What can the Siege of Terra novels 'borrow' from history?

[R_F_D]

Not literally champions lined up and challenging each other...

 

SM are going to be fighting all around the Palace and champions will inevitably meet on the field of battle and clash. There's something very Homeric about Astartes warfare IMO

 

Homeric as in this?

 

Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

Only thing about Homeric examples - can't get my head around the fact that by the Siege one side is now a debased shred of humanity, so how much honour is left on their part?

[Knockagh]

 

 

 

Good point. If only there was a primarch who grew up fighting battles in such terrain... Oh wait, that's Perturabo

Are you rolling your eyes because you think I didn't know about Olympia or you disagree that Mountain warfare will be a big influence?

My apologies, I was just trying to crack a joke and chose what I thought was the smily face emoji.

Ah the joy of communication in a non verbal medium! Open to a thousand mis interpretations and unintentional insults!

[bluntblade]

Hate to burst the mountain bubble, but as of Restorer there's almost nothing to mark the Palace as mountainous. It's just covered in fortifications.

[Fire Golem]

I thought the Himalayas were levelled in order to build the palace anyway?

[Sandlemad]

I thought the Himalayas were levelled in order to build the palace anyway?

 

Parts definitely were, the top of Everest was ground down for material in Blood Games. The palace is basically a country-sized megastructure, so there will be lots of relatively flat areas but the mountains are certainly still there to some degree, as BL covers show. I would be very surprised if Dorn did not try to take advantage of natural defensible positions and sheer elevations when designing the fortifications.

 

Whether the the traitors land in the Himalayas themselves or in the plains of modern-day China, Russia or India and Pakistan, some at least will be marching uphill to reach the walls. Ulis Temeter makes a good point, the WWI Italian front would be interesting inspiration. Trench systems cut into the sheer rockfaces of the Alps and brutal close combat warfare on the edge of cliffs.

 

It's all still 3km above sea level (or whatever passes for sea level anyway) but this is probably only going to be a factor for non-astartes. Mortal troops will have to put up with subzero conditions and lack of oxygen in places.

[karden00]

Yeah I am really quite torn on this one. 

 

40/30k has been far too guilty far too often of borrowing historical inspirations/tropes so blatantly that it was basically Patton iiinnnn sppppaaaaaahhhhhhccceeeeee. 

 

 

It can and has been done very, very well. Who now doesn't love the Khan and respect him as a true force in this conflict? For a guy who is Ghengis Khan in space, he is beautifully fleshed out, and most importantly, in my opinion, believable. 

 

 

But as much as that example shines through, others are less...shiny. 

 

 

If the inspiration is loose, and not immediately transparent, I suppose I am all for it, but there is 28,000 bloody years between now and then, I would love it if authors felt free and encouraged to blaze new trails. Obviously, sci fi writing is not the same as compelling military strategy, but there have been times where this has paid off well. 

 

I know Vengeful Spirit was not as well received in general as I received it, but I loved that McNeil did the whole bit about coffin ships, and 'remembering the moon.' I could be way off here, but I don't think that had any direct real world inspiration, and I feel it was a lovely aspect to a set piece action sequence. 

 

 

Here's a thought: Caesar is believed to have masterfully subdued all of Gaul by his own military merit and skill. In reality, he did a lot of politicking and was very opportune in making and breaking alliances with local Gallic/Germanic peoples in order to pull off what he did. (Okay, fine, that too is validly described as part of military merit and skill) 

 

Why not have Horus do the same thing? We hear in Blood Games that people on Terra might be in kahoots with the Arch Heretic. I wouldn't be surprised to see Horus arrive, with his Legions, Mechanicum, Traitor Regiments, Daemons galore, but also appeal to the populace of Terra itself "Join me and live....resist, and....ever seen what a real daemon can do...?" Whether he then uses those people to his advantage, or simply has them put down their guns to better slaughter them all, is quite fine with me. Maybe he pulls off a great deal with some Hive city, basically has them on side, only to have Fulgrim and the EC go and eat and enslave them all anyway. Lots of examples of that kind of lack of coordination in history. 

[Iron Father Ferrum]

I can think of no better example of defending a mountaintop stronghold than Monte Cassino.

[Carach]

siege of Malta would do well 

 

bickering multiple commanders of an overwhelming ottoman force (navy, army and overall commander) with the sultan sending letters and asking golly gee is going on and threatening repercussions for failure, receiving little intel back as a result  - this can indeed be the dynamic going on between the traitor brother primarchs as Horus sits in his ship having transcended brotherhood, pestering his underlying brothers who are getting a bit miffed at slow pace of progress themselves and rivalries with one another etc..

 

the sieges of the 2 main forts on the island being a hell of a gruelling fight, with the threat of a relief force just across the sea in Sicily on its way any day now (this force was repeatedly held back by King Philip of Spain demanding the admiral of the relief fleet should not risk his ships)

 

 there was a kind of fort in a fort which was on an island just off the mainland only connected via bridge (St Angelo, if i recall) which was the alamo style last place to resist  - but La Valette, the Knight's leader (and after which i guess the main town of Malta is now named?) vetoed any decision to go there and abandon the people of the town and had the bridge blown up to emphasise the 'no retreat' stance he was taking  - this can relate to the steady collapse of the loyalist lines and the last ditch hold around the inner palace i guess

[RobMac]

Apprentice Boys closing the gates of Derry in 1689. Outstanding bravery of the young, bold and brave.

The idea of a’Lundy’ trying to let the approaching army in through his own weakness and fear but having the keys to the city taken off him by brave young idealistic men could definitely be turned in grand scale to the seige of a planet.

As a history student this would be one of my fav choices. 

[helterskelter]

 

 

Apprentice Boys closing the gates of Derry in 1689. Outstanding bravery of the young, bold and brave.

The idea of a’Lundy’ trying to let the approaching army in through his own weakness and fear but having the keys to the city taken off him by brave young idealistic men could definitely be turned in grand scale to the seige of a planet.

As a history student this would be one of my fav choices.

Have you got a siege novel?

[Phoebus]

Usually, I lament the fact that most Black Library authors eschew the opportunity to really try describing a massive battle - or to at least allude to one through a scene or two that captures what would happen in part.

 

This... is one of those cases where I respectfully hope they don’t. I do hope we get the real macro view (as in, literally, from orbit), and some general dramatic scenes that capture the sheer destruction that global war on this scale, involving several legions and their combined fleets against several legions and the most powerful fortress ever. For the most part, though, I hope humility prevails and whoever handles these novels will take a page from Abnett’s playbook and focus primarily on the micro, tactical level.

 

Because look, here’s the thing. All of Horus’s Space Marines together won’t add up to even a million warriors. That’s absolutely an Armageddon-level force before we even start talking about the numberless rebel Imperial Army types, the thousands upon thousands of warships, daemons, etc. Even so, the Imperial Palace is literally the Himalayas. Look at a map and consider the scale involved. It’s mind-boggling. Consider the effort it would take to do justice to the kind of combat involving these distances and the incalculable firepower and numbers involved. With all due respect, John French - who is a remarkable writer - tried to tackle a battle that wasn’t even an iota of the Siege of Terra (scale-wise) and it struck me as utterly disappointing: non-descript, with lazy objectives, and tactics that seemed like an afterthought - at best.

 

Far better, I think, to focus on the heroes fighting at the crucial spots of this titanic battle, and showcase their heroics against odds impossible to comprehend and violence capable of sundering continents. Those individual engagements could certainly draw on any number of historical events: those mentioned earlier, and still others like Thermopylae, the Siege of Constantinople, and so on.

[b1soul]

The prose should be epic and nigh-mythological...it shouldn't feel like a hard military sci-fi battle description.

 

"Homeric" is the key word I think.

 

For example, the way Wraight describes (below) Shiban's charge into the Traitor lines at the Lion's Gate is sufficiently detailed. We don't need to know the detailed logistics of men and materiel. The drama of the Siege trumps the battle itself.

 

The skies were black, scored by a fire of a thousand hues that screamed and raced and danced. The warriors crouched low, their white armour blackened and befouled, kneeling amid ruins. Overhead came the big lander, its bloated hull spiked and flaming, nearly the size of a line cruiser, casting a familiar shadow over the Lion’s Gate and carrying ten thousand more torturers to goad a bleeding world.

Shiban gripped the stave of his guan dao. Beside him his troops made ready, both the old and the new. He could almost feel their hearts thumping in concert, driven by the raw desire to get out there again, to do what they had been made and trained to do.

He held them for just a moment longer. A dozen forces were converging, tearing across the burning cityscape, fighting from spire to spire, block-unit to block-unit, and it all had to be perfect.

The lander swelled across the sky, blotting out the flames and tumbling orbital debris. Its belly was black and ribbed, a casket of hate vomited from the depths of the Warmaster’s soul. Too many had come down already – this one would not add to the tally.

He gave the order.

As one, the White Scars burst from cover, leaping from the ruins and out into the open. Las-fire latticed the heat-shaken atmosphere, punctured by the heavier rhythm of bolt shells. The first tanks broke through on the far side of the compound, smashing through weakened retaining walls and swivelling their turrets for an aim. All converged, all contracted.

He ran as fast as he ever had done. The rest came with him, bringing the storm, whooping and crying out with war-curses in both Gothic and Khorchin. They were astonishing, fighting just as hard, just as strongly, despite all that had been hurled at them. The hammer-blows kept coming, beating this world into bloody pulp, and yet they still fought, they still got up, they still threw that hate back into twisted faces.

They were laughing as they ran into contact now. That made his soul glad – that was as it should be, the way he had been schooled – but he did not join them. He only ever uttered one battle-chant now, spoken solidly, taken from the iron country where his final lesson had come.

 

The enemy became visible through the flames, closing fast.

Ilya might have approved, if she could have heard him then.

‘No backward step,’ he breathed, and drove his glaive into the first of them

Edited November 4, 2017 by b1soul

[bluntblade]

All the authors could do much worse than revisit Tolkien (and not his imitators).

[Knockagh]

 

 

 

Apprentice Boys closing the gates of Derry in 1689. Outstanding bravery of the young, bold and brave.

The idea of a’Lundy’ trying to let the approaching army in through his own weakness and fear but having the keys to the city taken off him by brave young idealistic men could definitely be turned in grand scale to the seige of a planet.

As a history student this would be one of my fav choices.

Have you got a siege novel?

Sorry I don’t follow? Do you mean a novel on the seige of Derry?

[grailkeeper]

In the 1916 Rising in Dublin the troops on both sides fighting at St Stephens Green Park agreed daily ceasefires so the parkkeeper could come in and feed the ducks. 

 

I am hereby demanding that this be incorporated into the Siege of Terra.

 

 

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/1916-rising-hostilities-lifted-daily-to-allow-feeding-of-ducks-384116.html

[b1soul]

@bluntblade

 

Perhaps not historical...but the Fall of Gondolin (in Lost Tales) was incredibly epic.

[bluntblade]

I should grab the more mythical stuff on kindle some time. My first thought is always the Witch King riding across the "hills of slain", which I worked into a BotL exemplary battle a while ago. Edited November 5, 2017 by bluntblade

[b1soul]

You should...the Tolkien's First Age is like 40K's Great Crusade, when gods still strode the earth

[bluntblade]

One of my favourite 40K lines is when Magnus arrives at the Fang, and Wraight talks about how this is the "colder, weaker 32nd Millenium".

[helterskelter]

 

Sorry I don’t follow? Do you mean a novel on the seige of Derry?

Was asking Robmac if he's got a novel slot for the siege of terra. Because it would be ace.

[Knockagh]

 

 

Sorry I don’t follow? Do you mean a novel on the seige of Derry?

Was asking Robmac if he's got a novel slot for the siege of terra. Because it would be ace.

Ah, sorry yes I see now. How silly of me....Would be rather good.