b1soul Posted September 22, 2015 Author Share Posted September 22, 2015 Because in the novel "The Last Church" The Emperor states that whilst his work to unite Terra is done, he cannot do his work in the rest of the Galaxy with the Thunder Warriors and that he has need of greater warriors that he is already planning on creating. So the time-limit or kill switch is quite definitely intentional. Does it actually say that or does it simply say that the TW need to go? If the latter, it could simply refer to the Emp's plan to stop making TW and to cull the survivors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoebus Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on the "intentional" bit. It's been forever since I read the novel in question, so I'll have to go over the pertinent sections to see what is stated or implied on the matter. Me, personally, I think the Thunder Warriors were a stop-gap product meant to secure a specific objective. They were a terrifying, super-charged stop-gap product, sure, but they were only meant to get the Emperor to a point where he could work on his real projects. That is to say, the Emperor couldn't work on his Primarchs and the Legiones Astartes until he had Terra under control. As such, no real thought or effort was given to the Thunder Warriors' continued survival; the only consideration was toward making them superhumanly strong, durable, and ferocious. Not to beat a dead horse even more with this analogy, but it's no different than the development of anabolic steroids and similar products. Developing and manufacturing such products is probably much easier when you remove the safety and long-term well-being of the user from your list of priorities. But, again, I'll do my due research in good time, and eat healthy amounts of crow if my ideas are baseless! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b1soul Posted September 23, 2015 Author Share Posted September 23, 2015 Hmm...I think the issue is whether short lifespan is a necessary cost of the TW's power, i.e. could the Emperor have made mentally unstable TW without the physical instability? I am pretty sure the Emp could not have made mentally and physically stable TW...because if he could have, he would have had something superior to Astartes in almost every way. So the question is...was the Emp capable of making physically stable TW? If yes, that probably means he chose not to so that he would't have a bunch of long-lived madmen running around Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoebus Posted September 23, 2015 Share Posted September 23, 2015 All of this comes down to conjecture. My guess is that "physically stable", "mentally stable", and long-lived Thunder Warriors would be, well, Legiones Astartes. Maybe the slightly less superhuman strength and stature is a compromise, to accommodate longevity and stability - physical and mental. Or maybe the Thunder Warriors' freak strength was unanticipated, and resulted from a lack of quality control - because, again, they were an imperfect "model" made under imperfect circumstances. Look at it this way (and this is no more than an attempt to reiterate my points with some humor). This is a very crude analogy, but if the Emperor of Mankind was, at one point, something akin to Immortan Joe from Mad Max: Fury Road, then we can accept that coming up with this is a lot easier than coming up with that - at least until you conquer Terra and have a whole lot more resources at your disposal. Sure, the former is capable of amazing amounts of fun destruction, but it's not exactly the pinnacle of engineering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b1soul Posted September 24, 2015 Author Share Posted September 24, 2015 All of this comes down to conjecture. My guess is that "physically stable", "mentally stable", and long-lived Thunder Warriors would be, well, Legiones Astartes. Maybe the slightly less superhuman strength and stature is a compromise, to accommodate longevity and stability - physical and mental. Or maybe the Thunder Warriors' freak strength was unanticipated, and resulted from a lack of quality control - because, again, they were an imperfect "model" made under imperfect circumstances. Look at it this way (and this is no more than an attempt to reiterate my points with some humor). This is a very crude analogy, but if the Emperor of Mankind was, at one point, something akin to Immortan Joe from Mad Max: Fury Road, then we can accept that coming up with this is a lot easier than coming up with that - at least until you conquer Terra and have a whole lot more resources at your disposal. Sure, the former is capable of amazing amounts of fun destruction, but it's not exactly the pinnacle of engineering. Good points all...but what I meant is "could the Emp reduce both physical and mental instabiliy while keeping the TW's great power constant" I think you and I would both say the answer is no. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mellow Posted September 24, 2015 Share Posted September 24, 2015 I definitely agree that the TW's were a stop gap and probably the best that could be done with what was available. Wasn't Humanity a mish mash of techno barbarians at this point? Not exactly the best setting to setup a high tech gene lab to be fair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b1soul Posted September 24, 2015 Author Share Posted September 24, 2015 I think it's mentioned somewhere that the candle that burns twice as bright also burns twice as fast. I think that the TW's power came at the price of mental and physical health. The intentional kill-switch idea is just a conspiracy theory perhaps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knight of the Raven Posted September 24, 2015 Share Posted September 24, 2015 Yes, the Unification Wars are good material for a series. I hope you're not hoping for any of the current authors to write it though, because they'll all be dead of old age by the time the Horus Heresy series is completed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kriegsmacht Posted September 24, 2015 Share Posted September 24, 2015 So will most of us... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeritorA Posted September 24, 2015 Share Posted September 24, 2015 Ullanor could be an awesome start for the first novel - Prologue. Emperor proclaiming Horus the Warmaster and we are shown how it all started! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doctor Perils Posted September 25, 2015 Share Posted September 25, 2015 Ullanor would be nice, and some books to describe the legions before the Primarchs... But I think books on the Age of Apostasy would be more interesting first... Sistas Brides Powah ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mellow Posted September 25, 2015 Share Posted September 25, 2015 Ullanor wouldn't be a prologue to the unification wars. Was the Age of Apostasy the one which was resolved when the sister went to The Emperor? If so, that would be good to flesh out with some lore. Also giving some actual insight on whether The Emperor actually communicated would be brilliant too. The last time he spoke in a Novel he sounded much like the Borg collective. Clearly only ADB would be capable of writing such a scene though. It would be a word count like no other! Words for the Word Emperor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b1soul Posted September 25, 2015 Author Share Posted September 25, 2015 Unification Wars, The Scouring, Nova Terra Interregnum, The Age of Apostasy... These would all be major events. Unification Wars interests me the most Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adeptus Posted September 30, 2015 Share Posted September 30, 2015 Please no. The reason things like the Unification Wars and the Horus Heresy (and the Dark Age of Technology, the Age of Apostasy, etc) are interesting is because of the shadows. We know loosely what happened, but the specifics are in the shadows. It means that these events can be all things to all people, because everyone views it differently. But then they went and shone a spotlight on the Horus Heresy and it went from being an age of biblical mythology to a slew of poorly written fan-fic and frankly they screwed the whole thing up. I used to love the idea of the Heresy. A literal War in Heaven where the Lord of Light cast down his chosen son. But the novels have killed it for me and the Heresy is now my least favourite part of 40K. Please GW, don't make the same mistake twice. There's so much scope and range in the 41st Millennium, there's no need to go back and shine that bright spotlight on all those interesting shadows. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b1soul Posted September 30, 2015 Author Share Posted September 30, 2015 What if the writing were guaranteed to be good? Also...the HH series gave us Horus Rising, The First Heretic, A Thousand Sons, Betrayer, Scars etc... All of which were good reads Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Olis Posted September 30, 2015 Share Posted September 30, 2015 Please no. The reason things like the Unification Wars and the Horus Heresy (and the Dark Age of Technology, the Age of Apostasy, etc) are interesting is because of the shadows. We know loosely what happened, but the specifics are in the shadows. It means that these events can be all things to all people, because everyone views it differently. But then they went and shone a spotlight on the Horus Heresy and it went from being an age of biblical mythology to a slew of poorly written fan-fic and frankly they screwed the whole thing up. I used to love the idea of the Heresy. A literal War in Heaven where the Lord of Light cast down his chosen son. But the novels have killed it for me and the Heresy is now my least favourite part of 40K. Please GW, don't make the same mistake twice. There's so much scope and range in the 41st Millennium, there's no need to go back and shine that bright spotlight on all those interesting shadows. Speak for yourself, brother. I myself am one of those people that would prefer knowledge to mystery. The Horus Heresy series does have it's stinkers, that I cannot argue against. Which ones are the worst offenders is a matter of opinion, which is something that I will not get into here. But without the Heresy being elaborated upon, we would not have the excellent series of books from Forgeworld (or the models). Nor would we have the beautiful artwork generated for the setting. Just because the 'mythological' status of the Heresy has been dispelled, doesn't mean that you should lose wonder in the setting. For every detail that's expanded upon, dozens more appear. The Imperium, even at a nascent stage, is filled to the brim with things that you and I can explore. We know there were other rebellions prior to the heresy. We know that the waters were far muddier than we had assumed they were in regards to which Legions were traitorous and which ones were not. Because of that, you could in theory invent an Ultramarine traitor. Or a loyalist Word Bearer. Granted, that old black and white nature of the Heresy was clear cut and that appeals more to some than others, it's representative of a different time. Back when the Cold War was still around (just) and blurring the lines was something left to spies. These days we have a completely different zeitgeist and the current iteration of the Heresy is a product of that. The fact of the matter is, opinions can all go hang so long as sales remain strong. The Heresy was the best thing, sales-wise, that BL and FW have done in the past twenty years. Multiple best sellers, multiple product lines and, dare I say it, a whole new avenue for fans to be generated from. 30k is a strong setting, with a background that's getting stronger with each new release (quality of writing aside). So what if some of it is dross? So what if some of the fans don't like it? In both cases they are in the minority, by all appearances. Does this tie into a whole other argument about how GW is doing financially? It's not really the point of this spiel, but you bet it does. Brother, don't despair that the fog lifts or that the published novels bother you. Being all things to all people is a double-edged sword - unless you're invested in the universe, it means nothing. It's too nebulous to draw in new people, to the hobby and specifically to that era depicted. To keep the fanbase alive, we need new people. Take a look around the wider community and you'll see hoary old gaming veterans grumbling about something - it's what hoary old vets do. But nobody is around forever. When the older gamers go, whether onto pastures new or whatever, who exactly is going to step into their shoes? Do I want to see Unification era novels? Hell yes. Age of Apostasy? Get me a pen to sign with. For all the good that keeping those settings unexpanded does for the experienced gamers, in the long run it's not a good strategy. 40k survived and thrived for almost twenty years before the Heresy was revisited as a legitimate setting. Up to that point it was merely background legends. The Heresy itself has been around now for about a decade, give or take. We've got at least ten years before we need to start thinking about a setting change if we ascribe an arbitrary cycle to it. But the way things are going, I can see the Heresy lasting longer than 40k itself before another period is explored. You call it a mistake. I disagree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doctor Perils Posted September 30, 2015 Share Posted September 30, 2015 I wouldn't be too surprised if they did a kind of mini campaign for the age of apostasy, like the ones they did for Stormclaw and the defense of Baal. Templars against Sisters (eq), yes please ! However, I also think it would be a mistake to go back too far with the unification wars: I wouldn't want to see what happens before, say, Malcador meets the Emperor. When I started 40k, Black Library was just starting up the Heresy series, and I think that it's part of what kept me in the setting at the beginning, so I also can't call that move a mistake. Sure, a lot of the books aren't brilliant, but to me it seems like the project overall is good. I don't agree with how it's being led, with some legions getting twenty or so stories each, then others (that I like most, generally ) hardly getting a look in, but I'm still genuinely fond of the series, and each time a new book comes out I'm sort of hyped. I'd prefer reading a bad heresy story to a bad Space Marine Battles book any day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelborn Posted September 30, 2015 Share Posted September 30, 2015 I strongly agree with Olis and Thorn. I understand that mystery's give us more space to write our own stuff but for me knowing what happened, who participated, etc. is more satisfying. I'm one of those Nerds who would even like to have a book about strike cruisers, etc. only to have the possibility to emphasize with its crew. The Unification Wars could be really good as we would get to know how it was on Terra these days. While I really like the HH novels overall, I only picked some of them. Mostly those with the stories I'm interested in like A Thousand Sons or Scars. For me the Unification Wars would be enough. Age of Strife could remain shrouded. I read the Dune books and with every new trilogy they went further into the past. Those were good books, don't get me wrong but for me it was enough. Another leap in time would be too much. Same with the Age of Strife. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b1soul Posted September 30, 2015 Author Share Posted September 30, 2015 I think Unification Wars is the earliest period still retaining a distinct 40K feel...any earlier and the setting becomes something too far removed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeritorA Posted October 1, 2015 Share Posted October 1, 2015 b1soul - Nathan Durme, Cardinal Chang - that would have a horror story in the making. Dark, bloody, gothic - it will be W40K styled for sure Beotia, Urals - don't think they even get the stories - nothing Major happened where. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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