Corax- Book 40

[rendingon1+]

 

Why did he sent Marcus Valerius and all Therions to their deaths? Just because he didn't like his "dreams"?

 

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

 

Why did he sent Marcus Valerius and all Therions to their deaths? Just because he didn't like his "dreams"?

 

 

Pretty much.

 

That and he was shedding anything not of the RG legion from his task force. 

Let's ignore the guys who trained along side us, adopted our ways of war, shed blood and lost brothers during his shadow campaign.

 

Now, because of his "Hot Topic" phase, he believes they cannot be trusted.

 

Utter crap.

[HeritorA]

Why did he sent Marcus Valerius and all Therions to their deaths? Just because he didn't like his "dreams"?

Pretty much.

That and he was shedding anything not of the RG legion from his task force.

Let's ignore the guys who trained along side us, adopted our ways of war, shed blood and lost brothers during his shadow campaign.

Now, because of his "Hot Topic" phase, he believes they cannot be trusted.

Utter crap.

Totally agree with you.

'Hey Marius why the .... did you saved me? I wanted to die - but you saved me then I didn't asked you to do it'.

Corax such an Emo with dying wish but at the same time - he;s wining is not consistent with his death wish

[Augustus]

What you guys don't understand is that his behavior is following the dictate of the first Axiom of Stupidity. 

[HeritorA]

What you guys don't understand is that his behavior is following the dictate of the first Axiom of Stupidity.

Oh yes, we actually quite saw this It's like Dorn recently, who became 'capable' of things after a long list of novels/audios doing nothing

[bluntblade]

I still mentally retcon Dorn not having a clue who Loken is in FotE

[Augustus]

Senility sneaks up on the best of us.

[b1soul]

I'm glad the butchering that the RG have gotten by Gav's writing has come to an end.

Aye...it's a shame that some of my fave legions like BA, DA, and RG are controlled by weak writers

 

These three were my original faves...I've since moved on to WS largely because of Wraight's strong work

[bluntblade]

Senility sneaks up on the best of us. :rolleyes:

I guess Sigismund is just too tactful to bring it up

[Biscuittzz]

I'm glad the butchering that the RG have gotten by Gav's writing has come to an end.

Aye...it's a shame that some of my fave legions like BA, DA, and RG are controlled by weak writers

These three were my original faves...I've since moved on to WS largely because of Wraight's strong work

Don't think I can bring myself to read these yet, as I'll just spend the entire time comparing the standard of the RG books to these. From what I've seen, The Path of Heaven is supposed to be great.

I'll muster the strength one day.

[Runefyre]

I'm glad the butchering that the RG have gotten by Gav's writing has come to an end.

Aye...it's a shame that some of my fave legions like BA, DA, and RG are controlled by weak writers

These three were my original faves...I've since moved on to WS largely because of Wraight's strong work

Don't think I can bring myself to read these yet, as I'll just spend the entire time comparing the standard of the RG books to these. From what I've seen, The Path of Heaven is supposed to be great.

I'll muster the strength one day.

That's exactly how I feel. You really can't compare Wolf King with Scars or Path to Heaven (both fantastic books but the differing power levels are astounding).

Raven Guard have always been on of my favorite legions, as I've always favoured the weakest factions in a given setting. But coming from someone who doesn't play Raven Guard BL couldn't have handled Corax any worse than they have imo.

[Augustus]

But coming from someone who doesn't play Raven Guard BL couldn't have handled Corax any worse than they have imo.

 

Don't tempt them. ;) Just when you think you've hit rock bottom the ground gives way to hell.

[HeritorA]

But coming from someone who doesn't play Raven Guard BL couldn't have handled Corax any worse than they have imo.

Don't tempt them. Just when you think you've hit rock bottom the ground gives way to hell.

Dont you worry - third HH Salamanders book will come next year

[Biscuittzz]

But coming from someone who doesn't play Raven Guard BL couldn't have handled Corax any worse than they have imo.

Don't tempt them. Just when you think you've hit rock bottom the ground gives way to hell.

Dont you worry - third HH Salamanders book will come next year

To be honest I won't touch the Salamanders books. Making Vulkan a perpetual was just bad and a cop out, if someone dies they should stay dead. I understand it's supposed to be sci-fi/fantasy but c'mon.

On that note, and making sure the RG never have anything good happen, Lucius should be dead aswell. Let's have this awesome fight with the greatest swordsman to ever live get beaten and killed. Lol psyche we'll bring him back anyway. Both Khârn and Lucius both get resurrected, might aswell have em resurrect Horus while we're at it.

[veterannoob]

Wow. I'm always surprised at opinions of the HH books on the Internet. Not meaning this as bad, just...surprised, is all. Great to know so many are passionate about this IP we love and thus feel strongly about books/authors as they do.

The Primarch series of HH is interesting to me since we see a mix of Great Crusade to origins to early Heresy and especially for the Primarchs with less screen time. Wonder what Corax's will be about. I don't think they'll do the liberation. Need to show us something different. HAHA, maybe the compliance of Isstvan

[Biscuittzz]

Wow. I'm always surprised at opinions of the HH books on the Internet. Not meaning this as bad, just...surprised, is all. Great to know so many are passionate about this IP we love and thus feel strongly about books/authors as they do.

The Primarch series of HH is interesting to me since we see a mix of Great Crusade to origins to early Heresy and especially for the Primarchs with less screen time. Wonder what Corax's will be about. I don't think they'll do the liberation. Need to show us something different. HAHA, maybe the compliance of Isstvan

Battle of Gate 42 (it's 42 isn't it?) and/or when he starts the purge of the legion and sends out the predation fleets. Would like to see some of this perhaps.

[HeritorA]

But coming from someone who doesn't play Raven Guard BL couldn't have handled Corax any worse than they have imo.

Don't tempt them. Just when you think you've hit rock bottom the ground gives way to hell.

Dont you worry - third HH Salamanders book will come next year

To be honest I won't touch the Salamanders books. Making Vulkan a perpetual was just bad and a cop out, if someone dies they should stay dead. I understand it's supposed to be sci-fi/fantasy but c'mon.

On that note, and making sure the RG never have anything good happen, Lucius should be dead aswell. Let's have this awesome fight with the greatest swordsman to ever live get beaten and killed. Lol psyche we'll bring him back anyway. Both Khârn and Lucius both get resurrected, might aswell have em resurrect Horus while we're at it.

Haha - so true. That's the problem with resurrecting dead characters - all the drama, epic conclusions of the previous novels and other stuff are going to :cuss. That's why almost 90 % of stories about characters - we know can't die are crap. Cause you are not worrying about their story - you know that nothing will happen to them. The only saving grace in that case is authors prose and actually the road (Ahriman character from John French for example).

So making Vulkan a :cussing perpetual, resurrecting Blessed Lady etc. are the most crappy points of HH to date

[DarkChaplain]

Finished my review during the downtime, over here

Its by no means perfect, but re-reading them all in one swoop made me appreciate how all the threads came together and Corax progressed. Every novella dealt with a particular problem and development of Corax's personal (Primarch)-madness. Seeing all the errors made by him and his Legion, his whole arrogance and degree of self-loathing coming crashing down and also personified by the Raptors was great.

 

Also, the Night Lords vessel scene confirmed as not related to 'nids at all, just a misconception.

[bluntblade]

 

 

 

But coming from someone who doesn't play Raven Guard BL couldn't have handled Corax any worse than they have imo.

 

Don't tempt them. ;) Just when you think you've hit rock bottom the ground gives way to hell.

 Dont you worry  - third HH Salamanders book will come next year :lol:

To be honest I won't touch the Salamanders books. Making Vulkan a perpetual was just bad and a cop out, if someone dies they should stay dead. I understand it's supposed to be sci-fi/fantasy but c'mon.

 

On that note, and making sure the RG never have anything good happen, Lucius should be dead aswell. Let's have this awesome fight with the greatest swordsman to ever live get beaten and killed. Lol psyche we'll bring him back anyway. Both Khârn and Lucius both get resurrected, might aswell have em resurrect Horus while we're at it.

AD-B has already both done and averted that last one.

[Biscuittzz]

Finished my review during the downtime, over here

Its by no means perfect, but re-reading them all in one swoop made me appreciate how all the threads came together and Corax progressed. Every novella dealt with a particular problem and development of Corax's personal (Primarch)-madness. Seeing all the errors made by him and his Legion, his whole arrogance and degree of self-loathing coming crashing down and also personified by the Raptors was great.

 

Also, the Night Lords vessel scene confirmed as not related to 'nids at all, just a misconception.

 

Nice review. One thing that I actually don't get within the whole series is why Corax blames himself for the raptors mutations. Obviously he started the gene project but if it had gone as expected then there would have been no problem. I don't see how he thinks that it's his fault since it was the AL that messed it all up.

 

Maybe I'm mixing myself up and that Thorpe wanted everyone to see how the experience had affected Corax's judgement even though it wasn't his fault.

[Tymell]

 

Finished my review during the downtime, over here

Its by no means perfect, but re-reading them all in one swoop made me appreciate how all the threads came together and Corax progressed. Every novella dealt with a particular problem and development of Corax's personal (Primarch)-madness. Seeing all the errors made by him and his Legion, his whole arrogance and degree of self-loathing coming crashing down and also personified by the Raptors was great.

 

Also, the Night Lords vessel scene confirmed as not related to 'nids at all, just a misconception.

 

Nice review. One thing that I actually don't get within the whole series is why Corax blames himself for the raptors mutations. Obviously he started the gene project but if it had gone as expected then there would have been no problem. I don't see how he thinks that it's his fault since it was the AL that messed it all up.

 

Maybe I'm mixing myself up and that Thorpe wanted everyone to see how the experience had affected Corax's judgement even though it wasn't his fault.

 

 

I went through a re-read of Deliverance Lost a little bit ago, and second time round I could see more of Corax's flawed judgement than I think people give it credit for. There's an arrogance to him in that book, a dismissal of other opinions if they get in the way of his desperate need to re-build and get vengeance. He does push the whole project through a lot faster than those around him are comfortable with, and against their advice he has the Raptors expanded very rapidly after the initial "clean" batch. While it still likely would have gone wrong due to AL meddling (and even then, more restraint on Corax's part might have helped in preventing them tampering at all), the mutations would have affected a much smaller group had the project been taken at a slower pace.

 

Plus, by the time of Weregeld I think it's just as much that he sees them all as fundamentally corrupted, even beyond what he did.

[Biscuittzz]

 

 

Finished my review during the downtime, over here

Its by no means perfect, but re-reading them all in one swoop made me appreciate how all the threads came together and Corax progressed. Every novella dealt with a particular problem and development of Corax's personal (Primarch)-madness. Seeing all the errors made by him and his Legion, his whole arrogance and degree of self-loathing coming crashing down and also personified by the Raptors was great.

 

Also, the Night Lords vessel scene confirmed as not related to 'nids at all, just a misconception.

 

Nice review. One thing that I actually don't get within the whole series is why Corax blames himself for the raptors mutations. Obviously he started the gene project but if it had gone as expected then there would have been no problem. I don't see how he thinks that it's his fault since it was the AL that messed it all up.

 

Maybe I'm mixing myself up and that Thorpe wanted everyone to see how the experience had affected Corax's judgement even though it wasn't his fault.

 

 

I went through a re-read of Deliverance Lost a little bit ago, and second time round I could see more of Corax's flawed judgement than I think people give it credit for. There's an arrogance to him in that book, a dismissal of other opinions if they get in the way of his desperate need to re-build and get vengeance. He does push the whole project through a lot faster than those around him are comfortable with, and against their advice he has the Raptors expanded very rapidly after the initial "clean" batch. While it still likely would have gone wrong due to AL meddling (and even then, more restraint on Corax's part might have helped in prevent them tampering at all), the mutations would have affected a much smaller group had the project been taken at a slower pace.

 

Plus, by the time of Weregeld I think it's just as much that he sees them all as fundamentally corrupted, even beyond what he did.

 

 

See the only thing I'm still unsure of is that nowhere is it implied that it would have gone wrong even without being corrupted by the AL. All the initial batches seemed to be fine. I think Gav overlooked this story line as the whole mutated/corrupted gene tech took over.

 

With regards the safety protocol for the gene tech, how does the Chief Apothecary allow a no-name legionary to walk by and access the Primarch Gene Tech! I reread Deliverance Lost and if this hadn't happened, the entire infiltration doesn't work. Seems to me Gav didn't actually have any clue on how to write how it occured. Poor writing which the entire story line hinges on.

 

I asked in a recent thread why most people ranked Deliverance Lost so low in the HH series, and now upon reading and rereading it, I can see why. An entire novel/Legion arc based on 1-2 sentences.

 

"Legionary: I need to access the Primarch Gene Tech, perhaps the most advanced technology in the galaxy and one which the entire RG legion depends on, but there is absolutely no reason why I would need to in the first place.

 

Apothecary: Yea no prob go ahead."

[DarkChaplain]

Corax doesn't actually know how/if/what was tampered with. He knows of the attempt to steal it, but even then all the Alpha Legionaries rather committed suicide than get caught. He never knew of Omegon's involvement, and the successful theft; even if he'd started suspecting such by Ravenlord (where one of the antagonists almost tells him where Fabius got the material), that was years after the events in Deliverance Lost, and way down the path of corruption the Raptors were on.

 

He was so arrogant, he overlooked all the warnings, all the strange behavior, all the risks. He didn't listen to his closest friends and allies and rushed, cut the experiments and tests short (remember, there were obvious mutations going on before the first batch even, when they still used beasts to test the gene-seed), despite everyone's advice of caution. Even after the first mission of the Raptors, Branne told him they needed more training and their attitudes were off, and Corax got legitimately angry and just commissioned another 500 instead.

 

Corax came to the conclusion that splicing the Primarch material and the rushed process and experimentation were to blame for the degeneration. His own eagerness and blindness were to blame, so of course he would see himself as guilty. And since he reaches the conclusion that the Primarchs aren't natural beings, and tainted by the Warp's influences in one way or another as well, can we really blame him for thinking that the Primarch templates contributed to the Raptors' mutations? The Emperor had time and patience for the creation of the first Astartes, and was able to do it right - something Corax didn't do.

 

Deliverance Lost, almost in its entirety, was about Corax's obsessive need for vengeance at all cost, even when it would have been his most trusted commanders, the Legion he still had, or time. Yes, the Alpha Legion messed it up for certain, but the big fault, the biggest error of judgement, is Corax's.

 

The "no-name legionary" was actually Sergeant Nestil, who has been involved with the project since Terra. Its not an unknown guy, but one of the people Corax trusted (and even conversed with earlier). To Sixx, Nestil was an ally and Primarch-approved.

Beyond that, they were in the middle of geneseed implantation on a whole bunch of recruits, at a time where they couldn't interrupt the process without pretty much killing or crippling them. It was clear that the Raven Guard didn't have a great many properly inducted recruits left anymore at that point, and every loss was a black mark on them. In the first batch they had to excuse even the regular, expected geneseed-rejection quota.

When an authorized sergeant warning you of a potential threat offers to give you a hand in that situation, especially when you know that the access codes will be changed right after anyway, and the Tech-Priest starts talking about how he is correct and the solution is a sensible one, I don't blame you for going along with it. And, to his credit, Sixx was going to accompany Nestil until both he and Orlandriaz said it wasn't necessary.

 

Incidentally, I reviewed Deliverance Lost prior to starting this book, and found the re-read to have gone much better than anticipated and my initial lukewarm opinion of the book went up.

[Biscuittzz]

Corax doesn't actually know how/if/what was tampered with. He knows of the attempt to steal it, but even then all the Alpha Legionaries rather committed suicide than get caught. He never knew of Omegon's involvement, and the successful theft; even if he'd started suspecting such by Ravenlord (where one of the antagonists almost tells him where Fabius got the material), that was years after the events in Deliverance Lost, and way down the path of corruption the Raptors were on.

 

He was so arrogant, he overlooked all the warnings, all the strange behavior, all the risks. He didn't listen to his closest friends and allies and rushed, cut the experiments and tests short (remember, there were obvious mutations going on before the first batch even, when they still used beasts to test the gene-seed), despite everyone's advice of caution. Even after the first mission of the Raptors, Branne told him they needed more training and their attitudes were off, and Corax got legitimately angry and just commissioned another 500 instead.

 

Corax came to the conclusion that splicing the Primarch material and the rushed process and experimentation were to blame for the degeneration. His own eagerness and blindness were to blame, so of course he would see himself as guilty. And since he reaches the conclusion that the Primarchs aren't natural beings, and tainted by the Warp's influences in one way or another as well, can we really blame him for thinking that the Primarch templates contributed to the Raptors' mutations? The Emperor had time and patience for the creation of the first Astartes, and was able to do it right - something Corax didn't do.

 

Deliverance Lost, almost in its entirety, was about Corax's obsessive need for vengeance at all cost, even when it would have been his most trusted commanders, the Legion he still had, or time. Yes, the Alpha Legion messed it up for certain, but the big fault, the biggest error of judgement, is Corax's.

 

The "no-name legionary" was actually Sergeant Nestil, who has been involved with the project since Terra. Its not an unknown guy, but one of the people Corax trusted (and even conversed with earlier). To Sixx, Nestil was an ally and Primarch-approved.

Beyond that, they were in the middle of geneseed implantation on a whole bunch of recruits, at a time where they couldn't interrupt the process without pretty much killing or crippling them. It was clear that the Raven Guard didn't have a great many properly inducted recruits left anymore at that point, and every loss was a black mark on them. In the first batch they had to excuse even the regular, expected geneseed-rejection quota.

When an authorized sergeant warning you of a potential threat offers to give you a hand in that situation, especially when you know that the access codes will be changed right after anyway, and the Tech-Priest starts talking about how he is correct and the solution is a sensible one, I don't blame you for going along with it. And, to his credit, Sixx was going to accompany Nestil until both he and Orlandriaz said it wasn't necessary.

 

Incidentally, I reviewed Deliverance Lost prior to starting this book, and found the re-read to have gone much better than anticipated and my initial lukewarm opinion of the book went up.

 

I stand corrected so, thanks. I guess I see why Corax sees the blame lying with him now.

 

I didn't want to sound flippant with the 'no-name legionary', I knew that it was an Alpha Legion infiltrator, I must have looked over the part where he is approved by Corax or misread it. That's why I found it so weird that Sixx just let him pass. 

 

As an aside, were the 'smooths' also granted the Emperor's Peace? I don't think it's said anywhere, as they only focus on the 'roughs'. 

[DarkChaplain]

I was actually confused about which Alpha Legion infiltrator was which, since their scenes were treated like it was one and the same every time. Only when they got identified as contacts and later after the reveal did it become apparent. Nestil for example is said to still have the container from his earlier shenanigans in the end, and he was with them on Terra and Corax even addressed him directly over some apparent discomfort early on.

 

Which brings it back to Corax being at fault: Whereas Agapito realized something was amiss, like for example Solaro's recognition of the Phalanx, Corax was blind to it all along and played chummy with the infiltrators, not realizing they're not his sons.

 

As for the Smooths, I don't think they got the same treatment, not really. They were part of the force on the surface when Corax made his last stand, but the Raptors were supposed to get fired straight into a suicidal position. It seems likely that Corax wanted to sacrifice them as well, due to their nature and hating his own warp-tainted Primarch being and the role it played in their creation, but since he withdrew from the surface with all possible troops, and the Raptors being named as a successor Chapter in the prologue, along the Black Guards, I believe that they survived in some capacity as they didn't devolve into monsters.