The Primarchs: Lion El'Jonson

[Brother Lunkhead]

I'm asking because I see that my post that debunked Marshal Rohr's claims as false was deleted and is still misssing and his was only edited without removing it. Looks kind of unfair to me. If discussion is offtop why not remove all the offtop posts or leave them?

Oh and since mod in question LIKED Marshal's post and removed mine I call playing favorites.

 

Patience Brother, all is explained in my PM to you.

[Sviox]

Finished it. This one felt like the author had a lot of ideas and ended up throwing all of them without giving any of them enough depth. Also the prose was something I really struggled with - some bits just didn’t seem to make sense in the context. I’m not saying it was bad, I just think there would have been a trilogy of books worth ideas and characters here. I’d rate it 3/5.

[Sviox]

Oh, and anyone know if some of the characters, like grand master Hector Thrane, are explored in some other publication? The book makes it sound so but I have never heard of this unification era hero...

[bluntblade]

I haven't heard of them, but it's possible that Guymer went and chatted with the FW guys about their plans and took a few notes.

[Fedor]

So this was enjoyable enough, but too close to feeling like a checklist for forgeworld unit and campaign lore. The synopsis attempts to drum up mystery and hint at possible greater relevance to wider goings on was bull:cuss.

 

It does very well at getting across the basics of who the 30k Dark Angels are as a military force just before the HH breaks out, but does so in an enemy of the week Great Crusade Battles manner not too different from Annandale's Vulkan.

[Phoebus]

I can’t pass judgment as I haven’t read the novel yet, but historically one of the biggest issues with Dark Angels fiction has been that the stories are written to support themes rather than the other way around. Compounding that issue is the fact that so much of it builds on what has been written before, making the sum of the ongoing story an awkward construct. With that in mind, I hope Guymer has done well with this Primarch novella, but much of what I’m reading here is causing red flags to pop up in my mind.

[DarkChaplain]

Incidentally, it looks like GW's newsletter just spoiled a major announcement that WarCom hasn't put up yet. The Lion is getting his model. Rejoice.

 

I'd tend to agree with your assessment, Phoebus, and that's as somebody who actually really likes the Dark Angels stuff for the most part, with some awkward parts here and there. The stories are written around their core themes, and far too interlinked. It's clear why they would be, if they deal with certain major characters, but - while I also think their themes are what make them compelling to read about in the first place - their stories have occupied too narrow a scope for a while there. It's clear that the Fallen will always somehow lead back to the initial schism, but for a while it seemed like too much headway was made towards it in the present timeline, in too rapid a fashion, with too few players and not enough room.

 

While the Great Crusade/Heresy era doesn't specifically deal with the Fallen, their stories (by necessity, as far as the HH is concerned) set up for those events and play through the schism closely. That a few stories directly hook into Gav's modern Dark Angels stories, by virtue of shared characters, is a double-edged sword.

 

In a way, I wonder if the Dark Angels would benefit from more diffuse storytelling, spreading hints out through a trilogy or series, while still putting the focus of each part onto a general plotline for that novel, with the Fallen not being the prize of liberating world xyz, but a byeffect, a result that doesn't loom over the entire story, detracting from the emerging events. Heck, I'd even be fine with a Fallen-PoV, with the bloke or his cabal setting up problems on various worlds and leaving a calling card, the way Cypher was often described. Heck, a Cypher series on that premise might be cool, too, as he's been said to play for both sides in a way. Have him in the background as a shadowy figure leading the Dark Angels by the nose, but also forcing them to actually solve issues within the Imperium, instead of focusing solely on him by making his presence too obvious. Explore independent storylines within a framework that still makes the Fallen and their presence felt, without drowning out the merits of the story itself.

[SpAcEGhOsT095]

I have heard some interesting things about the equipment the First has.

 

Doomsday weapons beyond the ordinary and MoI.

How involved was the Emperor in the creation of this unique arsenal?

[aa.logan]

I really liked the fact that this book told us more about the Dark Angels as a Legion than it directly did about the Lion. We’ve seen loads about his time on Caliban and the schism has been explored aplenty too. Getting the focus on what made the First Legion unique really pays off here. Their structure, their psyche, their very raisin d’etre are all probed, obviously subjectively, and we get a good insight into what they were like before the Primarch was found and how the Order and their traditions meshed with those of the Terran faction.

 

All of this is done via a nicely engaging story and against a backdrop of a suitably creepy Xenos antagonist. I’m a fan.

[Hasoroth]

There was a lot to like about this novel but I think overall I'm just tired of action scenes in general, and the Dark Angels schtick specifically. It was cool to see one of the aliens carve through the Librarian's mind for information and being frustrated because the Dark Angel's paranoid layers of secrecy meant that the Librarian literally did not have the information the alien was looking for. Additionally, when the alien jumps into the Primarch's mind there's a sweet "I'm not stuck in here with you, you're stuck in here with me" scene.

Having the Dark Angels be a force that's been roaming around the Crusade exterminating a variety of soul stealing, mind eating monstrosities is great but I really think the knightly theme is a burden and I ended up rolling my eyes everytime a character said anything relating to chivalry - it feels tacked on. And call me crazy but I don't seem to remember a particularly huge emphasis on the Dark Angels being knightly figures beyond an acknowledgement that orders of monster hunting knights were part of their homeworld's culture. If they'd kept the 'monster hunting' schtick and lost the knight aspect I'd welcome it.

Edited April 3, 2020 by Kelborn

[Lord_Caerolion]

We need more about the Dark Angels that isn't just relating to the Fallen. We get it, they're the Unforgiven, they had a civil war within their Chapter that they covered up, they hunt the Fallen, now tell us something else about them. It gets to the point where it feels like every single battle they take part in only ever involves the Fallen. 

 

EDIT:

 

 

 

Having the Dark Angels be a force that's been roaming around the Crusade exterminating a variety of soul stealing, mind eating monstrosities is great but I really think the knightly theme is a burden and I ended up rolling my eyes everytime a character said anything relating to chivalry - it feels tacked on. And call me crazy but I don't seem to remember a particularly huge emphasis on the Dark Angels being knightly figures beyond an acknowledgement that orders of monster hunting knights were part of their homeworld's culture. If they'd kept the 'monster hunting' schtick and lost the knight aspect I'd welcome it.

 

 

That's the thing, there kinda always was meant to be that, it just got lost behind the constant hammering of the themes of the Unforgiven, guilt, paranoia, and the Fallen. It's good to see the other aspects shown for once.

 

EDIT Part 2:

 

Basically, the feeling I've gotten with pretty much every other main Dark Angels heresy-era book feels like the author has sat there waggling his eyebrows at me, saying "hey, doesn't it seem like these guys are gonna fight each other at some point? Hey? Right? Am I right? Wouldn't that just suck, right? If they fought each other? Right?"

Edited April 3, 2020 by Lord_Caerolion

[Hasoroth]

We need more about the Dark Angels that isn't just relating to the Fallen. We get it, they're the Unforgiven, they had a civil war within their Chapter that they covered up, they hunt the Fallen, now tell us something else about them. It gets to the point where it feels like every single battle they take part in only ever involves the Fallen. 

 

EDIT:

 

 

 

Having the Dark Angels be a force that's been roaming around the Crusade exterminating a variety of soul stealing, mind eating monstrosities is great but I really think the knightly theme is a burden and I ended up rolling my eyes everytime a character said anything relating to chivalry - it feels tacked on. And call me crazy but I don't seem to remember a particularly huge emphasis on the Dark Angels being knightly figures beyond an acknowledgement that orders of monster hunting knights were part of their homeworld's culture. If they'd kept the 'monster hunting' schtick and lost the knight aspect I'd welcome it.

 

 

That's the thing, there kinda always was meant to be that, it just got lost behind the constant hammering of the themes of the Unforgiven, guilt, paranoia, and the Fallen. It's good to see the other aspects shown for once.

 

For me the central conflict of the Dark Angel's has never been particularly interesting.

 

Secretive people fall apart because of their secrets, meh.

Secretive people falling apart because they fell short of their chivalrous ideals? Even meh-er.

 

The answer as to why are the Dark Angels so secretive and insular seems to be because the Lion was a weirdo, which is frankly underwhelming but the idea that the Dark Angels compartmentalize things so much as part of a defense against psychic horrors is cool but the tacked on knightly aspect is forced. I'm not against the mishmashing of seemingly incongruous character traits I just don't think it's been done well in the case of the Dark Angels and I think the descriptive focus on their knightly theme is less to do with any deeper theme and more to do with the same reason why the Space Wolves are always "wolf wolfing wolf a wet leopard growl" - deep fried Flanderization.

 

That's annoying enough to begin with but the exaggeration of one of the Space Wolves traits is at least understandable, as being 'wolf-like' is an intrinsic part of their character (it's even in the name!) but the exaggeration of the Dark Angel's knightly aspect is doubly stupid because it was never really that strongly tied to their character in the first place.

 

I will add to all this that this is just my interpretation and understanding of the Dark Angels, maybe the knightly theme was always really strong and I just never noticed it.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Because they're separate themes. They're Knights. They're also secretive and insular. They're not one because they're the other.

 

Their Primarch grew up as part of a knightly order, and the First Legion also, for many many years, was the defining answer to what a Space Marine was. They were the archetype that all other Legions emulated. Horus may have been the first Primarch, but for so long, it was the First Legion that all the others aspired to be like.

 

Sadly, this has always been the least focused-upon aspect of the Dark Angels, everything's always been about the Fallen, and the Inner Circle, and the secrets and lies, etc. For all the rarity of the Fallen, and how hard they are to find, you're hard-pressed in 40k to find a Dark Angels story that doesn't involve them in some way, other than Piscina. Now when we finally get stuff that focuses on these other aspects, it feels tacked on, because of the flanderization that has taken place.

[Fedor]

The stuff about the Dark Angels being the original and a template for others to initially emulate is quite new isn't it? The idea of them getting and keeping a lot of earlier and more esoteric equipment etc..

 

It's not really that interesting in itself either. Hard to focus on things like that for long beyond it just being background filling out a codex or Forgeworld legion history section. THe Lion's Primarch book and the parts Dreadwing  did it well, but is all we'll ever need there in novel form, in terms of it being an in depth look at organisation etc

[DarkChaplain]

The Dark Angels were the First Legion, and that idea was around for a long while. It's one of the reasons why Merir Astelan is such an interesting character: He's one of those first, who got special treatment by the Emperor (psychic shielding and what not, something the later batches did not possess, including those from Caliban, or even later Terran recruits). They've been posed to be the prototype Legion, at least from the first batch on, for years.

[Indefragable]

I think the idea of the First Legion being The First has been around for a little while, as @DarkChaplain mentioned, though how much it has been explored I can not say. 

 

Regardless, I am of firm belief that it is such a core part of the Dark Angel psyche into "present" day that it can not be overstated. 

 

How many restaurants have giant signs proclaiming "home of the x burger?" Or "Bob's Burgers: The First is still the best" or such. Even if the "accepted" version of a song is a cover version, think of the intense drive to find the first/original version of it. Even moreso, the Birth Order aspect--in my mind--is very much at play with the Lion and his legion. That directly ties into their attitude and what others see as arrogance they see as "well, we are the first."  There is a cachet there that cannot be duplicated. 

 

 

Edit: spelling

Edited April 3, 2020 by Indefragable

[DarkChaplain]

Even if they were/are nearly identical to the other Legions after them, just remember how twins might argue about who's the older brother/sister. It might be a pointless argument or down to mere seconds of being pulled out of the progenitor's body, but it's still a point of pride for a lot of people anyway.

 

It's kind of the whole Movie-Bane thing. The Dark Angels have been molded by the Unification Wars and the Great Crusade. The others kind of followed in their footsteps. And since this has been a thing for a while, I'm still annoyed at the Valdor novel having other Legion prototypes alongside the First anyway: It diminishes that source of their arrogance to share the stage in one of the Legions' first outings.

[Phoebus]

The Dark Angels have indeed suffered where the knightly theme is concerned: at one extreme, authors wouldn’t really touch on it at all; at the other, they relied on generalized tropes. I enjoyed the effort Dembski-Bowden put into “Savage Weapons,” but I don’t think any Black Library author has ever really presented an extensive vision of what “knights” from a world like Caliban would be like. Point of fact, I’m not sure to what extent they’ve considered whether chivalry — as a social and cultural institution — could survive in a Death World inimical to human life. In my humble opinion, the “knights” we might expect to find on Caliban would probably draw far more from pre-chivalric warrior ethos or from the Christian military orders than the bland nobility and “Sars” we see in Descent of Angels and Fallen Angels.

 

Irrelevant side-rant follows:

 

If the past of Caliban were open to development or re-writing, I would pitch it as an attempt to establish a Knight World gone horribly wrong: an arboreal amalgam of Barbarus and Fenris whose flora, fauna, and very atmosphere ensured the Knights themselves didn’t survive. What slivers of humanity do persist do so in isolated fortresses formed from the remnants of the colony ships that brought them here millennia before the Lion’s arrival. The Sacristans devolved to mere artificers; the greatest of them lived out hermit-like existences in forge-fortresses within the most dangerous and remote wilderness, to prevent the surviving scraps of the Dark Age of Technology from falling in the hands of ever-more barbarous warlords. In time, they are thought of as “wizards” by a warrior caste that borrows far more from John Blanche’s sketchbooks than any knightly genre.

 

For the Order to be conceived in such a savage environment would be a miracle in itself. I envision them being a group of warriors whose most amazing quality was their belief that the lives of the people meant something; that they deserved protection without owing slavery. I imagine them discovering the remnants of an ancient colony-ship buried beneath what would become Aldurukh, and within it the remnants of an archive that described a far finer, civilized world: laws, decency, and honor. They also find the lore those long-dead ancestors compiled, which hinted at the horrific nature of Caliban: that the Great Beasts were shaped by the very energies that suffuse the planet, and that those same forces are responsible for the ever-growing number of witch-kin and the horrors they bring about. That, in turn, becomes the impetus for the secretive nature of the Order, and it is they who possess libraries of forbidden lore — not the Knights of Lupus. They wish to keep the remnants of humanity of safe, but don’t want them to learn that they may very well be damned.

 

And so, the Order becomes this brotherhood of “knights” in the sense that they are monastic and indoctrinated through a life-long regiment of discipline, tests, initiations, etc., meant to safeguard them from the influences of their own planet. These are things only the Grand Masters of the Order can know of. After the Lion arrived and was initiated to the Order’s secrets, his ruthless pragmatism conceived of the need for the Crusade to unify Caliban: only by bringing the remnants of humanity under the aegis of the Order can the evil suffusing Caliban be mitigated.

 

Luther would be left behind after the Emperor arrived not because of some bizarre reaction to near-treason, but because he, too, is a Grand Master and privy to what Caliban does. Because the Lion has first-hand knowledge of the supernatural, he becomes the first to learn that the problems of Caliban are writ large across the Galaxy (though perhaps not to the extent of learning of the Ruinous Powers). Caliban thus becomes a secondary consideration to him, which leads to his rift with Luther. In turn, Luther despairs of ever “fixing” Caliban and is seduced by forbidden sorcerous lore (fight fire with fire, etc.). Que the fall.

 

The rituals of initiation and culture of secrecy of the Order would translate to tactical and strategic compartmentalization in the Dark Angels Legion — not a case where you didn’t know who was who in a given Order or what their rank was in a given Ordination. Initiations into mysteries would continue, with those centering on Warp entities, suppressed Xenos lore, actions whose records have been redacted, and so on.

Edited April 3, 2020 by Phoebus

[Roomsky]

This was not good.

 

I'll defend Guymer's Iron Hands til my dying day, and Dreadwing was a treat, but this doesn't carry over any of the things I liked about those stories beyond Guymer's prose.

 

There are no character arcs. I can't remember any of the cast. There is barely a plot. I learned nothing new about the Lion (though his portrayal was suitably dignified), and all I learned about his Legion was a Forgeworld write-up about unit formation. Generic Dark Angels go in, fight (admittidly creative)xenos, the end.

 

Where are Guymer's unfiltered looks into the primarch's character?
Where is Guymers wide and memorable cast?
Where is Guymer's excellent use of the insanity of 40k?

 

Certainly not here. Read only if you want bare-bones Legion drivel and unit trivia.

[b1soul]

Honestly, each primarch homeworld is sufficient to embody a whole RPG setting

 

Caliban in particular. Love the techno-knight arboreal theme. So much potential by a good authour to explore Calibanite culture.

[bluntblade]

 

This was not good.

 

I'll defend Guymer's Iron Hands til my dying day, and Dreadwing was a treat, but this doesn't carry over any of the things I liked about those stories beyond Guymer's prose.

 

There are no character arcs. I can't remember any of the cast. There is barely a plot. I learned nothing new about the Lion (though his portrayal was suitably dignified), and all I learned about his Legion was a Forgeworld write-up about unit formation. Generic Dark Angels go in, fight (admittidly creative)xenos, the end.

 

Where are Guymer's unfiltered looks into the primarch's character?

Where is Guymers wide and memorable cast?

Where is Guymer's excellent use of the insanity of 40k?

 

Certainly not here. Read only if you want bare-bones Legion drivel and unit trivia.

Aww.

[Indefragable]

<snip>

 

Good stuff here, @Phoebius. 

 

I would expand upon your idea/go a slightly different direction and go more Knights Templar with Caliban, if I were in charge. Knights Templar from a historical perspective: they were originally created to protect pilgrims from Europe heading to the Holy Land. They would protect them both physically and financially (side note: there is some belief that they created the first international banking as we know it, since pilgrims would show up at Templar camp A in Europe and deposit 100 coins so they couldn't be robbed of them on the way, and then when they arrived at Templar camp B they would be able to withdraw 100 coins as well) and that was their primary purpose. Over time, as their scope and influence grew, their mission expanded for better and worse (as is so often the case in world history). They started dabbling in a the-best-offense-is-a-good-defense type of policy and well, the rest is history. 

 

...how this ties into the Dark Angels, in my view, is that you have this absolutely nightmarish world of Caliban. Where The Order stands out from all the various feudal lords is that they don't require payment of fealty. They are the embodiment of the classic "knight in shining armor" that shows up to save the day. Quite literally. As their influence grows and expands, naturally both the common citizenry and rival lords can't help but be sucked into their orbit, whether through admiration or competitive destruction. 

 

The acts of chivalry--doing good for the sake of good, not for recognition of it--then directly ties in with the whole "loyalty is its own reward" aspect of the Lion and the First Legion. The First Legion who originally was the template for all other Legions and was already used to acting on their own, supplying themselves, reinforcing themselves, leading themselves, then becomes the perfect breeding ground for the Lion to take over and introduce the chivalric tendencies. This puts things into overdrive where they are off keeping the barbarians off the walls and helping out the Imperium yet never talking about it so no one knows exactly what they are doing. Further more, it becomes more and more insular and as others criticize them they turn further inwards as their legend grows and rumors about who they really are and what they really do grow ever wilder.

 

Where things go wrong is when the Lion starts swooping in to help out the rest of the Imperium and common citizenry of Caliban feels abandoned. Thus the Calibanite Dark Angels have motive to rebel and pull a "you forgot your roots" move when the HH wraps up. The final confrontation between the Lion and Luther is a tearjerker because both sides are both "right" and "wrong" in their own way and only the act of seeing his foster home literally broken apart beneath him and the utter conviction of his best friend's betrayal are what finally get through the Lion's arrogance and send him into a coma, where he has been ever since. 

 

It's a Tragedy in the classic sense. 

 

It would also distinguish them from the Black Templars sine the BT would/could be more Teutonic Knights, much more a knightly in a military unit sort of way while the Dark Angels would be knightly/Military Order in an organizational and strategic way, but "classic" space marines on the battlefield. 

 

 

...or, you know, you could just have them be like "Yo Dawg, I hear you like secrets so I made a secret about your secrets so you can secretively keep secrets about the secrets your secretly keeping." 

[Phoebus]

I would expand upon your idea/go a slightly different direction and go more Knights Templar with Caliban, if I were in charge.

That’s precisely what I had in mind when I started off with “Christian military orders.” I completely dropped the ball in terms of qualifying which one I was referring to. I like the Knights Templar as a frame of reference for the Dark Angels because their monastic/ascetic code, ferocious discipline on the battlefield, and refusal to surrender or retreat (as well as the legends surrounding their initiations into occultism and mysticism) stand in contrast with the more conventional, romanticized conception of chivalry.

 

...or, you know, you could just have them be like "Yo Dawg, I hear you like secrets so I made a secret about your secrets so you can secretively keep secrets about the secrets your secretly keeping."

You’re hired. Edited April 4, 2020 by Phoebus

[bluntblade]

 

I would expand upon your idea/go a slightly different direction and go more Knights Templar with Caliban, if I were in charge.

That’s precisely what I had in mind when I started off with “Christian military orders.” I completely dropped the ball in terms of qualifying which one I was referring to. I like the Knights Templar as a frame of reference for the Dark Angels because their monastic/ascetic code, ferocious discipline on the battlefield, and refusal to surrender or retreat (as well as the legends surrounding their initiations into occultism and mysticism) stand in contrast with the more conventional, romanticized conception of chivalry. 

Which would tie nicely into the, ahem, dark side of the Legion. I hate it when people identify a clear-through line for a character or faction that eluded the person writing them.

[Phoebus]

Or worse — a through line that the person writing for the faction in question dismissed.