BL Mysteries

[bluntblade]

I quite like that Great Old Ones aspect to the Ctan. Differentiates them from the Ruinous Powers nicely.

[Orwell84]

The Astropath Wars. Lexicanum has only this nugget of info on the matter:

 

"The Astropath Wars was a major conflict fought by the Imperium in 888.M32. Details of the war is unknown, but it can be assumed that they involved Astropaths."

 

 

Did the Rangdan Xenocides have something to do with the II and XI primarchs' vanishing act? Why would the circumstances of their loss and their legions be covered up?

[bluntblade]

I still want the Lost Legions to remain entirely in shadow. I suspect that the Rangdan might have done in one of them, but I'd rather those mysteries were never actually answered.

[b1soul]

Origins of the Tyranids... are they really a multi-galactic threat?

 

Also, going back to the origins of the Emperor, some have speculated that he is some advanced experiment/super-weapon created by DAoT humanity (and perhaps the visions in MoM are deliberately misleading)

 

...but could the Emperor have been created by the Old Ones, or even be an incarnation of an Old One? Like in The Fifth Element, human scientists recreated a supreme being (Milla Jovavich's Leeloo), could the Emperor have been something similar?

 

Perhaps this mystery could be characterised more broadly as "relationship between Emperor and the elder races"? Perhaps the Emperor is far older than a paltry forty or fifty thousand years old.

[mc warhammer]

war of the false primarch

 

could be a really fascinating study of all the 40k themes (hoping it differs slightly significantly from the swallow blood angel take)

 

edit: sorry, not BL. can i swap this out for

alpharius’

last words?

[Mellow]

For me the DAoT absolutely needs covering. I want detailed character plots around the various technologies created during that time and also warfare described on such a scale and advancement that makes the HH and TBA look like playground conflicts.

 

Also, what was the dark bargain for the failing golden throne? It doesn't seem to get mentioned in Dark Imperium.

 

 

Faced with this cataclysmic scenario, the Tech-Priests become desperate and ally with a faction of Xanthite Inquisitors. Launching an expedition into the Webway, the Tech-Priest and Inquisition forces battle through Harlequins and Daemonsalike before reaching Commorragh. There, a dark bargain is struck.

[bluntblade]

Carrion Throne seems to be the book that begins to build on that. I suspect we'll see sequels which develop further.

 

I really doubt that DaoT warfare could be done all that well. It's so ludicrously huge that it would become utterly numbing. Consider how little we care in a film most times that a city is wiped out. Scale that up to entire systems gone with one shot, and the carnage becomes so vast and impersonal - meaning the nature of that warfare is prohibitive of the heroic figures we latch onto as readers - that it would likely lose all resonance.

 

The timeline is also so massive that, unless humans could live for millennia at the time, you'd never be able to tell a story of the course of the war without several generations of characters.

 

The evocative reminiscences of Oll Persson are all I want from that era.

[Mellow]

Yes. Perhaps a series of short stories that are essentially flashbacks to various events during the DAoT that showcase the power and technology of the era would be good.

[Xisor]

Allusion, evocation, little glimpses.

 

These things are excellent. Entire novels dedicated to encapsulating overwhelming events?

 

I'd not say no, but it's very easy to be dissatisfied with the results.

 

That's why 'proper mystery' stories in 40k can be a delight. E.g. "Deus Ex Mechanicus".

 

I also recall, I think, one of the 'Shield of Baal' novellas really delving in to some cool Necron stuff. Not to mention Laurie's 'Word of the Silent King'!

 

Getting the right approach to tantalising and casting shadows of the answer are really good. Especially if l done in the JJ Abrams style, but WITHOUT his end results (utter nonsense, or clearly incompatible with the hints laid out).

 

So where the Lost Legions are concerned, they annoy me more than thrill. Because we *know* there is explicitly not an answer.

 

And second-guessing that just depresses me too - it's like a yantalising mystery in monopoly: "are they cheating? Oooh?! Who knows?!" "Oh f-off, if you're cheating: stop it. If you're not, don't pretend you are."

 

But I digress, where someone is likely to be allowed to *create* an answer, even if it might be later overruled, like details of the War in Heaven, or Aeldari empire, or the Demiurg, *then* I am very interested.

 

Very interested indeed.

[Mellow]

Strangely the War in Heaven only stopped because of the Enslavers that brought the downfall of the Old Ones and then the Necronsjust sat back to ride out the storm. I didnt realise that to be honest. I just assumed the Old Ones lost the War.

[bluntblade]

The Wiki makes it sound much more like the Enslavers were a side product and the Necrons doomed the Old Ones by assaulting them throughout the Webway.

[Brother Lunkhead]

Answers to 8 and 9:

 

The Stone Men were organic intelligence (silicon) created artificially. Similar to organic Cylons. They created the Iron Men and conquered the stars for Humanity. The Stone Men defeat the Iron Men in a final act of self preservation.

 

 

 

Hmmm...… interesting...... What is your reference for this?

[Mellow]

Laurie Goulding provided that insight which was apparently from Alan Bligh ... basically right from the top as official as you can get.

[Brother Lunkhead]

Laurie Goulding provided that insight which was apparently from Alan Bligh ... basically right from the top as official as you can get.

 

Thanks for that

[Mellow]

No problem. I had to take a complete copy because it was so concise. A rare moment.

 

The whole text was like this:

 

The Golden Men were a genetically engineered master race with selective breeding (like in Dune)

 

The Iron Men were machines.

 

The Stone Men were organic intelligence (silicon) created artificially. Similar to organic Cylons. They created the Iron Men and conquered the stars for Humanity. The Stone Men defeat the Iron Men in a final act of self preservation.

[DukeLeto69]

For me the DAoT absolutely needs covering. I want detailed character plots around the various technologies created during that time and also warfare described on such a scale and advancement that makes the HH and TBA look like playground conflicts.

 

Different folks different strokes and all but I for one definitely DO NOT want the DARK AGE of Technology expanded upon.

 

The mystery and imagined explanation is always ALWAYS more interesting than what anyone could possibly write. I believe tiny snippets of info is far more evocative and thought provoking.

 

A perfect example of this is the Butlerian Jihad from the Dune series. The whole mysterious conflict that resulted in thinking machines behind outlawed was far more interesting as something relatively unknown in the background but hinted at. When it was written by Brian Herbert and Keviln J Anderson it ended us as being pretty much a Terminator rip off. It completely ruined the mystique.

 

So I say leave it as a DARK AGE with little explored or known.

[bluntblade]

And Terminator itself benefits from only showing glimpses of its Machine War in the first two films.

[Mellow]

Absolutely. A little glimpse here and there. As I say a few expanded flash backs just to get people interested (and amazed and horrified) but then returning to the “current” with despair at losing so much knowledge.

[b1soul]

DAoT humanity seems to resemble Halo's Forerunner Empire in terms of scale.

 

I wouldn't mind something like a Warhammer Mythologies series to explore truly distant pasts, such as the DAoT or Old Night.

 

Heck, I think a War in Heaven series would be cool. I don't think Halo's Forerunner trilogy ruined the mystery at all.

[grailkeeper]

For me BL's biggest mystery is why no one has stopped Nick Kyme from writing so many terrible Salamanders books.

[Orwell84]

 

For me the DAoT absolutely needs covering. I want detailed character plots around the various technologies created during that time and also warfare described on such a scale and advancement that makes the HH and TBA look like playground conflicts.

Different folks different strokes and all but I for one definitely DO NOT want the DARK AGE of Technology expanded upon.

 

The mystery and imagined explanation is always ALWAYS more interesting than what anyone could possibly write. I believe tiny snippets of info is far more evocative and thought provoking.

 

A perfect example of this is the Butlerian Jihad from the Dune series. The whole mysterious conflict that resulted in thinking machines behind outlawed was far more interesting as something relatively unknown in the background but hinted at. When it was written by Brian Herbert and Keviln J Anderson it ended us as being pretty much a Terminator rip off. It completely ruined the mystique.

 

So I say leave it as a DARK AGE with little explored or known.

 

 

Largely agree with both 40k and Dune opinions. In my head I've simply branded Brian & Kevin's trash as non-canon, and substituted them for the Dune Encyclopedia with its far better thought-out entries on the Butlerian and Fremen Jihads, the backstories of various Dune characters, a rather interesting take on 'pre-spaceflight Imperial' history - 'House Washington' using the first atomics in an 'inter-provincial war' against 'House Nippon' to secure Pacific trade routes, the 'raw mentat' Einstein, and Hitler being labelled a 'pretender' to the Imperial throne controlled by House Windsor - and other interesting and/or amusing entries.

 

Regarding Heresy/40k, I wouldn't mind a few more details of the DAoT being revealed. Maybe flashbacks from a perpetual who'd made a lifetime (or 'lifetimes', if you will) exploring the universe in everything from Earth caravels in M2 to generation ships in M15 to warp-capable explorators in M18. Memories that could show the kind of society and tech humanity had during these eras without a full-blown reveal.

[b1soul]

The Butlerian Jihad series wasn't bad because it tackled a remote period of the Dune timeline. It was bad because of mediocre, unimaginitive authours.

[bluntblade]

But which authors do you really trust to handle material where the timeline and scale of the war would inherently be pretty much beyond tangibility?

 

In many ways the genius of the Heresy is that it is just small enough to be staggeringly huge.

[Brother Lunkhead]

I fear that if GW/BL put any major effort into a DAoT backstory it would be in the form of a full blown series ala the Horus Heresy, or worse yet the Dune prequals. They will rightly view such a project as a revenue generator first above all other artistic considerations. Best to leave this mystery alone.

[Mellow]

I’d love to see a small story about the Iron Men before they turned on Humanity. Maybe how they interact with humans when everything was great. Add a few moments when an iron man “hesitated” at an order to show there’s a very tiny crack in the AI that will cause conflict but with a slow build up and then leave the actual war out of the novel.