Is James Swallow's BA/Rafen series non-canon?

[Panzer]

Is Bile still planning on cloning the Emperor or is he getting sidetracked by the Primaris?

 

It would be very ironic if Bile's research/harvest of Primaris allows him to create more monsters and clone the Emperor earlier than expected

 

He doesn't plan to clone the Emperor anymore. At least not actively. His main focus is finishing his New Men (not accepting that they'll never be 'finished' due his perfectionism). Marines and Primaris are just side-hobbys he looks into out of general interest and because he could learn things useful for his New Men. Generally he doesn't really care about legion business anymore. He's only on the side of the traitor legions because he has slightly less enemies than in the Imperium of Man there, not because he's actually sharing their interests.

[TheRealMcCagh]

Canon seems like one of those words that can change with context. I took this thread to be really asking if the omnibus still fit within the continuity of the universe. None of us have the authority to say what is and isn't canon. He who controls the spice IP, controls the universe. If it has a Warhammer label on it, it's part of the canon. Because the authoritative figure (Black Library/Games Workshop) says it is. If they were to come out and say 'the Rafen Omnibus is no longer canon' (like what Disney did with certain parts of Star Wars), they have the ability to do that, but we don't. But when members of the fandom ask other members of the fandom about canon, they are probably talking continuity rather than literal canon (in my mind, at least).

[Panzer]

Or as GW likes to say: everything is canon but not everything is necessarily true. ^^

[Petitioner's City]

Canon seems like one of those words that can change with context. I took this thread to be really asking if the omnibus still fit within the continuity of the universe. None of us have the authority to say what is and isn't canon. He who controls the spice IP, controls the universe. If it has a Warhammer label on it, it's part of the canon. Because the authoritative figure (Black Library/Games Workshop) says it is. If they were to come out and say 'the Rafen Omnibus is no longer canon' (like what Disney did with certain parts of Star Wars), they have the ability to do that, but we don't. But when members of the fandom ask other members of the fandom about canon, they are probably talking continuity rather than literal canon (in my mind, at least).

 

Or as GW likes to say: everything is canon but not everything is necessarily true. ^^

 

Indeed, sorry for my bugbear about the language and overly long thoughts on this topic.... 

Edited February 16, 2019 by Petitioner's City

[Arkangilos]

Canon seems like one of those words that can change with context. I took this thread to be really asking if the omnibus still fit within the continuity of the universe. None of us have the authority to say what is and isn't canon. He who controls the spice IP, controls the universe. If it has a Warhammer label on it, it's part of the canon. Because the authoritative figure (Black Library/Games Workshop) says it is. If they were to come out and say 'the Rafen Omnibus is no longer canon' (like what Disney did with certain parts of Star Wars), they have the ability to do that, but we don't. But when members of the fandom ask other members of the fandom about canon, they are probably talking continuity rather than literal canon (in my mind, at least).

Not necessarily true. An authoritaty can write non canon work that is still used. The Church, for instance, has a wealth of material written by Saints for the Church that are continuously cited. Yet they are not considered canon. The pope’s writings aren’t considered Canon either.

 

Canon is determined by continuity, message, and verifiability. Does the book fit with current lore? Can it be verified that it was written by the Authority or with it’s “blessing”? Does the message convey what the truth is?

 

If the answer is yes then it can be considered canon. In the case of 40k, I would say the rule books and codices are canon, and the various Novels would be like the works of the church writers. Not canon per se, but the content is within canon.

 

That’s why I can say Dante and DOB “is within canon”. It fits within Canon with no problem. It does not contradict in a meaningful way. Swallow’s works did not fit (even at the time), so they are not within canon.

 

So I guess rather than say “is it canon” we should say “does it fit within canon?”.

[Xisor]

Or as GW likes to say: everything is canon but not everything is necessarily true. ^^

I think it's properly stated as:

 

EYHBTIAL

 

Everything you have been told is a lie.

Edited February 17, 2019 by Xisor

[Panzer]

 

Or as GW likes to say: everything is canon but not everything is necessarily true. ^^

I think it's properly stated as:

 

EYHBTIAL

 

Everything you have been told is a lie.

 

 

That's not what they said though. They imply that only some things are a lie (or simply told/remembered wrong by the in-universe narrator), not that everything is a lie. ;)

[Xisor]

 

 

 

Or as GW likes to say: everything is canon but not everything is necessarily true. ^^

I think it's properly stated as:

 

EYHBTIAL

 

Everything you have been told is a lie.

That's not what they said though. They imply that only some things are a lie (or simply told/remembered wrong by the in-universe narrator), not that everything is a lie. ;)

Both of those themselves being another lie, obviously.

 

----

 

Anyway, I've been re-reading Gotrek and Felix, and this has a very great viewpoint on this topic, in microcosm.

 

Even Bill King's works aren't all part of his own personal continuity. One might assert that his G&F novels are canon.

 

I've not yet read all Nathan Long's works, but there is the handy unifier: notes on "My Travels with Gotrek, vol. N".

 

Using that as a guide, you could infer many things about reading order and what matches what else both in terms of continuity, but also what constitutes the canon body in the Doylian/Biblical sense.

 

In that respect, and somewhat inferring on Petitioner's City's account of thinking, our good ST author might not be anti-canon, but anti-certain-fan's simplistic thinking on things.

 

Hell, even this thread says basically "do a little research".

 

Look at Gotrek and Felix.

 

Say someone wants to pen a new short story, as was pitched in BL's open submissions several years back. The "little research" has to go back at least as far as 1990 ("Wolf Riders"), and dozens of novels, shorts, segments in other books and many more.

 

Maybe fans should stop making general proclamations? [/general_proclamation]

[DarkChaplain]

I mean, Gotrek & Felix had both "continuity-free" novels by Josh Reynolds and David Guymer, as well as an in-continuity finale by Guymer, which also heavily refers to his "continuity-free" novel City of the Damned. On top of that, there've been countless short stories and novellas, all of which by Reynolds and Guymer at the minimum adhere to what you could coin the series canon, fit snugly between books or in the spots left open deliberately by Bill, while referencing older work.

 

Having not read the G&F anthology from way back when they still did mass market paperbacks, I can't really comment on what other authors did for the series, but at least the Reynolds and Guymer works are very well researched and respect the series continuity, even if they don't have a strict timing set in stone, or avoid certain topics from the main series. In that regard, I'd consider G&F, especially post-Long, to be a prime example of how to handle this stuff properly, even when the author switches.

 

Besides, a series like that, with such a lengthy legacy (which is still relatively easily researched considering the books all exist in digital omnibus volumes these days, and reading them at least once before contributing should be a big fat requirement to begin with), really doesn't belong in open submissions of any kind, if you'd ask me. Neither does the Horus Heresy.

 

I'll still maintain that as far as anything tie-in is concerned, research is the alpha and omega of contributing to the franchise. There's a reason BL sends out a bunch of material to authors (at least they used to, according to, for example, Mike Lee's foreword to the Nagash trilogy), and if you want to play in a shared playground, you need to adhere to the general rules in that playground, know where what is, which shovel you can pick up and use freely and what not. Especially when you're trying to write about characters and factions that you didn't father, and that will outlast your contributions to the setting as well.

 

Feel free to kill off your own, original characters or destroy your own Chapters, but the moment you try to sew Ferrus' flesh-bare skull back onto a strawman, or try to kill off Fabius Bile for good (something Swallow wanted to do in the Rafen series, but was denied, funnily enough), things get real messy.

[Lay]

 

It's part of the pre-5th edition timeline, along with Oldcrons, the Eye of Terror and Medusa campaigns etc. Kind of like an older continuity.

I wouldn’t even say that considering there was nothing that supported that. Not all stories that are produced fit into canon. They have to be supported in some of way, and that one wasn’t.

 

 

Funny how the thread delved into a canon vs continuity discussion since I just wanted to clear up that I was talking about continuity in my post.

 

Several 40k novels published in the early 00s were set right before the 13 Black Crusade that played out in the Eye of Terror campaign of 2003. Now the 13th BC itself wasn't central to those stories, since novels at that time stood more apart from studio fluff than today. However, being the biggest event in the fluff and the furthest point of the timeline at the time, it was not uncommon for stories to lead up to or hint towards it.

For example, the epilogue in Iron Hands (2004) involves one of the battles referenced in the old campaign and the events in Storm of Iron (2002) happen because the Iron Warriors want to buy their way out of having to participate in the 13th BC. Similarly, in the case of the Blood Angels novels, it's revealed that the events surrounding Arkio were a Chaos plot meant to weaken the Blood Angels just before the crusade.

Now the 13th Black Crusade was revisited and revised in The Gathering Storm, and just as before we have other stories set right before it. In the case of the BA's it's Shield/Devastation of Baal.

Hence why I split them up like that, regardless of what's canon.

Edited February 17, 2019 by Lay

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Necro-post

 

one thing that sticks out to me about the series is there’s one part where a heavy bolter marine in a tactical squad is described as having a blue helmet.

 

not canon, not official, 100% discussion settled :P

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

On 2/16/2019 at 12:24 PM, TheRealMcCagh said:

Canon seems like one of those words that can change with context. I took this thread to be really asking if the omnibus still fit within the continuity of the universe. None of us have the authority to say what is and isn't canon. He who controls the spice IP, controls the universe. If it has a Warhammer label on it, it's part of the canon. Because the authoritative figure (Black Library/Games Workshop) says it is. If they were to come out and say 'the Rafen Omnibus is no longer canon' (like what Disney did with certain parts of Star Wars), they have the ability to do that, but we don't. But when members of the fandom ask other members of the fandom about canon, they are probably talking continuity rather than literal canon (in my mind, at least).

Did GW/BL ever officially state the series was canon?

[Nagashsnee]

6 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Necro-post

 

one thing that sticks out to me about the series is there’s one part where a heavy bolter marine in a tactical squad is described as having a blue helmet.

 

not canon, not official, 100% discussion settled :P

Of all the books and all the topics to necro, you choose James 'I will somehow write a BA HH book and make it forgettable' Swallows Blood Angels books? 

 

A brave choice to be sure, but then immediately double post? Its always happy hour somewhere I suppose. 

 

I would say its as non canon as something can be for 'everything is and nothing is' GW.  The events are supply to big in scale to be ignored in EVERYTHING since then constantly by everyone otherwise. 

 

Out of universe mostly the plot was dumb. Tho having fabius bile get into the fortress monastery with nothing but the use of a fashionable fake mustache was in itself memorable. 

 

Edited August 22, 2023 by Nagashsnee

[lansalt]

I think it's safe to say that Rafen stories have been retconned totally or partially out of existence. I can't remember any more recent mention to him or very important stuff like the BA civil war and aftermath in Devastation of Baal, the Mephiston series, etc.  It feels like a deliberate decision to forget him but keep selling his books.

 

It's not the first time BL retcons without explanation old canon, the same happened with the SW and the return of the 13th company, first told in Wolf's Honour, and then retold differently in Ashes of Prospero.

[gaurdian31]

18 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Did GW/BL ever officially state the series was canon?

Do they state any book is "canon"? Has that ever been printed in any of their books "This books is official canon" or some stamp/seal of Official Canon? All the books are canon until they are not.

[Sothalor]

Swallow's Rafen BA series does present one of the more interesting case studies of GW/BL's canon/continuity policy stance and the whole setting vs. story spectrum.

 

It's an old series now, demonstrably from another era. It's not as old as, say, the Ian Watson stuff, and it's not as obviously anathemic as those. It came after half the Gaunt's Ghosts novels, and after Eisenhorn. It is a contemporary of Ravenor, Shira Calpurnia, the Soul Drinkers, Ben Counter's Grey Knights, and Lord of the Night, among others.

 

Some of those have had more enduring legacies and "cultural impact" on the 40k fandom than others.

 

The Rafen series is not one of those. I don't know how many people are even aware it existed, and I wonder how much of that was a matter of audience reception to writing qualities/narrative arcs/character work/etc. versus the difficulty of tying in such drastic events happening to the Blood Angels at a time when 40k generally was leaning more towards "it's a setting, not a progressing storyline."

[Roomsky]

Reynolds gave it a wink at the end of Manflayer, noting that one of Bile's clones had done something to make the Blood Angels very, very angry - a pretty clear nod to the Rafen stuff. 

 

Anything that's been directly contradicted since, timeline wise, is obviously no longer canon. GW tends to keep even fragments of work canon even if the rest isn't compatible, though, even if it means completely transplanting when the events took place. I'm sure there was a Blood Angel named Rafen who did some stuff once upon a time and fought a particularly dickish Fabius clone. As for the specifics, who can say?

[System Sound]

12 hours ago, gaurdian31 said:

Do they state any book is "canon"? Has that ever been printed in any of their books "This books is official canon" or some stamp/seal of Official Canon? All the books are canon until they are not.

Ian Watson's Space Marine is officially not canon. Here's the blurb from the BL page:

 

"Although the temptation was great to rewrite significant portions of this book to make it conform to current background, as a curiosity piece, an historical snapshot of the Warhammer 40,000 universe circa the early 1990s, this book is invaluable. It also serves as a shining example of what can happen when a respected genre author at the height of his powers is let loose on an established shared universe. Just don't try and fit it into the modern Warhammer 40,000 timeline…"

 

They should probably add something like this to more books they still sell.

[Petitioner's City]

So there is a difference between "canon" and "in continuity"; and fans would do well to use those terms properly. There is a canon - a body of official work - but it doesnt mean all parts are in continuity with one another :)

[Dzirhan]

Having followed Black Library from the early days, the issue is really IMO the fact that Swallow's blood angels series was pretty much written in a time when the novels were basically in a 40K universe that was not going change much so novels pretty much just took place in that timeline where whatever happen in the novel was fine as long it didn't contradict the game sourcebooks too much and the sourcebooks pretty much ignored most of the novels (it took a very long time for Uriel Ventris to be listed as Captain of the Ultramarines Fourth Company for instance, never mind that in some cases the sourcebook also mentions the siege of Tarsis Ultra in which Uriel was the captain of the 4th company during the siege). It was back in the old days (can't remember who it was) that someone from Black Library basically said that the novels were basically like the recounting of events in the actual 40k universe where the events recounted in the book may not exactly be the exact story and basically it was really up to each reader to decide themselves if its canon or not. The tricky part of Swallow's Blood Angels is that there is a short story tied to the Horus Heresy where we find Rafen's geneseed is from Meros of the Horus heresy and both of them encounter each other through the use of the Blood Angels sarcophagus so it might actually be canon in some sense since the Horus Heresy was around the time when Black Library started to be more serious on canon and making sure things jelled

[chevalierdulys]

so basically nothing is cannon, everything is cannon... 

[Helias_Tancred]

One can seriously hope it's not canon ;) ... the first one was very whacky, the second and third one meh. IMO all of them made the chapter look sorta inept.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Eilio Tiberius

[Blindhamster]

theres actually 5 books to the series lol. I've read them all, but they weren't particularly good. They can't be canon now because their events don't line up with anything we've had more recently - and those books specifically tie in with core game supplements/campaigns.

I actually liked the general concept of the character of Rafen, but there were too many issues with the books for them to actually really fit, and the huge civil war within the blood angels was actually nonsense (with too many marines involved too).

 

It would be interesting to see something be done with the concept of the story still though - it could have been good if better handled.

[Lord_Caerolion]

They definitely seem to be one of those series where people mistake “this novel is about a faction I like” with “this is a good novel”. 

[Sothalor]

9 minutes ago, Lord_Caerolion said:

They definitely seem to be one of those series where people mistake “this novel is about a faction I like” with “this is a good novel”. 

 

There're multiple layers to this sort of thing, really. Beyond the "this novel is about my faction", you get the "this book makes my dudes look Badass, therefore it is Good", "this book doesn't make my dudes look Badass, therefore it is Bad", "this book doesn't showcase X so it's not worth reading", or the ever-popular "it doesn't advance the setting, therefore it's a waste of time."