The limits of Grimdark, Grimderp, and Suspending Disbelief

[Vel'Cona]

For 40K novels, something I'd like to see a bit more is a sense that people really believe the Imperial Cult. Usually, it's written off as a joke - everyone knows the Primer is useless save as emergency toilet paper, for example. It'd be nice to see someone who genuinely believes that their lasgun will misfire if they don't recite the Litany of Maintenance during a strip and clean.

 

You need to read more novels on AdMech, brother!  :D

[Tarvek Val]

For 40K novels, something I'd like to see a bit more is a sense that people really believe the Imperial Cult. Usually, it's written off as a joke - everyone knows the Primer is useless save as emergency toilet paper, for example. It'd be nice to see someone who genuinely believes that their lasgun will misfire if they don't recite the Litany of Maintenance during a strip and clean.

 

Or check out the early Horus Heresy novels, when the Imperial Cult is first introduced. Tell me that the first followers of Euphrati Keeler aren't devout in their faith; they have faith in the Emperor even when the Heresy breaks out and they are slaughtered by Traitor Marines. Those renditions of faith and humanity are, in my opinion, some of the finest moments of the Heresy era. Also, like Huggtand, I truly love the concept of Prospero. A world of learning, knowledge, and prosperity, crushed under the boots of "uncouth savages"... The sense of loss is truly memorable in the books Prospero Burns and A Thousand Sons. I really like A Thousand Sons for the vivid details and descriptions of what life was like on Prospero, and what the Thousand Sons truly valued.

[Wargamer]

 

For 40K novels, something I'd like to see a bit more is a sense that people really believe the Imperial Cult. Usually, it's written off as a joke - everyone knows the Primer is useless save as emergency toilet paper, for example. It'd be nice to see someone who genuinely believes that their lasgun will misfire if they don't recite the Litany of Maintenance during a strip and clean.

 

You need to read more novels on AdMech, brother! 

 

I suspect this is precisely why I love the Mechanicum so much. I really believe they are a deeply religious sect who see machines as divine.

[mc warhammer]

if there's one thing i get from this thread it's that different things annoy different people...which...is just obvious really.

 

one that does come to mind for me was lucius tricking demeter into killing loyalist ec on instvaan III. now, unless i'm not remembering the details correctly... there must have been a million ways for that to be avoided.  like a quick chat.

 

to be fair, this stuff happens all over entertainment in general. annoys me there too.

[Tarvek Val]

mc, I remember that scene as well. Demeter happened upon Lucius while the latter was in the midst of a fierce fight against an overwhelming number of Emperor's Children. In the heat of the moment, I think it understandable that Demeter jumped in to assist his friend against his attackers without first stopping to have a quick conversation with what he saw as enemy Marines. After seeing the atrocities committed upon his comrades and friends on Isstvan by his former brothers, he probably wasn't very open to conversation with the enemy, which led to the unfortunate situation described above. I do see your point about how that could have been avoided, but I think this scene added a poignant bit of irony to the story. You survive enemy attacks, orbital bombardment, betrayal on a massive scale... and then get killed pointlessly by one of your loyal brothers, who was manipulated by a hidden traitor? Sad, but not poorly written in my personal opinion. 

[mc warhammer]

 I borderline resent the stories written about this setting being referred to as tie-in fiction precisely because of the amount of work that has gone into making this a nuanced, engrossing setting.

 

i know you say "borderline", so take this as the tangent it is....but they are tie-in fiction or at least a related form. that doesn't mean any less work goes into it.

 

i think rather than trying to call a spade by another name (i guess you could call it something like "fusion literature"), it's better to embrace tie-in fiction and not be "ashamed" of the title. tie-in fiction can be nuanced and engrossing but its also market and product driven and often silly (to anyone on the outside).

 

and that's all fine.

 

i feel the same way about fanfiction. it shouldn't be a dirty word.

[Lord_Caerolion]

The argument could be made that in a time of unprecedented betrayal, you don't listen to the people you've been told are enemies saying things like "but we're on your side" and "but he's the enemy!" You trust your friends, rather than just "they say they're good guys, I guess I'll trust them". That sort of thinking gets you shot in the back.

[bluntblade]

I do find it strange that not one of Lucius' victims shouted "He lies, Captain Demeter! He's turned on us!" or "Betrayal!"

[mc warhammer]

mc, I remember that scene as well. Demeter happened upon Lucius while the latter was in the midst of a fierce fight against an overwhelming number of Emperor's Children. In the heat of the moment, I think it understandable that Demeter jumped in to assist his friend against his attackers without first stopping to have a quick conversation with what he saw as enemy Marines. After seeing the atrocities committed upon his comrades and friends on Isstvan by his former brothers, he probably wasn't very open to conversation with the enemy, which led to the unfortunate situation described above. I do see your point about how that could have been avoided, but I think this scene added a poignant bit of irony to the story. You survive enemy attacks, orbital bombardment, betrayal on a massive scale... and then get killed pointlessly by one of your loyal brothers, who was manipulated by a hidden traitor? Sad, but not poorly written in my personal opinion. 

 

yeah as i said, i may be remembering it poorly.

 

my gripe was less with demeter's actions and more with the EC "extras". that's the thing with "red shirts"; they don't act like actual living beings alot of the time, because they're essentially canon fodder. i would imagine by that point in the battle, with dwindling numbers of loyalists that at least one of them might recognise demeter? might even say something like "dude but y?"

 

and was there no attempt by loyalists to mark out their armour in difference to the traitors? honest question, i don't recall.

 

i get the grimdarkian point of being killed pointlessly by your loyal brother, i less get why you wouldn't pipe up. especially since we have plenty of examples of space marines loving a good chat about the weather whilst in combat. they only seem to shut up when the plot really needs them to.

 

buuuuut...maybe that was explained in the novel and i forgot it?

[mc warhammer]

I do find it strange that not one of Lucius' victims shouted "He lies, Captain Demeter! He's turned on us!" or "Betrayal!"

 

let's put it this way- if demeter had come across lucius fighting say...tarvitz or loken...you can bet your sweet bippy (yes, i have no idea what a bippy is) that ol' tarvitz or loken would have figured out something clever to alert demeter.

 

a few words like you suggested. or refusing to fight demeter. or run. or something more clever than i can come up with before my coffee.

 

but because they weren't "our guys", them poor EC just took their plot-medicine silently.

 

or so it seems in my recollection

[mc warhammer]

The argument could be made that in a time of unprecedented betrayal, you don't listen to the people you've been told are enemies saying things like "but we're on your side" and "but he's the enemy!" You trust your friends, rather than just "they say they're good guys, I guess I'll trust them". That sort of thinking gets you shot in the back.

 

i suppose that relies on the idea of them all being strangers to one another. i do remember that demeter decided not to take a command role during the battle, in deference to tarvitz (aaand also kinda sorta explaining why he wasn't a presence in GiF) but it's not as if he went to lengths to disguise his identity from other loyalists. i would assume loyalists of note and repute would be something the rank and file loyalists would be aware of.

 

i think if the scene had been written with more utter madness and desperation, i might have bought it.

 

still, it seems to have worked for some people.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Yep, that's what plot armour does. The characters can also survive being shot or stabbed once or twice. I'd also argue that this misses the point of the particular interaction. Of course Demeter would trust believe someone he trusts with his life. Random Emperors Children soldiers, when they're fighting Emperors Children soldiers? You're going to have to be a bit more persuasive than "he betrayed us", given that it's a time of mass-confusion, and you've just been betrayed for unknown reasons.

"He lies, Captain Demeter!" "Well, you could be lying right now, random Legionnaire! This is a man who saved my life numerous times, why should I doubt him, and trust you for no reason? Because you're an Emperors Children? So are half the people attacking us right now." 

Plus, for all the mooks know, Demeter has betrayed them too. How would they know? 

[mc warhammer]

Yep, that's what plot armour does. The characters can also survive being shot or stabbed once or twice. I'd also argue that this misses the point of the particular interaction. Of course Demeter would trust believe someone he trusts with his life. Random Emperors Children soldiers, when they're fighting Emperors Children soldiers? You're going to have to be a bit more persuasive than "he betrayed us", given that it's a time of mass-confusion, and you've just been betrayed for unknown reasons.

"He lies, Captain Demeter!" "Well, you could be lying right now, random Legionnaire! This is a man who saved my life numerous times, why should I doubt him, and trust you for no reason? Because you're an Emperors Children? So are half the people attacking us right now."

Plus, for all the mooks know, Demeter has betrayed them too. How would they know?

 

that’s fair enough...but i honestly don’t recall that being addressed. it was established they were random? they hadn’t also spent istvaan III fighting by demeter’s side?

 

did they say “he lies!” to which demeter replied “this man lucius is very trustworthy! whoa careful lucius, you’re waving that sword very close to my face”

[Lord_Caerolion]

It wasn't directly addressed, more that I can see how it could play out the way it did. I've never been the biggest fan of McNeils writing.

 

Also, let's not forget the culture of the Emperors Children. If you're a senior rank, you are outright trusted over lower-ranked individuals, as you have demonstrated greater perfection than them, and are closer to the Primarch. They were trained to follow orders from superior officers unthinkingly, that rank automatically wins out. Lucius was a higher rank than the men he was attacking, so the inclination was to believe Lucius.

[mc warhammer]

yeah, i get all the filling in the blanks. i had to do a lot of that myself

 

i still think, in a time when demeter was betrayed by the higher ranks of the EC (they’d already made attempts on his life) and with him deferring to the lower ranking tarvitz...that he might have let some of that hierarchy rigidity go

 

and that, even if he was inclined to believe the higher ranking guy that he doesn’t like or respect over a bunch of lower ranked astartes, that he might have noticed something was off

 

all it would have taken for him to be a little more cautious would have been those randoms actually acting like living people

 

i probably wouldn’t have minded so much if there’d been an attempt to explain it. by glossing over, mcneil left a big question mark over that scene for me

[Tarvek Val]

You all have very good points, well put by all parties. I haven't read the book in a while, so my memories of course are a tad bit hazy too. That's a pretty good point about how talkative people in the Warhammer universe are when they fight, I'm thinking of the types of grandiose speeches that the Chaplains and inner members of the Dark Angels Chapter give the Fallen before executing them in my mind right now. That being said, I'm with Lord_Caerolion in that it probably wouldn't have made a difference in the Lucius / Demeter situation even had the loyalist Emperor's Children spoken up. Demeter and Lucius were, if not friends, than at least well associated with one another, and in the chaos of the fighting, I just don't think that anything could have been said that would have persuaded Demeter to turn on Lucius. On another note, it's entirely theoretical whether that would've even made a difference. After all, Lucius was regarded as one of the best swordsmen in the entire Imperium during the Heresy era (up with such legends as Sigismund of the Imperial Fists). He was able to fight with Fulgrim, and didn't die. So I'm not too sure that one more guy would've changed the outcome either way.

[Marshal Loss]

In Vengeful Spirit however, I felt taken out of the story by Horus’ decision to assault a heavily defended ridge via a very small causeway, when there seemed to be plenty of other areas to make planetfall. Granted, in the story his own officers questioned this, to which Horus responded by saying basically, “I’m the Warmaster and I do what I want.” I got over it quick and continued enjoying the book for much the same reasons, but I still was brought out of the story for a bit because of that decision.

 

To be fair to Vengeful Spirit, Horus consciously makes a decision to do so in order to follow the Emperor's footsteps across Molech, kind of like a pilgrimage.

[Wargamer]

Okay, let's end the nuke from orbit thing, because that has been established as a last resort in lore and games decades ago.

 

The best example is, of course, Battlefleet Gothic. Every system you hold generates resources you can use to repair or upgrade your fleet. Planets subject to Exterminatus generate virtually nothing. In the PC game, they likewise have zero bonus, but have a permanent, irreversible penalty.

 

That's why you don't nuke from orbit - habitable worlds are a valuable and finite resource!

[Huggtand]

Where I personally would think 40k can be even more grimdark is the portrayal of the general society. Not more doom doom doom  but how much humanity has changed in 41 millennia or how much the warp changes those who come in contact with it.

 

This of course is highly subjective but I love novels like Mechanicum, Storm of Iron or Soul Drinkers that shows just how bizarre and alien 40k really is. I like the more machine than human Mechanicum, I like chaos marines to be mutated and corrupted by the warp, not just bitter normal marines with spikes. I like it when humans are modified and bizarre and still counts as perfectly normal.

[Xisor]

Though, as per the new rulebook - despite the Imperium nuking worlds, there are still more readily discovered.

 

It's an intriguing balance that 8th Ed (pre-Great Rift) lands authoritatively on the side of: 'despite dozens lost to human stupidity, alien malice, demonic fiends and cosmic calamity, there are nevertheless hundreds of new world's or lost colonies added' or words to that effect.

 

In short: the Imperium grinds on for good or for ill.

 

So even though Exterminatus (etc) is obviously bad - it's ostensibly an affordable cost.

 

It'd be interesting to do a 'day in the life' of the Administratum - how many lost, How delayed the information is, how many new Missionaria Galaxia, Explorators, and Rogue Traders are dispatched, how many new Crusades formed and so forth.

 

More: it's be intriguing to see how patchy and variable the information is!

 

Obv. not likley to happen, but seeing it 'worked through' as an example would be... edifying.

[Phoebus]

 

I borderline resent the stories written about this setting being referred to as tie-in fiction precisely because of the amount of work that has gone into making this a nuanced, engrossing setting.

 

 

i know you say "borderline", so take this as the tangent it is....but they are tie-in fiction or at least a related form. that doesn't mean any less work goes into it.

To be more clear, I resent the negative connotation that often follows tie-in fiction. More specifically, I don’t like that said connotation is generally tied to lowered expectations. While typing this, I found myself wondering what kind of reception, e.g., Abnett’s Eisenhorn, Ravenor, and Bequin trilogies would have been received if the characters and setting were original to him. Because he wrote those stories in a shared sandbox, though, his covers get taglines like “probably the best writer of dark military SF.”

 

As to the conflict of exterminatus bombardments versus sending in thousands of average joes; I suppose I always am able to wave that off with old adage of “infantry will always be necessary to hold ground.” That’s generally not too much of an issue to me, though I do ask that same question sometimes.

There’s always going to be a compelling reason for an author to send in a planetary invasion force. No issues there. Maybe it’s because the planet holds sacred places (such as Ancreon Sextus, in His Last Command). Maybe it’s because an STC is rumored to be in some ancient ruins. It’s more an issue of how those forces are showcased when on the ground.

[Rob P]

I remember either speaking to or listening to the author Peter Newman talking about historical fiction. He said something along the lines of a poor story being more damaging than getting the history wrong.

 

I think the same principle applies to military tactics and, to some extent, the physics of the universe.

 

Obviously there is scope for being bang on with everything and telling a good story, but the 40k overton window is pretty wide for most fans.

 

If some effort is made to justify in-world silliness then that's great and all, but I personally like the madness of it all.

[Moonreaper666]

 

I normally don’t have a problem with stupidity or insanity in the 40k universe because the inbuilt stupidity is usually set up rather nice in the basic lore.

 

We know that the standard Imperial guard is modeled on the first word war concept/mentality, where the mass of bodies is more important than brilliant strategies. Spattered among this is more advance special units based on world war two or modern warfare. So, when we have generals that don’t care about their men or make stupid decisions to advance their careers we recognize it as appropriate for the setting. The Gaunt's Ghosts series is wonderful for showing the whole range of both stupidity and brilliance of the Imperial Guard.

 

We know that the technology is unfathomable for most men and is seen as mysticism and madness. There is no technological degradation in itself, new technologies are discovered as soon as old are forgotten, just that people describes the effects and workings to religion and spirits. Of course, that there is a fair bit of spirits in the tech make it is somewhat justified So, when people are making a prayer to the machine god to change a lightbulb or that repairing an engine requires priests with incense and holy unguent, we see this as perfectly normal in the setting.

 

We know that the Administratum is a Kafka-like nightmarish byzantine religious maze-like bureaucracy that normally moves at a snail’s pace. Here are so many branches, institutions, layers and offices that no one have the whole picture (or even close to it). For an ordinary citizen to process something may take a lifetime or generation. Luckily local planetary administrations can be somewhat more manageably. So, when it takes a hundred years for the Imperium to react to the Tau expansion we perceive it as an apt description of how the Imperium functions (or not).

 

It’s when the author breaks the above lore without a good explanation that it takes me out of the story and question it. For me personally it’s often about numbers and logic and not so often about stupidity.

 

It would be nice to see more consistency and realism in certain areas. Some examples are:

• Space marine’s recruitment, where authors seems to top one another both in how few of the prospects survives and on the other end how many chapters almost gets annihilated in different conflict. The numbers don’t add up in any way or form, and make you question if the author knows anything about logistics
• The numbers of troops to accomplish anything. When I read that Chapter or a Cabal of Dark Eldar kills everybody in a whole world in one night I just roll my eyes. Just to find millions or billions of people hiding on a whole world is ludicrous from the start and doesn’t feel believable

I just wish that a basic knowledge of military logistic was a little more prominent when writing about war stories

Send this to Dan Abnett and the other BL writers, THEY NEED TO HEAR IT FROM US!

 

Any authors that actually have a grasp in logistics, consistentcy and realism?

[Huggtand]

As I wrote in an earlier post in this topic, I actually think that the BL authors do a good job overall and it’s only in a few examples where I personally (I have a tic about numbers) question something when reading novels. 

 

In my opinion Dan Abnetts Gaunt's Ghosts series is one of the best description of warfare in 40k (see my earlier posts) and he can make the whole organization, from a crusade high command to the single guardsman and the whole logistic system behind the fighting forces, seem realistic. 

 

As for the examples above I think that the GW campaigns are the biggest offenders regarding the space marine recruitment. The rate of chapters that gets decimated or snuffed out compared with described recruitment successes doesn’t add up. Compare that with for example the Beast Arises series from BL, where losses to the IF and their successors are addressed in a realistic (for 40k ) manner.

 

As for the more heroic aspect of 40k (Herohammer ) I really should have pointed out in my post that that is of course my personal preference. I like a more grounded realistic depiction of battles and I egoistically would like that more novels illustrate that, but I also know that there are many that actually have a difference taste than me (gasp ) and like the more epic stuff.

 

So, even if I wish that there was more focus on logistics, consistency and realism, I understand that GW and BL should cater to all consumers. 

[Laughingman]

I once worked out the (likely wrong) math for the projected mass of the Suns Snuffers described in Perpetual which were supposedly the Size of Saturns rings... Assuming this object was made of something analogous to steel and was hollow, you get calculate a silly number for mass. The sheer resources in the creation of such a device  don't make sense , and would likely require the resources of entire words thousands of years to create, even with the men of iron...