absurd in the context I've given on careful re readings of Alpha Legion stories than say the idea of the Gal Vorbak, or Sevatar surfing a ship in cold vacuum, or Sigismund being the best swordsman ever, or the Thousand Sons despite their low numbers being able to hold their own against the Wolves and Custodians.

 

It's reallty about context. There are times where other authors have gone past my suspension of disbelief, in a universe full of magic and daemons and whatnot. Having a bunch of dudes play dress up to fight themselves suddenly becomes just as plausible as another bunch of dudes who allow themselves to be possessed by the warp and turned into the ultimate killing machines.

[Nineswords]

Further, one thing hat hasn't been discussed at all is their weaknesses. If the Alpha Legion was the best legion of all time like everyone here is trying to make out (pejoratively), then we should be renaming this universe Warhammer 40,AlphaLegion.

 

There are critical flaws which I feel are still being set up in this part of the Heresy, chief amongst them the infighting, which splits more and more and more when they no longer have the Primarchs to guide them? Further, as pretty much every single story involving the legion goes against other forces, we are just not as good in a straight up fight.

 

The Wolves tear us a new one, as do the White Scars. Once detected in Deliverance Lost, it takes all of five minutes for the Raven Guard to do their thing, the list goes on.

[RapatoR]

Well I always thought the AL's flaws are pretty obvious. They are absolutely unwilling to cooperate, distruste even themselves, work against each other and there is also an issue with hubris. They are both intelligent and adaptive marines and arrogant schemers with ridiculously overcomplicated plots full of twists. I guess it is up to interpretation of each of us and truth lies somewhere in the middle, same way Angron is both a wronged slave fighting for freedom and mindless berzerking monster.

 

For me personally, the most glaring flaw is neither of the mentioned ones, but the one that was hidden in the IA article (and was recently made more pronounced in the FW book) in the Tesstra Prime part - I don't have a name for it, but let's call it "focussing too much on war".

 

Let me elaborate: From the military standpoint, Tesstra Prime was an impressive operation. Except it wasn't. Both Horus and Guilliman were right for praising and condemning it. They executed an exemplary military operation, and in the process they managed to totally ruin the enemy army, the city's infrastructure as well as the city itself. And not only that: they massacred the civilians, ruined the morale of the survivors and severely damaged their reputation as a conquerers. That city that could be taken easily without causing any major damage. But they choose to wait and what they left behind is a ruin with crippled military, infrastructure, and population. In addtion to that they assured that the entire world will remember the Imperium as 'that untrustwhorty jerks, who like to show off'. The Imperium could as well unleash a horde of World Eaters on the Tesstra Prime - it would bring the same result, just by different means.

[gogmagog]

Great work, nineswords.

[Wade Garrett]

Except that with the Alpha Legion it tends to come off less as "devilishly cunning" and more "infallible ubermenschs powered by reading ahead in the book". Look at "The Long Games at Carcharias" or "We Are One". No one ever beats the XX, they either lose miserably or their seeming victory was all part of a cunning plan.

 

The Wolves lose to the Alphas in Scars, in DL five guys crippled the Raven Guard's rebuilding efforts, stole a war winning superweapon, and caused a planetary uprising on another Legion's homeworld. If that's the standard their fans have for an Alpha defeat, I shudder to imagine what they would consider a victory.

[RapatoR]

Except that with the Alpha Legion it tends to come off less as "devilishly cunning" and more "infallible ubermenschs powered by reading ahead in the book". Look at "The Long Games at Carcharias" or "We Are One". No one ever beats the XX, they either lose miserably or their seeming victory was all part of a cunning plan.

 

The Wolves lose to the Alphas in Scars, in DL five guys crippled the Raven Guard's rebuilding efforts, stole a war winning superweapon, and caused a planetary uprising on another Legion's homeworld. If that's the standard their fans have for an Alpha defeat, I shudder to imagine what they would consider a victory.

 

I see where are you going and I agree. I would like to see someone who would interrupt the recent victory streak of Alpha Legion. Someone who would grab hydra by its tail and smash all its heads against the wall.

 

But I belive there is more nuance involved in this, Wade. My belief is that the recent protrayals are sort of overcompesation. Keep in mind that until Legion, a really good depictions of Alpha Legion were basically limited to IA article and Forgeworld's Siege of Vraks. Other portrayals of Alpha Legion were limited to the template catoon vilains. So my guess is that the recent depictions were an attempts to give more depth to the Alphas, and show some victories, similarly to what A D-B is currently doing for the Black Legion.

 

I totally respect your that you feel that the authors depict the Alpha Legion as an infallible marines. My perspective is that there is a lot more nuance to this issue: In The Long Games at Carcharias the AL dude would hardly reach his goal if Black Legion/Abaddon wasn't having his back. In We Are One the Alpha Legion sacrificed a great deal of their forces in order to reach their goal. In Scars the outcome would be the same if Wolves encountered any other legion - after all they were badly battered from Prospero. And so on.

 

Do I believe that there has been too much victories for Alpha Legion? Sure, no disputing that. Do I think that sneakiness is becoming an overused trope for Alpha Legion? Absolutely. Do I like all aspects of all stories? Heck no. (For example I don't like the intra-personal war direction the Legion's story is going, but that is just my personal taste.) However I don't agree that authors did a lazy/bad job at explaining how the Alpha Legion has managed to pull out the stuff we are talking about. Maybe they could paid more attention to the explanation or put more emphasis on it, but then they could be criticised for a lack of subtlety.

[Wade Garrett]

Scars is a bad example, I agree. For all the serfs and servitors going "We're totally losing guys!" All the onscreen action is Russ and Bjorn laying waste to the Alphas. It hardly feels like a loss the way Armatura was for the Ultramarines.

[Nineswords]

 

Do I believe that there has been too much victories for Alpha Legion? Sure, no disputing that. Do I think that sneakiness is becoming an overused trope for Alpha Legion? Absolutely. Do I like all aspects of all stories? Heck no. (For example I don't like the intra-personal war direction the Legion's story is going, but that is just my personal taste.) However I don't agree that authors did a lazy/bad job at explaining how the Alpha Legion has managed to pull out the stuff we are talking about. Maybe they could paid more attention to the explanation or put more emphasis on it, but then they could be criticised for a lack of subtlety.

 

 

This is a good way of looking at it. Even I'd like to see more of the Alpha Legion actually *not* pulling off their intended goals and getting demolished. However, in the context of the novella written above, it was a solid plot device.

[Phoebus]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is about context.

 

The Alpha Legion discovered they would have fight the other Legiones Astartes roughly five and a half years before the Isstvan V Dropsite Massacres (IIRC). Even if they hadn't been a legion that dedicated itself to unconventional warfare, espionage, secrecy, compartmentalization, etc., they had half a decade to come up with a game plan to inflict maximum confusion and damage against their peers. During that same time period, the overwhelming majority of the Legiones Astartes appear to have treated civil war - and thus, war against their kind - as rather inconceivable.

 

If the Alpha Legion come off as being "unstoppable", then, it's because they've had a half-decade head start to identify strategic objectives, plan out operations, develop contingencies, seed agents, prepare the battlefield, and in general seize every advantage they could for a war no one else saw coming. This, to me at least, is eminently more justifiable than, "Well, let's write it out to be more of a fair fight so as to avoid hurting the feelings of those that identify with another legion." That ship sailed a long time ago: probably around the time when Ferrus Manus was written as an utterly unimaginative and volatile tactician, and Vulkan and Corax were reduced to his spineless yes-men.

 

The Alpha Legion will face more setbacks, but I hope it continues to happen like it did in this novella. It should happen because, now that there is a rift between Alpharius and Omegon, their strengths (their secrecy and compartmentalization) will become their weaknesses. This will make it ever more difficult for either faction to identify who is doing what, and for whom. It shouldn't happen because, e.g., X number of fans need Bjorn to be validated as a character by improbably foiling a years-in-the-making plot by swinging his axe hard enough, or because Sharrowkyn is such an amazing swordsman.

[Conn Eremon]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is about context.

 

The Alpha Legion discovered they would have fight the other Legiones Astartes roughly five and a half years before the Isstvan V Dropsite Massacres (IIRC). Even if they hadn't been a legion that dedicated itself to unconventional warfare, espionage, secrecy, compartmentalization, etc., they had half a decade to come up with a game plan to inflict maximum confusion and damage against their peers. During that same time period, the overwhelming majority of the Legiones Astartes appear to have treated civil war - and thus, war against their kind - as rather inconceivable.

 

If the Alpha Legion come off as being "unstoppable", then, it's because they've had a half-decade head start to identify strategic objectives, plan out operations, develop contingencies, seed agents, prepare the battlefield, and in general seize every advantage they could for a war no one else saw coming. This, to me at least, is eminently more justifiable than, "Well, let's write it out to be more of a fair fight so as to avoid hurting the feelings of those that identify with another legion." That ship sailed a long time ago: probably around the time when Ferrus Manus was written as an utterly unimaginative and volatile tactician, and Vulkan and Corax were reduced to his spineless yes-men.

 

The Alpha Legion will face more setbacks, but I hope it continues to happen like it did in this novella. It should happen because, now that there is a rift between Alpharius and Omegon, their strengths (their secrecy and compartmentalization) will become their weaknesses. This will make it ever more difficult for either faction to identify who is doing what, and for whom. It shouldn't happen because, e.g., X number of fans need Bjorn to be validated as a character by improbably foiling a years-in-the-making plot by swinging his axe hard enough, or because Sharrowkyn is such an amazing swordsman.

I would be much more comfortable with this theory of yours if the Word Bearers Legion didn't exist.

 

But they do, so we're back to the beginning. A head start of decades turned the XVII from a credible threat to a formidable threat. Five years turned the XX from a credible threat to an insurmountable threat.

 

I just really don't like how the current trend is that the only way to beat the Alpha Legion is to be Alpha Legion. I am a major fan of the Legion, but that is just boring and lazy. There are a couple minor examples that go against that, but mostly that is what we have been seeing.

 

Really wish they had kept with Abnett's tone in Legion. Forge World did, I feel. But mostly the other authors seem to be trying to outninja each other.

[Wade Garrett]

So with five years the Alpha Legion made itself all knowing and all powerful. Any possibility that their plans might go awry by someone discovering something they shouldn't or surviving an ambush that was supposed to kill them is mere misguided fanboyism rudely intruding upon the cold reality of the omnipotent, omniscient Twentieth, which cannot fail.

 

I suddenly find myself with a blossoming fondness for Ultramarines, Space Wolves, and yes, even Nykona Sharrowkyn.

[Loesh]

So with five years the Alpha Legion made itself all knowing and all powerful. Any possibility that their plans might go awry by someone discovering something they shouldn't or surviving an ambush that was supposed to kill them is mere misguided fanboyism rudely intruding upon the cold reality of the omnipotent, omniscient Twentieth, which cannot fail.

 

I suddenly find myself with a blossoming fondness for Ultramarines, Space Wolves, and yes, even Nykona Sharrowkyn.

 

Mostly, I agree.

 

You'd have to lobotomize me to get me to like Nykona 'I don't use the floor' Sharrowkyn.

[b1soul]

So with five years the Alpha Legion made itself all knowing and all powerful. Any possibility that their plans might go awry by someone discovering something they shouldn't or surviving an ambush that was supposed to kill them is mere misguided fanboyism rudely intruding upon the cold reality of the omnipotent, omniscient Twentieth, which cannot fail.

 

When you discover the AL's plans, it's because the AL wants you to discover them. Excuse me while I...I...I AM ALPHARIIIIIUUUUUSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!

[Phoebus]

I would be much more comfortable with this theory of yours if the Word Bearers Legion didn't exist.

But they do, so we're back to the beginning. A head start of decades turned the XVII from a credible threat to a formidable threat. Five years turned the XX from a credible threat to an insurmountable threat.

 

No, the Word Bearers simply had different priorities.  Given their own "head start", the XVII Legion embarked on a spiritual Odyssey, vastly expanded their knowledge of the Warp, enlarged their numbers to the point that they were second only to the Ultramarines, infiltrated and corrupted the rest of the legions (to various extents), commissioned three super-ships, and raised entire armies of cultists from across the Imperium.

 

The real issue is that you and other posters/readers perceive the Alpha Legion to be an insurmountable threat.   They are not.  The plots of Alpharius and Omegon are very intricate, but they are ultimately not inconceivable (given the time and resources available).  The key thing is that in a lot of these situations, the Alpha Legion are operating from a position of advantage.

I just really don't like how the current trend is that the only way to beat the Alpha Legion is to be Alpha Legion.

 

It's not.  I have no doubt that the Alpha Legion would be hard-pressed to have this kind of success when they're forced to fight conventional battles.  Until now, though, the preponderance of their fighting has been against the Shattered Legions - against whom they will and should enjoy an overwhelming advantage - or themselves.  Scars showed that they are far from unstoppable when faced with a ready foe.

 

So with five years the Alpha Legion made itself all knowing and all powerful. Any possibility that their plans might go awry by someone discovering something they shouldn't or surviving an ambush that was supposed to kill them is mere misguided fanboyism rudely intruding upon the cold reality of the omnipotent, omniscient Twentieth, which cannot fail.

 

I don't want to come off as rude, but that's hyperbole.

[b1soul]

It's not.  I have no doubt that the Alpha Legion would be hard-pressed to have this kind of success when they're forced to fight conventional battles. 

 

 

Is there a legion out there capable of forcing the AL to enage in a convetional conflict? The AL is a genius. The other legions are mentally retarded children. This is like saying..."Well, I'm sure that the AL would have a hard time fighting these idiots if it decided to act like an idiot"

 

Unless these other idiots are able to force the AL to stoop to their level, your argument fails

 

[Phoebus]

b1soul,

 

We're talking about fiction, so of course the things you're asking are possible.  The legions are as good or as bad as the author makes them.  Graham McNeill dialed Ferrus Manus back to the Battle of Marathon in Fulgrim.  Mike Lee had the Lion beat an enemy fleet with calculations made in his mind, after figuring out how to take the end game from Horus's hands.

[Veteran Sergeant]

The Horus Heresy Alpha Legion really are the worst Space Marines ever.  They've forgotten entirely how to Marine.

 

Ends up being rather comical when you realize the Emperor punished Lorgar for conquering too slow and building too many buildings. How exactly do the Alpha Legion get away with wasting so much time and effort?

 

Maybe all the Astropaths reporting their successes back to Terra are actually Alpha Legionnaires in disguise too. ;)

[Phoebus]

I'd assume it has to do with the fact that the Word Bearers got in trouble for what they were doing after they were done conquering a planet.

It's not like Astropathy grants the Imperium instant updates of what the various Expedition Fleets are up to. More to the point, I'm pretty sure no one in Terra gives a damn how Alpharius goes about his conquering. The standard seems to have been "Not Like the Night Lords or the World Eaters." It's pretty telling that Guilliman's main beef with Alpharius in Extermination has to do with the latter's refusal to either conform to his strategy or let him know what he was doing. His parting shots can largely be dismissed; he calls Alpharius' tactics a waste of time, but by his own admission he would have taken months to conquer the Conservancy, whereas it took his younger counterpart mere weeks to take out its inner worlds.

[Veteran Sergeant]

Um, that's not what Guilliman said. Guilliman called it a waste of time and bolt shells was because that's what it was. A waste of time and bolt shells so Alpharius could prove he could do it that way, instead of just fighting like a Space Marine Legion is supposed to. Alpharius's reasoning for doing it that was was that conquering it conventionally would have been too easy. And Alpharius was criticized for it by multiple primarchs (at least in the old IA article), not just Guilliman. The only one who praised him was Horus. Alpharius was all about being arrogant. Which was part of why Old Alpha Legion was so much cooler than Scooby Doo Alpha Legion.

 

Guilliman wasn't criticizing Alpharius because Guilliman was a jerk. He was criticizing him for his arrogance and wastefulness. Alpharius was the jackass, lol. Again. Part of what made him cool back in the day.

[Phoebus]

He calls it a "mere exercise in cruelty and the wasting of the Great Crusade's time and resources."  As such, I don't really see your objection.  I addressed the time part already.  Given the description of the campaign against the Conservancy, I wouldn't blame someone if they either agreed or disagreed with Guilliman's assertion regarding resources.  The answer Guilliman receives, about a conventional assault being "too easy" is delivered at the end of the campaign.  The damage was done a week and change earlier, when Alpharius refused to follow Guilliman's lead and kept him ignorant about his plans to attack the inner worlds.

 

Beyond that?  Frankly, I think it's folly to take Alpharius' response to Guilliman ("It would have been too easy") at face value.  The context of the entire Alpha Legion section of the book is that things are not as they seem with them.  Pragmatism and subterfuge inform everything they do, and this is clear from the description of the campaign.  Alpharius wasn't "wasting time"; he was systematically sabotaging and infiltrating the enemy's infrastructure and defenses before he attacked.  He wasn't "arrogantly" allowing the enemy to maximize their defenses; his gambit placed all of the enemy's forces in one kill zone.  When his attack began, they were stuck in their individual sectors and were unable to either attack effectively or retreat.  The description of the battle states that the Alpha Legionnaires were able to strike with "impunity", that entire divisions of the enemy were "stranded", and that enemy orders weren't even reaching their forces.  The end state of that affair was that Alpharius was able to systematically destroy the entirety of the enemy's forces in one battle (as opposed to several, across the planet) and in a fraction of the time Guilliman estimated.

 

Given all this, why would anyone assume Alpharius is simply being arrogantly straightforward with Guilliman?  Such an attitude doesn't correspond with the description of the battle that preceded it: again, he didn't wait to give himself a challenge; he waited in order to infiltrate the capital and sabotage the battlefield.  Besides that, you have to take into consideration the Alpharius of the novels.  Such arrogance certainly isn't what we saw in Legion or any other Alpha Legion story in the Heresy.  Being purposely flip with Guilliman so as to wrong-foot him, on the other hand, might not be contradictory.  Perhaps Alpharius thought it was better for Guilliman to underestimate him as a very intelligent but ultimately arrogant commander, as opposed to recognizing his true approach to warfare. That's obviously conjecture on my part, but at least it can work as part of the character we saw in Legion and other works.