Speculative: The rest of the Heresy

[Scribe]

Where did Corax end up anyway? Old lore he abandons the Imperium.

 

I doubt the Emperor is about to get bold, he already knows that his efforts have failed, and humanity will never be free of Chaos.

[mc warhammer]

last sighting of corax

was as a flock of warp ravens chasing lorgar into the eye, right?

[Scribe]

In the heresy? I have to say my memory is old on him.

 

I refused to read Thorpe after Deliverance Lost.

[mc warhammer]

well, tail end of the heresy from memory.  google "shadow of the past" for a rundown if you want to avoid actually reading it.

[SpecialIssue]

 

8: Abnett

 

Hoping Horus and the Emperor meet about halfway through this. The Heresy needs a bigger wrapup than a big fight. I know the authors have stated this book ends with the Emperor landing on the Golden Throne, but there’s plenty of room to drag that out a bit. Show me the traitor host disintegrating, the Blood Angels succumbing to their rage, and Imperial high command’s panic as their leader is effectively killed. I know Abnett wants to write a book in the wake of the Siege so I hope we see a bit of that here. As for the final battle itself I have no particular expectations, but I think it’s too important to portray especially straightforwardly. The play by play in the old Visions series is basically awful and does no justice to the gravity of the situation. And I pray they drop the whole Sanguinius weakening Horus' armour/defenses thing, undermines his defiance wholesale.

 

But at this point we’ve got 3-4 of BL’s best to look forward to. They could throw me through I loop and I imagine I’d still love it.

 

As someone who actively dislikes the entire endeavor of the HH series, I totally agree with the Sanguinus thing - unneeded and diminishing to his sacrifice.

 

But I supremely disagree on the play by play of Horus vs the Emperor. In fact, stripping all this mythos and reverence away from the Emperor by inflicting such matter-of fact violence on Him with simplistic prose I think is an excellent end for His 'character'. You have to think that under all the psychic glory that He is, in reality He's just a physical, frail man with breathing lungs and beating heart. Bonus points if the entire chapter simply cuts to an italicized recitation of the Bill King story. That would show reverence to old stories and myths that mirrors the very one it is telling. Meta.

 

And if you really wanted to give gravity to situation - you'd have no first hand account of it, only the reactions of those around this titanic release of energy/fight, the legendary figures central to the setting an arms length-away as it always should have been, to maintain a timeless myth/legend. This really cuts to my entire rancor with HH - the mythos and legend of 40k has been killed by an unneeded exhaustive cataloging of events and inner knowledge of beings far and above humans, in a universe as impenetrable and alien as the ancient days of civilisation,

[b1soul]

@ MarineRaider

 

Russ could have killed him with the Emperor's Spear

 

With his typical Mjalnar, I highly, highly doubt it

[MarineRaider]

@ MarineRaider

 

Russ could have killed him with the Emperor's Spear

 

With his typical Mjalnar, I highly, highly doubt it

 

Horus himself says " Well you could have bested me!" or something to that effect. It reminds me of Sigismund when he fights the top knotted idiot, he allows himself to be struck to get in close for the kill shot. But Horus does what Horus does, he goes all little girl and starts babbling like a child and Russ lost his edge.

[Scribe]

'My dad coulda killed your dad, but he cried!'

 

I see.

 

I don't understand why my thread must be so trolled...

[b1soul]

Russ manages to hurt Horus so badly with the Emperor's Spear, which has the power to make Horus see the error of siding with Chaos

 

This is like saying current Guilliman can beat such and such (without mentioning that he wields the Emperor's Sword)

[Scribe]

The reality, is that story demands win out. Horus was not going to die. Therefore, Russ was not going to win.

 

This thread, is speculation on the major story beats that remain within the meta plot of the Siege. Not fever dreams, not prepubescent fan fiction.

 

I just wanted to know the realistic arc of the story as it stands.

 

If we want to debate who beats up who...well I'd rather that go elsewhere, and not mention anything I care about, so I am not compelled to participate. :p

[b1soul]

I'm not saying who beats who...Russ clearly could have struck a blow that probably would've ended the Warmaster. I'm just saying it's disingenuous to say that without mentioning the "Legendary Weapon" trope he was using.

 

Maybe normally equipped Russ could beat post-Molech Horus. I don't know, but it kinda undermines the idea that the latter is a rival of the Emperor.

[Moonreaper666]

Is it possible that the Sanginius vs Ka'Bandha fight will be replaced with other duels?

 

Vulkan vs Ka'Bandha, tie. Doombreed vs Sanginius, Sang is wounded and Hundreds of Black Rage Blood Angels and Custodes throw themselves at Doombreed. Angron vs Valdor, golden boy dies.

 

I wonder if the last few Siege Novels are going to explore just how expendable Horus was and what were the primary and secondary objectives of any planned-Heresy started by any of the Primarchs? Because the implications of John Grammaticus' time-travel adventures in Saturnine are staggering:

 

Had either John or Oll Perrson not made it to Terra in time Horus would have won. Even if Horus was expendable it is clear that Chaos is fine with him winning and the Cabal were completely-stupidly wrong.

 

And if the Chaos Gods were perfectly okay with Horus winning or losing then they won't stop Abaddon from destroying the Imperium as well

 

I get the feeling that in the final novel that Malcador is going to reveal the true purpose of the Terminus Decree and it would be bigger bombshells than the ones he dropped in Chamber at the End of Memory when he discussed the Two Missing Primarchs and Legions. It would somehow tie with present day Abaddon's quest to find Janus

[Pariah32]

I hope the Sanguinius and Horus show down will be from other perspectives to give it more gravitas, but I feel that the scene, will need to go into Sanguinius's thoughts for all the precursor set ups that have been laid down in previous HH books in particular 'Ruinstorm'.

 

The chink in the armour has already been placed with Russ (so a repeat of this just cheapens everything) so I feel the chink in the armour from Sanguinius could be more metaphorical in nature. Also the description's around Sanguinius are very spiritual in nature, I feel there is a lot of potential here, as well as the fact that both Sanguinius and Horus were very close which  in itself will create some implications.

 

As to Vulkan i'm really hoping we get to see him do something pretty epic, he really needs some spotlight if you ask me. 

[DarkChaplain]

I wonder if we'll see Vulkan in the next book, seeing as we've now temporarily blunted one major assault on the walls, dispersed the Emperor's Children as a semi-coherent fighting force, and sent Abaddon back home packing. Sure, there's the Lion's Gate, but on the flipside, we might have the time now to showcase the OTHER side of the war, the storm on the Webway gate under the Throne, with Vulkan and the Emperor actually taking part in the narrative. The Emperor in particular has been a real non-entity outside of those Solar War metaphorical scenes.

 

The Webway front has been pretty much forgotten by the narrative so far, but it has to escalate, and will likely play into just why the Emperor went and confronted Horus in person. It'd be a good way to bring Lorgar back onto the stage as well, while allowing a full-fledged daemon assault to contrast with the Astartes-only approach of Abaddon - which might be a good time to do now, rather than later.

But at the very least, the narrative needs to seed future escalation sooner rather than later, otherwise it'll just come out of the blue within the Siege, for folks who haven't read Old Earth (and may be forgiven for it).

 

Honestly, I still want my "Malcador and Vulkan hold the door while Big E goes to finish things" story branch in the final(?) book. Amp up the desperation, Vulkan sealing physically, Malcador mentally, with Mal desperately trying to cling on because if he fails, the Talisman / Terminus Decree gets/must be triggered and everything will be for naught entirely. I want to see the sheer soul-rending effort Malcador goes through while holding the Throne to strip away all of his shroud, his machinations, and just reduce him to the man he is by the end, before letting go on the Emperor's "victory"/return. Give Malcador a painful, humbling, but also introspective and honest sendoff that makes the Emperor's words of Malcador the Hero all the more resonant.

[b1soul]

The whole magical soul-spear wounding Horus in Wolfsbane was a creative mistake.

 

That role should have been retained by Sanguinius.

 

What we now have is an Executioner who falters against a brother he has never been that close to, a brother who could kill the Emperor and end the Imperial dream.

 

I'm not sure how they can make Sang's encounter with Horus meaningful. Is he going to break open another chink in Horus' armour? He can't hurt Horus too badly or the Emperor would be able to mop up.

 

Dan better stick this landing. Tough job he has.

[Karhedron]

Wolfsbane was a difficult story to tell and must have been a bit of a poisoned chalice for Haley IMHO. It has been established in canon that the Wolves were not there at the siege. It has also been established that the Heresy lasted several years and the Wolves had plenty of time to regroup after Propsero and the Alexes Nebula. So what do you do? Have the Wolves hiding or stuck in the Warp for the duration of the Heresy? The BAs, BAs and UMs managed to battle through the Ruinstorm to contribute to the Heresy so would it have been a satisfying story?

 

The simple fact is that BL needed to do something with Wolves to cover the intervening period and explain why they were not present as a fighting force during the Siege. Trying to cut the head off the serpent was one of the few convincing goals that Russ could have risked gambling his entire Legion on. For any lesser target, he would have been better off manning the Walls, in spite of his dislike for such a duty.

[Scribe]

His Legion should have been ineffective and shattered after Prospero, and it would have fit that need and (gasp) preexisting fluff. :p

[Moonreaper666]

His Legion should have been ineffective and shattered after Prospero, and it would have fit that need and (gasp) preexisting fluff. :p

The Alpha Legion led by either Alpharius or Omegon should have crippled the Space Wolves in their own version of the Dropsite Massacre. Russ and a small group of Space Wolves join the Knights-Errants in their assassination plot. The Spear shouldn't be able to kill Chaos Horus just wound him no matter what Russ did.

 

I think Emperor, Valdor, Amon, Dorn, Oll Perrson, John Grammaticus, Sanginius and Saint Garviel Loken will confront Horus together. "And that's the point where we all started to die" as Khayon would say. Horus first perma-kills John showing that being a Perpetual doesn't matter against Horus. Oll uses both the Bioweapon and the Lifeforce of all Perpetuals in Terra to weaken Horus allowing the Emperor to kill him

 

For the first time in a long while, the Emperor should feel fear as Horus had become a monster more powerful than him. The Emperor should also feel foolish for thinking he could outwit Chaos and break the deal he made with them

[b1soul]

Wolves badly mauled at Prospero and then shattered at Alaxxes. They're like down to 10 to 20 percent strength by this time and can't break through the Traitor cordon.

 

No need to rush back to Terra and then rush off again to undercut Sang's final sacrifice

[Fedor]

Sanguinius opening up a gap in the armour of Horus was a maybe it happened/maybe it didn't thing in the old lore. Painted as much as a Blood Angels legend as it was an absolute truth. There were some other lesser known ones too like Horus needing to bombard Sanguinius with prolonged psychic trickery before he could defeat him.

 

The real weight of their confrontation was always in Sanguinius going alongside the Emperor anyway despite foreseeing his own death and still refusing to join Horus when given the option. Plus showing how far Horus had fallen to then so callously murder his close brother.

[Morovir]

 

His Legion should have been ineffective and shattered after Prospero, and it would have fit that need and (gasp) preexisting fluff.

The Alpha Legion led by either Alpharius or Omegon should have crippled the Space Wolves in their own version of the Dropsite Massacre. Russ and a small group of Space Wolves join the Knights-Errants in their assassination plot. The Spear shouldn't be able to kill Chaos Horus just wound him no matter what Russ did.

 

I think Emperor, Valdor, Amon, Dorn, Oll Perrson, John Grammaticus, Sanginius and Saint Garviel Loken will confront Horus together. "And that's the point where we all started to die" as Khayon would say. Horus first perma-kills John showing that being a Perpetual doesn't matter against Horus. Oll uses both the Bioweapon and the Lifeforce of all Perpetuals in Terra to weaken Horus allowing the Emperor to kill him

 

For the first time in a long while, the Emperor should feel fear as Horus had become a monster more powerful than him. The Emperor should also feel foolish for thinking he could outwit Chaos and break the deal he made with them

 

 

John Grammaticus hasn't been a Perpetual in quite some time. Of course, if you'd actually read the books, you'd know this.

[Sothalor]

Meh, I think BL have already shot themselves in the foot in this regard with the whole "Horus actually died on Davin and is now just a meat puppet for the Chaos gods" angle.

 

They've essentially removed him as a character, thus undercutting all the dramatic pathos that could have been.

 

Formerly the closest of brothers facing off, one of them knowing its his death but still doing his duty in the face of love turned to malevolence - but maybe some smallest regret or sorrow on Horus' part as he strangles the life from Sanguinius?

 

Nah, Chaos meat puppet!

 

Father and son battling it out, the one unable to bring himself to *really* go all out against a beloved child while the other strikes with all the cultural and mythological resonance of the son murdering the father, the broken familial and relational bond at the heart of it all?

 

Nah, Chaos meat puppet!

[Scribe]

Is he though? I thought either Vengeful Spirit or Slaves to Darkness (both?) showed that he's still in there.

 

MoonReaper.

 

This is not a rampant wish listing thread.

Why is this permitted? There is no basis in fact, no logical extrapolation, just 'this is gonna happen' when it's not based in any kind of reality.

Mods!

Edited August 27, 2020 by Scribe

[Fedor]

I've definitely noticed a lot of people on 40klore reddit sub interpreting Slaves of Darkness as hours now being essentially a meat puppet.

 

Not so sure myself, i saw it more as the last part of Horus that was resisting accepting the full "gifts" of the gods being carved out. Not necessarily that he was entirely hollowed out, but it is all a bit vague so far. They could go either way with it in the remaining books.

Edited August 27, 2020 by Fedor

[Scribe]

I've definitely noticed a lot of people on 40klore reddit sub interpreting Slaves of Darkness as hours now being essentially a meat puppet.

 

Not so sure myself, i saw it more as the last part of Horus that was resisting accepting the full "gifts" of the gods being carved out. Not necessarily that he was entirely hollowed out, but it is all a bit vague so far. They could go either way with it in the remaining books.

 

I didnt mean your post btw, it was unclear, apologies.