Dark Imperium Spoilers/Plot Summary (Read Along)

[Loesh]

The first part is the hardest for me to write about because I have severe biases for everyone involved in chapters 1 through 3, i'v never cared much for the Ultramarines but i'm absolutely in love with the Emperor's Children but in the spirit of the Third Legion, I shall try to write this perfectly by remaining as unbiased as I possibly can. It is essentially setting the stage for Roboutes stasis, the Ultramarines have been outmaneuvered over a small world and a collection of inhabited moon, fighting over the native populations. The Third Legion has set a series of raids out, feigning a defeat at Xolco in order to lure Roboute into a trap. I was admittedly surprised to see this, we haven't touched on much in the scouring and even if it wasn't the Third Legion it would of been a welcome surprise. 

 

It's late campaign and Roboute is no longer in his prime, the Codex Astartes had been implemented and his group split into chunks. Among them the Novamarines, Iron Snakes, and Doom Eagles, he has six in total and their numbers are great, but not as great as a unified Emperor's Children warband. They are outnumbered 3 to 1, the rumors are that Roboutes own anger after such a long war against the traitor legions has made his emotions get the better of him, since he was already angry after Terra it's not unlikely.  Fulgrim seems to lower his shields in a mocking re-enactment of Horus on Terra, i'd be lying if I said I didn't chuckle, it's such a Third Legion thing to do.

 

He teleports onboard with his 1st and 2nd companies, the Pride of the Emperor is nothing short of horrifying. Time and debasement has made it a ruin, the call of the daemonic echoes down it's halls and it disrupts communication. I actually felt a little bit sad here, I get the impression the Ultramarines and Emperor's Children actually liked each other quite a lot before the Heresy, he was once welcomed with open but now they are mortal enemies. He tells one of his officers he will not let pride doom him, I...admittedly heard the always sunny in Philadelphia theme start to play.

Reaching the Heliopolis he confronts Fulgrim and I love the way Guy Haley writes both Primarchs in this scene. There's call backs to previous events, the typical taunting and sneering, but there's also subtle layers to their interaction. Roboute is moved to tears over seeing what his brother has become, Fulgrim when it comes to the actual duel salutes him without mockery and, far as I can tell, will actually fight him with honor in the ring. He offers to let Roboute leave after they disable the ship, possibly with honesty, possibly knowing it would make him too angry to go, my personal interpretation is the latter because as he states himself Roboute is the glue holding the Imperium together at the moment.

They clash, but Fulgrim is a Daemon Primarch and Roboute realizes within two strikes he's going to die and being practical as he is he immediately calls the Ultramarines he had waiting in case he started to lose. Fulgrim calls him out on the breach of honor as he furiously renews his attack, he opens his jaw wide and calls his own sons to fight them back. Fulgrim is as much sorcerer as warrior now and conjures swords as well as deflects bolter rounds with magic, interestingly his blades appear to be a part of his physical being as when one breaks it bleeds and he feels pain. Fulgrim is far too fast for Roboute even with help though, he speeds through the melee and hacks down anyone who gets in his way, a shieldwall comes to defend Roboute at one point and they are slain before he can even get back on his feet.

Roboutes constricted by his tail, crushed, has his helm ripped off and is poisoned by toxic mist before being hurled across the room. He cannot even retaliate, desperately trying to hold back Fulgrims strikes. Fulgrim notices the wound Kor Phaeron made earlier and strikes him so hard and fast that Roboute cannot even see it before his throat is torn out and his lungs are filling with blood. He's dragged away as the Ultramarines are being cut down, the 1st and 2nd company desperately buying time as Fulgrim is doing what I assume to be Devil May Cry air combos on them. He's teleported on the ship and put into stasis while the Ultramarines make a fighting retreat, their fleet is decimated and the moons desolated.

My extreme marking out for this scene and Fulgrim aside, I actually really liked Roboute. It showed an emotional depth between him and his siblings, a cold level of practicality, but also an unrestrained anger that often gets him into trouble. This failure is the setup for the entire rest of the book, he learns from these mistakes and it makes him develop into a better character who has rightfully been heralded as the imperiums savior, even if the saving of the imperium is an impossible task, he never underestimates his siblings again and prosecutes the Indomitas Crusade with a ruthless efficiency because of this.

Edited June 6, 2017 by Loesh

[b1soul]

People only seem to "like" Guilliman when he's taking a beating...people tend to cry favouritism when him and his boys in blue are allowed to shine

 

Anyway...the flashback to his encounter with Fulgrim was masterfully written by Haley...

 

 

Blinded by rage or righteous indignation or whatnot, Guilliman (at the head of his UM + successor fleet) chases Fulgrim into an ambush.

 

After realising his mistake, instead of cutting his losses and executing a fighting withdrawal, he compounds his mistake by ignoring his captains' counsel and attempting a desperate boarding action with the goal of slaying Fulgrim.

 

This ends in catastrophe and Guilliman is placed in a stasis field (after Daemon snake-thing Fulgrim utterly dominates him in a lop-sided duel).

 

Guilliman's memories just prior to stasis are of bitter, utter failure.

 

Seems Haley is breaking Guilliman down to build him back up.

[Loesh]

I mean, my like or dislike of Roboute has nothing to do with whether he's being mauled by Fulgrim or holding of Angron and Lorgar at the same time. It's the far more petty reason that he names his stuff the Armor of Reason and the Gauntlet of Power and I think i'm playing an RPG. :P

 

I try to be super analytical with things and look at stuff from an objective long view, but a lot of times I find I don't like groups for the most petty, childish reasons imaginable. For awhile I didn't like the Blood Angels because I just thought of them as psudo-vampires, which thankfully was removed with further lore clarifications.

 

I'm not sure there's a way to fix Ultramarine naming conventions for me at this point though.

[HeritorA]

I mean, my like or dislike of Roboute has nothing to do with whether he's being mauled by Fulgrim or holding of Angron and Lorgar at the same time. It's the far more petty reason that he names his stuff the Armor of Reason and the Gauntlet of Power and I think i'm playing an RPG.

 

I try to be super analytical with things and look at stuff from an objective long view, but a lot of times I find I don't like groups for the most petty, childish reasons imaginable. For awhile I didn't like the Blood Angels because I just thought of them as psudo-vampires, which thankfully was removed with further lore clarifications.

 

I'm not sure there's a way to fix Ultramarine naming conventions for me at this point though.

True and true.

Sadly the beginning of the Dark Imperium with that flashback is the best this novel has to offer.

[Loesh]

While I, the Emperor's Children fanboy did enjoy the first 3 chapters the most by far, I would actually say there's a ton of other reasons to read Dark Imperium and Guy Haleys masterful work outside it actually.

 

Everything about the Primaris Marines was something I devoured relentlessly, from their mannerisms and personality quirks to their equipment. They are shown to be obscenely powerful and yet there's an undercurrent of desperation to them: The Indomintus Crusade pushed Chaos back and slew many traitor legion veterans but it did not push them back nearly enough, worse still after a measly century the Chaos Legions are already slowly starting to get wise to the tricks of the Primaris Marines, they do not have the surprise of an organization like the Grey Knights for whom information is constantly suppressed. They may be a super elite unit of soldiers but they are not hidden, there's tens of thousands of members of the greyshields and as information about them spreads information will stiffin. They also exhibit some interesting characteristics, I cannot help but be enormously suspecious of one Marines apparent 'respect' for the belief in the Omnissiah to the point of espousing religious tolerance, they have their own fraternity perhaps above even their chapters that comes way too close to Legion building and actively do not wish to be broken up,  I also could not help but love the cognitive dissonance of using equipment even they recognize is Tech heresy of the highest degree.

Cawl inferior is absolutely delightful and to me Cawl himself needs to get in a room with Fabius Bile because i'm sure those two would love each other. Even his watered down AI program is seething with arrogance, openly dabbling in tech heresy, blackmailing a Primarch, demanding control of Mars, and in general giving every single indication that he's a Horus Heresy just waiting to happen. The man is an absolute treat and I cannot wait to see more Cawl in the future.

The amount of sass Typhus has for Mortarion is unreal and must be seen to be believed, I can't even say he's wrong.

Mathieu calls Roboute a hypocrite within three minutes, thinks he's being used as Guililmans spiritual mouthpiece, and yet at the same time thinks that if he keeps yelling Roboutes divinity at him long enough eventually he's just going to have to accept this, I love that, I love all of it, every scene with him I could only hear Lorgar laughing all the way from the Eye of Terror in the background.

Roboute himself is extremely fleshed out and his Theoretical/Practical thoughts on the Emperor at the end are insanely deep, to the point that while I do not like the Ultramarines in general it has made Roboute one of my top five Primarchs. Those last thoughts on everything hurt, I could feel them in my heart, and they summarize the Primarchs and the Emperor in so many ways.

When it's slow it feels really slow, but when it's fast I love it as much as i'v ever loved any ADB novel, and I do not say that lightly. 

Edited June 6, 2017 by Loesh

[Joe]

Personally, the flashback sequence (particularly the descriptions of the interior of the Pride of the Emperor) and the sequences on Iax (particularly the description of the medicae and the gradual change into being a plaguebearer) were fantastic. The fluff was mixed at times, but the prose was utterly fantastic.

 

Oh, and the Iron Warrior getting mulched when he tried to slap a melta on the underside of a Repulsor was hilarious.

[b1soul]

I haven't gotten that far yet...about how powerful are the Primaris relative to the old Astartes?

[HeritorA]

I haven't gotten that far yet...about how powerful are the Primaris relative to the old Astartes?

Like 30 % more powerful - that's from my point of view. I think everyone will have different opinion on new power levels

[Loesh]

I haven't gotten that far yet...about how powerful are the Primaris relative to the old Astartes?

 

Wouldn't be that hard for them to lose to a Chaos Legionnaire or a veteran LSM 1vs1, might even be easy despite the tougher physiology, but their tech advantage with things like the assault bolt pistol allows them to kill multiple opponents without much trouble.

[Marshal Rohr]

Shooting more rounds, faster doesn't help you kill people. Just keep them in one place.

Edited June 6, 2017 by Dosjetka
No need for that real-world example.

[Loesh]

Shooting more rounds, faster doesn't help you kill people. Just keep them in one place.

 

They actually cover that a bit. If their jetpacks are dry on fuel their way less effective, they need resupply drops to function for any significant length of time, and they have to be absurdly conservative with their rounds or they can go dry in the span of a little over a minute. 

[Loesh]

Also, while the Indomitus Crusade is technically a success, it feels very small potatos all things considered. Even with tens of thousands of Primaris, even with full titan legions at his side and endless human hordes, it feels more like pageantry and politics then actually pushing back the darkness. He crushed pockets of traitors with overwhelming force, but so what? Half the galaxy is still split, the arch enemy is endless, and even though many Chaos veterans have been slain, many more or left, it's not like they stopped the relentless advance of the Black Legion, or even the larger more coherent warbands of the other eight. Whenever Chaos had strong leadership difficulties arose, they only steamrolled over foes who were disorganized to begin with. As a result the celebrations over the Pit of Raukos feel quite hollow, it might be my Chaos bias talking but it feels like it's the propaganda machine trying to desperately hold the whole crumbling thing together before the Chaos Legions decide to play for keeps.

 

And I like that a lot.

Edited June 6, 2017 by Loesh

[Vesper]

He's dragged away as the Ultramarines are being cut down, the 1st and 2nd company desperately buying time as Fulgrim is doing what I assume to be Devil May Cry air combos on them.

 

YES.

Edited June 7, 2017 by Vesper

[HeritorA]

Loesh

And that's the problem 'the arch enemy is endless, and even though many Chaos veterans have been slain'.

Abaddon always struggle to get resources, get warbands, built fleets. And in the new lore - the CSM resources are INFINITE.

For me half the point of logistic and fighting with or against them are lost. Why GW decided to do that dick move I do not know. From the point I see - 'to get 10-12-years old into the Play'. It's like PG-12 now And I hate it a lot.

[Loesh]

I don't see this as a particularly new development, indeed I see it as the natural progression of the story. The Imperium was always going to die the moment the Chaos Legions got an actual foothold in the Materium, it was a delicate house of cards. Now that Chaos has revealed itself, now that, as pointed out in the book, you cannot ignore it every time you look up at the night sky, the lie that held the Imperium together will collapse on itself.

 

The roles are reversed Chaos is no longer the rebel faction: The Imperials are.

[Vesper]

Hi Loesh,

 

Is there any stuff on the Black Legion in the book ?

[HeritorA]

Hi Loesh,

 

Is there any stuff on the Black Legion in the book ?

'The roles are reversed Chaos is no longer the rebel faction: The Imperials are.' - lol, funny but almost sarcastically true

[Loesh]

Hi Loesh,

 

Is there any stuff on the Black Legion in the book ?

Not much sadly, only a coherent force of Death Guard give the Ultramarines real trouble at the end.

 

 

 

 

Hi Loesh,

 

Is there any stuff on the Black Legion in the book ?

'The roles are reversed Chaos is no longer the rebel faction: The Imperials are.' - lol, funny but almost sarcastically true

 

I mean, how is it not? if the Emperor awoke tomorrow, how would he fix this?

 

70% of the Imperium is just gone.

Edited June 7, 2017 by Loesh

[DogWelder]

 

Hi Loesh,

 

Is there any stuff on the Black Legion in the book ?

Not much sadly, only a coherent force of Death Guard give the Ultramarines real trouble at the end.

 

 

 

 

Hi Loesh,

 

Is there any stuff on the Black Legion in the book ?

'The roles are reversed Chaos is no longer the rebel faction: The Imperials are.' - lol, funny but almost sarcastically true

 

I mean, how is it not? if the Emperor awoke tomorrow, how would he fix this?

 

70% of the Imperium is just gone.

 

I feel thats rather exaggerated, no offense. I'm sure the Imperium has suffered grievous losses and I don't, by any means, want the Imperium to come out of this unscathed.

 

However, I would say it's about 20-30% if we're looking at the map of the Imperium as a whole. Also, the impression I got from the book was that the Imperium had returned to a sense of normalcy as the borders have stabilized due to the Indomitus Crusade. I would say that this is the new status quo that GW is going for tbh.

 

(Spoilers for 8th Edition ahead)

 

Since Mortarion and the Death Guard withdrew from Ultramar back to the Scourge Stars at the end of the Plague Wars, I would say that also frees up both Mortarion and Roboute as characters as well as their respective factions (Death Guard and Ultramarines) from being tied down to one place. 

[Loesh]

I mean even Roboute himself states that the Indomitus Crusade was not a lasting victory, he just tried to hold it up as one so that the Imperium had the illusion of hope. This is nevermind the fact that, largely speaking, most of the Indomitus Crusade was reactive, it was fighting off Legions attacking their side of the wall who were taking up residence rather then pushing in to the other side where the Astronmicon held no light, without Cawls pylons which could be decades(Even centuries away.) there was no way to even get a reliable stable route there, meaning that half of the Imperium will be pitch black for at least a hundred years on top of the century that's already passed.

If you combine the traitor legions pushing into their end of the galaxy even after the Indomitus Crusade, their inability to contact half the galaxy in any capacity at all, and the Segmentum Pacificus having gone black even well before this, I would say 60% of the Imperium being corrupted/destroyed/severed is being generous. 

[DogWelder]

I mean even Roboute himself states that the Indomitus Crusade was not a lasting victory, he just tried to hold it up as one so that the Imperium had the illusion of hope. This is nevermind the fact that, largely speaking, most of the Indomitus Crusade was reactive, it was fighting off Legions attacking their side of the wall who were taking up residence rather then pushing in to the other side where the Astronmicon held no light, without Cawls pylons which could be decades(Even centuries away.) there was no way to even get a reliable stable route there, meaning that half of the Imperium will be pitch black for at least a hundred years on top of the century that's already passed.

 

If you combine the traitor legions pushing into their end of the galaxy even after the Indomitus Crusade, their inability to contact half the galaxy in any capacity at all, and the Segmentum Pacificus having gone black even well before this, I would say 60% of the Imperium being corrupted/destroyed/severed is being generous. 

Wasn't Guilliman able to travel to Baal? And weren't there stable crossing routes to the Imperium Nihilus? Plus its not like every single planet on that side of the Imperium is suddenly gone. Baal and other strongholds (Alaric, Mordian, Valhalla, Honourum plus a ton of other chapter planets) will surely be able to survive. A lot of Ultramarine successors who are based on that side of the Imperium (Sons of Orar, Novamarines etc.) also appear in Ultramar to help Guilliman during the Plague Wars. Surely they must have had some way to cross the warp rift.

[Loesh]

There's two stable routes, one north and one south, but even claiming Baal and any associated worlds seem like a consolation prize. It goes two ways after all, while he's doing that the Chaos Legions are spilling into the remaining imperial territory in large number, resulting in territory lost for whatever they might gain.

 

Sure there are probably dozens, hundreds, even thousands of Imperial holdouts left in Imperium Nihlius but they are likely a crumbling collection of states with varying levels of power, loyalty to the Imperium, and contact with the rest of the galaxy. Some might even fight off the traitor legions to just as eagerly turn their guns on the Imperium and declare independence, this is before we even get to the damage Xenos has and will continue to do while the Imperiums in the state it is. Even the scourge stars themselves are not some retreat into the immaterium like previous black crusades, but a physical founding of Nurgles realm in the material within Ultramar, in much the same style as Magnus now how as a physical realm in material space also.

 

In my eyes it's 70%, if not more.

Edited June 8, 2017 by Loesh

[HeritorA]

There's two stable routes, one north and one south, but even claiming Baal and any associated worlds seem like a consolation prize. It goes two ways after all, while he's doing that the Chaos Legions are spilling into the remaining imperial territory in large number, resulting in territory lost for whatever they might gain.

 

Sure there are probably dozens, hundreds, even thousands of Imperial holdouts left in Imperium Nihlius but they are likely a crumbling collection of states with varying levels of power, loyalty to the Imperium, and contact with the rest of the galaxy. Some might even fight off the traitor legions to just as eagerly turn their guns on the Imperium and declare independence, this is before we even get to the damage Xenos has and will continue to do while the Imperiums in the state it is. Even the scourge stars themselves are not some retreat into the immaterium like previous black crusades, but a physical founding of Nurgles realm in the material within Ultramar, in much the same style as Magnus now how as a physical realm in material space also.

 

In my eyes it's 70%, if not more.

Partly I do agree with you - but it's not 70 it's like 30 at most like Caius Tadius said

Anyway Imperium is in the scary place, but if you compare to the Imperium during 13th Black Crusade you will see it's almost the same level of 'scary'.

 

Problem is - due to the horrible free usage of timelines and a lot of retconned stuff - right now it's hard to solidify your own visage of new Imperium before/after Indomitus Crusade.

At least until we get official Bible for all the lore and time changes through the 8th edition release. At least I hope all would be explained, especially retconned parts.

[Loesh]

Well the problem is the Segmentum Pacificus even before the Rift was a blackout on the high end of 10% of the Imperium. The Rift itself is a 50/50 split of whats left down the middle, cutting a massive swath through Segmentum Ultima and Obscuras. Those places are not default annihilated, but they are very close because without the Astronmicons light there's no safe warp travel for Imperial forces. No supplies, no communication, no reinforcement, i'm even skeptical of the Indomitus Crusades relief of Baal because as soon as Roboutes massive swarm of Custodes, Sisters, and Primaris leaves then the Blood Angels will be back to managing their empire on their own with no reinforcement.

That alone would make me think it's at least 50%. probably undercutting it.

But things like the Scourge Stars make the situations significantly worse, we've only seen two Daemon Primarchs but not only are they attacking the other side of Terra Nihlus and establishing physical empires over there, that's.....pretty dire.

[HeritorA]

'But things like the Scourge Stars make the situations significantly worse, we've only seen two Daemon Primarchs but not only are they attacking the other side of Terra Nihlus and establishing physical empires over there, that's.....pretty dire.' - yeap. And that's just the first 3 (Magnus, Morty, Furlgrim). Perty should stop swaying his ass at nowhere and get back to the fight. Same to Angron.