Consequences (PA short story - SPOILER discussion)

[Dark Shepherd]

Were Blood Ravens just shoehorned into the lore because of Dawn of War? If so I wouldnt take them as rock solid cannon

 

Seems like just taking the word greyshield out of the story wouldve taken away most of the salt. Andy Clark is a fairly experienced Black Library author, not read much of his, especially compared to other PA short story authors, so its surprising/disappointing (delete as appropriate) if he made a glaring mistake

[Shield-Captain]

 

The Grey Knights murder guardsmen who see Daemons and one time even butchered some loyal Sisters of Battle to fight Khorne daemons. It happens. Not every Custode would react the same way and even the Sister of Silence seems rather shocked by what they just did. 

 

And that fluff was deservedly mocked for being varying degrees of stupid and nonsensical (to the point that they retconned the 'need to turn Sisters into armour paint to get extra incorruptible' incident). 

 

 

 

But it still exists. It is the fluff. The Imperium is as savage as its enemies and routinely has purges and executions and intercine conflicts. And we're all supposed to put our heads in our hands and be exasperated by it. Because it is the nature of the setting. Even the good guys aren't always good. I don't see why anyone is surprised by this happening. 

 

If they weren't traitors why not just drop the weapons? The Shield-Captain told them to and literally says "...you will be detained, along with all of your battle-brothers, until an appropriate fate can be determined." It's right there in the text. He isn't dooming them to execution outright and he is offering leniency. Maybe they get another chance, maybe they become a new Chapter. 

 

It's a situation that didn't have to happen on either ends. And yeah, the Custode is wrong. He is. He makes a mistake. Hence "consequences." He's alienated/doomed an entire chapter of Space Marines that may or may not be traitors.

[Raven1]

This story illustrates one of my favorite parts of the 40k universe. The absolute savagery of the Imperium as a machine and no life has any value and can be taken for almost any reason, with little justification, and no recourse.

 

It's dark, it's terrible, and it's hopeless.

[Leif Bearclaw]

 

 

The Grey Knights murder guardsmen who see Daemons and one time even butchered some loyal Sisters of Battle to fight Khorne daemons. It happens. Not every Custode would react the same way and even the Sister of Silence seems rather shocked by what they just did. 

 

And that fluff was deservedly mocked for being varying degrees of stupid and nonsensical (to the point that they retconned the 'need to turn Sisters into armour paint to get extra incorruptible' incident). 

 

 

 

But it still exists. It is the fluff. The Imperium is as savage as its enemies and routinely has purges and executions and intercine conflicts. And we're all supposed to put our heads in our hands and be exasperated by it. Because it is the nature of the setting. Even the good guys aren't always good. I don't see why anyone is surprised by this happening. 

 

If they weren't traitors why not just drop the weapons? The Shield-Captain told them to and literally says "...you will be detained, along with all of your battle-brothers, until an appropriate fate can be determined." It's right there in the text. He isn't dooming them to execution outright and he is offering leniency. Maybe they get another chance, maybe they become a new Chapter. 

 

It's a situation that didn't have to happen on either ends. And yeah, the Custode is wrong. He is. He makes a mistake. Hence "consequences." He's alienated/doomed an entire chapter of Space Marines that may or may not be traitors.

 

You've missed my point here I think, which is probably my fault for cutting too much of your post in my quote. You started with "Wow. One short story and the whole fanbase collapses on itself. This really doesn't show anything new."

 

And you're right. Sadly this is far from the first terrible fluff GW has put out. Thing is, the fanbase (as ephemeral and schizo as it is) isn't reacting any differently here either. Previous bad fluff got negative reactions and pushback too. That's what I was trying to say in the bit you quoted here.

 

To be honest, I'd have been a lot more forgiving here if this wasn't another example of arrogant, up themselves Custodes treating Astartes with contempt. I never got why GW went for that characterisation for the golden boys.

 

 

If they weren't traitors why not just drop the weapons?

One might as well say 'if they were traitors, why didn't they draw their weapons?'. But to answer the question directly, probably shock. Which is the thing I keep coming back to with this discussion. These Marines went from 'everything's fine, wont it be cool to meet my new brothers' to 'I've just been accused of the worst crime possible' in 84 words. That's a shockingly short time for everything they thought they knew about their lives to be upended, and clearly not enough time to process it. Marines aren't robots after all. And Tyvar should have known that if he's half as bright as Custodes are meant to be. It doesn't read to be like he made a mistake. He went into that room wanting to kill the Astartes. Which is ultimately why imo this sucks. His idiotic prejudice wasted the lives of 200 precious Astartes (plus whoever they kill in the struggle). It's grimderp, not grimdark. Custodes should be better. Ruthless bastards? Absolutely, but not prejudiced idiots wasting precious resources. They should be more like the IG general in DoW retribution, spending lives, not wasting them.

[jbaeza94]

i see a lot of they should have just complied. i have to disagree, they literally did nothing and i would not allow myself to be treated as a villain for the mistakes and actions of people i have not even met. i believe the marines did the "right" thing in this situation, and the custodes acted like a trigger happy cop who passed judgment unwisely (although i will say he had the power to do so). this story sat wrong with me, in a way that it made me feel angry towards the custodes. not a bad thing from an artistic point of view, but i was routing for the primaris in this one and saw the custodes as the villain. 

 

nice read, but i side with the primaris on this one. i dont expect blind compliance from marines, theyre too proud. 

[Hellex_The_Thanatar]

Wow, this thread escalated more quickly than the issues on the ship's bridge :D

That's how I know it's good lore! It forces so many perspectives and challenges to how WE think we would handle the problem versus how someone raised within the imperium would handle it.

 

I love and welcome all the interesting perspectives.

[geordie]

The debate this piece has started is fantastic! We can only surmise as to whether this was the intent by the writer.

 

Both sides have been well represented in the argument. I'm of the opinion more should consider what the Shield Captain said in terms of saying they were to be detained until their fate was decided at a later date. Under normal circumstances traitoris extremis is a straight up immediate execution, no ifs or buts. Marines should know this, he's basically nodding and winking at them here.

 

The fact they don't take this huge hint dooms them. And in my view rightly so, from the Shield Captains point of view.

 

I applaud all above for the constructive debate. It has been a terrific read so far. 

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

The debate this piece has started is fantastic! We can only surmise as to whether this was the intent by the writer.

 

Both sides have been well represented in the argument. I'm of the opinion more should consider what the Shield Captain said in terms of saying they were to be detained until their fate was decided at a later date. Under normal circumstances traitoris extremis is a straight up immediate execution, no ifs or buts. Marines should know this, he's basically nodding and winking at them here.

 

The fact they don't take this huge hint dooms them. And in my view rightly so, from the Shield Captains point of view.

On the other hand, knowing exactly what happens under "normal circumstances," they may well have interpreted their fate being decided "at a later date" as all of them being executed as soon as the last of them surrendered.

[helterskelter]

Yes custodes are known for their astartes love

"I always hated you, Xaphen"

[Bryan Blaire]

I do think that some folks are getting their “out of character/universe” knowledge mixed up with their “in-character” knowledge (to borrow some role-playing terms).

 

Also, Primaris Marines can’t be all that valuable to the Custodes’ point of view anyway - they only know that all of the sudden there are tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of these guys they are assigned to distribute, and that’s compared to their 10,000 (or whatever the real number is). So even without prejudice, this Custodes is looking at upwards of 40 times his number of potential enemies, whose leadership is apparently standing in the room with him, defying the orders of the Imperium (who he rightfully or wrongfully feels he speaks for - that one is a point of view thing, IMO). He’s been told by an organization that he likely presumes is fully loyal to the Imperium that Marines of this Chapter are disloyal heretics, and he quickly explains that the Marines must stand down and be detained, lest they prove that his prejudice that they will disloyally choose the brotherhood of Astartes over the Imperium - and they go on to do just that.

 

So going through his head are probably all of these different factors, he’s weighing everything, including the value of the Marines (which to him is probably “There are more and possibly loyal, unlike these”), and he comes to a decision. They defied the Imperium, proved his prejudice right, they die.

 

Is it dumb? Sure. The Imperium itself is dumb. Seriously, their technology is controlled by priests presented in a pretty literal way (technology and knowledge are a religion to be adhered to, mysteries not to be understood, etc.) and they have biological killing child-man soldiers as their wide-spread super-combat forces (compounded even further to Frankenstein’s Monsters when some of them literally die and come back to life after being stitched up with even more body parts) and where they eat food made out of their dead in some places, and all of it is to be done without question or you’re a heretic - “you think you know better than the Holy Emperor that made all of this!?” Blammo.

 

It also touches on a subject recently discussed down in the Fan Fiction forum - “How do you write the Superman/super-soldier/genius” etc., and one of those things discussed was how do you actually display the concept of higher order thought in a story? It’s tricky, and while here people have said “He’s dumb, reacting to prejudice, etc.” (which I partially agree with), the Custodes likely also ran through numerous trains of thought in the limited time he had from when the Marine voiced his “heretical” non-compliance by virtue of continuing when told to disarm and be detained and the gunfire. I’m sure there was more going on in this being’s head than just “Yay Murder Time!” Is he a blatant :cuss ? Yeah. So are Marines Malevolent, and likely other Loyalist Marines. There may legitimately be less :cuss renegade Marines out there than those that still remain Loyal by label.

 

Was the Primaris Captain justified in protesting “But some of them might be loyal!”? Very probably - I very much doubt he considered himself disloyal and felt that others of his similar make-up were likely the same - but he choose to do it in exactly the way the Custodian said - he was choosing a brotherhood feeling (“if I am, then surely others from my extended family are too, we just need to sort out who from who”) over honoring and obeying a command from his Emperor’s rep (something that until now probably didn’t cross his mind to reconsider).

 

I think a very good thing this piece really does is illustrate how loyalty/disloyalty/justified/right/wrong can very much depend on your frame of reference.

[Shield-Captain]

 

The Imperium is dumb. They wouldn't be compelling if they solved all their situations with grace and expert statesmanship. 

The problem is, it's not how the Imperium works

 

I remember wonderful copypasta from reddit:

 

The Imperium isn't grim because things suck by choice and could be fine if a sensible person came along. That sensible person wouldn't survive fifty seconds of the reality. The Imperium is grim because every single ... decision, every single sacrifice, every single death, every single man woman and child suffering a ... life in the worst conditions imaginable, is the absolute best that can be done.

 

 

I don't agree with that. The Imperium has always been as much a victim of its own making. There are a lot of examples of the Imperium making mistakes or misunderstanding warnings or outright ignoring them. Prospero happened because of their own draconian philosophy and mismanagement of the forces involved. That quote, and maybe I'm misreading it, seeks to place the blame outside the Imperium itself when it is as responsible for as much suffereing as the Xenos or Chaos. Maybe the Imperium doesn't always choose these things but sometimes it definitely does. It is run by people who often, as recent history has shown us, work against their own best interest. The Imperium isn't grim because it is doing its best. It's grim because it often can't see or refuses to pick the best option, whether that be because of xenophobia or dogma. The Imperium is grim because it is the setting. 

 

 

 

 

The Grey Knights murder guardsmen who see Daemons and one time even butchered some loyal Sisters of Battle to fight Khorne daemons. It happens. Not every Custode would react the same way and even the Sister of Silence seems rather shocked by what they just did. 

 

And that fluff was deservedly mocked for being varying degrees of stupid and nonsensical (to the point that they retconned the 'need to turn Sisters into armour paint to get extra incorruptible' incident). 

 

 

 

But it still exists. It is the fluff. The Imperium is as savage as its enemies and routinely has purges and executions and intercine conflicts. And we're all supposed to put our heads in our hands and be exasperated by it. Because it is the nature of the setting. Even the good guys aren't always good. I don't see why anyone is surprised by this happening. 

 

If they weren't traitors why not just drop the weapons? The Shield-Captain told them to and literally says "...you will be detained, along with all of your battle-brothers, until an appropriate fate can be determined." It's right there in the text. He isn't dooming them to execution outright and he is offering leniency. Maybe they get another chance, maybe they become a new Chapter. 

 

It's a situation that didn't have to happen on either ends. And yeah, the Custode is wrong. He is. He makes a mistake. Hence "consequences." He's alienated/doomed an entire chapter of Space Marines that may or may not be traitors.

 

You've missed my point here I think, which is probably my fault for cutting too much of your post in my quote. You started with "Wow. One short story and the whole fanbase collapses on itself. This really doesn't show anything new."

 

And you're right. Sadly this is far from the first terrible fluff GW has put out. Thing is, the fanbase (as ephemeral and schizo as it is) isn't reacting any differently here either. Previous bad fluff got negative reactions and pushback too. That's what I was trying to say in the bit you quoted here.

 

To be honest, I'd have been a lot more forgiving here if this wasn't another example of arrogant, up themselves Custodes treating Astartes with contempt. I never got why GW went for that characterisation for the golden boys.

 

 

If they weren't traitors why not just drop the weapons?

One might as well say 'if they were traitors, why didn't they draw their weapons?'. But to answer the question directly, probably shock. Which is the thing I keep coming back to with this discussion. These Marines went from 'everything's fine, wont it be cool to meet my new brothers' to 'I've just been accused of the worst crime possible' in 84 words. That's a shockingly short time for everything they thought they knew about their lives to be upended, and clearly not enough time to process it. Marines aren't robots after all. And Tyvar should have known that if he's half as bright as Custodes are meant to be. It doesn't read to be like he made a mistake. He went into that room wanting to kill the Astartes. Which is ultimately why imo this sucks. His idiotic prejudice wasted the lives of 200 precious Astartes (plus whoever they kill in the struggle). It's grimderp, not grimdark. Custodes should be better. Ruthless bastards? Absolutely, but not prejudiced idiots wasting precious resources. They should be more like the IG general in DoW retribution, spending lives, not wasting them.

 

 

I do agree that the Custodes arrogance on display here does play into a fairly bad trope for them: that they are all these snob-nosed, look down upon Space marines types. Those Custodes seem to be the exception to the rule, but keep taking up a lot of space in print.  I think a lot of the existing Custodes lore is poorly understood because a portion of the fanbase writes them off as "Super Spess Mahrines" rather than looking into how they're actually portrayed. There are portrayals of Custodes in a better light but that takes really reading a lot of background and Black Library books and the loudest part of 40k players tend to not do that. 

 

I also suppose I just don't think this is as bad as it's made out to be. It's tragic and I disagree that it is grimderp: he doesn't want to kill them and that isn't his first instinct. He orders them to disarm, which they don't do. They argue and then he escalates. There are ways that the story should have been written to increase the tragedy of the conflict and give us more buy in so I guess I can admit its flaws. It just seems like a not terribly (and I get the irony of using this word here) consequential piece of fluff that has people frothing at the mouth. The second Watchers of the Throne book has way more of this type of thing and no one seemed to be this fired up about it.

[Lucerne]

 

 

The Imperium is dumb. They wouldn't be compelling if they solved all their situations with grace and expert statesmanship. 

The problem is, it's not how the Imperium works

 

I remember wonderful copypasta from reddit:

 

The Imperium isn't grim because things suck by choice and could be fine if a sensible person came along. That sensible person wouldn't survive fifty seconds of the reality. The Imperium is grim because every single ... decision, every single sacrifice, every single death, every single man woman and child suffering a ... life in the worst conditions imaginable, is the absolute best that can be done.

 

 

I don't agree with that. The Imperium has always been as much a victim of its own making. There are a lot of examples of the Imperium making mistakes or misunderstanding warnings or outright ignoring them. Prospero happened because of their own draconian philosophy and mismanagement of the forces involved. That quote, and maybe I'm misreading it, seeks to place the blame outside the Imperium itself when it is as responsible for as much suffereing as the Xenos or Chaos. Maybe the Imperium doesn't always choose these things but sometimes it definitely does. It is run by people who often, as recent history has shown us, work against their own best interest. The Imperium isn't grim because it is doing its best. It's grim because it often can't see or refuses to pick the best option, whether that be because of xenophobia or dogma. The Imperium is grim because it is the setting. 

 

 

 

 

The Grey Knights murder guardsmen who see Daemons and one time even butchered some loyal Sisters of Battle to fight Khorne daemons. It happens. Not every Custode would react the same way and even the Sister of Silence seems rather shocked by what they just did. 

 

And that fluff was deservedly mocked for being varying degrees of stupid and nonsensical (to the point that they retconned the 'need to turn Sisters into armour paint to get extra incorruptible' incident). 

 

 

 

But it still exists. It is the fluff. The Imperium is as savage as its enemies and routinely has purges and executions and intercine conflicts. And we're all supposed to put our heads in our hands and be exasperated by it. Because it is the nature of the setting. Even the good guys aren't always good. I don't see why anyone is surprised by this happening. 

 

If they weren't traitors why not just drop the weapons? The Shield-Captain told them to and literally says "...you will be detained, along with all of your battle-brothers, until an appropriate fate can be determined." It's right there in the text. He isn't dooming them to execution outright and he is offering leniency. Maybe they get another chance, maybe they become a new Chapter. 

 

It's a situation that didn't have to happen on either ends. And yeah, the Custode is wrong. He is. He makes a mistake. Hence "consequences." He's alienated/doomed an entire chapter of Space Marines that may or may not be traitors.

 

You've missed my point here I think, which is probably my fault for cutting too much of your post in my quote. You started with "Wow. One short story and the whole fanbase collapses on itself. This really doesn't show anything new."

 

And you're right. Sadly this is far from the first terrible fluff GW has put out. Thing is, the fanbase (as ephemeral and schizo as it is) isn't reacting any differently here either. Previous bad fluff got negative reactions and pushback too. That's what I was trying to say in the bit you quoted here.

 

To be honest, I'd have been a lot more forgiving here if this wasn't another example of arrogant, up themselves Custodes treating Astartes with contempt. I never got why GW went for that characterisation for the golden boys.

 

 

If they weren't traitors why not just drop the weapons?

One might as well say 'if they were traitors, why didn't they draw their weapons?'. But to answer the question directly, probably shock. Which is the thing I keep coming back to with this discussion. These Marines went from 'everything's fine, wont it be cool to meet my new brothers' to 'I've just been accused of the worst crime possible' in 84 words. That's a shockingly short time for everything they thought they knew about their lives to be upended, and clearly not enough time to process it. Marines aren't robots after all. And Tyvar should have known that if he's half as bright as Custodes are meant to be. It doesn't read to be like he made a mistake. He went into that room wanting to kill the Astartes. Which is ultimately why imo this sucks. His idiotic prejudice wasted the lives of 200 precious Astartes (plus whoever they kill in the struggle). It's grimderp, not grimdark. Custodes should be better. Ruthless bastards? Absolutely, but not prejudiced idiots wasting precious resources. They should be more like the IG general in DoW retribution, spending lives, not wasting them.

 

 

I do agree that the Custodes arrogance on display here does play into a fairly bad trope for them: that they are all these snob-nosed, look down upon Space marines types. Those Custodes seem to be the exception to the rule, but keep taking up a lot of space in print.  I think a lot of the existing Custodes lore is poorly understood because a portion of the fanbase writes them off as "Super Spess Mahrines" rather than looking into how they're actually portrayed. There are portrayals of Custodes in a better light but that takes really reading a lot of background and Black Library books and the loudest part of 40k players tend to not do that. 

 

I also suppose I just don't think this is as bad as it's made out to be. It's tragic and I disagree that it is grimderp: he doesn't want to kill them and that isn't his first instinct. He orders them to disarm, which they don't do. They argue and then he escalates. There are ways that the story should have been written to increase the tragedy of the conflict and give us more buy in so I guess I can admit its flaws. It just seems like a not terribly (and I get the irony of using this word here) consequential piece of fluff that has people frothing at the mouth. The second Watchers of the Throne book has way more of this type of thing and no one seemed to be this fired up about it.

 

He obviously wants to kill them and so do a lot of Custodes. He just found an excuse and went for it.

 

Custodes are very often arrogant and self-righteous fools in lore and it makes sense- they have just enough perspective to hate the Imperium and see themselves as flawless.

 

Your Imperium, indeed. (in watchers)

Edited April 20, 2020 by Lucerne

[Raven1]

I love and welcome all the interesting perspectives.

 

Shield-Captain Tyvar would disagree with you.

[Elzender]

Yeah, I wanted to chime in at some point because my initial reaction was that the custodes just acted like a :cuss and that I did not like the story that much, but all the discussion here has allowed me to see things with a bit of a different perspective, and it might actually be that this story is actually quite nice for all of the underlying lore and implications involved in how it all developed. I do still think that the marines were treated unfairly, but then again I've been always a sucker for the loyalists of traitor legions so I'm probably biased there.

 

Nevertheless, this story is actually a quite clear example of how things work from time to time (or rather often) in the Imperium; extreme actions have to be taken because the bad things that might happen if less expedient decisions are taken are potentially catastrophic. And the keyword here are "might" and "potentially". If I recall correctly, one of the mottos of the Inquisition is "Innocence proves nothing".

 

Basically, the Imperium's modus operandi is often based on paranoia, but the worst part is that this paranoia is often justified. We have many lore examples of the excesses of all kind of Imperial servants, from Inquisitors to Imperial Guard officers, and from planet-wide to individual scale, when dealing with rebellion, sometimes even before evident signs of Chaos corruption, and this shows how terrible and despotic the Imperium can be and often is. But then again, how many examples do we have of Chaos uprisings costing untold lives and resources, from a single planet to whole systems? The siege of Vraks, the Abyssal Crusade, the Age of Apostasy, the Badab war, etc. And while our view as readers of these stories allows us to see how the Imperium hurt itself due to its excessive zeal, the protagonists of these stories did not have this information, but often they did have in mind that not acting the way they did could trigger a new Badab or a new Reign of Blood.

 

After all, the event that set the Imperium towards its current state, the Horus Heresy, can be seen as a cautionary tale of the risks of trust (not taking into account the whole engineered rebellion hypothesis). Nobody could believe that Horus, the favoured son, would betray the Imperium. And even when that was accepted, no one considered that maybe other primarchs, apart from the four initial rebels, would also join the traitor's cause. Had the Imperium of that era been more distrustful, maybe the Dropsite Massacre, the conflict that turned the rebellion into an open war conflict, could have been avoided.

Edited April 20, 2020 by Elzender

[Llagos_Tyrant]

 

In all seriousness though, I think it makes sense - except for the part that the Primaris have never met their parent Chapter, and are from the same gene-line rather than the geneseed of their intended Chapter. I guess the Custodes is suspicious because the Greyshields must have underwent indoctrination/psycho-therapy to understand and share the culture and knowledge of their intended chapter? The Greyshields should have known better than to protest his order, at any rate.

 

To echo some previous points, I don't think this will or should affect the Chaos range. Leave my Veterans of the Long War as they are. If they haven't upgraded in 10,000 years of demon fuelled warp sorcery and experimentation, they shouldn't change just because the loyalists have new toys. It's more fun when the factions have grown apart, but you can still point to the divergence.

Edited April 20, 2020 by Llagos_Tyrant

[Shield-Captain]

He obviously wants to kill them and so do a lot of Custodes. He just found an excuse and went for it.

 

Custodes are very often arrogant and self-righteous fools in lore and it makes sense- they have just enough perspective to hate the Imperium and see themselves as flawless.

 

Your Imperium, indeed. (in watchers)

 

I disagree with a lot of this. I don't think all Custodes want to kill Space Marines and this weird complex that they do is mistaking a large part of the lore. Custodes don't like Space Marines overall but claiming they want to kill them? Thats not even supported in the story itself.

 

And Custodes see themselves as flawless? Hahahaha. They see themselves as failures. Superior failures sure, but failures. They had one job and they failed it. That's why they wore black. They were supposed to protect the Emperor and couldn't. Also the Webway War and they lost that too. Arrogant? They aren't a part of the Imperium proper because they only have one goal: preserve him. This isn't the Emperor's Imperium.

[Beren]

 

 

This reminds me of the Astartes part 4, instead of locking the Inquisitor up to see if he gets out of his warp sickness, they smash his head in then bolter him down. None of the: "let's see if he gets better!"

 

Just face smash double triple quadruple tap.

 

No one questioned that as being extreme. They didn't knock him over and arrest him or anything. Just *blap*.

 

Such good talk about the dark parts of the imperium generated here.

It is however doubtful that they then proceeded to find and gun down the rest of his Inquisitorial colleagues and staff because of their association with him, which be far closer to being equivalent to what has happened here.

Fair point. that was semi addressed though, that marine leader calling out to all other ships was the stupidest move ever. It could have ended with that one ship. But no. He called for everyone to go rogue.

 

 

He may well have assumed (incorrectly or not) that since the Custodian was associating them with the actions of planetbound brethren he'd never even met, it was more than likely that the Custodian would associate the rest of the fleet with the Chapter Master and the incident on that one ship, thus ordering their excecutions directly.

[The Unseen]

Yeah, you don't give someone who just had their entire world turned on them who's been indoctrinated to be a warrior his whole life literally seconds to disarm himself at the end of the gun.

Of course the Marines going to bloody argue, but if he's loyal, he'll back down if you give him a minute to process and explain that he needs to have his men conduct themselves with honor to the brig while they get this settled.

 

Instead it's "I must fight to preserve my and my brothers honor by killing those emperor forsaken traitors wearing my colors!"

*Blam*

Cue Custodes acting like a dumbass.

Your a shield-captain, a trained diplomat and one of the scariest people in the galaxy to have standing within reach of you.

You have the legal *and* the physical advantage here, way to blow it by shooting a loyalist who wasn't threatening you.

 

Maybe try talk first, THEN threaten the stubborn warrior with execution if that doesn't work.

Always roll diplomacy first, cause if it fails you can try intimidate. But its hard to convince someone your on their side after you put a gun to their head.

 

Like, we get it GW, the Custodes don't like Astartes, can we get some other characterization going please?

[Lucerne]

 

He obviously wants to kill them and so do a lot of Custodes. He just found an excuse and went for it.

 

Custodes are very often arrogant and self-righteous fools in lore and it makes sense- they have just enough perspective to hate the Imperium and see themselves as flawless.

 

Your Imperium, indeed. (in watchers)

 

I disagree with a lot of this. I don't think all Custodes want to kill Space Marines and this weird complex that they do is mistaking a large part of the lore. Custodes don't like Space Marines overall but claiming they want to kill them? Thats not even supported in the story itself.

 

And Custodes see themselves as flawless? Hahahaha. They see themselves as failures. Superior failures sure, but failures. They had one job and they failed it. That's why they wore black. They were supposed to protect the Emperor and couldn't. Also the Webway War and they lost that too. Arrogant? They aren't a part of the Imperium proper because they only have one goal: preserve him. This isn't the Emperor's Imperium.

 

Failures that still strut and lord it over everyone else and are quick to judge, so yeah, they have an ego. They also are consumed by bitterness and contempt for loyalist Marines in these sorts of stories.

[Shield-Captain]

 

 

 

He obviously wants to kill them and so do a lot of Custodes. He just found an excuse and went for it.

 

Custodes are very often arrogant and self-righteous fools in lore and it makes sense- they have just enough perspective to hate the Imperium and see themselves as flawless.

 

Your Imperium, indeed. (in watchers)

I disagree with a lot of this. I don't think all Custodes want to kill Space Marines and this weird complex that they do is mistaking a large part of the lore. Custodes don't like Space Marines overall but claiming they want to kill them? Thats not even supported in the story itself.

 

And Custodes see themselves as flawless? Hahahaha. They see themselves as failures. Superior failures sure, but failures. They had one job and they failed it. That's why they wore black. They were supposed to protect the Emperor and couldn't. Also the Webway War and they lost that too. Arrogant? They aren't a part of the Imperium proper because they only have one goal: preserve him. This isn't the Emperor's Imperium.

Failures that still strut and lord it over everyone else and are quick to judge, so yeah, they have an ego. They also are consumed by bitterness and contempt for loyalist Marines in these sorts of stories.

Those are generalizations and again, not really fully supported by the fluff. This is one bad interaction and shouldn't be seen as the way this would play out every time. You seem more determined to dislike the Custodes than anything else and want to use this story as a good excuse to justify it. Full disclosure, they are my favorite Imperial faction so we're just going to go in circles here.

[The Unseen]

Shield-Captain, well not surprising they're your favorite really ;)

And that's fine.

But this isn't the first time this sort of characterization has happened.

Pretty much anytime the Custodes and Astartes interact the Custodes comes across as a haughty :cuss who looks down on the Astartes pretty severely.

Its in several of the horus heresy novels, where they treat loyalist astartes like they're liable to turn traitor any second, and its REALLY bad for those that stayed loyal when the rest of their legion didn't.

[Sugarlessllama]

Shield-Captain, well not surprising they're your favorite really

And that's fine.

But this isn't the first time this sort of characterization has happened.

Pretty much anytime the Custodes and Astartes interact the Custodes comes across as a haughty who looks down on the Astartes pretty severely.

Its in several of the horus heresy novels, where they treat loyalist astartes like they're liable to turn traitor any second, and its REALLY bad for those that stayed loyal when the rest of their legion didn't.

 

To be fair, the Custodes moped on Terra for 10,000 years and let the Imperium burn all around them. And any time they have been in the lore I have read, they are complete jerks to everyone: IG, Astartes, etc.. All these groups that held the darkness that threatened to consume humanity at bay while they did nothing. I mean heck the Inquisition did more for humanity than the custodes. 

 

I really would love to see this story end with the Custodes in question brought to justice. 

Edited May 3, 2020 by Sugarlessllama

[Oxydo]

 

To be fair, the Custodes moped on Terra for 10,000 years and let the Imperium burn all around them. And any time they have been in the lore I have read, they are complete jerks to everyone: IG, Astartes, etc.. All these groups that held the darkness that threatened to consume humanity at bay while they did nothing. I mean heck the Inquisition did more for humanity than the custodes. 

I really would love to see this story end with the Custodes in question to justice.

 

What I hope to see is Guillman's reaction to this event, especially considering the isssues he already has had with the Custodes. I don't expect him to be very pleased with the entire mess.

[Hellex_The_Thanatar]

 

 

To be fair, the Custodes moped on Terra for 10,000 years and let the Imperium burn all around them. And any time they have been in the lore I have read, they are complete jerks to everyone: IG, Astartes, etc.. All these groups that held the darkness that threatened to consume humanity at bay while they did nothing. I mean heck the Inquisition did more for humanity than the custodes.

I really would love to see this story end with the Custodes in question to justice.

 

What I hope to see is Guillman's reaction to this event, especially considering the isssues he already has had with the Custodes. I don't expect him to be very pleased with the entire mess.

 

And I don't expect the Custodes to care much ;)

 

That's where the wonderful drama kicks in.

[Dracos]

 

Well done for selecting an image to support your PoV. Reality. You're both right. In the image the other guy showed it was a custodes and Bile. This is a Bile minion.

 

 

Reality - he's probably nicked bits from both and been experimenting.

 

Get down from your high horse. You haven't even responded to my last point that you conveniently ignored...

 

 

That's all I was trying to say with posting the pic of Bile's nurse. If Fabius comes up with anything to enhance the Chosen or whatever it won't be because he didn't do a wide range of research and variety sample collection

 

Ex-service opinion. Primaris f-upped by not obeying orders, especially while in a disadvantageous position. Horrible threat analysis.

 

Alternatively I'm biased and hate the very thought that the lore has the Custodes outside of Terra at all. They were given Movie Marine stats and even more than the Grey Knights or Deathwatch should only be in Soup armies as "guest starring" (imo).

 

The fact they are consistently becoming more and more villainous in appearance is great in my book. Anything that adds to making tabletop games have a more narrative works for me. The debate has been magnificent and largely civilized ... which is more than I can say for the Shield Captain ;)

 

This is my kind of Grimdark. I'll take his dark psychological motivations over white hats, black hats any day 

Edited April 21, 2020 by Dracos