The Beast Arises

[Apothecary Vaddon]

Istvaan is a hell of a stretch IMO, because there were other loyalist primarchs there, and in fact one died there...

[Xisor]

Edit: hijack my own post!

 

As the topic says... are there? or would there be a GreyKnight doing duty with the DeathWatch?

This stems mainly from me wanting to paint up a deathwatch vet with a greyknight shoulderpad :P

 

 

Mithril

This post in the DW forum raised a *very* fine point. Not the one that's asked, but the one that I don't recall having seen asked anywhere:

 

All through TBA - no mention of Titan or its denizens. Zip. Nada. (Well, to my admittedly rubbish recollection.) Thoughts?

 

 

Jesus flipping spoilers, you goons. Have a care!

 

 

My inclination was that it could be read quite a few ways. One: time travel. Two: general suffering. Three: stepping into warp breaches wherever to fight daemons - few, if any, Primarchs took the fight to the 'enemy'. Four: fighting in the webway isn't necessarily 'defending the throne', or fighting at the eternity gate - it could be a metaphor, or even a literal battle *into* the webway from elsewhere, to try to reach Terra directly by figuring out the Emperor's plan and realising a way *directly* home... Five: referencing Isstvan. Six: referencing some grueling battle during the Heresy. Seven: referencing post-Heresy mystery. Eight: maybe referencing something more simple, but poetically put - stepping into the breach to oppose/propose the new Imperium? (Who was it that told the Sisters to F Off?) Eight: something madder, or simpler still.

 

Key amongst all of that is, like a character in 'The Unforgiven', once such a long span of centuries has past, you might find yourself talking about concepts, and with words, that are just... archaic. Their meaning and import has drifted, the turns of phrase don't mean what they used to - it's been a theme with Vulkan that he's not 'a living legend' but arguably more a living... fossil. (Which would chime with the fulgurite from early in the HH.)

 

In that respect, almost none of his words ornthoughts can truly have face value as we know it. Even to himself. He's one of the eldest vaguely human creatures in existence that we get to look in the mind of - his own viewpoint and sense of reality ought to be something we struggle to understand. (And it's been done well by the authors, very light touches given the heavier hands that havebeen laid on Primarchs over the years...)

 

And if the author's did mean something specific by it... they're wrong! Obviously... :D

 

 

 

In fairness to Kyme's Deathfire - the parallels with Magnus can be deep seams to mine, I'd love to see them explored. Having him be a vehicle for and fulcrum on which others' stories turn might be even better. Numeon at least got a very neat innings.

[Felix Antipodes]

The non appearance of the Grey Knights, especially when the Orks attack their home system, is just one of the head scratching mysteries of this series so far (not that I'm not enjoying it for the most part). While I understand they may be fighting the Orks (and other enemies of the Imperium) elsewhere, there have been very few other Chapters seen or even mentioned. Even the kill teams in the latest book were made up of big four (DA BA UM SW) with none of the already previously mentioned Chapters getting a slot.

[veterannoob]

Well, we wouldn't know if they did appear

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

the non-appearance of an army of psykers stationed in the Sol System has bugged me for SO freaking long it isnt even funny.

[DarkChaplain]

Can we really be certain at this point that Titan and the Grey Knights have reappeared yet? The Codex is pretty vague, just marking it as "c. M31", but their first actual documented engagement was in 938.M32, long after the Beast's war. With how many things have been in flux recently, it isn't unlikely that this isn't quite correct anymore.

After all, they'd have been around by the 1st Black Crusade if they had been there right then already, nevermind the second just 50 odd years post-Beast. Neither is mentioned in their Codex, nor otherwise. It seems more plausible that they reappeared in the later half of M32 at this point.

 

I'm more surprised about the continued absence of the Phalanx...

[veterannoob]

3. books. left.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

Can we really be certain at this point that Titan and the Grey Knights have reappeared yet? The Codex is pretty vague, just marking it as "c. M31", but their first actual documented engagement was in 938.M32, long after the Beast's war. With how many things have been in flux recently, it isn't unlikely that this isn't quite correct anymore.

After all, they'd have been around by the 1st Black Crusade if they had been there right then already, nevermind the second just 50 odd years post-Beast. Neither is mentioned in their Codex, nor otherwise. It seems more plausible that they reappeared in the later half of M32 at this point.

 

I'm more surprised about the continued absence of the Phalanx...

Didn't Epimetheus say something about kicking ass during the Scouring? That would've been M31.

 

In any case, IMO there's no point in GK showing up. Presumably they're dealing with other, non Ork threats.

[Xisor]

The lack of 'other' Chapters is something I find bugging, generally. Of the 1,000 Chapters of the 'Modern' Imperium, only 9 are First Founding, so less than 1%. And of those, one is super-stealthy (RG), two are 'keep themself to themself' (DA and IH), but at the same time, two are posters boys (UM practically, Blood Angels in pop culture), leaving the remaining three to actually volunteer to be 'everywhere' (SW take any fight, Salamanders will do even the unglamorous anywhere [so it makes sense not to see them often on the big stage] and the IF - who are pretty much normal!)

 

So with all that in mind - I'd only really expect to see an IF or a Space Wolf in an heroic situation. Everyone has heard of the Blood Angels or Ultramarines, so even a successor chapter showing up would be quite exciting ('It's that celebrities second cousin!'), where a successor of the others would mostly be 'any old not-famous Space Marine' (think the reaction to the Space Wolf in "Kraken"!).

 

But that's all contrasting the top tier. Even meeting Brother Joe McDeath of the Void Claws would be a remarkable celebrity appearance.

 

Even the most disgraced eejit of the most unheard of chapter (I imagine there's something of a hefty amount of PR work involved in getting the first DW recruits out from a newly created chapter!) should still be a remarkable, exciting thing.

 

What about Successors of Successors ^n?

 

Less than 1% of Chapters are first founding. Barely more are 'famous' out of universe (add in The CFs, Templars, Blood Ravens, taking us to 1.2%)... so of every 5-man Killteam that shows up, purely by chapters, that'd be a 6% chance at least one of them was 'famous' (my maths is v rusty).

 

Have we ever had one of the 94% where none of them were famous?

 

---

 

 

In TBA this is exacerbated because we know that the famous ones have turned up. (And that the number of Chapters is likely *very* different.) Just plucking at random, though, you'd expect far more representation from the successor chapters. Oh great, a Blood Angel, a Dark Angel and a Space Wolf?

 

Pfft, give me a Wolf Brother (I forget the timeline), a Flesh Tearer and a Hammer of Dorn or an Exoriator or a Novamarine or a <can't recall the DA successors). Or a whole suite of thoroughly unheard of ones!

 

The Fists Exemplar are there, but this shouldn't be rare!

 

---

 

Moreover, there's also an argument for the Successors sometimes being on the verge of *eclipsing* the First founding. Remember that random Ultra-successor Captain in "Void Stalker" that almost stole the show?

 

Plenty of options, yet minimal exploration!

[JH79]

I'm more surprised about the continued absence of the Phalanx...

This is such a good point... there's talk about the Autocephalax Eternal (best ship name ever!) being the lone ship of any note above Terra in Book 4 and again in Book 5 until the IF fleet arrives, but where in the emperors name is the Phalanx? If anything it would of made sense for Koorland to drop by and get all systems fired up for the assault on Ullanor, you know, take the biggest ship the Imperium has (along with all the other forces amassed) and simply destroy the planet in one hit. Worried about those shields over the cities, at least give the orks the pleasure of a few thousand payloads of life eater, shields or not that's still an automatic KO... unless the orks have flamethrowers of course... lots and lots of flamethrowers

[Xisor]

You guys are spot on with the Phalanx. Also Inwit, or other domains. (Has Necromunda been colonised by this point? Is it an IF recruiting world?)

 

More to the point, this is again one of those cases where the logic breaks down (as per, prior to the novels, Isstvan V) - no way were all the 'almost ready' recruits also there. Nor the apothecaries or geneseed repositories or, thanks to the vagaries of the warp, even is it likely that the entire companies made it. Individual squads, even lone ships with sub-squad detachments. What about the candidates on Mars?

 

There's a whole side there that just hasn't got a look in. Not a mention.

 

Hell, given that Koorland is logically now master of an (absent, unmentioned) super-fortress-spaceship-thing with an (also absent, unmentioned) army of only tech-support, vital medical staff, drill sergeants and raw recruits... that'd be an interesting 'burden' in itself. Let alone also continuing the fight..

[Mellow]

I know this is random but a quick question about the Phalanx.

 

In the HH Novel Mechanicus at the beginning of the book The Emperor comes down in a "mahoosive" space craft. Literally described as the biggest thing ever and defying gravity by the fact that it floats in atmosphere. He then pops out on his own with no helmet on showing his lack of oxygen awesome-ness and gives a broken war machine a special touch and says heal thyself.

 

.... I love that scene, but anyway. Is that the Phalanx he comes down in or some other special mega craft to show how clever the Emperor was?

[Xisor]

I think that was the Bucephelus, but I think the Imperator Somnium is the one that gets seen as His flagship later in the series. Moreover, I could be wrong. Someone'll remember right.

 

The Phalanx is more star fort (e.g. the grounded thing the Fists Exemplar had as a Fortress Monastery) than spaceship - far less agile and capable in its mobility than, say, a Battle Barge.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

You guys are spot on with the Phalanx. Also Inwit, or other domains. (Has Necromunda been colonised by this point? Is it an IF recruiting world?)

 

More to the point, this is again one of those cases where the logic breaks down (as per, prior to the novels, Isstvan V) - no way were all the 'almost ready' recruits also there. Nor the apothecaries or geneseed repositories or, thanks to the vagaries of the warp, even is it likely that the entire companies made it. Individual squads, even lone ships with sub-squad detachments. What about the candidates on Mars?

 

There's a whole side there that just hasn't got a look in. Not a mention.

 

Hell, given that Koorland is logically now master of an (absent, unmentioned) super-fortress-spaceship-thing with an (also absent, unmentioned) army of only tech-support, vital medical staff, drill sergeants and raw recruits... that'd be an interesting 'burden' in itself. Let alone also continuing the fight..

It's an active tradeoff. If you want to see all those above ... you get the HH. Where they're making random stuff up (IS, looking straight at you...so hard) or going into side streets and stories explaining things that are not vital to the core story simply for the sake of explanation.

[klisof]

It's not the phalanx in the novel mechanicus, that happened before the great crusade left the sol system.

When the great crusade's fleets reach Inwit Dorn cruises up to them in the in the phalanx at the head of his own fleet, pledges loyalty to the Emperor and gives him the keys to his ship. The Emperor then returns the phalanx to Dorn.

So when the events in mechanicus happen Dorn's driving around in the phalanx doing throne knows what

[Xisor]

 

You guys are spot on with the Phalanx. Also Inwit, or other domains. (Has Necromunda been colonised by this point? Is it an IF recruiting world?)

More to the point, this is again one of those cases where the logic breaks down (as per, prior to the novels, Isstvan V) - no way were all the 'almost ready' recruits also there. Nor the apothecaries or geneseed repositories or, thanks to the vagaries of the warp, even is it likely that the entire companies made it. Individual squads, even lone ships with sub-squad detachments. What about the candidates on Mars?

There's a whole side there that just hasn't got a look in. Not a mention.

Hell, given that Koorland is logically now master of an (absent, unmentioned) super-fortress-spaceship-thing with an (also absent, unmentioned) army of only tech-support, vital medical staff, drill sergeants and raw recruits... that'd be an interesting 'burden' in itself. Let alone also continuing the fight..

 

It's an active tradeoff. If you want to see all those above ... you get the HH. Where they're making random stuff up (IS, looking straight at you...so hard) or going into side streets and stories explaining things that are not vital to the core story simply for the sake of explanation.

Summary: I thoroughly disagree. (Though I think I get what you're saying.)

 

Action sequences can be cut short, and Heaven's above theres been plenty of long-winded, plot-irrelevant action sequences in the last three novels. (Unless you're after action for its own sake, in which case I can't quibble - that is just a matter of taste.) Aaron's "Helsreach" is my go-to example of that. So many huge action sequences are literally skipped over. Lots of prelude and preamble, then skip ahead to "well, that was a hell of a fight. So anyway, what was I saying?"

 

It's the difference between "Path of Heaven" and "Vengeful Spirit", both have superfluous storylines that could be stripped out and replaced with something more conventional or lean - but one has it all near flawlessly integrated so that exploration of some unusual aspects of the Imperium seems seamless, the other examines what's happening in a backwater bit of the Heresy and somehow has to force together a return to the mainstream with a strange (if enjoyably written) bloated diversion concerning an unusual aspect of the Imperium that has zip-all to do with the main plot.

 

So, to that end, I'd say it's not an active tradeoff. It's definitely not a zero sum game. And if it is, a huge portion of that sum is spent on unecessary pieces that are common to most BL books. ("Space Marines mowing down cultists/orks/whoever/other Space Marines as they struggle against improbable and implausible odds using surprisingly simplistic 'tactics'.")

 

Of course, I digress.

 

---

 

I suppose my contention can be boiled down to this: there are three things people seem to love about TBA. (Unusual characters [high lords], mad surprises [Eldrad blew up the moon], pacey thrillers [no time to depict the biggest battles of the last 1400 years; Vangorich left the oven on!]) It seems a bit sad to retreat from them and go back to the old "mowing the cultist lawn" ('the grass is always greenskins...'?!) when that trio could be enhanced or augmented.

 

Imagine:

the stalemate on Mars to get Kubik to cooperate ends, but in doing so Koorland had to play so hardball he ended up getting his own techmarines, hostages of Mars, executed...

 

That would explain why we haven't heard from any, but it might have been mentioned. Or vaguely implied.

 

 

---

 

I'm making myself sound very negative here though, which isn't the funnest for everyone. Try to imagine me instead... wishlisting and "wouldn't it have been nice...". A bit jabby finger-pointing, I know, but it stems from too much of a good thing - the series has been very enjoyably political for BL in recent years.

 

If you want a tl;dr it's that I'd like much more of the political/unusual stuff. Much more. Because what we've had has been really good. (And you could strip out the bolter porn if it's a question of space, which I'm not convinced it is.)

[DarkChaplain]

You guys are spot on with the Phalanx. Also Inwit, or other domains. (Has Necromunda been colonised by this point? Is it an IF recruiting world?)

 

More to the point, this is again one of those cases where the logic breaks down (as per, prior to the novels, Isstvan V) - no way were all the 'almost ready' recruits also there. Nor the apothecaries or geneseed repositories or, thanks to the vagaries of the warp, even is it likely that the entire companies made it. Individual squads, even lone ships with sub-squad detachments. What about the candidates on Mars?

 

There's a whole side there that just hasn't got a look in. Not a mention.

 

Hell, given that Koorland is logically now master of an (absent, unmentioned) super-fortress-spaceship-thing with an (also absent, unmentioned) army of only tech-support, vital medical staff, drill sergeants and raw recruits... that'd be an interesting 'burden' in itself. Let alone also continuing the fight..

 

That's basically all stuff I want to tackle when I get around to finishing the series and can put all there was and wasn't on the table. There's a huge amount of points to discuss about the series as a whole once it is wrapped up. Missing Chapters, overlooked technology, recruits gone, glancing over various factors that should be actively addressed, plot points that seemingly exist solely for foreboding post-series, things not adding up and screwed-up pacing.

At this point it'd have felt better to see the Ork attack moon over Terra appearing a few books later, rather than being sidelined for a couple of installments for example. Vulkan and the assault on Ullanor could have happened earlier, the moon being a retaliatory event. Heck, they could've crushed half the IF in book one and the rest at Ullanor too, to make them adapt the Deathwatch style force composition.

 

I personally really liked The Emperor Expects for its fleet action and characters, but in the context of the series, it seems rather redundant and pointless. A lot of Predator, Prey could have been spliced into I Am Slaughter too.

There's so many pacing problems that are obvious looking at the series itself, while the individual books still work for the most part in what they're trying to do. I feel that a LOT of those come down to it being a series of 12 200-250 page novels rather than the regular 400 pages, and cut down to 6 books.

Of course, having the books written out of order (see various interviews; David Guymer I believe said a bit about it), the first few on ice for years before publishing, didn't help. That is going to provide you with plenty of identity problems.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

 

 

You guys are spot on with the Phalanx. Also Inwit, or other domains. (Has Necromunda been colonised by this point? Is it an IF recruiting world?)

More to the point, this is again one of those cases where the logic breaks down (as per, prior to the novels, Isstvan V) - no way were all the 'almost ready' recruits also there. Nor the apothecaries or geneseed repositories or, thanks to the vagaries of the warp, even is it likely that the entire companies made it. Individual squads, even lone ships with sub-squad detachments. What about the candidates on Mars?

There's a whole side there that just hasn't got a look in. Not a mention.

Hell, given that Koorland is logically now master of an (absent, unmentioned) super-fortress-spaceship-thing with an (also absent, unmentioned) army of only tech-support, vital medical staff, drill sergeants and raw recruits... that'd be an interesting 'burden' in itself. Let alone also continuing the fight..

It's an active tradeoff. If you want to see all those above ... you get the HH. Where they're making random stuff up (IS, looking straight at you...so hard) or going into side streets and stories explaining things that are not vital to the core story simply for the sake of explanation.

Summary: I thoroughly disagree. (Though I think I get what you're saying.)

 

Action sequences can be cut short, and Heaven's above theres been plenty of long-winded, plot-irrelevant action sequences in the last three novels. (Unless you're after action for its own sake, in which case I can't quibble - that is just a matter of taste.) Aaron's "Helsreach" is my go-to example of that. So many huge action sequences are literally skipped over. Lots of prelude and preamble, then skip ahead to "well, that was a hell of a fight. So anyway, what was I saying?"

 

It's the difference between "Path of Heaven" and "Vengeful Spirit", both have superfluous storylines that could be stripped out and replaced with something more conventional or lean - but one has it all near flawlessly integrated so that exploration of some unusual aspects of the Imperium seems seamless, the other examines what's happening in a backwater bit of the Heresy and somehow has to force together a return to the mainstream with a strange (if enjoyably written) bloated diversion concerning an unusual aspect of the Imperium that has zip-all to do with the main plot.

 

So, to that end, I'd say it's not an active tradeoff. It's definitely not a zero sum game. And if it is, a huge portion of that sum is spent on unecessary pieces that are common to most BL books. ("Space Marines mowing down cultists/orks/whoever/other Space Marines as they struggle against improbable and implausible odds using surprisingly simplistic 'tactics'.")

 

Of course, I digress.

 

---

 

I suppose my contention can be boiled down to this: there are three things people seem to love about TBA. (Unusual characters [high lords], mad surprises [Eldrad blew up the moon], pacey thrillers [no time to depict the biggest battles of the last 1400 years; Vangorich left the oven on!]) It seems a bit sad to retreat from them and go back to the old "mowing the cultist lawn" ('the grass is always greenskins...'?!) when that trio could be enhanced or augmented.

 

Imagine:

the stalemate on Mars to get Kubik to cooperate ends, but in doing so Koorland had to play so hardball he ended up getting his own techmarines, hostages of Mars, executed...

 

That would explain why we haven't heard from any, but it might have been mentioned. Or vaguely implied.

 

 

---

 

I'm making myself sound very negative here though, which isn't the funnest for everyone. Try to imagine me instead... wishlisting and "wouldn't it have been nice...". A bit jabby finger-pointing, I know, but it stems from too much of a good thing - the series has been very enjoyably political for BL in recent years.

 

If you want a tl;dr it's that I'd like much more of the political/unusual stuff. Much more. Because what we've had has been really good. (And you could strip out the bolter porn if it's a question of space, which I'm not convinced it is.)

 

We might actually be talking around each other - my point revolves around the 'grander' aspects - what happened to X system(s), what occurred to A/B/C chapters, details on what was going on surrounding the main thrusts of the Ork offensive (of which we actually know little - we know attacks have been happening all across the IoM, but details beyond some off-hand mentions of UM/BA/SW actions are missing) would lead to arcs within arcs, stories nestled within narratives that spin off to nowhere. That's the tradeoff I'm talking about, not whether a portion of a novel is action heavy or not. 

Granted, stripping out the action could potentially help by offering more space to do the above, but at that point it would seem to me that any single novel that had too much of that would seem like it got stretched out too far, and read too much like a series of Codex shorts rather than any coherent narrative. 

[Xisor]

Vaddon: not quite at cross purposes, but you clearly state a very interesting point too - 'fractal story telling', there's story at every level of the plot. And that does unravel a lot of my thinking, or steal wind from my sails!

 

At the highest, galactic level, there's rich story. At the lowest underhiver scum level, there's rich story. And all the way in between. We got a great cross section of that in the first three books, a real slice from almost 'everywhere' in the Imperium. (Well, not everywhere, but a plausible sample, given the length of the books.)

 

And it's undeniably true - pushing too hard in representing that *will* lead to an infinite regress of stories within stories.

 

That said, you also mentioned the little quips about Blood Angels, Wolves and Ultramarines. With an action scene replaced by a 'walking and talking' political scene, you can thread through a lot more of that detail and allusion. Not to, in prose, take us to Ultramar to see the fight, in detail, but little nuggets mentioned, little details here and there - these can be presented in a sensible way within the confines of the existing story (Koorland is coordinating not just Terra, but the Imperium, as Lord Commander Guilliman, afterall).

 

I'd happily take a few more 'go nowhere' plot threads that are illustrative and interesting than Deathwatch action sequences.

 

Hell, if one book was just "Know No Fear", but with the entire Imperium rather than Calth... that'd be alright. (Though arguably that was Predator, Prey - similar in effect.)

 

----

 

@DC: I'm inclined to think, overall, that that reasoning is exactly *why* I'm not too fussed about moaning about the series (in a way I tend not to feel about the more standalone books, even of the Heresy). That is: we know fine well it's an experiment that has no set pedigree, no training manual. Obviously it can't and won't be 100% optimised, and I hope the authors/editors will do a thorough post-mortem once the series is complete. Not because I want them to agonise over mistakes or shame them or rate and rank everything - but because I love the concept, and even the execution. Imagine if they could do it again and iron out most of, or all of, the undesired kinks?

 

Wouldn't that be something?

 

To that end, I'm quite happy..

 

But questions like "where is the Phalanx?" aren't a symptom of the series - any author could have dropped in a mention or plausible explanation. Hell, maybe it's wrecked over Armatura...

 

Same with Watchers in Death having a few of go-nowhere action sequences, though that could be argued differently. If the series had rigorously, with extraordinary discipline applied "keep it short and snappy, really fast paced and twisty", then the last three books might have been written with significantly different content making the final cut.

 

(E.g. not quite so many drawn out action sequences, though in fairness to the Beast Must Die, it thematically earned the 'slog' - I'm not convinced that THfV or WiD do the same, though I am biased in massively enjoying the far more politcky/astonishing bits of Annandale's work.)

[HeritorA]

Can we really be certain at this point that Titan and the Grey Knights have reappeared yet? The Codex is pretty vague, just marking it as "c. M31", but their first actual documented engagement was in 938.M32, long after the Beast's war. With how many things have been in flux recently, it isn't unlikely that this isn't quite correct anymore.

After all, they'd have been around by the 1st Black Crusade if they had been there right then already, nevermind the second just 50 odd years post-Beast. Neither is mentioned in their Codex, nor otherwise. It seems more plausible that they reappeared in the later half of M32 at this point.

 

I'm more surprised about the continued absence of the Phalanx...

Could someone explain 'Phalanx' absence? Cause tis beyond strange.

[Xisor]

As folks suggest, HeritorA - there's reasons that are plausible, just none that are explicitly (or even implicitly) mentioned or discussed in the novels, that I can recall.

 

Some candidates are:

- it's absent (warp travel, innit? Maybe it's been in transit for a while, but not so long anyone's worried it is Lost in the Warp).

- it's ruined and wrecked around Armatura, just like the rest of the IF fleet.

[HeritorA]

As folks suggest, HeritorA - there's reasons that are plausible, just none that are explicitly (or even implicitly) mentioned or discussed in the novels, that I can recall.

 

Some candidates are:

- it's absent (warp travel, innit? Maybe it's been in transit for a while, but not so long anyone's worried it is Lost in the Warp).

- it's ruined and wrecked around Armatura, just like the rest of the IF fleet.

not the second - cause it would have been mentioned for sure! Lost in the Warp for YEARS?  And nobody of all the successors even mentioned it? Nothing plausible here

[Xisor]

Could have been mentioned off camera, off course.

 

Anyway, you pass near a detail that always fascinates me...

 

It can *take* years to get places in the Imperium. Set off from Terra in 001M33 aiming to go as fast as safely possible to Armageddon (edge of Segmentum Solar).

 

Two questions:

A- what year do you arrive?

B- how much time have you experienced?

 

The answers could be any of (and more)

A- {980M32, 010M33, 020M33, 001M33 [not long after you left]}

B- d6 {days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries, turns of the galaxy}

And in any combination. (Most discussions with navigators in the lore indicates there are 'mean times' - but that it's all far too subjective, only Navigators really make sense of it. ["You set off on a Tuesday, and the left handed people on your ship were mostly Capricorns, but it was an odd number of women in the crew between the age of 32 and 36, so you'll either get there in ten minutes and arrive in the year 2130, or a 15% chance of emerging during the War in Heaven (or beyond)..."])

 

 

Not to mention lost in the Warp. One of the downsides about being lost in the Warp is very few people can be sure that you're lost, not late.

 

There's also the possibility it's (known) stuck somewhere, maybe under repair. But of it was under active service and could theoretically be recalled - I just don't know why they wouldn't even mention it.

 

---

 

But that's all by the by, because it's not discussed in the TBA novels!

[Arkangilos]

 

 

As folks suggest, HeritorA - there's reasons that are plausible, just none that are explicitly (or even implicitly) mentioned or discussed in the novels, that I can recall.

 

Some candidates are:

- it's absent (warp travel, innit? Maybe it's been in transit for a while, but not so long anyone's worried it is Lost in the Warp).

- it's ruined and wrecked around Armatura, just like the rest of the IF fleet.

not the second - cause it would have been mentioned for sure! Lost in the Warp for YEARS? And nobody of all the successors even mentioned it? Nothing plausible here

Yes, there are ships that can be lost in the warp for years. There can even be ships that aren't lost that take far longer than other ships to get there.

[DarkChaplain]

Nevermind Space Hulks that can disappear for millennia