The Rule of Cool: How Far is Too Far?

[bluntblade]

I find it varies, depending on how its used. Shakespire's three plays is fine by me, but sometimes it's just too on-the-nose and implausible.

[Xisor]

Ooh, good shout Karden00 - I feel broadly the same. I really enjoy fictional references, e.g. "Fantastic Beasts" or all the mad creations that appear in other stories (my mind immediately leaps to Borges and Eco, but I'm sure other examples exist :D ).

 

In short: (references that evoke) a rich and varied 28-38 millennia worth of history that we *don't* know widely about in modern BL readerships (with some appropriately more densely referenced threads than others). Hell, even adding in some fictional bits to known history work enough, though that can often be a bit jarring in the wrong way.

 

Having even a moderate amount of references be to modern times makes the universe feel really small, and we know there's a lot of history!

 

More: I always enjoy characterful asides. It's a thing Dan Abnett does very well indeed, and that I love in Rob Sanders work, that there's enough sprinkled (but ultimately a touch insubstantial/"meaningless") detail that makes the worlds feel so much more deep and alive.

 

It's lovely to see that sort of stuff, and fun details like Ahriman's translated copy of the Voynich manuscript are hugely Rule of Cool, even stretching things a bit to far.

[Phoebus]

We have complete epics available to us from almost 3,000 years ago — from eras in which illiteracy was predominant. We have a very strong understanding of how societies functioned and what cultures looked like in large parts of our world from 2,000-2,500 years ago. I don’t see a problem with people ten times that in the future having an imperfect, fragmented, often contextless understanding of things from eras whose records were preserved in remarkable completeness over the centuries that followed.

 

A perfect example of that is the nominal organization of the Legiones Astartes, from the first Heresy book by Forge World. Here you have this war machine that possesses interstellar travel, super-men in power armour, and planet-killing weaponry... but their organizational structure is inspired by the Roman Legions and Cromwell’s New Model Army, both of which systems were considered well obsolete by the time we digitally archived them for posterity.

 

What I would consider a problem is if references to M1-M3 sources outnumbered ones from M4-M30.

Edited March 18, 2018 by Phoebus

[Laughingman]

We have complete epics available to us from almost 3,000 years ago — from eras in which illiteracy was predominant. We have a very strong understanding of how societies functioned and what cultures looked like in large parts of our world from 2,000-2,500 years ago. I don’t see a problem with people ten times that in the future having an imperfect, fragmented, often contextless understanding of things from eras whose records were preserved in remarkable completeness over the centuries that followed.

 

A perfect example of that is the nominal organization of the Legiones Astartes, from the first Heresy book by Forge World. Here you have this war machine that possesses interstellar travel, super-men in power armour, and planet-killing weaponry... but their organizational structure is inspired by the Roman Legions and Cromwell’s New Model Army, both of which systems were considered well obsolete by the time we digitally archived them for posterity.

 

What I would consider a problem is if references to M1-M3 sources outnumbered ones from M4-M30.

 

I assumed the loss of Pre-Imperial  knowledge and history would be analogous to the loss of knowledge of historical Pre-Christian societies in the British Isles or Pre-roman Gaul. That is, astoundly little survived....

 

Edit: Not sure if Pre-Roman Gaul or Pre-Christian British Isles tribes and societies had codified and widespread written language though, so the analogy may fall flat.

Edited March 18, 2018 by Laughingman

[Phoebus]

Yeah, I understand the analogy you're trying to make, but the amount of pre-Christian British and Gallic records is small compared to, say, Roman and Hellenistic societies. Much more of the latter survived to be placed in digital archives.

 

That, in turn, informs my thoughts about the knowledge that would have survived to M30: most of it will have been the generalized material we find the most common of modern archives, databases, stores, etc. If the Imperium of Man, circa the Great Crusade, knew of Alexander the Great, for example, they'd probably know the coffee table version of his story, since there's a lot more of that generalized material than there is serious academic material. Likewise, it's almost fitting that the Legiones Astartes have an organization based on Cromwell's New Model Army than 21st century military forces: I'm willing to bet the number of Google hits you get on 17th century English forces are far greater than actual doctrine for modern British forces.

[Indefragable]

Yeah, I understand the analogy you're trying to make, but the amount of pre-Christian British and Gallic records is small compared to, say, Roman and Hellenistic societies. Much more of the latter survived to be placed in digital archives.

 

That, in turn, informs my thoughts about the knowledge that would have survived to M30: most of it will have been the generalized material we find the most common of modern archives, databases, stores, etc. If the Imperium of Man, circa the Great Crusade, knew of Alexander the Great, for example, they'd probably know the coffee table version of his story, since there's a lot more of that generalized material than there is serious academic material. Likewise, it's almost fitting that the Legiones Astartes have an organization based on Cromwell's New Model Army than 21st century military forces: I'm willing to bet the number of Google hits you get on 17th century English forces are far greater than actual doctrine for modern British forces.

 

Not to mention that older military texts exist on actual paper, whereas a large chunk of the "good stuff" for modern military forces is digitally hidden behind Firewalls and stuff. Actual paper survives apocalypses better than hard drives....AND M30+ archivists and techpriests are probably far more likely to trust paper sources than a hard drive that could suck their brains out and reinstate the Iron Men.

[Manchu warlord]

 

​The Master of Mankind was the worse.

Before I start, I will have to say that the writing quality of this book is phenomenal, but that is pretty much the

only sinless thing about the book. Now, first off, one must ask themselves, ADB is well known as the Chaos writer for Black Library, he is indeed good at making the bad guys look not so bad. All of a sudden, He - as the Chaos writer, decides to take on the Emperor, the very heart of the Imperium which he so (obviously) dislikes. Does this not already reek of a foul ploy to demoralize the loyalist fans?

​The contents of this book were sinful, and I shall list them:

​- The Emperor sent his brave, wonderful, and irreplaceable warriors to the fight in the webway, which he know they can't win, yet he sent them.

​- The Emperor is a tyrant that wants absolute control over humanity.

​- The Emperor sees his primarchs as tools, not his children, and they are a means to an end.

​- The Emperor cannot remove the butcher's nail from Angron's brain. I mean, how can he be where he is (godlike and all powerful), but he cannot do this task. He really isn't that smart after all.

​- The feeling of the book was unnecessarily sinister; for some reason, the factions in the Imperium hate one another and want to kill each other. Inside the webway, there were daemons everywhere and yet the Mechanicum forces decide to abandon the custodes, and act all stupid and childish.

​- The Emperor could not kill one daemon in particular... facepalm.png

​- At the end, the Emperor stated that he will face Horus, and he will kill him. This automatically robs us readers of the excitement and tragic tale of father battling son aboard the Vengeful Spirit. And also that he said he did not know what to do. He just gives up.

[bluntblade]

It's daft to say AD-B has an agenda against Loyalist characters, let alone fans. The afterword has him stating his keenness to write Loyalists, he's dealt with Grey Knights and given the Black Templars what many consider their definitive BL outing.

 

I'm not going to rehash the old arguments about interpreting the Emperor, how the author doesn't want His words to be taken at face value etc. But I will say that there are nuances to this that highlight the interpretative stuff.

 

The Butcher's Nails seem to replace large sections of Angron's brain. We've already had a magos tells us they couldn't be safely removed in a previous book. So... the Emperor couldn't reconstruct a deformed brain.

 

The daemon in question is His antithesis. He still wins that encounter.

[m_r_parker]

@Machu Warlord - Not wanting to be singled out as someone who's white-knighting A-D-B (he's more than capable of debating here ;) ), but some of the points you've picked up on aren't really specific to Master of Mankind. The Emperor is seen as a tyrant at times, definitely not specific to MoM and ultimately up to the PoV of the character who's having those thoughts. The Emperor seeing the Primarchs more as tools than sons, again not something unique to MoM and has been put forward in other novels from the viewpoint of other characters. Not being able to remove the Butchers Nails from Angrons brain, this isn't exactly breaking news in the novel either - what was, however, new was that the Emperor didn't want to remove them, and I thought that was great personally. 

You think it's weird to send his best troops into the Webway for a fight they couldn't win, maybe winning wasn't the objective. Just because you know you can't win doesn't mean that you don't bother, especially if there's nothing else between the massive hole that Magnus wrought into the Imperial Palace and the horrors of the Warp. Sending lesser troops in wouldn't work either, you might just get away with Space Marines backed up by the Sisters of Silence but anything less would lose their minds in a short space of time. Custodes, unfortunately, seem to be the best fit despite their inherent value to the Emperor. 

 

But back on topic. There are certainly times where I (the reader) come across something that is jarring or impossible in an attempt to be cool, and that in particular for me is "too far" as it breaks my concentration on enjoying the narrative. One that's been mentioned already a couple of times, Vulkan falling from orbit through a planets atmosphere and crashing into the ground - that made me stop and say "no way that's possible" before carrying on. Maybe I don't understand fully what a perpetual is, but in my eyes I don't see it as an old arcade style death where you spring back up again at full health, you come back to life in the body that you died in regardless of it's state. Even considering that Primarchs are special and durable, entering the atmosphere should have cremated Vulkan, and the impact of hitting the ground should have turned what remained of his body to paste. I can see that the concept of Vulkan being perpetual / durable is cool (and a perpetual Priamrch is cool), but this is far too far to be believable. 

 

Guilliman surviving for a brief period in a vacuum, yeah that was on the right side of cool. 

 

Personally, one that's stuck with me for a while is back in the First Heretic. In particular, Argel Tal and the rest of the Word Bearers sent into the Eye being thrown back in time and space to the vaults underneath the Imperial Palace during the creation of the Primarchs, and it being them that disrupted the Gellar field protecting the Primarchs and allowed the Chaos gods to sweep away the Emperors work. Going backwards in time is always problematic in my head, there's always the possibility of time paradoxes and all sorts of consequences or non-consequences, but my main problem is the gellar field itself. Isn't the gellar field supposed to prevent the warp's influence  - so how can Argel Tal and company be sent there by the Chaos gods, as their travel is via warp / dark magic / etc ??? It's a good idea, but I just probably scrutinise it a little too much.

[bluntblade]

FotE does show a Geller Field failing to hold against a curious stroke from Nurgle.

[Marshal Rohr]

​The Master of Mankind was the worse.

Before I start, I will have to say that the writing quality of this book is phenomenal, but that is pretty much the

only sinless thing about the book. Now, first off, one must ask themselves, ADB is well known as the Chaos writer for Black Library, he is indeed good at making the bad guys look not so bad. All of a sudden, He - as the Chaos writer, decides to take on the Emperor, the very heart of the Imperium which he so (obviously) dislikes. Does this not already reek of a foul ploy to demoralize the loyalist fans?

​The contents of this book were sinful, and I shall list them:

​- The Emperor sent his brave, wonderful, and irreplaceable warriors to the fight in the webway, which he know they can't win, yet he sent them.

​- The Emperor is a tyrant that wants absolute control over humanity.

​- The Emperor sees his primarchs as tools, not his children, and they are a means to an end.

​- The Emperor cannot remove the butcher's nail from Angron's brain. I mean, how can he be where he is (godlike and all powerful), but he cannot do this task. He really isn't that smart after all.

​- The feeling of the book was unnecessarily sinister; for some reason, the factions in the Imperium hate one another and want to kill each other. Inside the webway, there were daemons everywhere and yet the Mechanicum forces decide to abandon the custodes, and act all stupid and childish.

​- The Emperor could not kill one daemon in particular... facepalm.png

​- At the end, the Emperor stated that he will face Horus, and he will kill him. This automatically robs us readers of the excitement and tragic tale of father battling son aboard the Vengeful Spirit. And also that he said he did not know what to do. He just gives up.

This is a line by line paraphrasing of the one dee four chan criticizing MoM.

[MrDarth151]

Perhaps instead of derailing thread into talking about Master of Mankind, you could move that discussion into more appropriate topic dedicated to it?

[Manchu warlord]

Perhaps instead of derailing thread into talking about Master of Mankind, you could move that discussion into more appropriate topic dedicated to it?

That is why I have not replied to those fine gentlemen, I have to wish to cause mayhem on this thread.

 

 

​The Master of Mankind was the worse.

Before I start, I will have to say that the writing quality of this book is phenomenal, but that is pretty much the

only sinless thing about the book. Now, first off, one must ask themselves, ADB is well known as the Chaos writer for Black Library, he is indeed good at making the bad guys look not so bad. All of a sudden, He - as the Chaos writer, decides to take on the Emperor, the very heart of the Imperium which he so (obviously) dislikes. Does this not already reek of a foul ploy to demoralize the loyalist fans?

​The contents of this book were sinful, and I shall list them:

​- The Emperor sent his brave, wonderful, and irreplaceable warriors to the fight in the webway, which he know they can't win, yet he sent them.

​- The Emperor is a tyrant that wants absolute control over humanity.

​- The Emperor sees his primarchs as tools, not his children, and they are a means to an end.

​- The Emperor cannot remove the butcher's nail from Angron's brain. I mean, how can he be where he is (godlike and all powerful), but he cannot do this task. He really isn't that smart after all.

​- The feeling of the book was unnecessarily sinister; for some reason, the factions in the Imperium hate one another and want to kill each other. Inside the webway, there were daemons everywhere and yet the Mechanicum forces decide to abandon the custodes, and act all stupid and childish.

​- The Emperor could not kill one daemon in particular... facepalm.png

​- At the end, the Emperor stated that he will face Horus, and he will kill him. This automatically robs us readers of the excitement and tragic tale of father battling son aboard the Vengeful Spirit. And also that he said he did not know what to do. He just gives up.

This is a line by line paraphrasing of the one dee four chan criticizing MoM.

 

 

No sir, I swear I did not paraphrase from that glorious website, I didn't even know they did a systematic breakdown of negative points from the book.

So, do not be surprise that multiple people, from different times, in various places, have similar ill feelings of the same events in the book.

[Skaorn]

I keep seeing Guilleman's space walk on here and it makes me think that the author must have been remembering Robotech/Macross when they wrote it, only Guilleman isn't nearly as bad@$$ as Breeti lol.

[bluntblade]

I think the thing that makes that scene work is that Abnett doesn't milk it. Thiel just kind of happens across the Primarch in the void, punching heads off.

[Tarvek Val]

@ m_r_parker

In The First Heretic, Argel Tal and the warriors who will become the Gal Vorbak intentionally turn the Geller shield of their ship off at the urging of the daemon Ingethel (I believe that is the correct entity) precisely so that they can experience the truths of the warp. Naturally, they are all possessed in the trade-off... So it is not an account of the Geller field failing, but rather some good ol' Word Bearers lunacy at play there!

[Manchu warlord]

I can't remember the exact details, but in Old Earth, there was one scene where an Iron Hands Morlock killed 3 Justaerian terminators...  That, was so unrealistically uncool.

[mc warhammer]

Oh man, another rule of cool: I’m honestly not even sure how I feel about this one. It came about as I was pondering a topic from a while back about someone wanting 20k, and another frater said “that exists, it’s called Dune.”

It reminded me of the great expanse of time between us and 30/40k, and how, especially in the HH, we get little references here and there to literature that predates our real world, modern era.

Like the Ultramarines quoting Clausewitz, or Perturabo knowing about Da Vinci, or I don’t remember who talking about Shakespeare. Or a religion called Catheric.

While I never quite hate mentions like this, I’m never entirely comfortable with them either. Given the great son of time, even though there is technology, I usually think that there should be no way that we modern readers should have any familiarity whatsoever with the setting, even if all we are getting are throwaway mentions.

 

 

shakespeare gets referenced almost as often as people play chess 

[Laughingman]

Yeah, I understand the analogy you're trying to make, but the amount of pre-Christian British and Gallic records is small compared to, say, Roman and Hellenistic societies. Much more of the latter survived to be placed in digital archives.

 

That, in turn, informs my thoughts about the knowledge that would have survived to M30: most of it will have been the generalized material we find the most common of modern archives, databases, stores, etc. If the Imperium of Man, circa the Great Crusade, knew of Alexander the Great, for example, they'd probably know the coffee table version of his story, since there's a lot more of that generalized material than there is serious academic material. Likewise, it's almost fitting that the Legiones Astartes have an organization based on Cromwell's New Model Army than 21st century military forces: I'm willing to bet the number of Google hits you get on 17th century English forces are far greater than actual doctrine for modern British forces.

 

Fair enough, My other theory is that large sums of digitized information  at the end of the dark age of technology was purposely destroyed In an attempt to stop the digital/demonic  techno-virus that turned the men of iron on there creators from further damage.... (this would explain why the vast majority of STC constructs were destroyed as well)...

[mc warhammer]

 

Yeah, I understand the analogy you're trying to make, but the amount of pre-Christian British and Gallic records is small compared to, say, Roman and Hellenistic societies. Much more of the latter survived to be placed in digital archives.

 

That, in turn, informs my thoughts about the knowledge that would have survived to M30: most of it will have been the generalized material we find the most common of modern archives, databases, stores, etc. If the Imperium of Man, circa the Great Crusade, knew of Alexander the Great, for example, they'd probably know the coffee table version of his story, since there's a lot more of that generalized material than there is serious academic material. Likewise, it's almost fitting that the Legiones Astartes have an organization based on Cromwell's New Model Army than 21st century military forces: I'm willing to bet the number of Google hits you get on 17th century English forces are far greater than actual doctrine for modern British forces.

 

Fair enough, My other theory is that large sums of digitized information  at the end of the dark age of technology was purposely destroyed In an attempt to stop the digital/demonic  techno-virus that turned the men of iron on there creators from further damage.... (this would explain why the vast majority of STC constructs were destroyed as well)...

 

 

 

i'll throw in there that just because something is likely to have survived to 30k or 40k, doesn't necessarily mean it would be held in the same regard. it might be my poor memory, but his name seems to get dropped a lot

 

on that, are there ever any references to 21C culture?

[b1soul]

@ Laughing Man

 

"The Mechnavores and Sun snuffers described in perpetual the later of which is described as being as Large as Saturns rings ( 66000 km+ in diameter)."

 

These could be similar to small-scale Dyson Spheres. Dyson Spheres would encompass stars, not planets...so ring of Saturn might not be that silly, unless it's a solid object.

[Laughingman]

I assumed the sun suffer were tubular in nature:  66000km long, 1 KM wide  and 30cm thick and made of metallics similar in density to mild steel...  Equations are widely available online, so the denizens of Bolter and Chainsword are free to make there own calculations....

[grailkeeper]

 

Roboute Guilliman can survive in vaccuum.

 

 

 

I might be wrong here but I thought it used to be canon that Sanguinius was strangled to death with the Talon of Horus? If that is the case then Horus must have been strangling him for a pretty long time...

[TheRealMcCagh]

 

 

 

 

I might be wrong here but I thought it used to be canon that Sanguinius was strangled to death with the Talon of Horus? If that is the case then Horus must have been strangling him for a pretty long time...

 

 

Well, according to Abaddon, Horus was weak...

[Skaorn]

 

Roboute Guilliman can survive in vaccuum.

 

 

I might be wrong here but I thought it used to be canon that Sanguinius was strangled to death with the Talon of Horus? If that is the case then Horus must have been strangling him for a pretty long time...

A good choke hold is usually about stopping the flow of blood to the brain rather than running the victim out of air. Since I imagine even Primarchs need that still, so it might have been over quickly. Also power fields can't be good for your health.