Treading dangerous ground? Is saying this heresy?

[veterannoob]

I would not be shocked if Lorgar dies during the Heresy.  Both Erebus and Kor Phaeron might be lying he's alive to better control their brothers.

What exactly happens to the big L? All I can find are wikis which have a lot of 'missing' which is fair because the fluff probably leaves it that way. But y'all know more about this stuff than I do so I put it to you.

[A D-B]

Do the author's read each other's books in full? If not maybe that explains how they are not as sick of Curze as I am

I ask that cause maybe they avoid reading them in full to avoid plagiarizing, or developing two stories of too similar themes.

I wouldn't care if any of the Primarch fates are changed. Although my only caveat is that it is changed and still good.

Some do, some don't. Some used to and don't any more. Some always will, albeit late. You'll find that with IP work, in general - no, authors don't. Star Wars authors don't read all of the other Star Wars novels, same with Star Trek, and so on. With directly sequential series that might be a different matter, but it's a case by case basis, and is one of the reasons why continuity folks exist all over IP work.

Added to that is a stickier and sweeter truth (and one I've tried to explain on the B&C a fair few times so I apologise if I'm repeating myself) is that you're not ultimately beholden to other authors, you're beholden to the IP. As it's always been explained to me: "There is no single 40K. There's "something" in a box. Everyone gets a lens to look inside and they'll see different parts or different angles of a giant monster. But there's no fixed form or shape for that monster."

The best way to relate this is that as an author or a designer, your mandate is to write as true to your perception of 40K as possible, not to adhere solidly to every other author or designer's work - which would be impossible. A lot of how I see 40K directly contradicts other authors' perceptions, and that's fine. Theirs contradicts mine. That's fine, too. That's the point. Most of my feel and perception of 40K's detail comes from 2nd and 3rd Edition, with smatterings of cool stuff that I picked up from the others. The Codex Imperialis is my Bible, if you will. By and large, 40K isn't Star Wars to be galactically tied up in one squidgy alien invasion for decades and then needing to be rebooted because someone else has a different idea. 40K is about sandboxes: yours, mine, that guy's, that girl's. Everyone gets a sandbox to present their own view of the lore, whether you're an author, player, collector, or whatever else.

Those sandboxes can be huge or small, but I try not to speak too much for anyone else, so - as a personal example - Khayon could so easily be lying about the entire Black Legion Series, and my Night Lords Trilogy was about one particular little warband, not the entire Legion, and so on. (I call these "trapdoors", by the way. Trapdoors are what you build into 40K work so you're not "claiming" a faction completely or definitively speaking for them and ruining future attempts by other people to write about them. The good thing about most trapdoors is that they occur naturally and seamlessly with unreliable narrators, too. See: Wuthering Heights or The Haunting of Hill House.)

An even easier example would be, say, "the Daniverse" as it's known. I love Dan's work. I take a day off whenever he releases a book, so I can devour it immediately. But I can also recognise a bunch of stuff even in my beloved Eisenhorn that doesn't match my understanding of the Inquisition, or the old sourcebooks for the Inquisitor game, and so on. If I wrote an Inquisition book, I'd be beholden to my understanding of the lore, not Dan's novels. And that's exactly how it should be. I build enough trapdoors in my work that no one going near the Grey Knights or Black Templars or Night Lords ever really needs to fear the fact I've been near them first. My stuff won't affect them at all. You probably could (and arguably should be able to) delete any author or designer at all, all of their work, and lose a unique and valuable voice with a great look at the setting, but not any definitive "It all works like this" lore.

To reference your last point though, dude, the key word is "good". You might be fine with the primarchs' fates changing as long as they're done well, but I can guarantee you the wider reaction would be somewhere between a triumvirate: 1/3 would say "I like this change, it's good." 1/3 would say "I don't like this change, it's bad." And 1/3 would say "Any change at all is bad."

[Augustus]

Thanks, as always, for providing the opinion of an author! I always liked that outlook of the IP. One author I can enjoy the setting like "this" and another like "that".

[Kelborn]

So there is indeed a council or something like that which is in charge to keep the continuity.

 

Glad to hear that. How does it work?

 

"Nah, A D B, you can't do that?"

"Well, ok. Just why?"

"Chris had that idea and we allowed him to work on it."

"Wait...he had the idea of a Hawaiian successor chapter of the Scars before me?"

"Yeah...no, not really. There was a guy in the B&C forum who was working on it. But as Chris was faster and better in writing them, he published that before this guy. Called them Storm Raider or something like that."

". . . Ok, what's left then?"

"Let's see. You can write something about the Rainbow Warriors against a warband called Bearers of Joy, a Word Bearer warband dedicated to Slaanesh. And they got ragtag armor. As a mirror image to "Rainbow"...got it? gnahahaha."

":cuss my life... -.-"

 

*Keep in mind: that was a joke*

 

But seriously, who has the idea first? The author or those guys? I'm interested in those back office procedures. ^^

[HeritorA]

Do the author's read each other's books in full? If not maybe that explains how they are not as sick of Curze as I am

I ask that cause maybe they avoid reading them in full to avoid plagiarizing, or developing two stories of too similar themes.

I wouldn't care if any of the Primarch fates are changed. Although my only caveat is that it is changed and still good.

Some do, some don't. Some used to and don't any more. Some always will, albeit late. You'll find that with IP work, in general - no, authors don't. Star Wars authors don't read all of the other Star Wars novels, same with Star Trek, and so on. With directly sequential series that might be a different matter, but it's a case by case basis, and is one of the reasons why continuity folks exist all over IP work.

Added to that is a stickier and sweeter truth (and one I've tried to explain on the B&C a fair few times so I apologise if I'm repeating myself) is that you're not ultimately beholden to other authors, you're beholden to the IP. As it's always been explained to me: "There is no single 40K. There's "something" in a box. Everyone gets a lens to look inside and they'll see different parts or different angles of a giant monster. But there's no fixed form or shape for that monster."

The best way to relate this is that as an author or a designer, your mandate is to write as true to your perception of 40K as possible, not to adhere solidly to every other author or designer's work - which would be impossible. A lot of how I see 40K directly contradicts other authors' perceptions, and that's fine. Theirs contradicts mine. That's fine, too. That's the point. Most of my feel and perception of 40K's detail comes from 2nd and 3rd Edition, with smatterings of cool stuff that I picked up from the others. The Codex Imperialis is my Bible, if you will. By and large, 40K isn't Star Wars to be galactically tied up in one squidgy alien invasion for decades and then needing to be rebooted because someone else has a different idea. 40K is about sandboxes: yours, mine, that guy's, that girl's. Everyone gets a sandbox to present their own view of the lore, whether you're an author, player, collector, or whatever else.

Those sandboxes can be huge or small, but I try not to speak too much for anyone else, so - as a personal example - Khayon could so easily be lying about the entire Black Legion Series, and my Night Lords Trilogy was about one particular little warband, not the entire Legion, and so on. (I call these "trapdoors", by the way. Trapdoors are what you build into 40K work so you're not "claiming" a faction completely or definitively speaking for them and ruining future attempts by other people to write about them. The good thing about most trapdoors is that they occur naturally and seamlessly with unreliable narrators, too. See: Wuthering Heights or The Haunting of Hill House.)

An even easier example would be, say, "the Daniverse" as it's known. I love Dan's work. I take a day off whenever he releases a book, so I can devour it immediately. But I can also recognise a bunch of stuff even in my beloved Eisenhorn that doesn't match my understanding of the Inquisition, or the old sourcebooks for the Inquisitor game, and so on. If I wrote an Inquisition book, I'd be beholden to my understanding of the lore, not Dan's novels. And that's exactly how it should be. I build enough trapdoors in my work that no one going near the Grey Knights or Black Templars or Night Lords ever really needs to fear the fact I've been near them first. My stuff won't affect them at all. You probably could (and arguably should be able to) delete any author or designer at all, all of their work, and lose a unique and valuable voice with a great look at the setting, but not any definitive "It all works like this" lore.

To reference your last point though, dude, the key word is "good". You might be fine with the primarchs' fates changing as long as they're done well, but I can guarantee you the wider reaction would be somewhere between a triumvirate: 1/3 would say "I like this change, it's good." 1/3 would say "I don't like this change, it's bad." And 1/3 would say "Any change at all is bad."

And no changes at all - destroy all the interest in the book. All of us already know the fates of Primarchs A D-B. Reading about another duel Lion-Curze is like 'what, again? Or for .... sake' I could even now guess the ending of the one from the AoC - Lion almost kills Curze and then blue buffon Guilliman arrives and snatch Lion to his flagship right before Lion decapitates Curze.

[A D-B]

Do the author's read each other's books in full? If not maybe that explains how they are not as sick of Curze as I am

I ask that cause maybe they avoid reading them in full to avoid plagiarizing, or developing two stories of too similar themes.

I wouldn't care if any of the Primarch fates are changed. Although my only caveat is that it is changed and still good.

Some do, some don't. Some used to and don't any more. Some always will, albeit late. You'll find that with IP work, in general - no, authors don't. Star Wars authors don't read all of the other Star Wars novels, same with Star Trek, and so on. With directly sequential series that might be a different matter, but it's a case by case basis, and is one of the reasons why continuity folks exist all over IP work.

Added to that is a stickier and sweeter truth (and one I've tried to explain on the B&C a fair few times so I apologise if I'm repeating myself) is that you're not ultimately beholden to other authors, you're beholden to the IP. As it's always been explained to me: "There is no single 40K. There's "something" in a box. Everyone gets a lens to look inside and they'll see different parts or different angles of a giant monster. But there's no fixed form or shape for that monster."

The best way to relate this is that as an author or a designer, your mandate is to write as true to your perception of 40K as possible, not to adhere solidly to every other author or designer's work - which would be impossible. A lot of how I see 40K directly contradicts other authors' perceptions, and that's fine. Theirs contradicts mine. That's fine, too. That's the point. Most of my feel and perception of 40K's detail comes from 2nd and 3rd Edition, with smatterings of cool stuff that I picked up from the others. The Codex Imperialis is my Bible, if you will. By and large, 40K isn't Star Wars to be galactically tied up in one squidgy alien invasion for decades and then needing to be rebooted because someone else has a different idea. 40K is about sandboxes: yours, mine, that guy's, that girl's. Everyone gets a sandbox to present their own view of the lore, whether you're an author, player, collector, or whatever else.

Those sandboxes can be huge or small, but I try not to speak too much for anyone else, so - as a personal example - Khayon could so easily be lying about the entire Black Legion Series, and my Night Lords Trilogy was about one particular little warband, not the entire Legion, and so on. (I call these "trapdoors", by the way. Trapdoors are what you build into 40K work so you're not "claiming" a faction completely or definitively speaking for them and ruining future attempts by other people to write about them. The good thing about most trapdoors is that they occur naturally and seamlessly with unreliable narrators, too. See: Wuthering Heights or The Haunting of Hill House.)

An even easier example would be, say, "the Daniverse" as it's known. I love Dan's work. I take a day off whenever he releases a book, so I can devour it immediately. But I can also recognise a bunch of stuff even in my beloved Eisenhorn that doesn't match my understanding of the Inquisition, or the old sourcebooks for the Inquisitor game, and so on. If I wrote an Inquisition book, I'd be beholden to my understanding of the lore, not Dan's novels. And that's exactly how it should be. I build enough trapdoors in my work that no one going near the Grey Knights or Black Templars or Night Lords ever really needs to fear the fact I've been near them first. My stuff won't affect them at all. You probably could (and arguably should be able to) delete any author or designer at all, all of their work, and lose a unique and valuable voice with a great look at the setting, but not any definitive "It all works like this" lore.

To reference your last point though, dude, the key word is "good". You might be fine with the primarchs' fates changing as long as they're done well, but I can guarantee you the wider reaction would be somewhere between a triumvirate: 1/3 would say "I like this change, it's good." 1/3 would say "I don't like this change, it's bad." And 1/3 would say "Any change at all is bad."

And no changes at all - destroy all the interest in the book. All of us already know the fates of Primarchs A D-B. Reading about another duel Lion-Curze is like 'what, again? Or for .... sake' I could even now guess the ending of the one from the AoC - Lion almost kills Curze and then blue buffon Guilliman arrives and snatch Lion to his flagship right before Lion decapitates Curze.

I'll level with you, A. I don't like answering you on here or on FB because you're famously difficult to discuss things with - scathingly negative one moment and strangely positive the next, but almost always abrasive and hostile under the guise of "telling it like it is" - so I'm going to answer, but I don't want to get dragged into a fight. You're using one example (and it's a good example!) of how you personally need to see changes about a certain thing. But it's not a global truth. We knew Boromir was going to go down blowing his horn while the hobbits were taken away, but that moment was still awesome in the movies. We knew Achilles would kill Hector (and we've known for thousands of years) but the Siege of Troy is still a story worth retelling. We know the Emperor will kill Horus, and there's no lack of interest in that book. You don't need to change things for the sake of changing them.

(That said, yes, I'm surprised Curze has been used so much, but that's largely a narrative cul-de-sac of the Imperium Secundus arc, which is coming to an end.)

I like being conservative with the lore. I like taking concepts and ideas and characters I've known about since I was a kid and doing my best to show them as well as I can - showing how awesome they are to me and hoping other people get as interested or enthused. I'm not interested in galaxy-shattering truths that change the firmament of 40K, I'm interested in conveying what it feels like to live in the Imperium, or dwell aboard a Chaos warship, or stand next to a Space Marine and feel the humming buzz of his power armour making your gums ache.

No, not all changes are bad. And yes, you can easily and arguably say that my small-scale approach to the lore is limiting. But I'm never going to be the kind of guy that brings huge changes about, and I'll never be in a meeting where I vote in favour of them. You can already see in my schedule that the more we reveal of the Heresy in stark truth, the less engaged I am in the series. After The Master of Mankind (assuming they hire me again with how late I've been in the past) my next 5-6 ideas are all 40K in nature, not 30K. Subject to change, of course. You never know when inspiration will strike.

That's not criticising the Heresy - and there've been several times that what I've written has necessitated revelations/explanations that changed the firmament, but that's not my first choice and my interests tend to veer in other directions. Besides, the series has gone (and can keep going) along fine without me slowing it down.

But seriously, who has the idea first? The author or those guys? I'm interested in those back office procedures. ^^

It's nothing so formal, really. It's like any editor/author relationship. And, like all things, it's a pendulum dependent on the publisher's direction at the time, the needs of specific projects, the relationships with specific authors, and so on. At one point in time, an author might be contacted to write a specific storyline, which they can do or not as they choose. At another point in time, that same author would be invited to pitch whatever he or she wanted. Meanwhile another author would be trusted to pitch whatever they want, whenever they want, and is never asked about specific "Do this" projects. On the other side of the coin, some authors will get heavily redlined on lore/continuity issues, and others barely get feedback at all, depending on the project in question and their knowledge of the IP.

There's no simple answer. Case by case, author by author, project by project, and all flavoured by the company's direction at the time. The pendulum eternally swings.

tl;dr -- Like any publisher, really.

[Kelborn]

Thanks for the insight.

 

Thought that it might be more strict, for example: Hey authors. We would like you to deal with the following projects. Who wants to do it?

 

But that's way cooler. Way more fluid and reasonable.

 

And those major events like the Unremembered Empire arc was discussed with everyone, right? 'Cause those have a huge impact on the story arc as a whole in comparison to a single novel.

 

And how do the codices fit in? Sometimes there is a discrepancy between novels and codices. Shall I treat the codices as the official, fixed fluff and the novels as part of sandboxes or extended universe like you mentioned it? Do the author of the codices work with you (BL authors) as well or are they a nearly separated team?

 

Maybe HeritorA writes on purpose to annoy us all. ^^

[Roomsky]

ADB's not writing the final 10 books in the HH? Say it ain't so! Come on man, I'd settle for 5, even.

[Loesh]

 

 

I like being conservative with the lore. I like taking concepts and ideas and characters I've known about since I was a kid and doing my best to show them as well as I can - showing how awesome they are to me and hoping other people get as interested or enthused. I'm not interested in galaxy-shattering truths that change the firmament of 40K, I'm interested in conveying what it feels like to live in the Imperium, or dwell aboard a Chaos warship, or stand next to a Space Marine and feel the humming buzz of his power armour making your gums ache. 

 

 

 

 

 

Which is precisely why I love your books in spite of my strong opinions on their subject matter, and why I wish you'd write an Emperors Children book one of these days.

 

But for now I suppose i'll have to settle for Telemachon.

[HeritorA]

I would not be shocked if Lorgar dies during the Heresy. Both Erebus and Kor Phaeron might be lying he's alive to better control their brothers.

add to that Curze and Fulgrim and I would be happy

[HeritorA]

Do the author's read each other's books in full? If not maybe that explains how they are not as sick of Curze as I am

I ask that cause maybe they avoid reading them in full to avoid plagiarizing, or developing two stories of too similar themes.

I wouldn't care if any of the Primarch fates are changed. Although my only caveat is that it is changed and still good.

Some do, some don't. Some used to and don't any more. Some always will, albeit late. You'll find that with IP work, in general - no, authors don't. Star Wars authors don't read all of the other Star Wars novels, same with Star Trek, and so on. With directly sequential series that might be a different matter, but it's a case by case basis, and is one of the reasons why continuity folks exist all over IP work.

Added to that is a stickier and sweeter truth (and one I've tried to explain on the B&C a fair few times so I apologise if I'm repeating myself) is that you're not ultimately beholden to other authors, you're beholden to the IP. As it's always been explained to me: "There is no single 40K. There's "something" in a box. Everyone gets a lens to look inside and they'll see different parts or different angles of a giant monster. But there's no fixed form or shape for that monster."

The best way to relate this is that as an author or a designer, your mandate is to write as true to your perception of 40K as possible, not to adhere solidly to every other author or designer's work - which would be impossible. A lot of how I see 40K directly contradicts other authors' perceptions, and that's fine. Theirs contradicts mine. That's fine, too. That's the point. Most of my feel and perception of 40K's detail comes from 2nd and 3rd Edition, with smatterings of cool stuff that I picked up from the others. The Codex Imperialis is my Bible, if you will. By and large, 40K isn't Star Wars to be galactically tied up in one squidgy alien invasion for decades and then needing to be rebooted because someone else has a different idea. 40K is about sandboxes: yours, mine, that guy's, that girl's. Everyone gets a sandbox to present their own view of the lore, whether you're an author, player, collector, or whatever else.

Those sandboxes can be huge or small, but I try not to speak too much for anyone else, so - as a personal example - Khayon could so easily be lying about the entire Black Legion Series, and my Night Lords Trilogy was about one particular little warband, not the entire Legion, and so on. (I call these "trapdoors", by the way. Trapdoors are what you build into 40K work so you're not "claiming" a faction completely or definitively speaking for them and ruining future attempts by other people to write about them. The good thing about most trapdoors is that they occur naturally and seamlessly with unreliable narrators, too. See: Wuthering Heights or The Haunting of Hill House.)

An even easier example would be, say, "the Daniverse" as it's known. I love Dan's work. I take a day off whenever he releases a book, so I can devour it immediately. But I can also recognise a bunch of stuff even in my beloved Eisenhorn that doesn't match my understanding of the Inquisition, or the old sourcebooks for the Inquisitor game, and so on. If I wrote an Inquisition book, I'd be beholden to my understanding of the lore, not Dan's novels. And that's exactly how it should be. I build enough trapdoors in my work that no one going near the Grey Knights or Black Templars or Night Lords ever really needs to fear the fact I've been near them first. My stuff won't affect them at all. You probably could (and arguably should be able to) delete any author or designer at all, all of their work, and lose a unique and valuable voice with a great look at the setting, but not any definitive "It all works like this" lore.

To reference your last point though, dude, the key word is "good". You might be fine with the primarchs' fates changing as long as they're done well, but I can guarantee you the wider reaction would be somewhere between a triumvirate: 1/3 would say "I like this change, it's good." 1/3 would say "I don't like this change, it's bad." And 1/3 would say "Any change at all is bad."

And no changes at all - destroy all the interest in the book. All of us already know the fates of Primarchs A D-B. Reading about another duel Lion-Curze is like 'what, again? Or for .... sake' I could even now guess the ending of the one from the AoC - Lion almost kills Curze and then blue buffon Guilliman arrives and snatch Lion to his flagship right before Lion decapitates Curze.

I'll level with you, A. I don't like answering you on here or on FB because you're famously difficult to discuss things with - scathingly negative one moment and strangely positive the next, but almost always abrasive and hostile under the guise of "telling it like it is" - so I'm going to answer, but I don't want to get dragged into a fight. You're using one example (and it's a good example!) of how you personally need to see changes about a certain thing. But it's not a global truth. We knew Boromir was going to go down blowing his horn while the hobbits were taken away, but that moment was still awesome in the movies. We knew Achilles would kill Hector (and we've known for thousands of years) but the Siege of Troy is still a story worth retelling. We know the Emperor will kill Horus, and there's no lack of interest in that book. You don't need to change things for the sake of changing them.

(That said, yes, I'm surprised Curze has been used so much, but that's largely a narrative cul-de-sac of the Imperium Secundus arc, which is coming to an end.)

I like being conservative with the lore. I like taking concepts and ideas and characters I've known about since I was a kid and doing my best to show them as well as I can - showing how awesome they are to me and hoping other people get as interested or enthused. I'm not interested in galaxy-shattering truths that change the firmament of 40K, I'm interested in conveying what it feels like to live in the Imperium, or dwell aboard a Chaos warship, or stand next to a Space Marine and feel the humming buzz of his power armour making your gums ache.

No, not all changes are bad. And yes, you can easily and arguably say that my small-scale approach to the lore is limiting. But I'm never going to be the kind of guy that brings huge changes about, and I'll never be in a meeting where I vote in favour of them. You can already see in my schedule that the more we reveal of the Heresy in stark truth, the less engaged I am in the series. After The Master of Mankind (assuming they hire me again with how late I've been in the past) my next 5-6 ideas are all 40K in nature, not 30K. Subject to change, of course. You never know when inspiration will strike.

That's not criticising the Heresy - and there've been several times that what I've written has necessitated revelations/explanations that changed the firmament, but that's not my first choice and my interests tend to veer in other directions. Besides, the series has gone (and can keep going) along fine without me slowing it down.

But seriously, who has the idea first? The author or those guys? I'm interested in those back office procedures. ^^

It's nothing so formal, really. It's like any editor/author relationship. And, like all things, it's a pendulum dependent on the publisher's direction at the time, the needs of specific projects, the relationships with specific authors, and so on. At one point in time, an author might be contacted to write a specific storyline, which they can do or not as they choose. At another point in time, that same author would be invited to pitch whatever he or she wanted. Meanwhile another author would be trusted to pitch whatever they want, whenever they want, and is never asked about specific "Do this" projects. On the other side of the coin, some authors will get heavily redlined on lore/continuity issues, and others barely get feedback at all, depending on the project in question and their knowledge of the IP.

There's no simple answer. Case by case, author by author, project by project, and all flavoured by the company's direction at the time. The pendulum eternally swings.

tl;dr -- Like any publisher, really.

And I totally agree on that A D-B. Plus - it always a joy to read your narratives (even outside BL). Cause you ARE a talented author. And you write amazing fluff. That's why your books would always be on my 'must buy' list.

It's no so about the 'galaxy-shattering truths that change the firmament of 40K' but more of the overusage of some Primarchs (butchering their let's say coolness) in the process. As you said yourself 'I'm surprised Curze has been used so much' - just imagine how we feel about it.

'famously difficult to discuss things with' - I know, it's a hard process to remake myself We will never fight - because if author is a talented fella, you can't argue with him

[Veteran Sergeant]

(All that kill me assassin crap is crap). And Alpharius would die too - in some unknown, mysterious way

Curze's death mirrors the fate of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (Kurtz literally asks his killer if he is an assassin), seeing as both Curze and Kurtz are based on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

That said, I'd totally be all about the series altering history and killing off a lot of the "expendable" primarchs. Quite a few of them do nothing after the Heresy, and their deaths could add some drama and weight to the story. I've said this before, but in the old days, primarchs fighting was a big deal. When Fulgrim and Ferrus dueled, one of them died. When Horus and Sanguinius dueled, one of them died. The longer the Horus Heresy gets drawn out by this faltering novel series, the more ridiculously weightless primarch fights we're seeing. They just show up, battle, throw quips, and then get conveniently broken up so that everyone can live to fight another day. It's silly, and it is detracting from the gravity of the series.

You need Guilliman (And Fulgrim to eventually fight him). You need Perturabo and Dorn for the Cage. The dates of Curze, Sanguinius, and Horus are already spelled out. Angron factors a lot into 40K. So (unfortunately at this point) does Mortarion.

But the Expendables? Russ? Corax? Alpharius? Omegon? Lorgar? Khaaan? Kill some of them off. Give the series the drama it has long since lost.

And if people complain, to quote the great Sean Connery: "Suck it, Trebek". It isn't like the primarchs are supposed to factor into 40K, so they had to die at some point. 40K fans are a notoriously finicky bunch. People play the perennial losers and bitter underdogs, Chaos Marines, and then complain that they get kicked around in the lore (you play the guys who have to hide in Crazy Space to avoid getting wiped out, then can't figure out why the Black Crusades haven't taken over the galaxy yet). Over twenty years ago, possibly before some of the people on this forum were even born, Rick Priestley and Jervis Johnson called the Ultramarines the "greatest of all Space Marine Chapters" and people still complain that the Ultramarines are of too high importance to the lore. I really feel like worrying about whether or not a vocal minority will complain about changes or not is like worrying about whether or not the sun will come up. It's going to come up. No matter what you do. I mean, Dan Abnett's I am Slaughter already has people griping that they're giving up playing Imperial Fists.

[DarkChaplain]

Russ leaves after the Heresy, as already detailed in various sources involving Bjorn, most notably and recent Chris Wraight's excellent Parting of the Ways audio drama. Alpharius/Omegon falls to Guilliman, already known. Corax leaves for the Eye after the Heresy in his shame. The Khan leaves for a hunt as well.

 

Lorgar is the only one whose death might be fitting in context of who the highest-ranking Word Bearers post-Heresy are. I am not sure Kor Phaeron will feature again in the series after making his bed in the Eye at the end of the graphic novel, but Erebus' schemes still carry on.

However, he will still ascend to daemonhood, making him basically unkillable.

 

The Primarchs all factor into 40k in one way or another. They all left their marks, some more actively than others. Perturabo is causing a fuss on Medrengar to the 41st Millenium, Fulgrim is probably sunbathing and Mortarion is wrecking Grey Knights once in a while. The Wolves to this day wait for the return of Russ, which has just been reinforced via the Space Wolves series/Legend of the Dark Millennium: Space Wolves, Curse of the Wulfen and Legacy of Russ. The whole deal with Alpharius/Omegon is that we just don't know if any of them is still alive and kicking, or if they have been involved in certain events personally. For them to keep their appeal, I'd say we can't ever have a definitive answer of who dies to Guilliman, and who survives and what his allegiances really are.

 

Personally, I do not read the series to see Primarchs die, I read it for the drama between them. The dialogue, the "quips", the relationships between brothers and their differences in world views and philosophy. The debate between Sanguinius and Curze in Pharos, for example, held infinitely more appeal to me than any of the Primarch fights in The Unremembered Empire. I don't want them to die, I want them to grow as characters with nuance and motivation. That's why TUE failed so utterly in my eyes: It tried to turn them into action/comic heroes again, making Vulkan resemble the Hulk and Curze a terrorist ninja. It was at its best during its calmer moments that gave a good luck at the Primarchs' personalities and views.

 

I don't need earthshattering changes to the background to get a kick out of the series. There is enough room within the established outlines to subvert my expectations and deliver a memorable story.

 

Thinking on it, I find it kind of hilarious that for years, people cry and clamour about the Horus Heresy series adding new things to the background and not sticking to the few major events we knew about and instead expanding beyond their framework. And now people want to bend and break the established core just for a cheap thrill at the cost of long-term integrity of storytelling and adhering to what has come before.

The Heresy is hardly stagnant, no matter what some might claim. There is enough going on to keep things interesting.

[Kelborn]

/agreed with DarkChaplain

I don't need to have the primarchs getting killed either.

Yeah, the basic timeline is well known for decades. Yeah, we know what will happen to Sanguinius, Curze, etc. Yeah, we probably know of what will happen to Corax, Russ, etc.

BUT

we don't know why Russ leaves his rot behind in the middle of a feast.

we don't actually know why Corax departs in the middle of the night.

we don't really know why the Khagan hunts Dark Eldar and never returns.

as it turns out, no one knows what the heck will happen with Vulkan. Could be everything, slain, lost, is hiding within Mound Deahtfire, working on a new weapon to avenge Ferrus. Who knows?

There are still things to write about. Maybe we'll see some events which might explain, why the surviving primarchs disappear.

I do admit that killing some of them would make the whole story arc more spicy, especially if Lorgar would die (fanatic whiny ) or Vulkan (I used to liked him but with the recent events....a de facto immortal hulk v2? c'mon...)

But there are still enough major events which weren't covered until now. I would suggest that the siege of Terra will last for 5 books at least.

And there is plenty of space left to deal with. For example Scars of Christ Wraight. The whole story was new including the wolves fighting the AL (at least I think so...) And guess what happened? The book became awesome!

So why do we discuss something like "Hey...the HH is mediocre but let's do some changes! Let's kill the primarchs for example!"?

[A D-B]

(All that kill me assassin crap is crap). And Alpharius would die too - in some unknown, mysterious way

Curze's death mirrors the fate of Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (Kurtz literally asks his killer if he is an assassin), seeing as both Curze and Kurtz are based on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

That said, I'd totally be all about the series altering history and killing off a lot of the "expendable" primarchs. Quite a few of them do nothing after the Heresy, and their deaths could add some drama and weight to the story. I've said this before, but in the old days, primarchs fighting was a big deal. When Fulgrim and Ferrus dueled, one of them died. When Horus and Sanguinius dueled, one of them died. The longer the Horus Heresy gets drawn out by this faltering novel series, the more ridiculously weightless primarch fights we're seeing. They just show up, battle, throw quips, and then get conveniently broken up so that everyone can live to fight another day. It's silly, and it is detracting from the gravity of the series.

You need Guilliman (And Fulgrim to eventually fight him). You need Perturabo and Dorn for the Cage. The dates of Curze, Sanguinius, and Horus are already spelled out. Angron factors a lot into 40K. So (unfortunately at this point) does Mortarion.

But the Expendables? Russ? Corax? Alpharius? Omegon? Lorgar? Khaaan? Kill some of them off. Give the series the drama it has long since lost.

And if people complain, to quote the great Sean Connery: "Suck it, Trebek". It isn't like the primarchs are supposed to factor into 40K, so they had to die at some point. 40K fans are a notoriously finicky bunch. People play the perennial losers and bitter underdogs, Chaos Marines, and then complain that they get kicked around in the lore (you play the guys who have to hide in Crazy Space to avoid getting wiped out, then can't figure out why the Black Crusades haven't taken over the galaxy yet). Over twenty years ago, possibly before some of the people on this forum were even born, Rick Priestley and Jervis Johnson called the Ultramarines the "greatest of all Space Marine Chapters" and people still complain that the Ultramarines are of too high importance to the lore. I really feel like worrying about whether or not a vocal minority will complain about changes or not is like worrying about whether or not the sun will come up. It's going to come up. No matter what you do. I mean, Dan Abnett's I am Slaughter already has people griping that they're giving up playing Imperial Fists.

For sure. I mean, I'd be down with that. An event like, say, killing off one of the primarchs whose fate is barely mentioned or is plainly apocryphal / mythological in nature is the kind of thing that's not a fundamental change to the setting itself, so it doesn't make me knee-jerk in discomfort. It's not something that will resonate through the galaxy for 10,000 years and shift the axis of 40K.

I don't need it, obviously, but depending on circumstances, presentation - and crucially, the primarch in question - that'd slide right past my itch-o-meter without a scratch. The Khan? Sure, knock yourself out. One of the Alphariuses? Absolutely, go nuts.

Etc. etc.

[Rob P]

I think Lorgar is a prime candidate for being bumped off.

 

It isn't just to have a big wow moment, but more to do with the fact that it fits in with what already exists.

 

Lorgar was rebuked by the Emperor/Guilliman.

 

Lorgar went in the eye and found other gods.

 

Lorgar, 50 years before Heresy, turned to or worked with chaos because he was effectively afraid of chaos. This mirrors what  Little Horus said in Galaxy in Flames when talking to Torgeddon.

 

[it then gets a bit hazy because at some point Lorgar had the option of going to Calth and getting vengenace or keeping to the Truth and splitting his legion.]

 

You than have the scene at the Drop Site Masscare where he is still hasn't come into his own and he is still unsure whether this is the right thing to do.

 

We then see him in Betrayer, where he has come into his own.

 

We then have Erebus doing shenanigans which are not necessarily in Lorgar's interests.

 

We then zoom forward to 40k and the Word Bearers are a selfish lot and no one sees Lorgar. To me it seems that somewhere along the way Lorgar either lost his pure path or he has been buried by Erebus and Kor Phaeron.

 

I don't see a problem with Lorgar getting killed as it would represent the shift from the Word Bearers being the bearers of the word to the Word Bearers focussing on self interest rather than the bigger picture.

 

From a narrative POV it fits to have him bumped off. My only concern is that BL has started to make tiny advances in the 40k story line and that have no Lorgar could be a missed opportunity.

 

----------------

 

Equally things could be done with Curze so that the Lion doesn't kill him, but maybe he gets completely crippled or something.

 

I particularly like the idea of Curze dying inside the heresy rather than the scouring (even if by M'Shen) because it potentially adds flavour to who sent the assassin. For example, Dorn could send her and there could be some development of his character or desperation between Nemesis and the point where he sends M'Shen.

[Jalgar]

Yes! Rob P, I like the idea of Lorgar being killed. Not because I dislike Lorgar but I could see that happening. Kor Phaeron and Erebus keep it somewhat on the down low and continue handing out pamphlets allegedly written by the primarch himself.

[Lord Tharand]

Yes! Rob P, I like the idea of Lorgar being killed. Not because I dislike Lorgar but I could see that happening. Kor Phaeron and Erebus keep it somewhat on the down low and continue handing out pamphlets allegedly written by the primarch himself.

 

That's honestly my exact thought.  As best as I know Lorgar hasn't been seen since the Heresy and he just sits in the temple on their daemonworld speaking only to Kor Phaeron and Erebus.

[Wade Garrett]

Lorgar is expendable because he does nothing after the Heresy...according to one book in a trilogy that portrays the XVII as incompetent dunderheads who can't find their own behinds with a map and also contradicts Index Astartes: Word Bearers and The First Heretic.

 

Pass.

 

:p My much better and completely unbiased idea for changing the storyline is that Lorgar should kill Dorn, Sanguinus, Horus, and the Emperor at the Siege of Terra and then rule for ten thousand years as the stern yet benevolent Priest King of Absolutely Everything :p

[Firepower]

Hmm...well, in some senses I can see the argument for using the loopholes vague preset conclusions as a perfect opportunity for something dramatic and interesting, like the death of Russ or Khan.  On the other hand, as a Templar player/collector/"enthusiast" I can fully sympathize with someone who finds a change to preexisting lore as an arbitrary exercise (and sometimes they are just that), especially if it has potentially profound effects on the subject.  

 

Would Khan dying at the hands of X Primarch versus disappearing in pursuit of the (Dark?) Eldar be a significant change?  Well, if memory serves there's that whole tradition of the hunt thing in relation to him going 'poof,' or maybe that was the Wolves...anyway, there are inevitably ripples, and whether they affect minutiae (spelled it right on my first try, go me!) or major themes is a serious issue.  The death of a Primarch is such a major event that, by default, many people will see it as having major consequences on the lore as a whole, without caring about the details.

 

I guess what I'm trying to get at is change for the sake of change is pointless, change without care is dangerous, but change in itself isn't definitively bad. Change will inevitably always piss someone off, and sometimes rightly so, but to pretend that the lore is an inorganic, stone-set piece of literature is to misunderstand the nature of the beast.

[Phoebus]

On the one hand, I'm not opposed to change by default. On the other, you can probably count me as one of the "conservatives" - in the sense that I don't think change is necessary for good stories to be told in the Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40k settings.

 

Consider, if you will, the first four-five novels of the Horus Heresy series. They were hailed by a significant majority of a significant sample size of readers (posters on fora such as this). Were there any monumental revelations in those novels? Not really. The same can be said about other best-sellers in the series. No huge reveals came out of A Thousand Sons or The First Heretic or Know No Fear. Some of these may have led to gnashing of teeth for some re-interpretations (e.g., Ultramarines don't come out the clear winners at Calth), but the original lore was either hazy enough or based on imperfect history for this to not be a "crime," per se.

 

As an aside, I can't shake the feeling that the oft-stated desire for change has less to do with the long-standing "facts" about the setting (in this case, which primarchs died and how; which primarchs lived and what they're doing) and more with a perceived "rut" in the flagship series. Meaning, the Heresy, a galactic-scale story with a cast that could be drawn from eighteen legions and countless other organizations, has been focused (uncomfortably so, I would argue) on a handful of legions (two of which are a shadow of what they once were) and a comparatively small plot of the galaxy. That this shift was compounded with seemingly redundant encounters (e.g., the Lion versus Curze*) or encounters whose conclusion is determined by Plot Armour** is what I suspect is driving the desire for change.

 

(warning: off-topic rants follow)

 

* The Lion and Curze fight in "Savage Weapons" and it's a satisfying encounter both before and after the two try to kill each other (no, not really, everyone with taste and sense knows the Lion should have won without breaking a sweat you are a heretic A D-B ). The same author then writes Prince of Crows and in that novella those same two primarchs fight twice more. But here's the kicker: it's not redundant action. You're not forced to see those two duke it out once (twice, really) more for the sake of them doing so. The second instance showcases only the end of the duel, which sets up the story itself - the Night Lords being left in dire straits. The third fight between the Lion and Curze is just background. Sevatar is the protagonist. He's trying to get to Curze, but it's his fight that we're supposed to be worrying about, and at no point does either primarch threaten to steal the spotlight from him. Contrast that with ...

 

** ... the (again, personal opinion follows) wholly unsatisfying and unrewarding three-way melee between the Lion, Guilliman, and Curze. I love Abnett's writing and am generally on-board with A D-B's philosophy on sandbox writing, but this - again, to me - was a perfect example of a plot angle that begged the question "Why?"

 

What does Curze accomplish in this story?

 

Why was a primarch whose previous appearances were perfect examples of how perfectly matched two such demigods can be in battle suddenly able to hold his own against two of his brethren?

 

What do we gain from Curze's tragic prophetic abilities becoming a convenient way to become invulnerable? The Lion almost disemboweled and decapitated Curze on two different occasions, but by Pharos the primarch of the Night Lords is able to foresee every single blow coming his way.

 

That's the kind of change that I could do without. Gav could do an absolutely amazing job with Angels of Caliban, but as of right now I could not possible be less excited about the rumored fifth encounter between the Lion and Curze.

[Augustus]

Well said VS and Phoebus.

[HeritorA]

On the one hand, I'm not opposed to change by default. On the other, you can probably count me as one of the "conservatives" - in the sense that I don't think change is necessary for good stories to be told in the Horus Heresy and Warhammer 40k settings.

 

Consider, if you will, the first four-five novels of the Horus Heresy series. They were hailed by a significant majority of a significant sample size of readers (posters on fora such as this). Were there any monumental revelations in those novels? Not really. The same can be said about other best-sellers in the series. No huge reveals came out of A Thousand Sons or The First Heretic or Know No Fear. Some of these may have led to gnashing of teeth for some re-interpretations (e.g., Ultramarines don't come out the clear winners at Calth), but the original lore was either hazy enough or based on imperfect history for this to not be a "crime," per se.

 

As an aside, I can't shake the feeling that the oft-stated desire for change has less to do with the long-standing "facts" about the setting (in this case, which primarchs died and how; which primarchs lived and what they're doing) and more with a perceived "rut" in the flagship series. Meaning, the Heresy, a galactic-scale story with a cast that could be drawn from eighteen legions and countless other organizations, has been focused (uncomfortably so, I would argue) on a handful of legions (two of which are a shadow of what they once were) and a comparatively small plot of the galaxy. That this shift was compounded with seemingly redundant encounters (e.g., the Lion versus Curze*) or encounters whose conclusion is determined by Plot Armour** is what I suspect is driving the desire for change.

 

(warning: off-topic rants follow)

 

* The Lion and Curze fight in "Savage Weapons" and it's a satisfying encounter both before and after the two try to kill each other (no, not really, everyone with taste and sense knows the Lion should have won without breaking a sweat you are a heretic A D-B ). The same author then writes Prince of Crows and in that novella those same two primarchs fight twice more. But here's the kicker: it's not redundant action. You're not forced to see those two duke it out once (twice, really) more for the sake of them doing so. The second instance showcases only the end of the duel, which sets up the story itself - the Night Lords being left in dire straits. The third fight between the Lion and Curze is just background. Sevatar is the protagonist. He's trying to get to Curze, but it's his fight that we're supposed to be worrying about, and at no point does either primarch threaten to steal the spotlight from him. Contrast that with ...

 

** ... the (again, personal opinion follows) wholly unsatisfying and unrewarding three-way melee between the Lion, Guilliman, and Curze. I love Abnett's writing and am generally on-board with A D-B's philosophy on sandbox writing, but this - again, to me - was a perfect example of a plot angle that begged the question "Why?"

 

What does Curze accomplish in this story?

 

Why was a primarch whose previous appearances were perfect examples of how perfectly matched two such demigods can be in battle suddenly able to hold his own against two of his brethren?

 

What do we gain from Curze's tragic prophetic abilities becoming a convenient way to become invulnerable? The Lion almost disemboweled and decapitated Curze on two different occasions, but by Pharos the primarch of the Night Lords is able to foresee every single blow coming his way.

 

That's the kind of change that I could do without. Gav could do an absolutely amazing job with Angels of Caliban, but as of right now I could not possible be less excited about the rumored fifth encounter between the Lion and Curze.

Exactly - well said