Siege of Terra - Saturnine by Dan Abnett

[Lord_Caerolion]

 

No, not necessarily. Warhammer 40k isn't exactly a setting built on the premise of perfect recall - quite the opposite. Perhaps the situation is roughly analogous to Thermopylae (e.g. people only remember the 300 Spartans, not their allies), and history has chosen to revolve around only those Legions who stood in their entirety with the Emperor on Terra's surface. Perhaps the Dark Angels, in their shame at not having made it there in time to have had a decisive impact, choose to omit their own role in the battle for the Solar system, or to cover for their own Primarch's absence. Perhaps the information is simply lost over the course of 10,000 years due to internal politicking or a myriad of potential other factors. Perhaps records were never adequately made of all of the ships that fought in Solar War because the Imperials are forced to pursue the Traitors immediately after their withdrawal from Terra's surface, and the numbers of Dark Angel ships were so small relative to the greater whole that they were categorized by Imperial scholars as a minor tale not worth telling in their recounting of the Siege of Terra.

 

Long story short, there is plenty of room for the Dark Angels to play some kind of role in the Solar campaign.

 

 

At the risk of mentioning that meme, perhaps this could be the source of the whole "The Dark Angels waited to see who would win before taking part"?

 

"We have arrived! Wait... their fleet is how big? Ok, we're not gonna do anything if we make a move now, let's just... let's just wait for reinforcements, shall we?"

 

This is actually a really good take!

 

There isn't room. Contrary to popular belief 40k is actually barely removed by 30k in terms of generations due to the sheer lifespan of people. You can have as little as just 2 dreadnoughts removed from a Chapter knowing exact information about what happened in 30k due to one brother talking to another brother as dreadnoughts have lifespans measured in millennia. Considering that marines also tend to have eidetic memories, it'd be quite hard for information to be fudged up by M41 as the Chapter should have fairly fresh witness testimony from that time period. In a similar manner, the Mechanicus isn't that removed from the 30k era either.

 

 

Because the Dark Angels are just so well-known for their unflinching attitude towards telling the truth.

 

That, and the fact that this sort of loss of knowledge happens routinely, it's not impossible that this did occur.

[Fedor]

I wonder if we'll get the remnants of the Wolves and Raven Guard  and whoever they can muster show up at some point too. That fitsinto  the older lore about it being the Dark Angels and Wolves imminent arrival that may have caused Horus to lower the shields and ties into the murky history/how myths are made aspects Dan has talked about when you put it alongside the retcon of it being the Ultramarines fleet that was the main relief force.

 

Maybe i'm overthinking it, but it seems like the sort of binding up elements of actual old lore with the subsequent real world retcons that Dan would go for considering the way he's seemingly taking the Pius story.

[Marshal Loss]

There isn't room.

Opinions are one thing, but this is categorically wrong. Ignoring for a moment the fact that from a practical standpoint there will always be as much room as the authors desire for something like this to occur, 40k is quite literally a setting that revolves around forgotten knowledge; it's a core tenet of the universe. Speaking as a historian, you'd be shocked at how easily information is corrupted and how quickly narratives go awry without any purposeful malevolence or negligence on the part of primary sources. I experience this as readily working with Herodotus as my colleagues do sifting through reports written by WW2-era soldiers the very day of a major engagement.

 

I'm guessing you may not be pleased at this development but there's little point in waving your hands around and saying it can't happen. As of right now, barring a twist of unprecedented

"I am Alpharius with a can of black spray paint"

proportions, it clearly can and does happen. All that remains is to wait and see how it plays out. Edited April 6, 2020 by Marshal Loss

[b1soul]

@ Roomsky

Apart from Krole, could you please eleborate? Would like to hear your take, as mine is far from the gold standard.

 

I guess almost none of the characters really resonated with me or seemed to advance in their arcs (or even have arcs). My connection with the characters was based on my prior knowledge of them and their deeds in other BL works.

 

It could just be a case of me, the reader, being mired too much in Saturnine's liberal helpings of action.

 

@ Indefrafable

Yup, so some of my questions or issues with Saturnine are probably answered by the prior two books. I definitely lack that context. I did start the prior two books but gave up as I didn't enjoy the writing. This was more true of The First Wall. Just not my cup of tea. I ended up reading online spoilers but spoilers can't capture a full two novels' worth of material.

 

EDIT: Upon reflection, I think Krole may have been the closest thing to a developed character. Ollie, while quirky, did little for me.

Edited April 6, 2020 by b1soul

[Lord Lorne Walkier]

 

 

 

 

The Dark Angels won’t participate in the siege, they’ll be fighting their way to Terra to add pressure to the traitors

 

Corswain and some Dark Angels turn up at Terra at the end of Saturnine. So looks like some will at least.

 

Rohr's point is that

 

There's a major difference between entering the system and successfully landing on Terra when the Traitors control the space around the throneworld. It may well be that Corswain and his boys just link up with Su-Kassen and play a role in pressuring the Traitors throughout the last few books, the cumulative pressure of which (Terran fleet + Smurfs & friends) prompts Horus to force a confrontation with the Emperor.

 

edit: repeated word

 

Except people would still know that the Dark Angels participated in the Siege of Terra by virtue of First Legion ships flying First Legion heraldry scooting around the system in a naval war. And the Dark Angels themselves would know they fought in the Terran campaign.

 

No, not necessarily. Warhammer 40k isn't exactly a setting built on the premise of perfect recall - quite the opposite. Perhaps the situation is roughly analogous to Thermopylae (e.g. people only remember the 300 Spartans, not their allies), and history has chosen to revolve around only those Legions who stood in their entirety with the Emperor on Terra's surface. Perhaps the Dark Angels, in their shame at not having made it there in time to have had a decisive impact, choose to omit their own role in the battle for the Solar system, or to cover for their own Primarch's absence. Perhaps the information is simply lost over the course of 10,000 years due to internal politicking or a myriad of potential other factors. Perhaps records were never adequately made of all of the ships that fought in Solar War because the Imperials are forced to pursue the Traitors immediately after their withdrawal from Terra's surface, and the numbers of Dark Angel ships were so small relative to the greater whole that they were categorized by Imperial scholars as a minor tale not worth telling in their recounting of the Siege of Terra.

 

Long story short, there is plenty of room for the Dark Angels to play some kind of role in the Solar campaign.

 

 

At the risk of mentioning that meme, perhaps this could be the source of the whole "The Dark Angels waited to see who would win before taking part"?

 

"We have arrived! Wait... their fleet is how big? Ok, we're not gonna do anything if we make a move now, let's just... let's just wait for reinforcements, shall we?"

 

This is actually a really good take!

 

Yeh,  10k of years can result some slipage.  All the "changes" to the cannon, to me are explained by this to a degree.  Add in the efforts of groups like the Alpha Legion.  They could have run an opp to delete the Dark Angles from the records.  Maybe the =][= crossed them off the list for..... reasons. 

[Roomsky]

@ Roomsky

Apart from Krole, could you please eleborate? Would like to hear your take, as mine is far from the gold standard.

 

I found each prominent remembrancer's part in the story to be very character driven. Sindermann struggles to find purpose, and wrestles with his own faith moving forward. Character interaction is used to reveal more about Keeler; I know we get a virus weapon out of it but it's more about her and the people she's interviewing. Ollie is a flat character, but his actions shape Hari's perceptions and outlook tremendously.

 

As Abaddon is the driver of the Saturnine Wall plot, Aximand is left more or less to stew over his own thoughts. His own paranoia is what drives him to where he is at the end of the story. The plot pushed him into Loken's path, but it was Aximand that "chose" to be a wreck by then.

 

Niborran goes through a nice arc, learning to deal with his own misconceptions, all while adjusting to the fact he's running a suicide mission.

 

That's keeping it closer to the proper definition. Even outside of those, I found the book bursting with character, and that Abnett has a habit of doing a lot with a little. I learned far more about Abaddon's character here than through the entirety of Lost and the Damned and First Wall combined.

[b1soul]

"I found the book bursting with character, and that Abnett has a habit of doing a lot with a little. I learned far more about Abaddon's character here than through the entirety of Lost and the Damned and First Wall combined."

Fair enough!

[b1soul]

Astarte is more like a nurse to the Primarchs/Astartes, if you will. Erda is more like a biological mother who only contributed her genetic material. So I don't think their roles overlap that much really. Also, Erda definitely scattered the Primarchs with some form of aid by the Chaos Gods. It's hard to argue otherwise given the information provided in Valdor.

 

[Enosh]

Astarte is more like a nurse to the Primarchs/Astartes, if you will. Erda is more like a biological mother who only contributed her genetic material. So I don't think their roles overlap that much really. Also, Erda definitely scattered the Primarchs with some form of aid by the Chaos Gods. It's hard to argue otherwise given the information provided in Valdor.

 

they all fit the same theme of being a mother figure to the marines and primarchs, the marines for instance are named after one of them, even if going at it from different angles

[mc warhammer]

i don't really see it. they fulfilled completely different roles

 

they just both happen to be female.

[b1soul]

You're defining mother figure very broadly, as in...any female who had something significant to do with their creation.

[DarkChaplain]

I don't think he's really wrong in principle

The Selenar are the Legion-mommies that took the tech to mass-produce the Astartes. They're the "Sons of the Selenar", which even Abaddon points out.

 

Astarte and Erda are the mothers on a genetic level; one a scientist that stuck with the project, resulting in their creations being named after her, the other a scientist that also lent her own genetic code to the Primarch project, who proclaims herself midwife and talks about the Primarchs as her sons.

 

They're all three matriarchal figures when it comes to the Astartes/Primarchs. One quite literally being their mother, the other a scientific creator adapting the former's offspring to create their sons, with such a high investment that they named the damned things after her, and the last, the lunar gene-fiddlers, being the ones that... well, "bred" the Legions in numbers, based on what the other two had done.

 

All three can (and in a way do) assess ownership / creator rights over the Legions, one way or another. And I guess, as far as Astarte is concerned, you might even call her the secret waifu that the Primarch-daddies didn't even know they had :')

 

Yeah, this is deliberately tongue in cheek.

[talos402000]

"I found the book bursting with character, and that Abnett has a habit of doing a lot with a little. I learned far more about Abaddon's character here than through the entirety of Lost and the Damned and First Wall combined."

 

Fair enough!

Your actually Dan under a pseudonym, aren't you?

 

[Scammel]

Because if they can change lore at the drop of a hat it makes the lore worthless. It sometimes makes whole books, and stories and entire painted armies worthless. It makes the desire to invest in actual new lore meaningless because it is in itself meaningless.

 

Hm, I don't think I can honestly recommend this book then. It's fantastic - there's wonderful character moments, great dialogue, and scenes of both glorious and tender humanity... but there are potentially some lore contradictions, so it sounds like it could be worthless.

Edited April 9, 2020 by Scammel

[bluntblade]

 

 

Because if they can change lore at the drop of a hat it makes the lore worthless. It sometimes makes whole books, and stories and entire painted armies worthless. It makes the desire to invest in actual new lore meaningless because it is in itself meaningless.

Hm, I don't think I can honestly recommend this book then. It's fantastic - there's wonderful character moments, great dialogue, and scenes of both glorious and tender humanity... but there are potentially some lore contradictions, so it sounds like it could be worthless.

I can't tell if this is sincere or god-tier deadpan.

[b1soul]

Do the Astartes have two dads because of the Emperor and Malcador?

Genetic material: Erda (and the Emperor)
Design/engineering: Astarte (and the Emperor)
Mass production: Selenar
Funding/planning: probably Malcador

There's room for a lot of people to be heavily involved in the final product, some of them female. Why is this distressing?

[b1soul]

 

EDIT: The point is these roles don't overlap to the point of being thematically redundant, especially among Erda, Astarte, and the Selenar. People seem to be complaining that there multiple "mother figures" when these mother figures performed very different roles. There's no conflict or redundancy

[mc warhammer]

idk if they have 2 dads, but they got 4 uncles

[DarkChaplain]

I'd say it's got most to do with the exploration or addition of all of these figures is so recent in the lore, and following over the course of months. Here's one, hey, here's another with a related role who also takes credit. Oh, hey, a third.

 

Even if their jobs are different within the setting's context, we went from the Emperor having faceless, nameless scientists busy in his dungeons to getting a few of them pointed out as super important in rapid succession, all of which, in one way or another, take credit while laying claim to or being attributed with the title of "mother", whether by themselves or other characters.

Another important character in the creation process of the Legiones Astartes, Sedayne, the dude who made the Black Carapace, never even appears in the Heresy series, despite outliving it and being on Terra even during the Siege. You wouldn't know him if not for Wolfsbane getting a bit of a sequel in Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work, but you do get to know three different "mother-figures", all of which already got named in the Siege's 4 books so far, with one being further explored in Valdor.

 

Had they instead spread them out narratively, I don't think anybody would've really cared or complained. They might've made comparisons or scratched their head because they're new characters related to ones they already knew about, or even questioned their relevance/the necessity to add them to the lore, but that's about it. There's nothing inherently bad about any of them being a thing that exists in the Heresy, or them being women or Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster addicts, but I can see where complaints are coming from. In some ways, it's different angles on the same theme, all happening quickly one after the other, til people might end up sick of the topic and related characters.

 

 

As for Malcador, he never was presented as a father figure to me. He's an uncle who harshly criticised them or offered them an ear when daddy wouldn't. He was aware and seemingly supportive of the Emperor's plans, but his job was elsewhere.

Edited April 9, 2020 by DarkChaplain

[Enosh]

Do the Astartes have two dads because of the Emperor and Malcador?

 

Genetic material: Erda (and the Emperor)

Design/engineering: Astarte (and the Emperor)

Mass production: Selenar

Funding/planning: probably Malcador

 

There's room for a lot of people to be heavily involved in the final product, some of them female. Why is this distressing?

the Emperor is very obviously a father figure to the primarchs and the marines, hell the Wolves call him Allfather, and the primarchs are father figures to the marines, I don't think this is some new revelation given the amount of "my son" in this series, Malcador was never really considered or presented as such, not by characters in the setting and not by the writers

[mc warhammer]

I'd say it's got most to do with the exploration or addition of all of these figures is so recent in the lore, and following over the course of months. Here's one, hey, here's another with a related role who also takes credit. Oh, hey, a third.

 

Even if their jobs are different within the setting's context, we went from the Emperor having faceless, nameless scientists busy in his dungeons to getting a few of them pointed out as super important in rapid succession, all of which, in one way or another, take credit while laying claim to or being attributed with the title of "mother", whether by themselves or other characters.

Another important character in the creation process of the Legiones Astartes, Sedayne, the dude who made the Black Carapace, never even appears in the Heresy series, despite outliving it and being on Terra even during the Siege. You wouldn't know him if not for Wolfsbane getting a bit of a sequel in Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work, but you do get to know three different "mother-figures", all of which already got named in the Siege's 4 books so far, with one being further explored in Valdor.

 

Had they instead spread them out narratively, I don't think anybody would've really cared or complained. They might've made comparisons or scratched their head because they're new characters related to ones they already knew about, or even questioned their relevance/the necessity to add them to the lore, but that's about it. There's nothing inherently bad about any of them being a thing that exists in the Heresy, or them being women or Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster addicts, but I can see where complaints are coming from. In some ways, it's different angles on the same theme, all happening quickly one after the other, til people might end up sick of the topic and related characters.

 

 

As for Malcador, he never was presented as a father figure to me. He's an uncle who harshly criticised them or offered them an ear when daddy wouldn't. He was aware and seemingly supportive of the Emperor's plans, but his job was elsewhere.

good points, but my cynical brain says that the adb waifu effect would still be rampant in fandom

 

but now you have me waiting for the novella on larraman and his wonderful organ

[Marshal Rohr]

Erda, Astarte, Selenar, etc are expansions of a void in the lore. We didn’t know how the Primarchs and Legions were made other than a generic ‘the Emperor made them’ which none of the new things added invalidate. It’s not ‘new’ in the sense the Great Rift or Salamanders having black skin and red eyes is ‘new’. The former doesn’t change anything. The latter does.

[mc warhammer]

Erda, Astarte, Selenar, etc are expansions of a void in the lore. We didn’t know how the Primarchs and Legions were made other than a generic ‘the Emperor made them’ which none of the new things added invalidate. It’s not ‘new’ in the sense the Great Rift or Salamanders having black skin and red eyes is ‘new’. The former doesn’t change anything. The latter does.

it also shows how much they all hook into the emperor's personality cult that they even want to attribute paternal titles to themselves and each other in the way he bestowed one on himself

 

wolf and animal dna was also potentially used, warp juice from each of the big 4...the only reason they don't claim the same titles is that they can't. though a part of my brain thinks chaos has tried to in some fashion?

 

there can also be nuances to those titles. you can be called "the father of modern science" without actually thinking you the baby daddy. it's semantic

Edited April 9, 2020 by mc warhammer

[b1soul]

I'd add that the addition of the likes of

 

Astarte

Erda

Sedayne

a bunch of other talented geneticists who were more than just drones

the Selenar etc.

 

show that (1) the Emp needed a lot of outside help to produce the Astartes and (2) the Astartes project was still rushed because of the Chaos stopwatch pushing the Emperor to expedite everything.

 

This means a post-Heresy improvement on the existing Astartes by a great mind like Cawl becomes more plausible, as non-Emperor minds contributed significantly to the project and the project itself was rushed out to beat a deadline.

Edited April 9, 2020 by b1soul

[Volt]

Possibly/probably better to post this in the “...canonicity...” thread but why do some folks get SO upset when new things are added or changes made to previous lore descriptions?

 

Why is a piece of lore written 20-30 yrs ago (eg William King’s SoT piece) inviolable?

 

The cannon evolves as the story evolves. Often because the writers (through story group conferences) realise that some of the old lore actually MADE NO SENSE! The HH lore in the Collected Visions is a right royal mess (sorry Alan Merrett).

 

The major story/plot decisions each author involved in the SoT books writes into their respective novel will have been agreed by the story group (all six authors + editors + GW IP guys). The authors have been clear on that and how they are all sharing ideas.

 

When the HH novel series and Forgeworld Black Books are finished then THAT will be the cannon due to the sheer effort and person hours put in to developing it.

 

So you might expect to see a knock on in lore sections in some Codexes in future.

 

Some folks might prefer the old lore but sadly for them they need to accept that the new lore is changing some aspects for whatever reason. So either go with the new canon lore or retreat to head canon as that is totally valid (for you) too!

 

Eg. For years we all thought the UMs just sat out the HH. But that lore evolved first with (card game) Collected Visions then further with novels and FW BB. The new lore has actually provided far more credible reasons for where they were.

New things are fine, hell they're wonderful. So long as they're actually good, and not a vain thrust to make money instead of produce art. There are some good HH books, but the issue is that they're a minority, and even the good ones have a bad habit of getting into "my dad is better than your dad" Primarch slapfights which don't produce any casualties because we know who dies where. Or they engage in M Night Shyamalan style "twists", mistaking such radical subversion for actual skill or depth - when in reality it's just bloody annoying and cheap writing to get a rise out of the audience.

 

The problem is that William's King version was a superior framework. it wasn't finished or fully fleshed out, but it adequately told a tale of a Greek tragedy and hubris. Now? Over 56 books and god-knows-how-many-audio-dramas later what we're left with is an "evolved" story that is an absolutely inconsistent mess of themes, arcs, and character reversals that it's impossible to make heads or tails of. Or in other terms, the old lore was at least the framework of literature. What we actually got instead was a comic book. The retcons don't add anything, they detract from it, in a series that is obsessed with pointless mashing of toys together without realizing that a fight without stakes or consequences is inherently meaningless. Violence as spectacle is fine, but spectacle becomes mundane in excess. And by christ is the Horus Heresy series utterly overwhelmed by a surplus of needless spectacle. So many books, so many fights that add nothing thematically, that contribute nothing to the plot  - merely there to look "cool" while in reality doing nothing and actively harming the Primarchs or Marines or Custodes. Instead of being rare, mysterious, and powerful figures, these creatures are distilled into the banal by overexposure. We can only see Dorn kill so many foes become it becomes the norm, and the superhuman nature of the Primarchs is an anticipated fact, not a welcome surprise that dramatically escalates the scale of violence.

 

The retcons don't add anything to the story, if anything they detract from its literary quality by upending the original thematic arc of the heresy, a tale of lost glory and wonder, and the tragic loss of a father's beloved son - into simply a moshpit of a superhuman slapfight where most contenders walk away, and the emotional character of the Emperor is completely stripped away in favor of a human calculator that doesn't even really feel love to begin with. While the Horus Heresy originally was quite obviously not on the quality of hellenic greek literature, it's still been like watching somebody "adapt" the Iliad by dragging it out for 50 comics mostly involving utterly meaningless fights between Achilles and Hector that don't progress to anything because the fates of said fighters are already known. We don't need to see Dorn fight somebody for the umpteenth time in the Siege - not when there's zero tension involved because we know what happens to Dorn and to the people he's fighting.

 

And to be honest if the writers had some cajones, if you want to engage in retcons, retcon who lives. We don't need all 18 Primarchs running around in M42, Guilliman's enough. Maybe it's just Guilluman and 2-3 others who survive. Hell even bump off some of the Daemon Primarchs. Make it an actual family tragedy where brothers kill each other, not mildly inconvenience each other with injuries they heal from. It's for this reason I really like the Dorn vs Alpharius fight, because it had actual consequences for once in the HH (Alpharius actually biting it, for real).