Black Library Advent Calendar 2017

[b1soul]

I don't think it's authour antagonism...more like authours trying to be clever and hook readers, like the pointless lost legion references leading nowhere.

 

We can vote with our wallets.

[Calas Typhon]

I don't think it's authour antagonism...more like authours trying to be clever and hook readers, like the pointless lost legion references leading nowhere.

 

We can vote with our wallets.

 

And thats the problem. I was going to subscribe to the Advent thing for the Heresy and Primarchs shorts.. but things like this were reasons why I did not.

 

Its linked into the Primarch series now, for no actual reason at all. So people will be signing up for some Primarch goodness with the advent, or paying 3.99 and getting pointless stuff which leads to nowhere. Loads of people buy it, bam! More of the same stuff.

Edited December 14, 2017 by Warsmith Kroeger

[Scribe]

I will say, again, the quality of the Audio is very good. Voice acting and sound effects etc.

I'm sure it is, but I...just don't do audio.

 

I may get it anyway because I cannot believe it would be executed in such a manner as to incite people.

 

As I step back and look at the synopsis, it's a guy telling 'truths' to someone on their death bed.

 

Playing loose with fact at that point is pretty understandable.

 

'oh BTW when you croak...um hell is real, and you are going there too...'

 

Not the most comfortable of bedside manner.

[DarkChaplain]

I was planning to listen to this in bed tonight, but screw it, all the nerd-rage made me do it over the past 30 minutes. And it was excellent.

 

It is a character piece on Malcador through and through. Yes, it has some reveals, some of them ringing truer than others. Yes, Malcador laments having to lie to comfort others, almost cursing at the Emperor. But it isn't all lies, either. It isn't just a random assortment of nonsense meant to screw with the fans.

If you believe that, then you haven't listened to a word of it and, frankly, I consider your opinion irrelevant.

 

We've had a LOT of cases recently were people would get irrationally upset about some cliffnote spoilers, just one small paragraph from a full 400 page novel, and go on and on about how it is outrageous, it's unfair, and once again this stuff is happening. It's like context doesn't exist for you people, and nor does actually experiencing the subject matter yourselves before passing full judgement.

Now, I'm not trying to claim the moral high ground either (I'm probably irrationally upset about The Last Jedi and have no interest in watching it anymore and canceled all novel preorders for 2018 today, heh), but I at least try to give things a fair shake when I can. And it isn't just about short, ambiguous spoilers either. The author-hate here has been staggering to watch over the years, too.

 

Now, to address some of the specific spoilers:

 

We can pretty much take Malcador at his word regarding his age. He's got it down to the hour, actually, and rattles it down fluently.

 

We can also be certain that the Order of Sigillites exists. The Sigillite by John French implies as much. The same story also confirms that Malcador has been collecting pieces of human history and hiding them away in vaults deep under the palace, and that he has opinions on the Emperor always looking forward. Likewise, we know that the Emperor was supposed to tackle his dreams and projects instead of that stuff, which I believe was implied by The Master of Mankind as well.

So the hidden meaning behind the Aquila? Very fitting, and appreciated I'd say.

 

We also know that "The Emperor" hasn't always used that title. He was a knight in ancient times, he was a boy at the cradle of civilization, and during the Dark Age of Technology he traveled to Molech while not being The Emperor yet. That's a title he adopted, and everyone afterwards basically accepted that he had always been that, in a way. Malcador being a catalyst for the Emperor taking up the mantle for good doesn't seem far-fetched at all.

 

We can also be certain that the Emperor never intended for the Legiones Astartes to overstay their welcome. We know he has been ruthless with the Thunder Warriors, and there were many instances where Space Marine characters wondered if the same would be their fate. They were created for a purpose, and we knew that certain Legions were sent into the grinder pretty directly (Iron Warriors, for one, and the World Eaters had extreme casualty rates too). We know Guilliman and Vulkan were foremost among the Primarchs when it came to the whole swords-to-ploughshares approach, but Perturabo too wished to be an artisan and create instead of destroy. Some, like Lorgar, could have taken other jobs as well, and Magnus was supposed to be a battery for the Throne. But the Legions themselves? They weren't supposed to last as long.

 

It didn't surprise me to hear that the Emperor, and especially Malcador, had been planning to play them up against one another the entire time. It makes sense, and gives more context to events like Monarchia, fueling a feud between Guilliman and Lorgar, or the rivalry between Dorn and Perturabo that is only stoked by Dorn being recalled to Terra instead of Perturabo, while the latter gets all the dirty jobs. The Lion too desperately wanted to be Warmaster, and Corax was scared of Curze.

 

Where I think things fall apart is the bold claim that all is going to work out just fine and failure is inevitable. Malcador basically promises that all is just as planned one moment, but then also admits to having underestimated Chaos and how it took root in the Primarchs and Legions. He knows very well, as indicated by the ending moments, that things aren't looking good, that the war has spiralled out of control, that lives and worlds were being lost that were never intended to be in jeopardy.

 

He is pretending that the Emperor still has control over what is happening, but we obviously know that is not the case. The final moments of The Master of Mankind show that pretty clearly, as does the (all but confirmed) Terminus Decree kill-switch on the Golden Throne as properly introduced by Old Earth. The Outcast Dead also implied that the Emperor knew that, in some capacity, a Heresy War would occur, but wasn't clear on the specifics. He also apparently knew that it would end with him facing the big bad, but being unclear on the results.

 

THAT is the big lie here. The comforting lie to an old friend and confidant. He knows very well that things are a disaster, but doesn't want to burden others with the truth - that is his to bear. He knows the end is coming, even as he denied that it was to comfort his old friend.

 

"You promised. You promised me it wouldn't be like this. I lie to them to spare their sorrow, even as I envy their mortality. And it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart."

 

 

The drama is incredibly well produced and Toby Longworth hit it out of the park with his Malcador.

It takes almost halfway to really get going with the "juicy bits", but builds up to it in a very melancholic, atmospheric way. It is far more emotional than I expected, not just over the way it ends, but the entire build up of Malcador's relationship with his personal astropath. This offers a side of the Sigillite that we haven't seen before.

 

And yes, I don't think this should have been a Primarchs story, ever. It fits perfectly into a pre-Siege anthology alongside the other HH shorts this advent, though.

Edited December 14, 2017 by DarkChaplain

[Calas Typhon]

 

We've had a LOT of cases recently were people would get irrationally upset about some cliffnote spoilers, just one small paragraph from a full 400 page novel, and go on and on about how it is outrageous, it's unfair, and once again this stuff is happening. It's like context doesn't exist for you people, and nor does actually experiencing the subject matter yourselves before passing full judgement.

Now, I'm not trying to claim the moral high ground either but I at least try to give things a fair shake when I can. And it isn't just about short, ambiguous spoilers either. The author-hate here has been staggering to watch over the years, too.

 

 

Here are my problems.

Its not really irrational if I would have to pay 3.99 for this audio drama, If I went for a subscription, that would be 49.85. If I went to buy that, it would be because I wanted to hear about the Primarchs among the other stories. I would not care if it was a HH short about Malcador, but in a Primarch series? that screams false advertising to me. 

 

Context in this case does not matter as long as the points in the original spoiler are correct even as brief as they are, as you covered them in more detail I would presume the majority were correct. I don't particularly want to hear a drama about something that could be a lie, could be true just to stir things up within the community which has no real relevance to the Primarchs.

 

You can call this point irrelevant if you like. Its obviously mislabelled as a Primarch short and produced to chuck a bit of drama out there for the community to get into conflict about.

 

Also: I read your context and it still seems like a trash audio short and my position is the same.

Edited December 14, 2017 by Warsmith Kroeger

[ShadowSwordmaster]

I was planning to listen to this in bed tonight, but screw it, all the nerd-rage made me do it over the past 30 minutes. And it was excellent.

 

It is a character piece on Malcador through and through. Yes, it has some reveals, some of them ringing truer than others. Yes, Malcador laments having to lie to comfort others, almost cursing at the Emperor. But it isn't all lies, either. It isn't just a random assortment of nonsense meant to screw with the fans.

If you believe that, then you haven't listened to a word of it and, frankly, I consider your opinion irrelevant.

 

We've had a LOT of cases recently were people would get irrationally upset about some cliffnote spoilers, just one small paragraph from a full 400 page novel, and go on and on about how it is outrageous, it's unfair, and once again this stuff is happening. It's like context doesn't exist for you people, and nor does actually experiencing the subject matter yourselves before passing full judgement.

Now, I'm not trying to claim the moral high ground either (I'm probably irrationally upset about The Last Jedi and have no interest in watching it anymore and canceled all novel preorders for 2018 today, heh), but I at least try to give things a fair shake when I can. And it isn't just about short, ambiguous spoilers either. The author-hate here has been staggering to watch over the years, too.

 

Now, to address some of the specific spoilers:

 

We can pretty much take Malcador at his word regarding his age. He's got it down to the hour, actually, and rattles it down fluently.

 

We can also be certain that the Order of Sigillites exists. The Sigillite by John French implies as much. The same story also confirms that Malcador has been collecting pieces of human history and hiding them away in vaults deep under the palace, and that he has opinions on the Emperor always looking forward. Likewise, we know that the Emperor was supposed to tackle his dreams and projects instead of that stuff, which I believe was implied by The Master of Mankind as well.

So the hidden meaning behind the Aquila? Very fitting, and appreciated I'd say.

 

We also know that "The Emperor" hasn't always used that title. He was a knight in ancient times, he was a boy at the cradle of civilization, and during the Dark Age of Technology he traveled to Molech while not being The Emperor yet. That's a title he adopted, and everyone afterwards basically accepted that he had always been that, in a way. Malcador being a catalyst for the Emperor taking up the mantle for good doesn't seem far-fetched at all.

 

We can also be certain that the Emperor never intended for the Legiones Astartes to overstay their welcome. We know he has been ruthless with the Thunder Warriors, and there were many instances where Space Marine characters wondered if the same would be their fate. They were created for a purpose, and we knew that certain Legions were sent into the grinder pretty directly (Iron Warriors, for one, and the World Eaters had extreme casualty rates too). We know Guilliman and Vulkan were foremost among the Primarchs when it came to the whole swords-to-ploughshares approach, but Perturabo too wished to be an artisan and create instead of destroy. Some, like Lorgar, could have taken other jobs as well, and Magnus was supposed to be a battery for the Throne. But the Legions themselves? They weren't supposed to last as long.

 

It didn't surprise me to hear that the Emperor, and especially Malcador, had been planning to play them up against one another the entire time. It makes sense, and gives more context to events like Monarchia, fueling a feud between Guilliman and Lorgar, or the rivalry between Dorn and Perturabo that is only stoked by Dorn being recalled to Terra instead of Perturabo, while the latter gets all the dirty jobs. The Lion too desperately wanted to be Warmaster, and Corax was scared of Curze.

 

Where I think things fall apart is the bold claim that all is going to work out just fine and failure is inevitable. Malcador basically promises that all is just as planned one moment, but then also admits to having underestimated Chaos and how it took root in the Primarchs and Legions. He knows very well, as indicated by the ending moments, that things aren't looking good, that the war has spiralled out of control, that lives and worlds were being lost that were never intended to be in jeopardy.

 

He is pretending that the Emperor still has control over what is happening, but we obviously know that is not the case. The final moments of The Master of Mankind show that pretty clearly, as does the (all but confirmed) Terminus Decree kill-switch on the Golden Throne as properly introduced by Old Earth. The Outcast Dead also implied that the Emperor knew that, in some capacity, a Heresy War would occur, but wasn't clear on the specifics. He also apparently knew that it would end with him facing the big bad, but being unclear on the results.

 

THAT is the big lie here. The comforting lie to an old friend and confidant. He knows very well that things are a disaster, but doesn't want to burden others with the truth - that is his to bear. He knows the end is coming, even as he denied that it was to comfort his old friend.

 

"You promised. You promised me it wouldn't be like this. I lie to them to spare their sorrow, even as I envy their mortality. And it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart."

 

 

The drama is incredibly well produced and Toby Longworth hit it out of the park with his Malcador.

It takes almost halfway to really get going with the "juicy bits", but builds up to it in a very melancholic, atmospheric way. It is far more emotional than I expected, not just over the way it ends, but the entire build up of Malcador's relationship with his personal astropath. This offers a side of the Sigillite that we haven't seen before.

 

And yes, I don't think this should have been a Primarchs story, ever. It fits perfectly into a pre-Siege anthology alongside the other HH shorts this advent, though.

Interesting to read. 

[Charlo]

DarkChaplain, you put it into much better words than me and I think you hit the nail on the head.

[Scribe]

See, and read that way as DarkChaplain described, I have no issues whatsoever with the content, it all makes sense to a degree, as rationalization after the fact.

 

"Oh sure it looks like its gone to :cuss but just, Trust."

 

Many of the other points have basis in fluff discussions ranging over literally more than a decade.

[Marshal Rohr]

See, and read that way as DarkChaplain described, I have no issues whatsoever with the content, it all makes sense to a degree, as rationalization after the fact.

 

"Oh sure it looks like its gone to :cuss but just, Trust."

 

Many of the other points have basis in fluff discussions ranging over literally more than a decade.

It’s definitely not about the content, as it was a rather enjoyable listen. It’s about the intentional tweaking towards the community that is meant to rile up the 4channers who illegally download everything, make stupid memes, and talk crap about the authors personal lives - but it ends up catching people like me in its :cuss-punching spree, who buy the media, who love the setting, who understands and just want to build some models, come up with some background, and discuss what or where stories could’ve been better and where they are awesome.

[Scribe]

What is this 4chan targeted memeing you mention specifically?

 

Note: I've been in hobby stasis for about a year do I may be missing something obvious.

[DarkChaplain]

I don't get it either. Nothing in the drama gave me the impression that it was just meant to stir the pot.

 

(Mind, I do have a massive distaste for the meme'ing :cusslords on social media and co as well, and if I never have to see another "God-Emperor politician XY" post, it'll be too soon. Too many fools who have never touched a Codex, let alone a novel, propagating nonsense. Just look at all the "Dark Angels are traitors" and "Blood Angels are all dracula" stuff on BoLS...)

[Marshal Rohr]

What is this 4chan targeted memeing you mention specifically?

 

Note: I've been in hobby stasis for about a year do I may be missing something obvious.

It’s better to not say. If you check out the traditional games board you’ll see it REALLY quick.

[Scribe]

I've never used it, 4chan that is, the format makes me tired. :p

[mc warhammer]

i find it hard to believe BL would put money, blood, sweat, tears and time into just trolling people with a work

 

that’s a lot of effort and expense of resources for almost no pay off

 

i’m inclined towards dark chaplain’s read of the situation

[Marshal Rohr]

It’s been stated before sometimes they commission stories to put community interpretations to bed. Mortarion’s Heart being an example.

[mc warhammer]

that’s "course correcting"... (there are problems in the readership we need to correct)

whereas this seems to be an accusation of "just for lols" (we need to create problems in the readership)

 

does not compute

Edited December 15, 2017 by mc warhammer

[DarkChaplain]

Laurie's been doing a bunch of those stories. Mortarion's Heart was his, as was The Word of the Silent King, which tackled the "lol Blood Angels fistbumping Necrons, they're bros now!" nonsense. All those stories add context to odd one-liners in Codex timelines or mini-blurbs, which then spawned countless ridiculous discussions in the community.

 

So yes, I'd say course corrections like that aren't just fair, but needed. There's only so much you can do in a timeline or character description, there's no room for detail or nuance, just to put something cool in that people might want to hear more about. That's basically why Black Library exists - to give that context, nuance and elaborate on events. If you find issue with that, you may as well argue against the Black Legion series, the entire Horus Heresy, The Beast Arises and what not. At some point, they were all based on tiny nuggets of lore that held potential for good stories to be told.

[Scribe]

But what course correction is this then? I clearly have missed out on the meme.

[m0nolith]

The new Malcador audiodrama was superb. From the writing to the performance of the voice actors, all was simply superb!

THIS is why I play Heresy.

 

Given how well this is written and the subtext, I think we can infer what is true and what is not.
First of all, given all of these huge revelations, its easy to overlook one minor point that I personally loved.

 

The man who originally came to Malcador to bring him to Sibel's bedside, the man who was sulking in the shadows until Sibel told him to come out, the man who's writing Malcador is adamantly looking forward to reading when hes finished, his name is Alum Karpin
The person who wrote all of the HH Black Books signed them with his initials,  "AK".

I think his name combined with the fact that Malcador specifically points out his writing for no reason other than to point it out is far too much of a coincidence not to be intentional, and although hes only alluded to being the author, or rather will be the author of those books in the future, I can say that there's enough here to infer that he is in fact the author.

 

The next thing I have to question is what is the truth and what is not, and I believe we can actually decipher that to an extent simply by how the script was (superbly) written.

Malcador states he's 6718 years old, down to the second. He also states that the Emperor wasn't the Emperor before he met him. I'm inclined to believe him on this matter. All of this is completely in line with the older cannon of the Emperor being born around 8000BC in the region of Anatolia. He was always powerful pskyker, but not nearly as powerful as he is now. He gained that power on Molech, just as Horus did, but unlike Horus he betrayed whatever pact he made with the Ruinous powers while keeping that power. So one can imagine that back in the day during the days that he was a Warlord, he wasn't as powerful as he became post Molech. It could be that Malcador even told him about the gate there, giving him the opportunity to become as powerful as he did and the opportunity to conquer Old Earth.

 

However, half way through the revelations Sibel starts to coughing profusely, making Malcador switch tact and tell her something comforting. 

"Oh, this was all according to plan, don't worry." 

I believe this to be a lie due to wanting to simply comfort her on her deathbed. The only reason he doesn't go full blast and state that he knows they will win is because Sibel is no idiot, her bull detector will immediately go off and she'll think "your'e just yanking my chain aren't you?"

 

Really the only revelations we got from this audiodrama in my eyes are:

1: The identity of the author of the HH Black Books

2: Malcador's age and the purpose of his order

3: Why he and his (former) order were useful to The Emperor

4: That the Emperor wasn't as great as he is until after he met Malcador

 

Although nothing is expressed in absolutely certainty, enough is expressed in a way that gives you the resources to discuss, speculate and determine what you think is real or not.

That is one of the the signs of a great 40k/30k story.

 

All that being said tho, i cant reiterate enough how great this audiodrama is.

 

10/10

[mc warhammer]

 

 

Context in this case does not matter

 

 

"context" by its definition always matters

[Marshal Rohr]

But what course correction is this then? I clearly have missed out on the meme.

That’s this issue. The whole ‘These are lies’ is a metaplot that is cool in the instance of Alpha Legion, for example, and frustrating in the context of ‘the Black Books are all lies’. It’s become a self-referencing circle jerk that adds mystery in small quantities but is then stripped away when you read Laurie and ChildofFang belittle the people trying to discuss the stories by lumping them in with the memers that are constantly harassing the BL people on Facebook and Twitter. It’s really :cuss annoying because it gives them cover to handwave our fluff discussions as handwringing when really we’re just trying to digest the new stories. When Master of Mankind came out and twitter erupted into hordes of racist eggs fighting over the Emperor hating the Primarchs, people who had legitimate points of view were getting blamed as if they were part of the failbaddon crowd.

[Calas Typhon]

 

"context" by its definition always matters

Well it does not matter to me in this case.

 

The points I was referring to were correct, I did not need more details or any context because I don't really care about the story in the first place. The original spoiler was fine. If I was arguing that the points were individually stupid without hearing, then perhaps some context would have been great. But my gripe was that the events listed in the story sounded oddly placed in and that it had been put in to stir up talking points and throw spanners into the story using a series it should not be apart of. Adding more context to points I don't care about is pointless to me.

[Scribe]

 

But what course correction is this then? I clearly have missed out on the meme.

That’s this issue. The whole ‘These are lies’ is a metaplot that is cool in the instance of Alpha Legion, for example, and frustrating in the context of ‘the Black Books are all lies’. It’s become a self-referencing circle jerk that adds mystery in small quantities but is then stripped away when you read Laurie and ChildofFang belittle the people trying to discuss the stories by lumping them in with the memers that are constantly harassing the BL people on Facebook and Twitter. It’s really annoying because it gives them cover to handwave our fluff discussions as handwringing when really we’re just trying to digest the new stories. When Master of Mankind came out and twitter erupted into hordes of racist eggs fighting over the Emperor hating the Primarchs, people who had legitimate points of view were getting blamed as if they were part of the failbaddon crowd.

 

 

I dont think I can agree with this, especially when you reference MoM.

 

This forum was just as bad, and had completely missed several important nuances when it came to MoM, and completely fell into 'but but Dad loved them!' while disregarding the rest of the book.

 

I mean you had page after page after page of people completely wrong on the entire basis of the novel...

 

I also dont know who ChildofFang is, or the items you must be referencing there.

[mc warhammer]

 

But what course correction is this then? I clearly have missed out on the meme.

That’s this issue. The whole ‘These are lies’ is a metaplot that is cool in the instance of Alpha Legion, for example, and frustrating in the context of ‘the Black Books are all lies’. It’s become a self-referencing circle jerk that adds mystery in small quantities but is then stripped away when you read Laurie and ChildofFang belittle the people trying to discuss the stories by lumping them in with the memers that are constantly harassing the BL people on Facebook and Twitter. It’s really annoying because it gives them cover to handwave our fluff discussions as handwringing when really we’re just trying to digest the new stories. When Master of Mankind came out and twitter erupted into hordes of racist eggs fighting over the Emperor hating the Primarchs, people who had legitimate points of view were getting blamed as if they were part of the failbaddon crowd.

 

 

 

but doesn't that point of view require us to draw inferences between what we know of an author or BL staffer's online personality/actions and the work...something that i don't think we should do (that's literally what death of the author is actually about: not critiquing a work based on what we know of the author's life)

 

that in itself becomes a circle jerk of circumstantial evidence, connecting of dots that aren't there, paranoia and mind reading. we start to assume that we know the author's intentions...and those supposed intentions are always evil or lame

 

writing something like this is hard. producing it even harder. i still find it difficult to accept that BL would put themselves through that just to muck with some edge lords and then also not care if others got caught in the cross fire. a line or two? yeah maybe. but the entire thing?

 

i imagine they have a little more self respect than that

 

if a reader (rightly) takes the work purely within the context of 40k and not the meta context of online culture, then does it work? it seems to fit with the whole theme of ambiguity that has been present ever since i read my first IA article. m0nolith makes it sound great.

[mc warhammer]

 

 

"context" by its definition always matters

Well it does not matter to me in this case.

 

The points I was referring to were correct, I did not need more details or any context because I don't really care about the story in the first place. The original spoiler was fine. If I was arguing that the points were individually stupid without hearing, then perhaps some context would have been great. But my gripe was that the events listed in the story sounded oddly placed in and that it had been put in to stir up talking points and throw spanners into the story using a series it should not be apart of. Adding more context to points I don't care about is pointless to me.

 

 

 

i kinda get that...but if you want to discuss a subject with others, then context is just gonna happen as a by product. that probably can't be avoided

 

if you're just here to blow off steam and not entertain other thoughts...all good too.