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The Beast Arises


Vorenus

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One of the blurbs for future books mentions survivors ... 

 

 

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As for the length of the book, it's ok, and doesn't feel too light, more tight.

 

As for the innovations with the Fists - why do people complain about changes to something which is 1500 years after one setting we know, and 8000 or thereabouts before the more common setting of 40K. That's the difference of pre-Islamic Middle East to the present Middle East or late Roman Ravenna to modern day Ravenna for the former - there is continuity, in architecture, ideas, etc, but also near-total difference in how people live and act and think and speak. Macrosystmes such as religion continue, but in totally different ways. The difference between M32 and M40 is even more dramatic - 7000-8000 years there is so little that is familiar from then to today!

 

Really stop worrying about supposedly disruptive new ideas - even in this Gormenghast-esque world of decaying continuous heritage - and instead accept that in 9-10000 years of course things would change and evolve. 10000 years ago was the end of the Upper Paleolithic period! There is nothing wrong with new ideas, changes, micro-continuities, and difference - history is complex, varied and multicultural. It's more fallacious to suggest that from M31 there would be so little change, especially across a society which is thousands of times more complex than the real world.

  On 12/1/2015 at 11:44 AM, Petitioner's City said:

As for the innovations with the Fists - why do people complain about changes to something which is 1500 years after one setting we know, and 8000 or thereabouts before the more common setting of 40K. That's the difference of pre-Islamic Middle East to the present Middle East or late Roman Ravenna to modern day Ravenna for the former - there is continuity, in architecture, ideas, etc, but also near-total difference in how people live and act and think and speak. Macrosystmes such as religion continue, but in totally different ways. The difference between M32 and M40 is even more dramatic - 7000-8000 years there is so little that is familiar from then to today!

 

Really stop worrying about supposedly disruptive new ideas - even in this Gormenghast-esque world of decaying continuous heritage - and instead accept that in 9-10000 years of course things would change and evolve. 10000 years ago was the end of the Upper Paleolithic period! There is nothing wrong with new ideas, changes, micro-continuities, and difference - history is complex, varied and multicultural. It's more fallacious to suggest that from M31 there would be so little change, especially across a society which is thousands of times more complex than the real world.

 

Not sure I've seen anyone here complain about these but really, what are the changes from what we've seen?

 

- The body of the Fists (possibly the battle companies?) are called the shield-corps

- The individual companies have honourific names connected to walls; e.g. Daylight Wall is 2nd company

- The marines themselves have personal names and names used by their brothers; e.g. Slaughter, Killshot

- They have a particular veteran cadre/honour guard who are forbidden to leave Terra (until now)

- They still have Stormbirds, breacher-type troops and/or sometimes fight with sword and combat shield

 

They are not major differences but I agree, they are well within the bounds of changes and micro-continuities. The wall-references for both companies and brothers really speaks to a force that has mostly been guarding Terra for two thousand years rather than out crusading. Not surprising that it's a feature that appeared post-heresy but hasn't lasted until the 41st millennium. Would love to see more of that type of thing, it's exactly the sort of complexity you mention that is so interesting.

I don't take umbrage when space marines use more than their codex entry weapons. A modern rifle squads has plenty of variation so there no reason to think that space marines would be supplied with a uniform set of weapons for every squad. Just because it doesn't say something in a codex entry, and it doesnt have rules on the table top doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The skitarii in Cybernetica carried plasma fusils, the Justaerin in Vengeful Spirit carried boarding shields, and the captain from Space Marine had a grenade launcher (something I might one day attempt to add to a tactical squad with my planned bolster SAW variant). 

 

However, it wasn't really clear if the Fists followed the Codex at all. That would be a full 180 degree turn from 'being second to the Ultramarines in Codex adherence'.

Far from complaining about the greater characterisation given to the Fists of M32 I applaud it and will be sorry when it is lost in the post Beast rebuild of the Chapter (however they go about it). IMHO it is the first real attempt to give them an internal culture that was more than yellow painted UM. Slaughter for new Chapter Master? Wouldn't surprise me.
  On 12/1/2015 at 12:51 PM, Marshal Rohr said:

 

However, it wasn't really clear if the Fists followed the Codex at all. That would be a full 180 degree turn from 'being second to the Ultramarines in Codex adherence'.

 

There was a reference to the chapter being a thousand strong (I think when the second wave was arriving from Terra?) but yeah, most of the other aspects of following the codex seem to have gone unmentioned.

Imperial Fists naming themselves "Slaughter" and "Killshot"?

 

Oy vey.

 

There are actual Chaos Marines pointing at them and laughing for having silly, trying to hard names, and that's the faction where "Hatelord Soulstabber Snarlyface" is a perfectly acceptable thing to call yourself.

  On 12/1/2015 at 5:17 PM, Wade Garrett said:

Imperial Fists naming themselves "Slaughter" and "Killshot"?

Oy vey.

There are actual Chaos Marines pointing at them and laughing for having silly, trying to hard names, and that's the faction where "Hatelord Soulstabber Snarlyface" is a perfectly acceptable thing to call yourself.

This.

I like the idea of those Fists guarding the Palace giving up their names and taken the moniker of their duty posts in the palace.

But as I said elsewhere, while I quite like the book so far, these other monikers make me feel I am reading the server chat on

Call of Duty M32: Dorn of War...

Welp. Dan Abnett really must it in for Imperial Fists. First, he kills 5th Company in Space Marine, and now this. Guy must be an Iron Warriors player or something, idk.

But...

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Other run that, it was a good read. The political angle was cool. But Abnett has a habit of being heavy handed with thematic appeals to space marine chapter/legion character (remember that Wolfy wolf wolf wolf-tastic trope in the wolf book?) The wall-references were a bit much, though the wall-names is less lame if the given names are taken to be low gothic and one imagines there are high gothic equivalents.

Although it might seem like a hard sell Option 1 would not be that hard to do i reckon. At the end we only really saw a small section of the blisternest, where Slaughter and his group were holed up. When it was first attacked it was on all fronts and on several levels. Who is to say that there are not many other small to medium sized groups of IF survivors in other sections?

 

Having said that, my money is on Slaughter surviving those six Orks and being the one to rebuild the Chapter, either with some scouts left lying about somewhere or volunteers from other sons of Dorn.

  On 12/1/2015 at 10:50 PM, augustmanifesto said:

Other run that, it was a good read. The political angle was cool. But Abnett has a habit of being heavy handed with thematic appeals to space marine chapter/legion character (remember that Wolfy wolf wolf wolf-tastic trope in the wolf book?) The wall-references were a bit much, though the wall-names is less lame if the given names are taken to be low gothic and one imagines there are high gothic equivalents.

 

Yah! 'Slaughter' in Latin could be Caedes, Occionis, Internicio, Cruor and several other fancy words, in Old English Fiell, etc. 

  On 12/2/2015 at 11:45 AM, Brother Antipodes said:

Although it might seem like a hard sell Option 1 would not be that hard to do i reckon. At the end we only really saw a small section of the blisternest, where Slaughter and his group were holed up. When it was first attacked it was on all fronts and on several levels. Who is to say that there are not many other small to medium sized groups of IF survivors in other sections?

Having said that, my money is on Slaughter surviving those six Orks and being the one to rebuild the Chapter, either with some scouts left lying about somewhere or volunteers from other sons of Dorn.

Yeah. Would be very loken-esque. And if slaughter were the imperial fist who killed draken, well, then, that would just make sense :-)

Augustmanifesto - not started my copy yet buuuut there do seem to be some tantalizing hints in the blurbs for the forthcoming books in the series over on BLs page. Something about 'the last survivors of ardamantua make their plans for the future' and 'the sons of Dorn assemble to fulfil their legacy' or  somesuch so make of that what you will. 

  On 12/2/2015 at 9:50 PM, lost_angel said:

Augustmanifesto - not started my copy yet buuuut there do seem to be some tantalizing hints in the blurbs for the forthcoming books in the series over on BLs page. Something about 'the last survivors of ardamantua make their plans for the future' and 'the sons of Dorn assemble to fulfil their legacy' or  somesuch so make of that what you will. 

 

excellent call. I missed that. One makes reference to the Phall System. interesting! 

  On 12/3/2015 at 7:14 AM, Sete said:

The new IF will be ultramarines. That would explain their strict codex adherence.

msn-wink.gif

FWIW strict adherence to the Codex was affected by Rogal Dorn under current cannon. Not sure if we're looking at the process of that being retconned, which could be, given that Slaughter's rank was second-captain, which I don't think was a Codex-sanctioned position.

But I could get down with the retcon that codex-adherence came out of this rebuilding (so long as no Ultramarines are not involved...) as part of developing the character of the entire Chapter. Similarly, I wonder if Abnett is foreshadowing the Imperial Fists geneseed decay in the discussion in the text about how Space Marines would eventually die off (as in all them) as the integrity of their genesedes degrades and if we might witness that in this series (i.e., the Betcher's Gland and/or the Sus-an Membrane functions going away, as is the case with M42 Imperial Fists).

Anywho, enough idle speculation by me.

Yeah, maybe, but it's clear that something significant happened by way of keeping the geneseed and implants relatively intact, as it's stated that the SM will probably be unfeasible to create in like 500 more years after the novel ends. Obviously there are more SM being created, and hell there are even full foundings after M32 so it'll be interesting to dive into how that occurs.

There is a veritable explosion of Foundings in the M34/35 region, both millennia holding more Foundings than the other 8 thousand years together.

 

Perhaps the reason why is that whatever issue is being hinted at was overcome and the Adeptus Astartes was in dire need of new Chapters.

  On 11/28/2015 at 11:51 PM, TDF said:

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OK, these 2 points really need extrapolation. If you're going to spoil, fully spoil dammit! None of this cryptic stuff msn-wink.gif.

As to the story in general. Can't say anything I've read here has made me more enthused towards this event. It just feels like the same old steps, but with a different coating. 'Bad thing happens to the Imperium, Massive Imperial Casualties, Pyrrhic Victory at best for the humans'. Sorry to say, but I'm just sick of it. Codex fluff, IA books, the mess that was Warzone: Damocles, HH series and now this. I'm fed up with the faction I prefer never seeming to get a break. I honestly wonder how the Imperium's meant to have endured for 10,000 years while seeming to never conclusively win a war (unless it's a civil war). I miss the days where was still some hope mixed in with the Grimdark, rather than 'all Grimdark, all the time', which just leaves me increasingly apathetic.

Edit: That went a lot more tangential than I planned.unsure.png

What TDF is referring to is 

 

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which is something that we've already known to be true to a degree, as Malcador had sent VI legion Marines to various primarchs/legions. Other than that it's just looking back on some of their actions with some embellishment.

And the whole Lord Guilliman thing shouldn't be a spoiler per se; by now Guilliman is dead but the office of the Lord Commander of the Imperium is referred to as 'Lord Guilliman' at this time in history. It's really more of an interesting honorific than any important plot detail at all.

  On 12/3/2015 at 8:51 PM, Leif Bearclaw said:

 

As to the story in general. Can't say anything I've read here has made me more enthused towards this event. It just feels like the same old steps, but with a different coating. 'Bad thing happens to the Imperium, Massive Imperial Casualties, Pyrrhic Victory at best for the humans'.

This was book 1 of 12. They have a long way to go before I think we can write it off as "a Pyrrhic victory at best".

  On 12/3/2015 at 9:41 PM, Apothecary Vaddon said:

What TDF is referring to is 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

which is something that we've already known to be true to a degree, as Malcador had sent VI legion Marines to various primarchs/legions. Other than that it's just looking back on some of their actions with some embellishment.

And the whole Lord Guilliman thing shouldn't be a spoiler per se; by now Guilliman is dead but the office of the Lord Commander of the Imperium is referred to as 'Lord Guilliman' at this time in history. It's really more of an interesting honorific than any important plot detail at all.

I spoilered Lord Guilliman because I didn't want to ruin the shock of reading that name in the narrative and thinking there was a retcon for ten seconds before you read the next paragraph. :)

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