Master of Mankind (expect spoilers)

[A D-B]

There's only one spoiler we of the MDRC need. It has "Choom" in it

It really did seem like there were a lot more lovingly crafted sentences about volkite weapons blowing traitors and daemons to ash than any previous HH book.

My take on the Custodians is they are proud - perhaps haughtishly so - of being more refined instruments of the Emperor than the Primarchs or the Astartes. They were perhaps his first and finest creations, who he kept in service after the Thunder Warriors were no longer required.

Separate from the perceiving-the-emperor discussion, boy was this made clear. The sheer arrogance of the custodes in this book was astounding. Mostly it came from Diocletian but the casual contempt he and others had for just about everything else in the imperium bar the Silent Sisters surprised me in its scale, if not its presence. Things like calling Dorn by his first name to his face, his treatment of the patrolling Fists and the knight pilots, the wonderful scene with Zaphon and the child, the attitude the original thirty custodians held towards the thunder warriors; wow.

Not to say it's justified - that's a chunk of Zaphon's arc and the Mechanicum proved themselves heroically - and the barbs about primarchs and astartes proving their faithlessness through Horus's turning are reeeaallly petty, but it definitely ties in to that distinction between defending the imperium and defending the emperor. As an institution and sometimes as individuals they have been with the emperor as warlord, ruler of Terra, and galactic conqueror, so the little touches like that distinguish them well from all the other post-humans floating about. To the custodes, he's 'their king', not just the master of the species, and they guard that closeness jealously.

EDIT:

@b1soul: Pretty much because they've been with him from the beginning, certainly before the primarchs. Rightly or wrongly, they consider themselves his companions in the sense that Alexander's closest officers were his companions. They do spend more time at his side than anyone else and he does seem to speak... not casually but maybe a little more familiarly to them then anyone else. Some of them were with him from the unification wars and helped put down the thunder warriors. Also half the primarchs turned, so as far as they're concerned (with that feeling of... maybe ownership over their leader), that's a slam dunk in their favour.

In guess maybe because they are privy to some of the emperor's plans, they can consider the primarchs as one step in his scheme, the astartes another, and so on, whereas the Custodes were always there, at the emperor's side. They weren't going to be discarded.

The thing is that having seen what they have seen, intellectually they surely know that the emperor will sacrifice anything for his goals and they absolutely would be discarded as required. You get this a bit in his conversations with Ra. Ra is sort of plaintive about the emperor coming to fight with them but the emperor replies his goals are more important and that while he's slow to expend custodian lives (a great line about being miserly with them but spending everything else freely) he absolutely will expend them when he needs to.

Which is interesting because one of the big takeaways from this book for a lot of people, myself included, is seeing the emperor refer to the primarchs by number and sort of shrugging at the 'father-son' way of thinking about their relationship. The custodes - or at least Diocletian - see this too. But what we also have a 'warlord-treasured companion' relationship between the custodes and the emperor. This is not explicitly deconstructed in the same way but I suspect it's just as true and false and context dependent as how the emperor refers to the primarchs.

Awesome perspective. And it ties into a wider point I've seen come up here and there on the board, where people ask about why the Custodians aren't particularly nice to the Space Marines. But... context. They don't have the rulebooks we do. They don't know what we know, and the clearly delineated lines of who is loyal, who is isn't, and so on. Even if they did know, it's worth looking at in context.

Space Marines, let's remember, are essentially never, ever allowed on Terra again after the Horus Heresy. (Yes, I know special narrative exceptions exist, but lore-wise, it's a Thing that they're not allowed on Terra.) Space Marines are responsible for half of the galaxy burning. Right now, they're responsible for half of the Imperium catching fire and/or rebelling against the Emperor. Space Marines are responsible, setting-wise, for all of the huuuuuuuge purges to come, where the Horus Heresy is forbidden lore for 99% of the Imperium, enforced with endless sequestering of information and not-infrequent mega-murder. That's how seriously this stuff is taken. If Space Marines are angels of the Emperor for most Imperial citizens (who may or may not believe they even exist) Chaos Marines are fiction - and a fiction that most wouldn't even be able to conceive of, since the idea of Space Marines rebelling against the Emperor is impossible to most Imperial minds.

So when you come back to the surface after fighting daemons for five years, seeing the Emperor himself suffering and enthroned and unable to move because the primarchs and Space Marines broke everything, seeing the galaxy burning because other primarchs and other Space Marines broke everything else... I mean, there's no way to overstate this. Space Marines in the setting are categorically not entirely trusted (their autonomy in 40K, f'rex) and especially not in the Horus Heresy. They, and their primarchs, are literally the ones to blame for everything. The Custodians and Sisters have the most unique viewpoint in this because they're at the Emperor's side and seeing Mankind's greatest hope for the future going up in flames.

So when Rogal Dorn, or the Imperial Fists, or a Blood Angel, etc. are all "Can I help? Why can't I help? Why don't you trust me?" it's worth bearing in mind that at this point the Space Marines are a colossal genetic mistake that have literally ruined everything. How do you know if you can trust them? Any of them? Who will fall next? Where's Guilliman? Where are the Blood Angels? Where are the supposedly loyal Legions? No one really knows. Are they dead? Have they turned, as well? It's war, information is scarce, and previously adamant Legions believed perfectly loyal have turned in their droves.

They trust Dorn, but they're under no obligation to respect him - especially with the added context that they know where the real war is. The fact the Emperor has his very best forces in the Webway, and where he is himself, tells a story on its own. The galaxy is territory. Territory can be reconquered. But what's happening beneath the Palace is a now-or-never deal.

In context, it's almost bizarre to imagine the Custodians looking upon the Space Marines and primarchs with anything more than disgusted mistrust and severe caution. And rightly so. Why would they see the primarchs as awesome "sons" of the Emperor? They're unreliable, insane, and treacherous - the most loyal force in the galaxy rightly sees them as such. This is an unprecedented situation, from an entirely new loyalist perspective. And the Talons of the Emperor have nooooooooooooooooo reason to be heavy on the trust or respect given what they're seeing and what's happening. (That said, Diocletian is... Diocletian. As noted, he's particularly "For the Emperor" and not "For the Imperium".)

And, as Sandlemad points out, this all also ties in to the novel's central conceit: If your duty is to the Emperor, do you fight for the man, or for his ideals? Where is the line drawn?

You can see why, even in context, that attitude wouldn't be conducive to putting the Emperor in a position to reconquer territory once the civil war is over. The Custodians may be the only ones with the ability to fight within the webway but they aren't able to reconquer the galaxy. You run into this problem with the way modern governments try to solve every problem with special operations guy's in our reality. The question is always 'if navy seals and rangers are so damn good, why don't we only train navy seals and rangers?' That's because the metrics don't add up. You either sacrifice quality for quantity or over train soldiers for missions they won't be doing anymore. If the webway is so damn important, then neutering the only fighting force capable of making the webway useful once it's retaken is cutting of the nose to spite the face.

After MoM there isn't any reason for the loyalists to even be loyalists any more. The emperor doesn't value the loyal Primarchs, he doesn't value the loyalist legions sacrificing themselves out in the wider galaxy in order to buy time for the Emperor to finish his work. He doesn't see, like most people in his position throughout history, he is sacrificing a concrete position for an idea. He's letting the great be the enemy of the good.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It adds a level of depth to the Heresy that wasn't ever there before. The faction holding onto power in a civil war always lacks the unity of purpose revolutionary movements have because they have to fight a war AND govern. The only issue is, it doesn't help the trope of the emperor being incompetent, because before it was 'the eneoeror is incompetent because he didn't see that the night lords and World Eaters were insane', now he's incompetant because he's doing actual things that lose wars.

Edit: Someone is going to have to address this eventually. Sanguinius, Dorn, and the Khan are going to have to have a come to Jesus meeting with the Emperor and tell him they are helping him because of the sacrifices their legions have made, not because the Emperor actually deserves their loyalty anymore.

Incompetence and losing aren't the same thing, though. It's not that I disagree with your analysis of the way civil wars go, because heck, reading up on them is often my fave part of historical fiction, but most of the "The Emperor is incompetent" stuff that gets flung around is the same as "Konrad Curze is emo" and "The Lion lol gay". It's meaningless dank meme-age, soundbites out of context devoid of analysis or quality.

I'd change a few things in Collected Visions re: the Emperor's plan if I could and that would solve those logistical issues (at the sad risk of creating many more), but this didn't feel like a time to go against the lore. Sometimes it is what it is. And some of your post is assumption; I don't see it in quite the same terms, since the Emperor himself speaks almost nothing about the loyalist Legions, and that leaves unreliable inference. It's just as easy to say that the Emperor values the Imperial Fists above almost any other resource, since he needs them in the Solar War and can't risk them doing anything else. That's far easier to infer from TMoM than something as wild as "He doesn't value the loyalist Legions sacrificing themselves out in the wider galaxy" or "There's no reason for the loyalists to be loyalists any more".

Of course he does. And of course there are. Beware hyperbole. But he has bigger problems than even that, which speaks to the scale of what's happening in the dungeon and how much effort he has to focus on stopping Terra being overrun with daemons thank to Magnus. It's not black and white.

[Atia]

Almost through it - my favourite bits:

- (basically) Black Shield Knights. With a female baron. Sooo awesome!

- Inclusion of many plastic mechanicum things - from Siracii to Kataphron Servitors and Kastelan Automata. Love it - really hope we get 30k rules for that stuff soon ...

- I love it how the Mechanicum calls Big E "Omnissiah" - although that's probably what you expect, it's really the first time they use it that often and with emotions

- Land's grav raider with 360° quad-choom.

- Land's monkey pet - so cute <3

- Custodes have freaking GRAV SPARTANS

Only thing I'm not really enjoying so far is Drach'nyens description - it works for the book, but for the tabletop I would rather have a form more akin to Archaons mount in fantasy or so. But I'm getting why the daemons in this book are more vague, and it fits for what the warp is.

[Marshal Rohr]

I'm not claiming anything as fact, I'm just drawing out all the potential pathways this could take moving forward. It's not that I think the emperor doesn't value the loyalists, it's that I think the loyalists would be justified in the thinking that he doesn't value them. The guy is a millennia old super-psyker who made clay masks of dead people as a kid, built architecture similar to the romans, organized and named his legions on classic antiquity so he's obviously in some way sentimental. Think of what I am saying not as a reader but more like a salty auxiliary in a trench somewhere on some backwater watching his high school classmates get cut down by traitors. I'm being intentionally hyperbolic for the sake of some discussion points, not because it's god's honest gospel. My command of the English language isn't good enough to separate the abstract real world discussion from how the guys on the ground would see it.

 

From the abstract reader view, I see the nuance and layers to this book. From the view on the ground I would have nothing but questions about why the Emperor is making these decisions, if that clarifies my views better.

[Marshal Rohr]

Almost through it - my favourite bits:

 

 

 

- (basically) Black Shield Knights. With a female baron. Sooo awesome!

- Inclusion of many plastic mechanicum things - from Siracii to Kataphron Servitors and Kastelan Automata. Love it - really hope we get 30k rules for that stuff soon ...

- I love it how the Mechanicum calls Big E "Omnissiah" - although that's probably what you expect, it's really the first time they use it that often and with emotions :)

- Land's grav raider with 360° quad-choom.

- Land's monkey pet - so cute <3

- Custodes have feaking GRAV SPARTANS

 

Only thing I'm not really enjoying so far is Drach'nyens description - it works for the book, but for the tabletop I would rather have a form more akin to Archaons mount in fantasy or so. But I'm getting why the daemons in this book are more vague, and it fits for what the warp is.

 

 

I had been holding off building Mechanicua plastic kits until I had a clearer picture of what would be ported to 30k and now I'm already planning my next few purchases :D

[Memento Of Prospero]

Except hyperbole is never a good way to drive a point home, because you are skipping steps/degrees and just turn the argument into a fallacy.

 

Also, it's important for readers to understand that the grim dark setting has different values and realities. You can't really compare it with our world. You can only look at the consistancy it has with itself.

[Marshal Rohr]

Except hyperbole is never a good way to drive a point home, because you are skipping steps/degrees and just turn the argument into a fallacy.

 

Also, it's important for readers to understand that the grim dark setting has different values and realities. You can't really compare it with our world. You can only look at the consistancy it has with itself.

That's simply untrue because human nature for guys on the ground has never been indicated to be any different than our own. It's unquantifiable but it definitely follows patterns on a larger scale. Hyperbole is how people take positions in divisive arguments. Godwins law exists because the hyperbolic reaction trends towards extremes, so anything any one says or does on the other side of the argument gets labeled as being like hitler because that's the horrifying end state the other side wants to avoid. Here I am saying that to the guy on the ground (the loyalist Primarchs) being treated like a ticking time bomb waiting to turn traitor is counter productive and would naturally lead to them questioning whether or not the emperor deserves their sacrifice anymore.

 

My point is not the hyperbolic ADB ruined the setting, because he knows that's not what I am saying and he knows I'm going to alter my point of view when presented with new information as the story progresses :)

 

Edit: part of the fun of the setting and forum posting is to talk about this stuff and how our plastic dudes might feel about feel about it. Not so much to just have all the answers immediately, and right now I'm trying to say 'this is how I think these loyalists would feel' and I'm open to discussing why I am wrong or right.

[Taurulf]

Ok, I am only halfway through the book at the moment, Loving it so far, and loving the questions it is throwing up. now...the whole idea  the emperor is perceived in a different way by each person based on how they themselves "want" to see him. 

 

Got me thinking.. This could have in turn put another slant on why each of the primarchs turned or did not turn on him.

 

For example,  Angron sees the emperor as an arch conqueror, no better than the high riders who he rebelled against. because that is how he has perceived people in power all his life.

 

Lorgar perceived  the emperor as a god..because that is what he experienced on Colchis .

 

Mortarion/ Perturabo saw the emperor as a tryant because that was their experiences growing up .

 

Russ grew up respecting warriors strength, loyalty, etc there for saw in the emperor all these traits,

 

Dorn / Guliiman  valued duty, respect etc.....anyway I hope you can see what im getting at.

 

does this make sense to anyone else? or just me????

[Memento Of Prospero]

Except hyperbole is never a good way to drive a point home, because you are skipping steps/degrees and just turn the argument into a fallacy.

Also, it's important for readers to understand that the grim dark setting has different values and realities. You can't really compare it with our world. You can only look at the consistancy it has with itself.

That's simply untrue because human nature for guys on the ground has never been indicated to be any different than our own. It's unquantifiable but it definitely follows patterns on a larger scale. Hyperbole is how people take positions in divisive arguments. Godwins law exists because the hyperbolic reaction trends towards extremes, so anything any one says or does on the other side of the argument gets labeled as being like hitler because that's the horrifying end state the other side wants to avoid. Here I am saying that to the guy on the ground (the loyalist Primarchs) being treated like a ticking time bomb waiting to turn traitor is counter productive and would naturally lead to them questioning whether or not the emperor deserves their sacrifice anymore.

My point is not the hyperbolic ADB ruined the setting, because he knows that's not what I am saying and he knows I'm going to alter my point of view when presented with new information as the story progresses

Edit: part of the fun of the setting and forum posting is to talk about this stuff and how our plastic dudes might feel about feel about it. Not so much to just have all the answers immediately, and right now I'm trying to say 'this is how I think these loyalists would feel' and I'm open to discussing why I am wrong or right.

Of course you are open to discuss it and have your opinion. What I am saying is that you are using your values as a basis for the argument, which are not the setting's. The setting is all about Duty and Honour. The Emperor demanded uncompromising loyalty from his sons, and those who turned on him have forsaken that sacred oath. Those who remained loyal are fully aware of what is going on, and know only one way to make it right. Sacrifice upon the Altar of war in defence of the Imperium. The sacrilege of a space marine is a taint on all of them.

[Forward Assist]

 

 

 

...

- Land's grav raider with 360° quad-choom. 

...

- Custodes have feaking GRAV SPARTANS

 

 

 

ADB - if there's anyway you can pressure the studio to make those two things delicious resin reality (preferably available to the First Legion), I will not only pressure my wife to name our first born child for you*, I will also spend the money earmarked for their university tuition on the models instead.

 

*Even if it is a girl.

[Marshal Rohr]

Except hyperbole is never a good way to drive a point home, because you are skipping steps/degrees and just turn the argument into a fallacy.

Also, it's important for readers to understand that the grim dark setting has different values and realities. You can't really compare it with our world. You can only look at the consistancy it has with itself.

That's simply untrue because human nature for guys on the ground has never been indicated to be any different than our own. It's unquantifiable but it definitely follows patterns on a larger scale. Hyperbole is how people take positions in divisive arguments. Godwins law exists because the hyperbolic reaction trends towards extremes, so anything any one says or does on the other side of the argument gets labeled as being like hitler because that's the horrifying end state the other side wants to avoid. Here I am saying that to the guy on the ground (the loyalist Primarchs) being treated like a ticking time bomb waiting to turn traitor is counter productive and would naturally lead to them questioning whether or not the emperor deserves their sacrifice anymore.

My point is not the hyperbolic ADB ruined the setting, because he knows that's not what I am saying and he knows I'm going to alter my point of view when presented with new information as the story progresses

Edit: part of the fun of the setting and forum posting is to talk about this stuff and how our plastic dudes might feel about feel about it. Not so much to just have all the answers immediately, and right now I'm trying to say 'this is how I think these loyalists would feel' and I'm open to discussing why I am wrong or right.

Of course you are open to discuss it and have your opinion. What I am saying is that you are using your values as a basis for the argument, which are not the setting's. The setting is all about Duty and Honour. The Emperor demanded uncompromising loyalty from his sons, and those who turned on him have forsaken that sacred oath. Those who remained loyal are fully aware of what is going on, and know only one way to make it right. Sacrifice upon the Altar of war in defence of the Imperium. The sacrilege of a space marine is a taint on all of them.

That outlook fits more closely with a post-codex space marine than a legionary, from the way I see it. The codex hollows out anything remotely resembling a human and replaces it with something more like a servitor. The exchange between Zephon and the child and Diocletian best illustrates this, I think. Where Diocletian has more in common with ADB's Grimaldus, Zephon is still human enough to know the kid just wants to be comforted. There is a chance that the Codex reforms intended to make marines more like Custodians in that autistic, disconnected way Diocletian deals with the kid. I don't think a legionary raised in two years and only fighting in the Heresy would have his soul stripped out of him the way the Custodes have, so I can only imagine their connection to duty and ideals are closer to our own, where loyalty requires a measure of reciprocity from the top. The Imperium at this point isn't the dystopian nightmare of 40k, it's the greatest civilization that ever was or will be for humanity. It has elements of tyranny, necessitated by the distances and ways it projects it's monopoly of violence, and it has aspects that are downright genocidal, but those are all determined by the circumstances in which it must govern, not the malice of the lesser humans that come after the Emperor. A 40k space marine is loyal because he doesn't know any other way. A legionary is loyal because he believes in the ideal of the Imperium. That kind of existence begs questions when their worldview is challenged. If a Blood Angel is constantly asking if he can help, and the custodians tell him to buzz off because he's a traitor waiting to happen, why would that Blood Angel who comforted that child not privately wonder what the hell is the point in helping those golden d-bags do anything? We know Zephon chose to do the right thing (actively contribute when needed) when the chips were down, but that inner conflict is a powerful story unto itself that I would like to see fleshed out more. I said it in the other thread, and I'll repeat it here. The loyalist have to know that the fate of the thunder warriors awaits them once Horus is defeated, the traitors have pretty much ensured that.

So my question is, how much of that knowledge drives Guilliman's reforms? Maybe, deep down, is someone like Guilliman, aware of his own existence as a tool of war, not secretly relieved the Emperor isn't in a position to purge them after the civil war ends? We're the efforts Guilliman went to making Ultramar and his legion into governors and bureaucrats not in someway shaped by his fear that they would be killed and discarded once the great crusade was over? Did this influence his decision to build the Imperium Secundus instead of drop everything and go to Terra?

These are all powerful, almost Shakespearean motivations for characters that only make the setting deeper.

[Icarus1138]

I thought the scene where the Emperor allows Ra to see "faith" through his own eyes was very revealing. The easy interpretation is that the Emperor's superior psychic perception allowed him to view the corruption within the evil priest. When I first read it, however, I took it as literally how the Emperor sees faith. When Ra asks what he's seeing the Emperor doesn't say "Chaos" or "corruption" or what have you, he calls it faith. One of the most interesting parts of the Emperor to me is his completely failing to understand the nuances of human faith (full disclosure: I am a person of faith and a Religious Studies major, I am biased here).

 

He may have simply meant "Look at what faith leads to" when he identified that corruption as being faith, but knowing what we do of the Emperor he may have such a negative view of faith that he believes faith to simply be an aspect of corruption, rather than just a path to it. If so, depending on the realities of the setting, that's a huge mistake he's making. Faith is like loyalty; its value is dependent on what it is directed to.

 

And yet Land refers to the Emperor as divine right to his face, without being corrected.

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

How much of a role does the Howl of the Hearthworld pack play in the novel?

[Marshal Rohr]

Howl of the Hearthworld isn't in it :(

 

As for the faith thing, Abnett was the one who started writing about faith having some kind of physical effect in the real world. Keeler lights that Daemon on fire, and we know Acts of Faith for the SoB are not chaotic in nature. Maybe the emperor didn't know that he could do some of that. 

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

I thought they were supposed to be...that's a bummer

 

I thought I was going crazy not seeing them in the two pages worth of cast

[Memento Of Prospero]

For some reason the quote button isn't working, so bare with me.

 

@Marshal Rhor

 

Space marines are mostly the same in at the core with both settings, the geneseed pretty much molds them into this (transhumans being documented in several of the early novels, hazy memory of the past and detatchment to civil concerns, focused on perpetual training and martial techniques etc...) and they strongly believe whatever vertues that govern their eras. The codex hardly is to blame for this, it's a reorganisational manual for the legions to break down into more flexible chapters.

 

The real difference is the depth of the writting inbetween the two settings. Let's face it, 40k novels were mostly bolter porn until recently. It is easy to say that they are just radical nutjobs because of this. So in contrast, the major players (usually company captains or equeries, etc...) of the heresy do have more depth of character, they have real struggles, but they still abide by the same code in the end and they are surrounded by hundreds of battle brothers who are not nearly as conflicted as they are  or willing to second guess what they are doing. The Warrior Lodges/cults/boys club effectively played the same role the strict Schedule of the 40k universe in fanatising the traitors into single minded weapons.

 

The blood angel constantly has to help because he is driven. It's not just someone reaching out to help someone else in trouble, and gets fed up with trying and moves on to someone else. He is stuck in the same boat and It's about duty and redemption - and I wouldn't be suprised if he tried to do so until is dying breath.

 

Also, by the time the Heresy hits, the malice is pretty much in place, minus the god worship. The high lords of Terra (having taken over management while big E was out is secret lab cooking meth with Bryan Cranston) are cutting back on legion costs, starting to heavily tax newly join imperial worlds who cannot sustain themselves and increasing pressure on the Warmaster to the extreme on all crusade fronts and also to settle political intrigue.

 

We will only know what the codex really means for Guilliman when the scouring hits. I am sure he thought about it, especially with Imperium Secondus,(that novel was a hot mess) but at the same time I also doubt that the Emperor could have pulled the plug on Space Marines even if he had wanted to (unless he has some other alternative we know nothing about). As Sigismund put it, There can be only war. Beyond the crusade there will always be Xeno threats as we know it from 40k.

 

The galaxy was just the first step for him, beyond lay the other galaxies he planned on taking thanks to the secrets of the webway.

[Scribe]

I thought the scene where the Emperor allows Ra to see "faith" through his own eyes was very revealing. The easy interpretation is that the Emperor's superior psychic perception allowed him to view the corruption within the evil priest. When I first read it, however, I took it as literally how the Emperor sees faith. When Ra asks what he's seeing the Emperor doesn't say "Chaos" or "corruption" or what have you, he calls it faith. One of the most interesting parts of the Emperor to me is his completely failing to understand the nuances of human faith (full disclosure: I am a person of faith and a Religious Studies major, I am biased here).

 

He may have simply meant "Look at what faith leads to" when he identified that corruption as being faith, but knowing what we do of the Emperor he may have such a negative view of faith that he believes faith to simply be an aspect of corruption, rather than just a path to it. If so, depending on the realities of the setting, that's a huge mistake he's making. Faith is like loyalty; its value is dependent on what it is directed to.

 

And yet Land refers to the Emperor as divine right to his face, without being corrected.

 

'Faith' in the 40K/30K sense only has one path. Chaos.

[Marshal Rohr]

 

 

I thought the scene where the Emperor allows Ra to see "faith" through his own eyes was very revealing. The easy interpretation is that the Emperor's superior psychic perception allowed him to view the corruption within the evil priest. When I first read it, however, I took it as literally how the Emperor sees faith. When Ra asks what he's seeing the Emperor doesn't say "Chaos" or "corruption" or what have you, he calls it faith. One of the most interesting parts of the Emperor to me is his completely failing to understand the nuances of human faith (full disclosure: I am a person of faith and a Religious Studies major, I am biased here).

 

He may have simply meant "Look at what faith leads to" when he identified that corruption as being faith, but knowing what we do of the Emperor he may have such a negative view of faith that he believes faith to simply be an aspect of corruption, rather than just a path to it. If so, depending on the realities of the setting, that's a huge mistake he's making. Faith is like loyalty; its value is dependent on what it is directed to.

 

And yet Land refers to the Emperor as divine right to his face, without being corrected.

'Faith' in the 40K/30K sense only has one path. Chaos.

Not the keeler kind tho. Remember when Pius was escorting the refugees through his time portals and they prayed real hard to help against the daemon? It's not all chaos, I just don't think anyone's going to elaborate on it now that Abnett has checked out.

[Scribe]

That stuff is already in my 'ignore' section of my brain. To say it didnt fit with the setting would be...generous. 

[Marshal Rohr]

Sisters of Battle had acts of faith in 3rd edition and Templars used to get buffs from their vows. Those were the only two instances I can remember.

[Scribe]

Sisters of Battle had acts of faith in 3rd edition and Templars used to get buffs from their vows. Those were the only two instances I can remember.

 

Yeah, but its still all Warp stuff, its still drawing from the same place that is made of Chaos.

 

I found the very forced inclusion of Christianity to be borderline offensive and not at all like Sisters/BT stuff, obviously it draws on the same tropes, but...yeah Abnett cemented himself even lower on my list after that book :p

[RandomMarine]

My head canon for how faith repeling deamons works is that faith causes such a high lvl of positive emotion in the warp that it actively repels beings of negative emotion like a drop of washing up liquid in a oily pan.

[The_son_of_Dorn]

That analogy. .......by the Emperor

[Scribe]

My head canon for how faith repeling deamons works is that faith causes such a high lvl of positive emotion in the warp that it actively repels beings of negative emotion like a drop of washing up liquid in a oily pan.

 

And mine (in 40K) is that its a Warp Power, like any other, only in 40K its powered by the subconscious of the God-Emperor that will be born upon the E finally biting it.

 

if I push, the eternal nature of the Warp makes it work in 30K too...

[RandomMarine]

That analogy. .......by the Emperor

Seemed as a suitably visual

[norngahl]

Is there any fluff about where the E comes from, his name, personal stuff like taste of whine or whatever?