What's the Point of the Horus Heresy Now?

[StrangerOrders]

To build on what I said before about the things I wish had showed up more in the actual books that Forgeworld introduced.

 

I sort of wish that the Imperiums more Roman or Persian-esque facets were played up more in 30k.

 

One of the things the Black Books built up was the idea that the average Imperial soldier was actually both not originally Imperial and actually has alot invested in the fight. Since its specified that the usual modus Operandii of the Imperium when they took a world by force was to settle the attacking Imperial Force as the new ruling class and to take the old ruling (which is specified to more often than not have been the warrior class as well) and to create the new Expeditionary Force and the occasional Rogue Trader dynasty from it. The books specify that the logic here is to basically continuously create new Imperial forces which were heavily incentivized to fight and already had proof that the promise for land and retirement was actually backed up. Heck, they even specify that in the more usual case of surrender they would still swap the existing military of a world with the previous fleet. 

 

They also claim that the so-called Solar Auxilia Template was not Solar at all, but rather the peak of Imperium's co-option of the prevalent warriors cultures of the era. Since its essentially just creating 'super-guard' from the most advanced and warlike cultures it encounters.

 

Thats sort of what irks me really, the Black Books really show how different 30k could have been and some, again like Wraight, show that but most don't. The put upon but woefully modern-esque guard of 40k and the crushing bureaucracy of the 40k Imperium should be weird and out of place, one of the nicer parts of the Black Books is that they even incorporate things like specifying that the 30k Imperium was actually extremely hands-off with its administration and had more of a Satrapy model than a proper empire. 

 

The bright side of it being more of a setting now is that there is still a chance for writers to live up to that and some of the better ones do. But by the gods does it make you think of how much potential there is in especially human PoVs, we do not need to read 'average Anglo-Sphere PoV but zealotry' for the eight-hundredth time. I'd positively murder for Rogue Traders and the exceedingly Roman Solar Auxilia to take up the seemingly mandatory 'human' PoV in a book rather than an audience surrogate. 

 

Speaking of potential, its sort of funny that no author ever touches on a rather amusing facet of Astartes selection. Anyone else ever notice that every single Chapter/Legion we have ever seen recruits from either the top of the ruling class or the absolute bottom-of-the-ladder feral underhivers? 

 

I mean sure we have heard alot about gene-seed and indoctrination but we never hear about the fact that seemingly the only people that end up in power armor are either the most 'Born In The Purple' bluebloods and the most downtrodden feral poor people imaginable. Neither group really produces 'normal' people even before you introduce all of the Astartes factors but you never see any author touch on that (the closest thing is Guilliman noting in DI that Astartes only seem to be given the iffy worlds and being unimpressed with that fact). 

Edited August 19, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[Scribe]

 

I mean sure we have heard alot about gene-seed and indoctrination but we never hear about the fact that seemingly the only people that end up in power armor are either the most 'Born In The Purple' bluebloods and the most downtrodden feral poor people imaginable. Neither group really produces 'normal' people even before you introduce all of the Astartes factors but you never see any author touch on that (the closest thing is Guilliman noting in DI that Astartes only seem to be given the iffy worlds and being unimpressed with that fact). 

 

Only one I can think of off the top of my head was the protagonist of The Emperor's Gift. He could have been well off, or he could have been poor, but it was never expanded on (that I can remember), as he was first broken by the Chapter, to be better forged into a Grey Knight.

[StrangerOrders]

 

 

I mean sure we have heard alot about gene-seed and indoctrination but we never hear about the fact that seemingly the only people that end up in power armor are either the most 'Born In The Purple' bluebloods and the most downtrodden feral poor people imaginable. Neither group really produces 'normal' people even before you introduce all of the Astartes factors but you never see any author touch on that (the closest thing is Guilliman noting in DI that Astartes only seem to be given the iffy worlds and being unimpressed with that fact). 

 

Only one I can think of off the top of my head was the protagonist of The Emperor's Gift. He could have been well off, or he could have been poor, but it was never expanded on (that I can remember), as he was first broken by the Chapter, to be better forged into a Grey Knight.

 

Hyperion?

 

No such luck even there, the Inquisitor digs up his name. Its a name from one of the older Inquisitor book series (Ravenor I think) so we know he was not only an underhiver ganger but one with a drug addiction that ended up drafted into the Inquisition (Ravenor iirc). 

 

EDIT: Although i guess the takeaway there is that Ascension can cure drug addictions at least!

Edited August 19, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[Scribe]

Booo!

[mc warhammer]

space marine specifically had a imperial fist from each "level" of society from memory but i don't recall any chapter exclusively recruiting from the middle class

[Brother Lunkhead]

 

Speaking of potential, its sort of funny that no author ever touches on a rather amusing facet of Astartes selection. Anyone else ever notice that every single Chapter/Legion we have ever seen recruits from either the top of the ruling class or the absolute bottom-of-the-ladder feral underhivers? 

 

 

space marine specifically had a imperial fist from each "level" of society from memory but i don't recall any chapter exclusively recruiting from the middle class.

 

I don't think the Astartes would find much to choose from in the middle class of the 30K/40Kverses. They're a much thinner class and not very recognizable even on more advanced planets as what we consider as the broad range middle class today. Low level merchants, shop keepers, lawyers, accountants, doctors, managers, and the like are not what I would call Space Marine material 

Edited August 19, 2020 by Brother Lunkhead

[Felix Antipodes]

Considering they are going to psycho-indoctrinated to a level where they will barely remember their own name - and in the case of some Chapters not even that - I wouldn't think it mattered where dad was in the social pecking order as long as the candidates survive from neophyte to scout to Astartes. Wasn't it a thing that that Chapters preferred recruiting from deathworlds/hive worlds as they were tougher?

[mc warhammer]

 

 

Speaking of potential, its sort of funny that no author ever touches on a rather amusing facet of Astartes selection. Anyone else ever notice that every single Chapter/Legion we have ever seen recruits from either the top of the ruling class or the absolute bottom-of-the-ladder feral underhivers? 

 

 

space marine specifically had a imperial fist from each "level" of society from memory but i don't recall any chapter exclusively recruiting from the middle class.

 

I don't think the Astartes would find much to choose from in the middle class of the 30K/40Kverses. They're a much thinner class and not very recognizable even on more advanced planets as what we consider as the broad range middle class today. Low level merchants, shop keepers, lawyers, accountants, doctors, managers, and the like are not what I would call Space Marine material 

 

don't get me wrong, i appreciate the sheer grimdark silliness of 40k pushing that recruits must be from savage tribes or hiveworld gangs in order to provide the baddest 12 year olds in the universe, but at the end of the day, there are other qualities that go into making am effective space marine beyond "i murdered my dada when i was a baby."

 

there's no reason that astartes indoctrination couldn't provide top tier recruits from any strata of society (something i think space marine nails with the contrast between the 3 recruits).

 

but it makes sense that a character that we view as more rational, intelligent and removed from dogma, like guilliman, would wake up in 40k and say "how about we introduce some logical best practises  and standardisation back into this process lmao"?

[DukeLeto69]

Wait a minute fraters haven’t you heard of the Accountants of Blood chapter?

 

Recruited from the offspring of middle ranking Administratum adepts, after each battle they return to their cells and tot up kills vs ammo expended on their spreadsheets!

 

They call this ritual “The taking account” and it is part of their holy cult.

Edited August 19, 2020 by DukeLeto69

[Tyriks]

 

 

I mean sure we have heard alot about gene-seed and indoctrination but we never hear about the fact that seemingly the only people that end up in power armor are either the most 'Born In The Purple' bluebloods and the most downtrodden feral poor people imaginable. Neither group really produces 'normal' people even before you introduce all of the Astartes factors but you never see any author touch on that (the closest thing is Guilliman noting in DI that Astartes only seem to be given the iffy worlds and being unimpressed with that fact).

 

 

Only one I can think of off the top of my head was the protagonist of The Emperor's Gift. He could have been well off, or he could have been poor, but it was never expanded on (that I can remember), as he was first broken by the Chapter, to be better forged into a Grey Knight.

Hyperion?

 

No such luck even there, the Inquisitor digs up his name. Its a name from one of the older Inquisitor book series (Ravenor I think) so we know he was not only an underhiver ganger but one with a drug addiction that ended up drafted into the Inquisition (Ravenor iirc). :sweat:

 

EDIT: Although i guess the takeaway there is that Ascension can cure drug addictions at least!

His addiction was actually broken during the Ravenor books, FYI.

[Son of Carnelian]

I consider the entire series worth it just for Scars. I re-read it once a year. Chris Wraight captured the promise and tragedy of the Heresy in one book.

[Scribe]

. Low level merchants, shop keepers, lawyers, accountants, doctors, managers...

Again, I could be off here, but Ahriman, Bile, and Argal Tal...all could have been in that vein no?

 

I think this is one of those nonsensical facets of the lore. I have a 16 year old son. Blood Angels raise up kids who are withered away from radiation sickness.

 

It shouldn't matter one bit the 'stock' being used.

[Brother Lunkhead]

 

. Low level merchants, shop keepers, lawyers, accountants, doctors, managers...

Again, I could be off here, but Ahriman, Bile, and Argal Tal...all could have been in that vein no?

 

I think this is one of those nonsensical facets of the lore. I have a 16 year old son. Blood Angels raise up kids who are withered away from radiation sickness.

 

It shouldn't matter one bit the 'stock' being used.

 

 

I could go on and on with this topic, but alas it's a tangential topic (perhaps worthy of it's own thread ). Meanwhile, back at the ranch.....

 

As the Horus Heresy comes to a close I find myself conflicted in my opinions. What started off as sprint through the first four novels, enthusiastically and impatiently waiting for the next, quickly turned into concern as quality widely varied and stories drifted from the main theme, and finally to exhaustion after 54 plus novels, novellas, anthologies, and audio dramas (please don't quote the actual number as it will just make me ). I'm tired and I'm glad it's almost over.

 

Do I regret investing time and coin in this epic mess, and given what we got, am I sorry BL ever went here? Absolutely not If it weren't for Horus Rising I never would have stepped into and then dragged body and soul into this crazy 30K/40Kverse. For many years I couldn't get past "....the laughter of thirsting gods" intro (no thanks thirsting gods.... I'll pass). That kind of wholesale bleakness just turned me off. Then came Horus Rising and the Horus Heresy, and for business reasons I had to read it. Twenty pages in and I wasn't just hooked, I was sucked in (thank you Dan Abnett and curse you Dan Abnett). In spite of all the bloat and missed opportunities there were some absolute gems that made this war on my patience and purse worthwhile..... Horus Rising, The Flight of the Eisenstein (yeah, I liked that a lot...so what), Mechanicum (that too), The First Heretic, Know No Fear, Fear To Tread (yeah, I liked that a lot too.... wanna fight?!), and Scars, just to name a few.

 

Then there was the other end, starting worryingly early with Descent of Angels (actually not a bad read, but until the end I was looking for the HH and never found it), Battle for the Abyss, Nemesis, Unremembered Empire ( Dan....REALLY....why, why) and too many others. Then there were the lost opportunities, starting with Garro and the Knights Errant. This was just one long introduction that failed to blossom into the fantastic tangential (this must be my new favorite as I use it a lot lately....sorry) story that it could have been. I won't go into the others as that just makes me depressed.

 

There were many other things I didn't like. Horus's fall was way too quick. But, to be fair, as BL didn't anticipate the huge popularity of the HH, only a short series was anticipated and planned for. Given that, I think Abnett and McNeill did as good a job as possible setting up Horus as a sympathetic character and giving enough substance to his fall to give us a clear picture of what happened and its plausibility. There were way, WAY too many side stories that just weren't necessary to the main story. I wish that the HH Cabal had first focused on the core story with 20 or so novels and anthologies. If they had covered the fall to the siege this way, BL would have conserved the energy and enthusiasm of their readership, and moved on to all of the side stories we have and more. There are so many more side stories to be told and threads to be connected, but I don't think BL had enough confidence in the HH to handle it any other way than to ride full tilt all the way to the finish line, where the horse dies, rather than conserve the energy of the horse and take it on to other races. Pity.

 

The bloat of this series in the end made it a slog, but there were definitely some high points throughout that made it worth while. In fact, if BL learned lessons and given a few (as in many) years rest, I'd even give them a second shot at this. Horus Heresy Redux anyone? I don't think any of Black Library's crrent top tier writers would go for it, so they would have to go with the next generation of top tier writers. Given BL's submission season is coming up, that next generation might be some of you, my Fraters

[Brother Lunkhead]

=][=

 

Once again, Astartes recruitment practices is an interesting topic, but one for a separate thread. If you wish to continue discussing it please do so, but not here please.

 

=][=

[Bobss]

I enthusiastically agree with the person who made the point that if the Horus Heresy Series was retrofitted into a sandbox-like setting at some point then suddenly all, and yes I mean all of the complaints about bloat, focus, inconsistent writing quality, varying writing styles and time-jumps becomes moot. 40k is the golden example here: I don't like series X, Y, Z written by authors A, B, C - but that doesn't detract from me liking series 1, 2 3 by authors i, ii, iii. But, in the Horus Heresy Series, things like four Salamanders books, Erebus/Loken teleporting all over the galaxy and Abaddon being a different bloke in every single book have a domino-like effect on the enjoyment of other reads. Betrayer was a sick book that delved into the meat of the Twelfth Legion and their gene-daddy, while serving as a relatively okay sequel to The First Heretic - but it will always be marred in my eyes by Matt Damon and whatever Si-ren-eh went on to do. It's no surprise that some of the best-received parts of the series were those rare moments where an author could spin their own web without having Loken or Perpetuals or whatever inserted in - like Chris Wraight's beloved White Scars arc or John French's coverage of the Solar System

 

You can make an argument that the Horus Heresy Series now exists and has existed for some time as a kind of default sandbox - what with the massively branching storylines, the Forge World supplements and even the recent Horus Heresy Characters Series - and while it can certainly be viewed in that way it's not strictly true: Black Library have always and still continue to push the episodic format and numeration of the Horus Heresy Series with things like numbered books which they could've scrapped like the weird coloured bars on top of each book's spine or the gold/silver/bronze filigree. Instead, they chose to keep the 'book XIV, book XV, book XVI'-type of promotion and aggressively advertise things like YOUR NEXT READ. If I had a penny for every time I have seen a fan somewhere on the Internet read every Horus Heresy Series book in numerical order and get burnt out (usually at Descent of Angels, Imperium Secundus or Tallarn fwiw) I would be posting this on a platinum toilet right now

 

This is why I'm not exited about Dawn of Fire in the slightest. The post-Fall of Cadia sandbox has already been established through source materials and a scattering of novels. Chris Wraight has written 4-5 brilliant stories from the heart of the Imperium during the Apocalypse. Guy Haley has been busy exploring something that would've been unthinkable in the fandom ten years ago: the return of a loyalist Primarch; and ADB is busy giving us a dingy, desperate look from the Imperium Nihilus frontier. This 'we're going to give you the definitive timeline of the Indomitus Crusade in book prose' thing simply runs contrary to what the publisher and its stable excels at. Oh. Well

 

So... what's the point of the Horus Heresy Series in AD2020? To serve as an example of what Black Library looks like at both its best and its worst

Edited August 19, 2020 by Bobss

[Volt]

I may be comically uncritical at times, but I like the Heresy in all its flawed glory.

 

Even the ‘bad’ bits.

 

Sometimes even especially the ‘bad’ bits.

 

I’d love to see more traitor viewpoints; if they went back and wrote companion novels to each and every entry in the series from the opposing perspective I’d be happy.

 

In relation to the relative terribleness of life in the Imperium, I’ve always taken the fact that Chaos isn’t a (directly active force in the Great Crusade era to be the main benefit of life then. Sure, you may be yoked permanently to your station in a factotum, producing munitions to kill those in a neighbouring system who would rather not join the Imperium, but at least you aren’t at risk of Daemon I’d incursion and eternal torment. The loss of a future without that is to me the tragedy, rather than any change in quality of life for the masses.

Tragedy involves a fall from something, specifically something achieved - not a possible future being destroyed. Agamemnon is lord of Mycenae, a glorious warrior king who wins glory in the Trojan war, but his ego and the obliviousness of both Agamemnon and his father has sown his destruction, seeing Agamemnon murdered after he returns home after years of absence. Oedipus rises from seeming destitution to the title of King of Thebes, only to find out that he not only slew his biological father, but also was sleeping with his own mother the entire time, both cursing himself and the entire land of Thebes. A tragedy does not occur if there is no rising action, which in the Horus Heresy there is none. It is merely a mirrored status quo that plummets, before resuming the old plateau.

 

Although this also is a wider problem with the entire concept of the Heresy itself, having too much technological and sociological similarity with the Imperium in the modern day. The only way the tragedy would truly have impact is if the Imperium was actually a truly vitreous civilization at first and not as gothic in technology as the modern Imperium, with all of the modern setting being the direct result of the fall, rather than merely being a ceaseless continuation of old societal and technological norms. 

 

 

 

I enthusiastically agree with the person who made the point that if the Horus Heresy Series was retrofitted into a sandbox-like setting at some point then suddenly all, and yes I mean all of the complaints about bloat, focus, inconsistent writing quality, varying writing styles and time-jumps becomes moot. 40k is the golden example here: I don't like series X, Y, Z written by authors A, B, C - but that doesn't detract from me liking series 1, 2 3 by authors i, ii, iii. But, in the Horus Heresy Series, things like four Salamanders books, Erebus/Loken teleporting all over the galaxy and Abaddon being a different bloke in every single book have a domino-like effect on the enjoyment of other reads. Betrayer was a sick book that delved into the meat of the Twelfth Legion and their gene-daddy, while serving as a relatively okay sequel to The First Heretic - but it will always be marred in my eyes by Matt Damon and whatever Si-ren-eh went on to do. It's no surprise that some of the best-received parts of the series were those rare moments where an author could spin their own web without having Loken or Perpetuals or whatever inserted in - like Chris Wraight's beloved White Scars arc or John French's coverage of the Solar System

 

You can make an argument that the Horus Heresy Series now exists and has existed for some time as a kind of default sandbox - what with the massively branching storylines, the Forge World supplements and even the recent Horus Heresy Characters Series - and while it can certainly be viewed in that way it's not strictly true: Black Library have always and still continue to push the episodic format and numeration of the Horus Heresy Series with things like numbered books which they could've scrapped like the weird coloured bars on top of each book's spine or the gold/silver/bronze filigree. Instead, they chose to keep the 'book XIV, book XV, book XVI'-type of promotion and aggressively advertise things like YOUR NEXT READ. If I had a penny for every time I have seen a fan somewhere on the Internet read every Horus Heresy Series book in numerical order and get burnt out (usually at Descent of Angels, Imperium Secundus or Tallarn fwiw) I would be posting this on a platinum toilet right now

 

This is why I'm not exited about Dawn of Fire in the slightest. The post-Fall of Cadia sandbox has already been established through source materials and a scattering of novels. Chris Wraight has written 4-5 brilliant stories from the heart of the Imperium during the Apocalypse. Guy Haley has been busy exploring something that would've been unthinkable in the fandom ten years ago: the return of a loyalist Primarch; and ADB is busy giving us a dingy, desperate look from the Imperium Nihilus frontier. This 'we're going to give you the definitive timeline of the Indomitus Crusade in book prose' thing simply runs contrary to what the publisher and its stable excels at. Oh. Well

 

So... what's the point of the Horus Heresy Series in AD2020? To serve as an example of what Black Library looks like at both its best and its worst

I wouldn't agree with the mentality of the sandbox at all because it mostly spawns works of poor literary quality and lacking an over-arcing meta-theme. The Heresy would be incredible if it actually had been a planned-in-advance classical tragedy properly incorporating the meta-arc for the tragedy to play out fully, and would also follow the original intention of the Heresy going back to 2e as something to actually be a terribly sad event instead of something as blase as we got. Turning it into a setting and breaking it up into individual stories results in a bunch of tales with little meaning and epic weight, only succeeding in creating the same piecemeal environment of 40k. Not to mention the Heresy itself isn't even long enough to actually make a sandbox, it was only nine years long.

Edited August 20, 2020 by Volt

[aa.logan]

Since the borders of the Imperium don’t expand much post-Heresy, it goes not unified human galactic sprawl prior to the Crusade to vaguely unified Human galactic empire at the time of the rebellion to vaguely unified galactic empire with daemons in it afterwards.

 

That’s a pretty substantial change.

 

I know it has been written at the end of the series, but Valdor does a really good job of showing the realities of the Emperor’s vision, the Imperium was never meant to be, in fact could never be, ‘nice’, but at least it was free of Chaos. The Great Crusade was only really stalled by problems of it’s own making- it was capable of steamrollering or meatgrindering any Xenos threat it encountered. Life for the average citizen may well have been grimdark and awful, but again, no daemons is a pretty big thing. The Imperium nearly manages it’s goals, and in carrying out the Great Crusade actually does, but over the course of a relatively short time, it sabotages itself, and in doing so falls.

 

The potentially preventable introduction of the Chaos gods to the Imperium is a fall, and, by my reading, is a tragedy.

[SpecialIssue]

I know it has been written at the end of the series, but Valdor does a really good job of showing the realities of the Emperor’s vision, the Imperium was never meant to be, in fact could never be, ‘nice’, but at least it was free of Chaos. The Great Crusade was only really stalled by problems of it’s own making- it was capable of steamrollering or meatgrindering any Xenos threat it encountered. Life for the average citizen may well have been grimdark and awful, but again, no daemons is a pretty big thing. The Imperium nearly manages it’s goals, and in carrying out the Great Crusade actually does, but over the course of a relatively short time, it sabotages itself, and in doing so falls.

 

The potentially preventable introduction of the Chaos gods to the Imperium is a fall, and, by my reading, is a tragedy.

 

But the GC itself is a massive act of hubris as well right? 200 years of continuous genocidal galactic conquest, all the anger, horror, despair and triumph and pride for thousands of worlds human and xenos, whether innocent and peaceful or not, churning and boiling in the warp. 200 years of peace in the warp which were used to make the gods sit up and take notice of humanity in particular. The 200 years of peace in the warp was the main thing that made the GC and a strong, centralized Imperium even feasible, and was only ever going to be temporary. 

 

I think I remember before the Heresy was fleshed out, that there was no indication whatsoever about the moral state of the Imperium during the GC, just that it was successful and ascendant. I think the tragedy inherent in 40k need not necessarily be just the fall from what 'heights' may have been achieved, for that is always inevitable, but rather the illustrative picture of humanity's nature and hubris as a whole.

[aa.logan]

Absolutely. The tragic fall of the Imperium is a society going from ‘bad’ to ‘worse’.

[mc warhammer]

 

I may be comically uncritical at times, but I like the Heresy in all its flawed glory.

 

Even the ‘bad’ bits.

 

Sometimes even especially the ‘bad’ bits.

 

I’d love to see more traitor viewpoints; if they went back and wrote companion novels to each and every entry in the series from the opposing perspective I’d be happy.

 

In relation to the relative terribleness of life in the Imperium, I’ve always taken the fact that Chaos isn’t a (directly active force in the Great Crusade era to be the main benefit of life then. Sure, you may be yoked permanently to your station in a factotum, producing munitions to kill those in a neighbouring system who would rather not join the Imperium, but at least you aren’t at risk of Daemon I’d incursion and eternal torment. The loss of a future without that is to me the tragedy, rather than any change in quality of life for the masses.

Tragedy involves a fall from something, specifically something achieved - not a possible future being destroyed. Agamemnon is lord of Mycenae, a glorious warrior king who wins glory in the Trojan war, but his ego and the obliviousness of both Agamemnon and his father has sown his destruction, seeing Agamemnon murdered after he returns home after years of absence. Oedipus rises from seeming destitution to the title of King of Thebes, only to find out that he not only slew his biological father, but also was sleeping with his own mother the entire time, both cursing himself and the entire land of Thebes. A tragedy does not occur if there is no rising action, which in the Horus Heresy there is none. It is merely a mirrored status quo that plummets, before resuming the old plateau.

 

Although this also is a wider problem with the entire concept of the Heresy itself, having too much technological and sociological similarity with the Imperium in the modern day. The only way the tragedy would truly have impact is if the Imperium was actually a truly vitreous civilization at first and not as gothic in technology as the modern Imperium, with all of the modern setting being the direct result of the fall, rather than merely being a ceaseless continuation of old societal and technological norms. 

 

 

 

I enthusiastically agree with the person who made the point that if the Horus Heresy Series was retrofitted into a sandbox-like setting at some point then suddenly all, and yes I mean all of the complaints about bloat, focus, inconsistent writing quality, varying writing styles and time-jumps becomes moot. 40k is the golden example here: I don't like series X, Y, Z written by authors A, B, C - but that doesn't detract from me liking series 1, 2 3 by authors i, ii, iii. But, in the Horus Heresy Series, things like four Salamanders books, Erebus/Loken teleporting all over the galaxy and Abaddon being a different bloke in every single book have a domino-like effect on the enjoyment of other reads. Betrayer was a sick book that delved into the meat of the Twelfth Legion and their gene-daddy, while serving as a relatively okay sequel to The First Heretic - but it will always be marred in my eyes by Matt Damon and whatever Si-ren-eh went on to do. It's no surprise that some of the best-received parts of the series were those rare moments where an author could spin their own web without having Loken or Perpetuals or whatever inserted in - like Chris Wraight's beloved White Scars arc or John French's coverage of the Solar System

 

You can make an argument that the Horus Heresy Series now exists and has existed for some time as a kind of default sandbox - what with the massively branching storylines, the Forge World supplements and even the recent Horus Heresy Characters Series - and while it can certainly be viewed in that way it's not strictly true: Black Library have always and still continue to push the episodic format and numeration of the Horus Heresy Series with things like numbered books which they could've scrapped like the weird coloured bars on top of each book's spine or the gold/silver/bronze filigree. Instead, they chose to keep the 'book XIV, book XV, book XVI'-type of promotion and aggressively advertise things like YOUR NEXT READ. If I had a penny for every time I have seen a fan somewhere on the Internet read every Horus Heresy Series book in numerical order and get burnt out (usually at Descent of Angels, Imperium Secundus or Tallarn fwiw) I would be posting this on a platinum toilet right now

 

This is why I'm not exited about Dawn of Fire in the slightest. The post-Fall of Cadia sandbox has already been established through source materials and a scattering of novels. Chris Wraight has written 4-5 brilliant stories from the heart of the Imperium during the Apocalypse. Guy Haley has been busy exploring something that would've been unthinkable in the fandom ten years ago: the return of a loyalist Primarch; and ADB is busy giving us a dingy, desperate look from the Imperium Nihilus frontier. This 'we're going to give you the definitive timeline of the Indomitus Crusade in book prose' thing simply runs contrary to what the publisher and its stable excels at. Oh. Well

 

So... what's the point of the Horus Heresy Series in AD2020? To serve as an example of what Black Library looks like at both its best and its worst

I wouldn't agree with the mentality of the sandbox at all because it mostly spawns works of poor literary quality and lacking an over-arcing meta-theme. The Heresy would be incredible if it actually had been a planned-in-advance classical tragedy properly incorporating the meta-arc for the tragedy to play out fully, and would also follow the original intention of the Heresy going back to 2e as something to actually be a terribly sad event instead of something as blase as we got. Turning it into a setting and breaking it up into individual stories results in a bunch of tales with little meaning and epic weight, only succeeding in creating the same piecemeal environment of 40k. Not to mention the Heresy itself isn't even long enough to actually make a sandbox, it was only nine years long.

 

honest question- what tie in/franchise fiction has pulled that off? i don't read much outside of black library, so i honestly have no idea. afaik star trek, star wars, dr who etc are all a mixed bag.

 

i also wonder if games workshop were in the financial and/or operational state to even attempt that at the time of horus rising. what you describe sounds great, but there's also the practical side to it all.

[bluntblade]

I mean, compared to some other series at least it doesn't look like the Heresy's final chapter will invalidate its artistic validity. Edited August 20, 2020 by bluntblade

[Volt]

Since the borders of the Imperium don’t expand much post-Heresy, it goes not unified human galactic sprawl prior to the Crusade to vaguely unified Human galactic empire at the time of the rebellion to vaguely unified galactic empire with daemons in it afterwards.

 

That’s a pretty substantial change.

 

I know it has been written at the end of the series, but Valdor does a really good job of showing the realities of the Emperor’s vision, the Imperium was never meant to be, in fact could never be, ‘nice’, but at least it was free of Chaos. The Great Crusade was only really stalled by problems of it’s own making- it was capable of steamrollering or meatgrindering any Xenos threat it encountered. Life for the average citizen may well have been grimdark and awful, but again, no daemons is a pretty big thing. The Imperium nearly manages it’s goals, and in carrying out the Great Crusade actually does, but over the course of a relatively short time, it sabotages itself, and in doing so falls.

 

The potentially preventable introduction of the Chaos gods to the Imperium is a fall, and, by my reading, is a tragedy.

Except those Daemons were present all along,t he only thing that changed is people's awareness. Chaos wasn't magically being held back prior, the Emperor literally instigated it by provoking Chaos with a massive power grab. There was literally no chance of preventing the Chaos Gods, because trying to do so in the first place is what drew their ire and the wars in the first place. Attempting to and failing is not tragedy either, it's an idiotic butchering of classical themes. It is completely impossible for something to actually qualify as a tragedy if nothing has actually been lost, merely a "chance", and missing the thematic point if the only change is incidental. The very term fall means that a height must have been reached, or else you haven't fallen to begin with. Instead the Imperium is completely unchanged for the most part, the idea of Daemons being more prevalent is pure semantics and completely ignoring what the authors themselves wrote in the first place. The violence of the Great Crusade did nothing to awake Chaos, it was always there. One might think perhaps the intention was thus some depressing and edgy tale of fatalism, but due to the muddled nature of execution there is no coherent purpose to the narrative. It's a messy slew of half baked ideas with abysmal execution.

 

This is what makes the HH so infuriating, as it is a woeful squandering of artistic potential in favor of mostly forgettable novels and a completely butchered meta story that fails to grasp the original emotional struggle in the first place. The entire idea of the Emperor being an emotionally callous figure for example does not work based on original lore, as the entire justification for not simply slaughtering the failure Primarchs succumbed to their weaknesses is one of intense love and passion. The Emperor is clearly, logically (ironic in a sense given where this point leads) a highly emotional being driven by a love for his sons considering if he truly were asocial and emotionally detached entire, he would simply kill the broken primarchs and works as failures out of utilitarian logic. Yet, even though he logically is demanded to be an intensely emotional being comparable to demigods such as Achilles or Herakles, consumed by pathos; we get this contorted mess of contradictory characterizations, sometimes even used as a copout excuse to avoid actual characterization such as in MOM. And if he were some emotionally detached being of pure logic, then almost of his actions speak of pure stupidity because there is not a logical bone to be found in them. Which again, could of course be a legitimate literary point... only it totally undermines all immersion and poignancy in any tragedy if the figure of it is a wailing moron drowning in stagnant water. Authors often invoke classical and norse saga prose, yet fail to seize upon the meaning within such texts to merely adopt it for surface level aesthetics.

 

And then of course there's Horus... who had a bad LSD trip and now wants to butcher humanity and walk back on all of his oaths because of said bad LSD trip.

 

 

honest question- what tie in/franchise fiction has pulled that off? i don't read much outside of black library, so i honestly have no idea. afaik star trek, star wars, dr who etc are all a mixed bag.

 

 

i also wonder if games workshop were in the financial and/or operational state to even attempt that at the time of horus rising. what you describe sounds great, but there's also the practical side to it all.

 

There's some kernel of it to be found in the Old Republic setting of the old Star Wars EU, although it never was a single cohesive fiction. 55 entries is highly ambitious however, and if the BL doubted itself or a second it should have never reached so far even if the greed was tempting. Sure they made money, but nobody is going to look back on the HH as any form of literary achievement and reasonable editors should have realized things would feel tonally off if Horus falling by book 2 was going to happen for certainly. In all honestly simply rebooting the series by the fifth book may have been reasonable, as while the early entries weren't bad, certainly compared to future works,

 

False Gods completely doomed any hope for the series in how Horus fell. Not only did he have zero agency, it was a borderline comedic moment of "guess I'm evil now lol" at the end. The only way to really work with what McNeil handed them was to go back and write up titles set during the Great Crusade, although I still can't conceive of how that would fix Horus falling in such a pathetic way. Because if you look at False Gods as Horus lacking agency, then he's just a meat puppet and his actual fall has little emotional weight because there's no conscious thought behind it. And if he wasn't mind-fethed but made the choice of his own volition - well then he's the single most petty and pathetic being to ever exist, and that's counting how the BL writes the GEOM in all of his aurumite plated luxury. I'd actively have more faith in a child making the right choice in similar circumstance where ego over a statue is what spurs the fall, and certainly doubt even the most ego-driven of classical era protagonists that Primarchs are modeled on would fall for such a pathetic vision.

Edited August 20, 2020 by Volt

[DukeLeto69]

Confess to not reading everything in every post (a lot or words) but aren’t we all forgetting something regarding state if the galaxy and how grimdark 30k vs 40k was!

 

Old Night

 

Before the Unification Wars and then Great Crusade wasn’t there something like 6 millennia of absolutely unbelievable horror?

 

So even if The Emperor’s regime was still pretty grimdark it would be a hugely more positive step forward than what had been happening for 6k years but sadly only lasted c.200yrs before HH turned everything pretty crap (though not as bad as Old Night)

[Scribe]

I think that speaks to the issue of timeline and setup.

 

Imagine if we had a series based on Old Night, and then a series or even just a book on Unification, and then Valdor, and then early GC. If we had a chance to see where the mass of Humanity came from, and then see the Imperium bringing back a sense of culture and control...we could get somewhere with the 'fall' of Horus.

 

If the series had maintained any kind of a semblance of consistency on what was being discussed.

 

Is it about the Emperor -> God-Emperor dynamic?

Is it about the Emperor -> Oath Breaker with Chaos?

Is it about the ascension of Humanity, and the Emperor Webway Project?

Is it about the Emperor -> Primarch relationship?

 

Or

 

Is it the rise and then stagnation (not fall really) of the Imperium?

 

Honestly, I think from my perspective they clearly did not handle it from a Galactic Empire perspective. So it should have been more about the Emperor, based on my list there.

 

Instead we got Shattered Legions....

[DukeLeto69]

I don’t think we needed or need a series on Old Night but if the HH series had spent more time/titles setting up for the fall of Horus then those books could have had flashbacks to show just how dreadful that era/epoch was!