Black Library Advent Calendar 2017

[mc warhammer]

 

 This basically just turns them into Mary Sues then who are right about everything if Chaos is just out-and-out worse then them. 

 

i probably hate the term mary sues with as much passion as i love the phrase napoleon beans

[bluntblade]

 

Rob Mac needs to write Templars. Do it. Do it nao

Also Ultramarines nyet.

 

They are super-cool, and I recently re-read Helsreach, plus it seems I do love pushing back that Imperial Guard novel I want to write with countless other novels, so who knows?

 

 

Yeah Rob, seen any of those posts suggesting a book set after That Thing That Happens over Cadia? Pretty please. I'll buy you chocolates.

 

As in, post Fall of Cadia or am I missing something?

I should've actually thought about that before I typed anything. After the First Battle of Cadia in the First Black Crusade. I'd love to see where the Templars are mentally at that stage.

[MrDarth151]

Honestly, the previous page is kinda representative of the problem I have. If you can read HH and come to the conclusion that the Emperor of Mankind is "obviously" anything, then the Black Library has failed at what it set out to do.

 

 

 

There are also Imperial worlds that do just fine, some that offer an even better quality of life than Earth does today. I think the ratio of good-to-bad favours the Imperium over Chaos pretty easily. 
 

That being said it's a lot easier to say Chaos is bad when we're looking at it with full knowledge of the subject from outside the setting. 

 

 

That's really author dependent though. Like, I agree with that interpretation, and I like it, because it makes considerably more sense that the alternative, but I seem to recall vividly that when argued something along those lines last year, Laurie Goulding tried really hard to convince me that I was mistaken to take that interpretation.

 

 

But that sort of just returns to the problem of removing all ambiguity or depth to the setting and just saying 'one side is right all other sides are wrong' which sounds boring and very unlike what I assumed 40k was. This would mean there are good guys, rather than the common 'there are no good guys', by just saying the Imperium is right kill everyone else even if they aren't hostile like the Diasporex. This basically just turns them into Mary Sues then who are right about everything if Chaos is just out-and-out worse then them. 

 

 

Have we come this far that Imperium being not completely evil is seen as them being Sues? What does that term even mean, at this point?

 

Also, within the context of this discussion, the point is that Imperium pre-Heresy SHOULD be the good guys that weren't wrong. The entire tragedy of the Horus Heresy rests on something of value being lost.

 

Two completely evil sides at war isn't tragic. And it certainly isn't enough to carry tens of books worth of a tale.

[Scribe]

I dont think the tragedy of the Heresy is that something was lost, but that the Imperium 'won' the Heresy, and thereby doomed an entire species to suffer under the weight of an increasingly broken regime as its 'best' option for survival.

 

The tragedy is not that Horus and crew turned. The tragedy is that the goal of the Imperial Truth, was so quickly lost, or in some Legions never even believed in the first place. The death of truth.

 

The Last Remembrancer for example, is pretty much my perfect short for showing exactly the tragedy of the heresy.

[MrDarth151]

I dont think the tragedy of the Heresy is that something was lost, but that the Imperium 'won' the Heresy, and thereby doomed an entire species to suffer under the weight of an increasingly broken regime as its 'best' option for survival.

 

The tragedy is not that Horus and crew turned. The tragedy is that the goal of the Imperial Truth, was so quickly lost, or in some Legions never even believed in the first place. The death of truth.

 

The Last Remembrancer for example, is pretty much my perfect short for showing exactly the tragedy of the heresy.

 

... Okay, time out.

 

What do you think my point is, Scribe?

[Scribe]

Also, within the context of this discussion, the point is that Imperium pre-Heresy SHOULD be the good guys that weren't wrong. The entire tragedy of the Horus Heresy rests on something of value being lost.

 

 

This?

[MrDarth151]

 

Also, within the context of this discussion, the point is that Imperium pre-Heresy SHOULD be the good guys that weren't wrong. The entire tragedy of the Horus Heresy rests on something of value being lost.

 

 

This?

 

 

And how do you think what you said differs?

[Scribe]

Because I think the tragedy is intact. Not that the Imperium was ever good, but that what was lost, may only have been a flicker in the first place.

 

The story is hidden under what we all assume or show bias towards but its not that the Imperium of the Great Crusade was ever 'good'. It wasnt. It was still ignorant, it was still lead by questionable methods, and not because it 'had to be' during that time.

 

The tragedy, for me, is that the potential for something even BETTER than the GC Imperium could have existed, and it wasnt the turning of Horus that caused it to die. It was dead already, before the heresy ever happened.

 

Now, I'm not going to dig up quotes to support this point, because I'm not sure thats even worthwhile anymore, but when I look at things like Mechanicum, and MoM, and A Thousand Sons, and The Last Remembrancer, The Path of Heaven, and even Betrayer, I see common threads that are not pointing to 'the Imperium had it right, and we were on our way' but that there where real, meaningful flaws already in place, and those flaws when viewed by us as external readers with more 'real' knowledge, point to the Heresy as the only outcome.

 

The Tragedy is that the Imperium was not worth fighting for anyway, and needed to die as it's very foundations were a lie.

 

Again though, 'loose canon', so your interpretation is as valid as anyone elses, and its all just 'whatever'.

[MrDarth151]

Because I think the tragedy is intact. Not that the Imperium was ever good, but that what was lost, may only have been a flicker in the first place.

 

The story is hidden under what we all assume or show bias towards but its not that the Imperium of the Great Crusade was ever 'good'. It wasnt. It was still ignorant, it was still lead by questionable methods, and not because it 'had to be' during that time.

 

The tragedy, for me, is that the potential for something even BETTER than the GC Imperium could have existed, and it wasnt the turning of Horus that caused it to die. It was dead already, before the heresy ever happened.

 

Now, I'm not going to dig up quotes to support this point, because I'm not sure thats even worthwhile anymore, but when I look at things like Mechanicum, and MoM, and A Thousand Sons, and The Last Remembrancer, The Path of Heaven, and even Betrayer, I see common threads that are not pointing to 'the Imperium had it right, and we were on our way' but that there where real, meaningful flaws already in place, and those flaws when viewed by us as external readers with more 'real' knowledge, point to the Heresy as the only outcome.

 

The Tragedy is that the Imperium was not worth fighting for anyway, and needed to die as it's very foundations were a lie.

 

Again though, 'loose canon', so your interpretation is as valid as anyone elses, and its all just 'whatever'.

 

Ah. I see.

 

Can't say I view your interpretation as particularly tragic though. And more importantly: If what you say is true, why should I even care about the story being told in HH? From what you are saying, it's kinda not important in the grand scheme of things.

[Scribe]

I look at it from various levels.

 

1. Could the Imperium have been what people in universe (like Dorn, Rob, and various Imperial examples) thought it was? Yes, it could have been.

 

2. Did the GC Imperium actually reach those noble goals? No, it really didnt. (This is the in universe Tragedy documented in various passages in the books I mention)

 

3. Do many see the GC Imperium as actually a noble ideal, or at worst a neccessary evil out of universe? Yes, nearly every Imperial biased player/fan does. I personally, see that as a Tragic.

 

4. Do many see the Horus Heresy as the loss of something noble (the GC Imperium) and therefore tragic? Yes, many people outside of forums like this still believe the original tragedy exists. I personally see that as ironic tragedy. :p

 

5. Do many see that the Imperium of 40K is the actual tragedy, and that the GC Imperium 'winning' the Heresy was the worst thing that could happen to the species? Probably not, but I do, and I think its a tragic turn of events.

 

---

 

Now I cannot speak for you, I cannot tell you what to see value in. For me, VAST swathes of the HH books are nonsensical at best, useless at worst, and are a huge waste of money.

 

Nearly everything Shattered Legions, for one.

 

However those books I reference, they show (to me) what the real tragedy is. What really was lost, and the main story arc simply exists to serve the purpose of establishing how we got to 40K.

 

We have always known how the story goes in the broad strokes, so instead I look to the portions of the story that illustrate the tragedy as I see it.

 

The 40K Imperium forms the shackles that have bound humanity in slavery, for eternity.  

 

Again though, our personal interpretations are moot, you dont see tragedy, I do, neither of us is right or wrong, and the setting is whatever you want it to be.

[Marshal Rohr]

The Imperium of the Great Crusade has to be a positive alternative because that’s required of a narrative or story. The Horus Heresy is an Inciting Incident. The thing that makes the story not just continue on as an ordinary world. Like if the Nostramo never got the distress beacon, Luke never found R2, or Kirk never joined Star Fleet. The formula requires the Geresy to have been an empirical positive, because of it was an empirical negative there is no reason for the ‘hero’ to ever leave. It’s a rule of fiction writing. Now the Imperium of the great crusade can be gritty and dark, and that’s fine. But it can’t be just as bad as the Imperium. The Great Crusade saw new technologies, better organization, unified purpose. The Imperium has none of that. It’s stagnant and crumbling.

[Scribe]

The Imperium of the Great Crusade has to be a positive alternative because that’s required of a narrative or story. The Horus Heresy is an Inciting Incident. The thing that makes the story not just continue on as an ordinary world. Like if the Nostramo never got the distress beacon, Luke never found R2, or Kirk never joined Star Fleet. The formula requires the Geresy to have been an empirical positive, because of it was an empirical negative there is no reason for the ‘hero’ to ever leave. It’s a rule of fiction writing. Now the Imperium of the great crusade can be gritty and dark, and that’s fine. But it can’t be just as bad as the Imperium. The Great Crusade saw new technologies, better organization, unified purpose. The Imperium has none of that. It’s stagnant and crumbling.

 

100%, but we see many examples throughout the series, before the Heresy really kicks off, of the Imperium failing to address certain situations. 

 

The Heresy is still the incident as far as canon that tips things into the 'Dark Millennium' path but I think that the tragedy runs deeper than that. We have these in universe events that show that the concept of the GC Imperium was already flawed.

 

Like at a high level the tragedy of the Imperium being broken by the Heresy will never go away. Because it still is that event, from a systemic organizational point of view, you dont get to just have a 3rd (is that still the number or was it half) of the Empire rebel, torch the infrastructure, cut the head off of the government, and then walk away like nothing happened.

 

There just is to me, a suitably justifiable deeper level of tragedy in the setting. The kind of stuff that has Dorn disavow Sigismund for example, that has more resonance. 

[DarkChaplain]

So... advent calendars are nifty, aren't they?

[Scribe]

You will not cage me to a topic DarkChaplain! Not today, not ever! :p

 

Today's is an Audio drama, someone will need to give a review as I dont do those..still.

[No Foes Remain]

Read Magisterium today on my break (was late back because of it) and it was GOOOD. Love the Custodian's view on the primarchs and the legions. 15/10.

[Nineswords]

Can someone please clarify what the AK HH Blackbooks are? I'm clearly missing something.

[Marshal Rohr]

The black books by forge World are written by a guy name Allum Karpyn or something like that.

[Scribe]

Read Magisterium today on my break (was late back because of it) and it was GOOOD. Love the Custodian's view on the primarchs and the legions. 15/10.

Overview/Summary?

[Guest Triszin]

when is the second primarch audio drama?

[Fire Golem]

 

Read Magisterium today on my break (was late back because of it) and it was GOOOD. Love the Custodian's view on the primarchs and the legions. 15/10.

Overview/Summary?

Think there’s plenty earlier in the thread.

 

Edit: not that Cpt Ventris shouldn’t add their thoughts if they want to of course, just that if you’re looking for an overview it is available a few pages back :)

Edited December 20, 2017 by fire golem

[Scribe]

Oh my bad, I thought it was the latest. I'll go back.

[m0nolith]

Can someone please clarify what the AK HH Blackbooks are? I'm clearly missing something.

They're these books;

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-CA/The-Horus-Heresy-campaign-Collection-2017

 

They're written like an in-universe historical account of the Heresy, in-universe like say the the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer.

Every book is signed by a person with the initials "AK".

Up until now we didn't know who "AK" was.

Edited December 20, 2017 by m0nolith

[bluntblade]

When people get excited about Autek Mor and Endryd Harr emigrating to BL, that's what they're emerging from.

[Marshal Rohr]

I don’t like that migration at all. Right now Mor is one of the coolest characters ever developed. He can only become less cool. He won’t get better with more narratives.

[helterskelter]

A lesson In Darkness. A primarchs Audio drama about Konrad Curze.

 

A personal thumbs up for me, given the treatment of Him lately, basically a tale of the start of a world being brought to compliance.

Also feel the need to start calling Curze "vlad" thanks to the rather well done voice acting ^_^