Master of Mankind...on the horizon?

[pompeyladbfp]

Really looking forward to this..

A-D-B is my favourite BL author purely because he puts enough little surprises in his novels but also tip of the hats to us fanatical geeks, but the main reason is his writing is quite superb. 

 

I like the fact he is leaving certain topics left alone. Part of me has always thought that the Emperor is just an aspect of malcador or he isn't as big and tough as he seems (just a pychic shell)

[Kastor Krieg]

Thanks for being an amazing author.

 

+ ^ THIS +

[Sete]

 

Thanks for being an amazing author.

+ ^ THIS +

He's ok I guess.

Fuahahha

[JH79]

Perhaps it's kind of weird to say that because the only fiction of the Emperors personality that ever stuck with me was a short story written by Graham McNeil where the Emperor befriends a holy man whose church he is burning down, and he wants to know the holy man's motivations. ( it turns out they met before, ironically.) It's a great personal piece in my opinion.

The Last Church was a great short though there was no burning up front, that comes at the end. It was a great glimpse at how much history The Emperor has seen, the drink that the holy man shares with "Revelation" was so well done it had me reaching for a bottle of red!

 

What i especially liked about this short though was it's subtle links with other works... the golden knight as showcased in Mechanicum and (though it may just be coincidental?) the same religious sect of old Frank as Khayon describes when introducing The Ragged Knight in The Talon of Horus.

[Roomsky]

 

Perhaps it's kind of weird to say that because the only fiction of the Emperors personality that ever stuck with me was a short story written by Graham McNeil where the Emperor befriends a holy man whose church he is burning down, and he wants to know the holy man's motivations. ( it turns out they met before, ironically.) It's a great personal piece in my opinion.

The Last Church was a great short though there was no burning up front, that comes at the end. It was a great glimpse at how much history The Emperor has seen, the drink that the holy man shares with "Revelation" was so well done it had me reaching for a bottle of red!

 

What i especially liked about this short though was it's subtle links with other works... the golden knight as showcased in Mechanicum and (though it may just be coincidental?) the same religious sect of old Frank as Khayon describes when introducing The Ragged Knight in The Talon of Horus.

 

 

A lot of people praise it for raising the big questions, but to be honest I thought the arguments themselves were rather weak.

 

Everything else though was golden, from the points you raised about the amount of history he had seen, to the priest's recollections of the unification wars and the killer ending. 

[Vesper]

 

 the same religious sect of old Frank as Khayon describes when introducing The Ragged Knight in The Talon of Horus.

 

It isn't. AD-B was referring to Catharism. And it is quite unlike the Catholic Church.

 

What I don't appreciate much about portrayals of the Emperor so far is that his arguments feel quite weak, just like most of his decisions. But maybe that's the point. He isn't a god, he can be wrong, he can fail.

[Scribe]

Right now, pre MoM, the Emperor is an idiot. He has made multiple 'golly gee are you thinking' errors and they have yet to be illuminated to any satisfactory degree.

 

That is my one hope with this book. Redeem the Emperor, and make him a character worthy of the title.

[MrDarth151]

 

Need. Spoilers. Now.

 

I say this with complete seriousness, not being entirely sure what the "clues" mentioned might be, that if you know the lore about the Emperor and the Webway from Horus Heresy: Collected Visions, then you have over 90% of the spoilers for the novel. 

 

The people that hate this book the most will be the "reading the novels for information" types (especially on /tg/) who won't find immense revelations on the exact indisputable origins of the Emperor, or how Custodians are made, or anything like that. That's the kind of stuff that I directly avoided saying.

 

I didn't rewrite the history of the Night Lords in the Night Lords Trilogy. I didn't change up Armageddon in Heslreach or redefine the World Eaters with loads of secrets revealed in Betrayer. I tend to look at The Master of Mankind in those terms. Illuminating things on the ground level, through characters' eyes, not rewriting the event itself.

 

(...though, yes, there's a lot about the Emperor in it.)

 

 

Really? Personally, I would find myself hating the book a lot more if I would not like the characterisation of the Emperor and his Custodians, rather than being angry about the lack of revelations. Emperor works better with mysteries involved.

 

Which is one of the reasons I personally dread that book. Having read both The First Heretic and Betrayer, the image of The Emperor in my mind, when written by you, is that of an incompetent :cuss, too lacking in intelligence and charisma to conquer Terra, much less the galaxy.

 

If we get more of that, I do not think I am going to enjoy the novel very much.

[A D-B]

Right now, pre MoM, the Emperor is an idiot. He has made multiple ':cuss are you thinking' errors and they have yet to be illuminated to any satisfactory degree.

Maybe, but you'll have a hard time fitting all of the "Well, actually..." explanations into a single book. And that assumes your perception of his "incompetence" matches everyone else's. For my part, I really don't tend to understand why people double down on it so much.

And even if you did cover everything, people will still come at it with their own biases and beliefs (or, even more tediously, accuse you of retconning it, like with Abaddon). The best example, actually, being Abaddon and the Black Crusades. Look at that colossal misunderstanding in the fandom. Can you imagine how hard that is to explain to people that just read the lore and don't go on the forums and Facebook groups?

"They think Abaddon is a failure."

"But there's never been anything published anything that says that."

"No, but they think he's failed to get to Terra thirteen times."

"But a Black Crusade isn't about attacking Terra itself. The scale of the galaxy makes that impossible. Don't they read the lore?"

"Sure they do, we all do, but..."

"Are you joking here, Aaron? It's always been said he's the name whispered in terror across the galaxy. He's the thematic Antichrist of the setting, the inheritor of Evil, the Lucifer coming back to accuse his godlike Father."

"They just see that Horus reached Terra and Abaddon hasn't."

"But Horus had half of the Imperium's resources and the element of surprise. Abaddon has started with nothing. Don't they know how the Chaos Legions work? Uniting them is a Big Deal. That's always been said."

"Well, I'm going to blame both sides here..."

Don't get me wrong, the multifaceted way of seeing the setting is one of its great strengths, but it's when people forget that it's written specifically that way, where things start to go wrong. I presume I've read the same lore on the Emperor as you (i.e. all of it so far) and at no point do I think things like "He's incompetent". Just like I don't think "Abaddon is a failure" or "The Wolves and/or the Thousand Sons are objectively correct" since they're both wrong.

Like I said, it took me a while to really grasp why "the internet" mistook Abaddon as a failure, but that had some precedent beyond the memes in terms of how he'd been presented. Even then, I've had a hell of a time explaining it to people that don't go on the forums much and just read the lore. I don't really see it with the Emperor in the same way - and I think this is largely because everyone expects different things from him, and that his "perfection" means something different to everyone.

But I don't get what he's done that's so idiotic. I haven't even made him do anything new (he always chastised Lorgar; he always teleported Angron away and engendered that bitterness in Angron's heart because of it) yet I see people once in a while saying I've helped reinforce the Emperor being "incompetent".

He's Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar and Genghis Khan and Albert Einstein and every other military and scientific genius rolled into one, basically. From everything in the lore, he can be cold, distant, detached, distracted... He's the emperor of a species, not Han Solo, smirking and charming people and being super-cool. 40K is glorious because everyone sees a different thing when they look at it, but this one has honestly mystified me for a while. What is it that's so incompetent about him? Why do some people expect him to be perfect, and others see things only from the POV of those that consider themselves wronged by him?

I think this is part of my general approach to 40K, though. I'm always mystified when people can take sides and see one as objectively right or better than another. There's supposed to be compelling (or at least convincing) arguments for both sides. I try to make people see that Lorgar had a point for feeling the way he does and doing what he did, and the same for Angron, but those are perspectives in response to the endless accusations those characters have dealt with, for years, that they were simply "emo" or whatever other nonsense insecure men and boys level at characters who have any emotion beyond Manly Tears and Stoic Vengeance.

The most common one I see is "Why didn't he tell the primarchs about Chaos?" when he obviously did, since the Imperium functions with astropaths (to speak psychically through the warp), Navigators (to guide through the daemon-infested warp), warp drives (...), Gellar Fields (to stop daemons breaking in and eating everyone in the warp), and Horus literally explains what daemons are in the first book of the series. He just calls them by a different noun.

But that's the thing. Why is it supposed to be so obvious that "It could all have been avoided if he'd just told the primarchs about the Chaos Gods"? That assumes they *are* gods. Are they? Or are they malignant other-reality entities formed from the psychic 'stuff' of the warp? He told Magnus to be careful in the warp, and Magnus promptly wasn't. He said it was dangerous, but nope, Magnus knew better.

This is the big one, really. We know the setting. We know that ignorance is the only thing keeping the Imperium functioning. We know that ignorance of Chaos is a massive, massive, vital undertaking for the Imperium (populations are executed and planets destroyed for even learning about it) and that when people know about Chaos, it makes things worse. We know that the more someone knows about Chaos, the easier it is for Chaos to enter them, and enter reality through them. Knowledge doesn't equal safety and freedom from ignorance - knowledge in this setting puts you in the firing line. That's an eternal truth. This is a setting that venerates phrases like "An open mind is a fortress with its gates unguarded and unbarred." We know that, and always have. That's what the setting is.

And we know so much about the primarchs now. How can anyone think they'd be more reliable, more useful, more worthy and less prone to instability, if they just knew a tiny bit more? They're a pantheon of Greek Gods, fer Chrissakes. They're mythological embodiments of humanity's virtues and flaws. How is the issue with the guy that isn't showing them enough fatherly love?

"Okay, 18 god-beings. If you pray to these 4 super-aliens, they'll give you whatever you want and save your lives at dangerous moments, but I promise it'll come back to bite you on the ass, so don't do it, no matter what."

...hmm, I suspect that wouldn't have ended well, either. It isn't like human mythology is littered with tales of wishes coming true with bad side-effects or any roads to Hell being paved with good intentions.

This is stuff that's always struck me as so obvious that, well, putting it into a book would almost be like spoonfeeding readers. The same reason I don't want Abaddon to sit down with Khayon and say "Well, actually, Khayon, I've totes succeeded in all my goals so far and anyone who says my crusades have failed is silly. Here's a list of my achievements and justifications for what looked like failures."

Don't get me wrong, a fair bit of this is in the book, because it had to be. I'm not saying he didn't make mistakes, or whatever else. I'm definitely not saying he's perfect, because even a cursory glance at the lore shows he's not.

But I wouldn't approach it from the POV of "This will answer all of those things about the Emperor's behaviour where he was incompetent", because that's the same as "This book will answer everything about Abaddon being a failure". That would be coming at it from the wrong angle to begin with, and then expecting that bias to be justified.

Apologies if that got long, but obviously this is something I tend to devote a fair amount of time thinking about with each novel.

Need. Spoilers. Now.

I say this with complete seriousness, not being entirely sure what the "clues" mentioned might be, that if you know the lore about the Emperor and the Webway from Horus Heresy: Collected Visions, then you have over 90% of the spoilers for the novel.

The people that hate this book the most will be the "reading the novels for information" types (especially on /tg/) who won't find immense revelations on the exact indisputable origins of the Emperor, or how Custodians are made, or anything like that. That's the kind of stuff that I directly avoided saying.

I didn't rewrite the history of the Night Lords in the Night Lords Trilogy. I didn't change up Armageddon in Heslreach or redefine the World Eaters with loads of secrets revealed in Betrayer. I tend to look at The Master of Mankind in those terms. Illuminating things on the ground level, through characters' eyes, not rewriting the event itself.

(...though, yes, there's a lot about the Emperor in it.)

Really? Personally, I would find myself hating the book a lot more if I would not like the characterisation of the Emperor and his Custodians, rather than being angry about the lack of revelations. Emperor works better with mysteries involved.

Which is one of the reasons I personally dread that book. Having read both The First Heretic and Betrayer, the image of The Emperor in my mind, when written by you, is that of an incompetent , too lacking in intelligence and charisma to conquer Terra, much less the galaxy.

If we get more of that, I do not think I am going to enjoy the novel very much.

Firstly, that isn't what I said. I explained the demographic that would hate it the most, not "There will be no other reasons for it be disliked" or "These will be the only people to hate the book."

Secondly, you registered on a website just to make that point and say you dislike my work in the past, so... let's be honest, you're not presenting an image of someone who would like it even if it was the best book in the series. Spoiler: people registering on websites to insult an author's work with their first and only post aren't usually doing it from an open mind and a willingness to discuss things. A longstanding internet truth, there.

Thirdly, I agree. That's what would make me hate a book most, too. We share a viewpoint, there.

All that said, welcome to the B&C! It's a killer place, and I hope you enjoy your stay.

[A D-B]

Jesus, that was long. 

 

tl;dr -- Yes, some things will be answered and explained. No, not everything. I hope this summation saved you all precious time!

[Kastor Krieg]

Thanks for being yourself and staying in contact, discussing 40k with us, Aaron. Kudos :)

[Black Cohort]

Aren't the Emperor's flaws what make him still human? Also from what I can see many of the Emperor's problems seem to be because he is so intelligent and has such far reaching plans that he doesn't consider things that normal people do. He is a bad father because he is the father of the entire species and doesn't realize that his Primarch "children" need a true father, after all by the time of the Horus Heresy the Primarchs are over 200 years old, why would someone think that they still need to be treated like teenage boys.

[Augustus]

Mr. Bowden, personally, I think that is not you or what BL has written that makes him seem... less than aware. The old stuff was fragmented and none of it painted a clear picture. I always used to think that a lot of the things he did or didn't do didn't make a lot of sense. But I and a number of my friends always chalked it up to it being vague and not to put much thought into it.

 

But you guys at BL have. For the most part, a lot of the things that seemed... incomplete or not well thought out you guys have fleshed out nicely. But the Emperor's actions remain confusing only exacerbated by adding some things to His history.

 

You mentioned Lorgar's chastisement. Correct me if I am wrong, but before First Heretic it was only written as the Emperor chastised Lorgar. You fleshed this out in a great well-written way. But the way he did it left a lot of people confused. Maybe it's because we know how Lorgar turned out from that encounter, but it felt extreme. Getting to know the Emperor's reasoning for why he did it like that would really help.

 

This is not say what the Emperor did was wrong. It's just confusing. We can try to extrapolate why he did it like that but it's just fun guesswork. This is only one example. Others include, as you mentioned, Angron, getting Russ to bring in Magnus, having Valdor convince Russ to kill Magnus despite him being important, the failure to convey the dangers of Chaos, the contradictory nature of the Imperial Truth, the whole give tech to Corax but don't use it to fortify Terra, etc.

 

Imo these things remain "incomplete" that if taken only at face value portray the Emperor as lacking intelligence. Just as people thought the things about Abaddon and you came along and elaborated on why it was right because etc etc we are hoping you can do the same for the Big E.

 

Addendum: You're absolutely right that a lot of us see him as every military and scientific leader timed up in one. We all play backseat driver and *think* we would have made better decisions. I personally am waiting for the "Abaddon-Talos" moment: You think you know My plans???!!! Mine? leave. :)

[RapatoR]

"I remember asking one of my teachers, back in college, what the biggest impediment was to understanding the past.

 

And he had great answer and it was one of those obvious things I wish I had thought of myself, but he said: The biggest impediment to understanding the past is that we know their future.

 

It is an obvious point, isn't it? After all we know how everything turns out. We know that decision A is going to lead to consequence B. We have almost god-like view from above at the events that they live through and have a perspective that they couldn't have at the time.

 

It's a little like how our descendants are going to view our decisions today - no doubt four or five generations from now they are going to look at the things that people of the early 21st cetury did and say: How could those people be so stupid! Couldn't they see how THAT was going to lead to THIS? Dummies!" - Dan Carlin

 

I'll just leave this quote here.

 

Just think about many pivotal historical moments that would look in entirely different light if they turned out wrong, like sending 300 men to deal with persian army, or trying to conquer the empire far bigger than your kingdom, like Alexander...

 

Edit: Not to mention there are gazillion issues associated with ruling, which are partially illustrated in this video:

[Prot]

 

The most common one I see is "Why didn't he tell the primarchs about Chaos?" when he obviously did, since the Imperium functions with astropaths (to speak psychically through the warp), Navigators (to guide through the daemon-infested warp), warp drives (...), Gellar Fields (to stop daemons breaking in and eating everyone in the warp), and Horus literally explains what daemons are in the first book of the series. He just calls them by a different noun

 

I don't find this to be true. I can cite examples where they 'obviously' did not know that traversing the Warp meant flirting with hell (or whatever you want to call it). I'm just re-reading A Thousand Sons for the second time and it's actually mentioned that it wasn't explained for a long time.

 

I think the issue is perhaps the writers themselves weren't told or decided on this as a 'thing'. I don't know. But I do know there is varying references to who knew what and when.

 

The whole Nikea thing is really weird. It dances around the whole subject. I mean the entire reason behind that debate is whether it's a good idea to use Psychic powers, or not. And there isn't a single utterance from the Emperor or Malcador as to why.

 

There are too many examples of this. It's too inconsistent. This is like telling a child to not play with fire, but don't tell them about the whole burning part. There is almost no mention of an evil, or a negative force that wants to destroy mankind in nearly any of these conversations.

 

I'm going to assume in the amount of books I've read on this subject it's extremely possible I missed something, somewhere. But it's far too inconsistent to blame the reader for allegedly misinterpreting a volume of books that dance around the subject.

 

Further to that I suppose I'd have to re-read the Horus interaction on Davin (?) But I seem to remember the feeling of 'how on earth can he not know it's "Chaos" misdirecting him?"

 

All throughout A Thousand Sons, it is arguable that perhaps Magnus has the deepest understanding of the Warp. Certainly, aside from the Emperor, he has the deepest interaction with it.  In all those scenes, and all those conversations where Magnus believes he is the 'god' of the warp, and untouchable, do you know how many times it has been mentioned there is a force that wants to destroy mankind in the warp, and that's why he needs to stop screwing around with Chaos? Zero.

 

How many times during the greatest Psychic Debate in 30K (Nikea)  is the enemy of mankind that resides in the warp mentioned? Zero.

 

It's all just a conversation about... it's bad. Just don't do it, it's bad. It's like that piece of pizza at the back of the fridge. It still looks good, it might even taste good, and you don't know why, but there's a good chance you're going to have the trots for a week if you eat it.

 

I think it's very unfair to blame the interpretation of a very large segment of the readership for this inconsistency.

 

That being said, I never wanted to get hung up on that subject for the book.

[Scribe]

Prots post covers part of it, but the 2 main Angron stories are another example. You have this guy with thousands of years of insight into the human condition, and he stuffs up the 'rescue' of Angron completely, fails to integrate him in any sane way, explains nothing to anyone, and brings the world to compliance no less?

 

That's the thing I take issue with.

 

Regardless, I have faith in ADB, and will pre-order the :cuss out of this.

 

Edit: and Aaron I get that that's the canon, your ability to hold to the settings history is legendary so I don't blame you at all for angrons situation but imo it does put the emperor in a negative light.

[Vesper]

I would say it's a complex thing.

 

We would need a clarification (we'll never have) about the very nature of the Emperor. Is he a god, literally ? Is he near omniscient ? Because if he is : meh. I like to think him as a weird super-human monster. So bored, so alone he eventually took on him to "unite" Mankind without even bothering asking if they wanted to. Because even if he hides himself behind Mankind, it's frankly all about him. I like him that way since that explains what I think are his failures and his shortcomings.

 

The thing about great leaders is that they manage to get either loved or feared by their men. The Emperor not quite understanding (since he's apparently not acting accordingly) half of his sons weren't quite thrilled by his little war of extermination for various reasons, leading to said war to crash and burn in betrayal with the corruption of Horus. The Emperor saw his Primarch project being spirited away by the power of the Chaos gods. And yet he can't prevent half of them from falling to Chaos ? Couldn't he manage to get Angron to get over what he inflicted to him ? Or couldn't he forsee that Angron would never forgive him and decide it would be better if Angron died with those he considered as family ?

 

The Magnus case is the most accabling of them all, but they all quite are. That's because I (and I suppose I'm not alone) assumed the Emperor knew better. Maybe I've been inclined to think that way because 40k deification of the Emperor got to me and clouded my initial perception or something, but in the end was he that powerful / omniscient ? I don't think so and I'm glad I changed my view on the Emperor. He's just a super-human thing, a cosmic monster powerful enough to subjugate Mankind and tie it to its projects but clearly not perfect and powerful enough to carry such a vast and ambitious task alone. In the end, he too, like Horus, is felled by his hubris. And that makes sense since he surrounds himself with humans and post-humans freaks he crafted in a lab.

 

Forgive my poor English.

[A D-B]

I was clicking all of the posts after mine (even Prot's, since I don't disagree at all) with Multi-Quote, Multi-Quote, Multi-Quote... until I realised I'd just be quoting everything to say "I agree" and "I get it, yeah, I see what you mean."

 

I could write endless essays on this, but there's a time factor, and Prot/Scribe have covered the other side of the coin pretty sweetly. That's the problem - there's never going to be a situation where it all gets wrapped up: 40K's canon, loose or not, is just too inconsistent. That's a great boon a lot of the time, meaning no author or the readership itself is slaved to one vision, but it also means stuff can make very little sense when you try to explain it 15+ years later based on a few sentences that a game designer wrote one afternoon, and various authors have added to or semi-retconned since.

 

Suffice to say, as much as I'm dreading the reception for TMoM (slightly more than I dread most novel releases, but not significantly more) I'm pretty damn happy with what it says about the setting and the character of the Emperor. It can't answer all of the questions (and I'd argue, and have argued, that many of the famous ones shouldn't be answered, because the mystery makes the setting) but I'm pretty certain if someone has liked how I dealt with the Templars, or Ragnar, or the Night Lords, or the Black Legion, then it's essentially along those lines. It's about glimpses into the Emperor's plans, not seeing them from his point of view.

 

The central conceit of the novel comes down to this: As a Custodian, are you fighting for the Emperor's life, or for his vision? Are you fighting for the man himself, or what he wants to achieve? And where do those two ideals diverge, if at all? What if the Emperor started to tell you everything, though? How would that affect your perspective?

[veterannoob]

AD-B if it's ok I'll ask why you dread the reception in our interview Thursday but i Just gotta say this. I completely understand the apprehension but believe me, or believe Laurie at least. This book will only be likely not only one of, if not your best, but also amazing beyond what you can imagine. We wait for these books with excited fan anticipation cuz we know it will be outstanding. Tl;dr: you da man :)

[Runefyre]

AD-B if it's ok I'll ask why you dread the reception in our interview Thursday but i Just gotta say this. I completely understand the apprehension but believe me, or believe Laurie at least. This book will only be likely not only one of, if not your best, but also amazing beyond what you can imagine. We wait for these books with excited fan anticipation cuz we know it will be outstanding. Tl;dr: you da man

This^

[DarKnight]

Yeah I never quite agreed with that whole "the Emperor never told them about the dangers of the warp!" stuff. We all know that old night was caused by human psykers powers manifesting in myriad and dangerous ways and separating the strands of humanity due to the warp storms. Most if not all of the Primarchs have come across planets or societies that have been tainted or destroyed by the warp whether it was through witches, sorcery, etc. so we realize the potential "evil" of the warp. And simplest of all (In my understanding) the preeminent being in the entire galaxy/species EXPRESSLY TOLD YOU NOT TO. As well as being sons, they are military commanders as well. Not being able or willing to obey the first command given by the leading general regardless of if you understand it at the time is a failure on the one receiving the order. I think something we tend to gloss over is that the galaxy is freaking HUGE, so obviously Primarchs have a great deal of autonomy. Primarchs could (and have) depopulate every single planet they come into contact with all as long as they don't use psychic powers in doing so. How difficult is that?

 

Edit: And too add on, I don't think all of the traitor Primarchs were "wrong" exactly, I personally think rebellion in some form or fashion from one of the Emperor's sons was inevitable.  

[Scribe]

The central conceit of the novel comes down to this: As a Custodian, are you fighting for the Emperor's life, or for his vision? Are you fighting for the man himself, or what he wants to achieve? And where do those two ideals diverge, if at all? What if the Emperor started to tell you everything, though? How would that affect your perspective?

I like that, because the only way I personally can rationalize the Emperor is if he's fallible, and more 'human' than is let on.

 

Those closest to him should start to see the cracks.

[DarKnight]

I was clicking all of the posts after mine (even Prot's, since I don't disagree at all) with Multi-Quote, Multi-Quote, Multi-Quote... until I realised I'd just be quoting everything to say "I agree" and "I get it, yeah, I see what you mean."

 

I could write endless essays on this, but there's a time factor, and Prot/Scribe have covered the other side of the coin pretty sweetly. That's the problem - there's never going to be a situation where it all gets wrapped up: 40K's canon, loose or not, is just too inconsistent. That's a great boon a lot of the time, meaning no author or the readership itself is slaved to one vision, but it also means stuff can make very little sense when you try to explain it 15+ years later based on a few sentences that a game designer wrote one afternoon, and various authors have added to or semi-retconned since.

 

Suffice to say, as much as I'm dreading the reception for TMoM (slightly more than I dread most novel releases, but not significantly more) I'm pretty damn happy with what it says about the setting and the character of the Emperor. It can't answer all of the questions (and I'd argue, and have argued, that many of the famous ones shouldn't be answered, because the mystery makes the setting) but I'm pretty certain if someone has liked how I dealt with the Templars, or Ragnar, or the Night Lords, or the Black Legion, then it's essentially along those lines. It's about glimpses into the Emperor's plans, not seeing them from his point of view.

 

The central conceit of the novel comes down to this: As a Custodian, are you fighting for the Emperor's life, or for his vision? Are you fighting for the man himself, or what he wants to achieve? And where do those two ideals diverge, if at all? What if the Emperor started to tell you everything, though? How would that affect your perspective?

*reads last paragraph, head explodes*

[Prot]

I was clicking all of the posts after mine (even Prot's, since I don't disagree at all) with Multi-Quote, Multi-Quote, Multi-Quote... until I realised I'd just be quoting everything to say "I agree" and "I get it, yeah, I see what you mean."

 

I could write endless essays on this, but there's a time factor, and Prot/Scribe have covered the other side of the coin pretty sweetly. That's the problem - there's never going to be a situation where it all gets wrapped up: 40K's canon, loose or not, is just too inconsistent. That's a great boon a lot of the time, meaning no author or the readership itself is slaved to one vision, but it also means stuff can make very little sense when you try to explain it 15+ years later based on a few sentences that a game designer wrote one afternoon, and various authors have added to or semi-retconned since.

 

Suffice to say, as much as I'm dreading the reception for TMoM (slightly more than I dread most novel releases, but not significantly more) I'm pretty damn happy with what it says about the setting and the character of the Emperor. It can't answer all of the questions (and I'd argue, and have argued, that many of the famous ones shouldn't be answered, because the mystery makes the setting) but I'm pretty certain if someone has liked how I dealt with the Templars, or Ragnar, or the Night Lords, or the Black Legion, then it's essentially along those lines. It's about glimpses into the Emperor's plans, not seeing them from his point of view.

 

The central conceit of the novel comes down to this: As a Custodian, are you fighting for the Emperor's life, or for his vision? Are you fighting for the man himself, or what he wants to achieve? And where do those two ideals diverge, if at all? What if the Emperor started to tell you everything, though? How would that affect your perspective?

 

 

I have to admit, I really regretted my comment. I thought... too late to delete it, just deal with the response later. And I did expect a large counter point in your post, but you definitely surprised me with this response instead.

 

I just want to say one heartfelt thing here....

 

I don't think anyone blames you at all for this in any way. (Not that you are saying someone is pointing the finger at you). And further to that I don't let that sort of 'inconsistency' (for lack of a better word) detract from the immense enjoyment I get from this series. Aside from a few notable exceptions, I have friggin loved this :cuss since day one. It was so great in the beginning, then I feared when Dan kind of left it, and then Graham kind of left it... but then elation to see a new generation like yourself championing the series... like a champ.

 

I personally write off the inconsistency as a very -minor- side effect of having such a massive project with so many cooks in the kitchen.

 

Like I said about... 2 pages ago, I'm nervous, but so very excited for this book. Heck in every book I've read, I've wondered how the Emperor views/reflects on said event. Now I'll get at least a glimpse at that.

 

Like I said part 2: 'member when I said you could be writing the VERY Emperor fodder that some movie company is referencing one day when inevitably (Disney?) buys this stuff out and turns it into something that dwarfs Lord of the Rings? I really believe that will happen one day. And you're that dude.... c'mon that's a bit scary but how awesome is that? Maybe it's my own little pipe dream, but you gotta admit nothing worth doing is supposed to be easy and at the very least you've been the guy who got to create the world's first introduction to very fundamental character of the entire storyline....

 

Conversely I wrote a short story in high school that won a contest called 'Fear'.

 

I'd rather have the feeling of 'dread' for the release of MoM that be the guy who wrote a crappy high school short. lol

You've had an amazing journey so far in HH. Enjoy the highs and the lows.

[Mellow]

We know that the more someone knows about Chaos, the easier it is for Chaos to enter them

I really shouldn't have read that sentence the way I did ...

We would need a clarification (we'll never have) about the very nature of the Emperor.

I believe the truth is quite obvious. The Emperor is the Sun God Ra. The Sun produces Golden Light and so does The Emperor.

He was probably also created by the Old Ones as another form of weapon against the C'tan and the Primordial Annihilator.

The central conceit of the novel comes down to this: As a Custodian, are you fighting for the Emperor's life, or for his vision? Are you fighting for the man himself, or what he wants to achieve? And where do those two ideals diverge, if at all? What if the Emperor started to tell you everything, though? How would that affect your perspective?

An interesting perspective. His life is important for the vision for Humanity to survive and evolve to a point where Humans are capable of defending themselves against Chaos. But the Vision needs to be saved if you know what the Vision is ... but can the Vision survive without the Man? Initially I would say not as The Emperor didn't reveal all of his "Grand Plan" to everyone, thus making himself indispensable.

Yeah I never quite agreed with that whole "the Emperor never told them about the dangers of the warp!" stuff.

He really did. At the Edict of Nikea. Something along the lines of "Just because I can swim through the immateriums ocean doesn't mean you lot can because I am orders of magnitude more awesome at Warp swimming than you lot"