The Primarchs - Alpharius/ Omegon

[Marshal Loss]

Not sure if it was confirmed already, but WHC basically outright states that Alpharius is next up in the Primarchs series

 

 

 

What’s next for the series after the Lion, you may be asking? Well, we can’t reveal too much, but there’s just one Space Marine Legion better at keeping secrets than the Dark Angels, and their primarch (or should that be primarchs?) might just be next in the spotlight…

Edited September 9, 2020 by Marshal Loss

[Sandlemad]

Cool. Unfortunately the concept mooted around here and elsewhere for an Alpharius book that's something like If On A Winter's Night A Traveller or Rashomon is so good that I will be probably disappointed if they do a more conventional narrative.

 

I wonder who the author will be? John French?

[Fire Golem]

Yeah, I hope it’s John French. Of the authors who would realistically be writing Alpharius, he’s the one I’d be most excited to read. 

[Arendious]

I'd like to see where ADB went with an Alpharius story, or bring Abnett back to give a more direct connection to Legion.

 

Realistically, though, I think John French usually serves the Hydra well...

[Sandlemad]

I'd like to see where ADB went with an Alpharius story, or bring Abnett back to give a more direct connection to Legion.

 

Realistically, though, I think John French usually serves the Hydra well...

 

Abnett's tone could work but I wouldn't put it past him to tie it in to the Cabal or the larger heresy plot, which would be a bit of a disservice. ADB is on record somewhere as saying that the Alpha Legion is the only one he wouldn't want to write about.

 

French does seem likely, he's done so before and it plays to his strengths.

[Bobss]

I doubt it's John French. He doesn't strike me as the kind of dude who would write for this series. He has his Perturabo/Dorn body of Horus Heresy work, but otherwise he tends to stick to his own projects. As good as Praetorian of Dorn was, and we're talking a top ten Horus Heresy novel/top five contender here, that was an almost-500-page thriller that wouldn't translate well into a 200-and-then-some Primarchs book. I can see another Guymur or Annandale or even Haley depending on his schedule if I'm being honest. Maybe even a new guy or girl on top of that

 

Of course, there's nothing wrong in dreaming though. I want my Chris Wraight Mortarion book and my Dan Abnett Horus book set between Horus Rising and False Gods

 

Apparently James Swallow has already bagged Sanguinius' Primarchs book, but this is my wishlist for the remaining titles cuz why not:

Rogal Dorn - John French (lol). Contrary to what I just said, I think John French would do Dorn's Primarchs book true justice. Remember those vignettes in Praetorian of Dorn following Archamus' life? They were good :cuss, and the same could be done for Dorn from all the way from Inwit to Terra. John French is more of a plot-guy than a character-guy IMO, but he has his finger directly on the pulse where the VIIth are concerned

Sanguinius - there are several authors who have done decent Bagels, but no one has really stood out from the pack. Haley's Bagels are better than Swallow's, but that's not exactly high praise at the end of the day. I enjoyed ADB's take on Zephon but I tend to shy away from 'zomg that one character was great, please write about the whole Legion/Chapter'-type thinking. Personally, I thought the Sanguinius/Azkaellon/Baal bits of Warhawk of Chogoris were pretty great - then again I'm a Chris Wraight fanboy through and through. I'mma say ADB though, because I think he 'gets' the IXth the best with the whole angel's wrath/divine artistry thing he's shown bits of

Mortarion - Chris Wraight because The Lords of Silence and to a lesser extent his Horus Heresy work crush everything and everyone else into the mud

Horus - mother:cussing Dan Abnett, giving us a not-a-sequel sequel to Horus Rising following the Sons of Horus during their war against the Interex. Seriously, this book MUST be made

Alpharius - literally no idea

Edited September 9, 2020 by Bobss

[Kelborn]

Would be funny if instead of a character driven novel from a Legionnary or Primarch pov we'd get reports or witnessing / objections from all kind of people about Alpharius.

Or excerpts from the Alpha Legion book, which was mentioned in Malevolance.

[Sandlemad]

Would be funny if instead of a character driven novel from a Legionnary or Primarch pov we'd get reports or witnessing / objections from all kind of people about Alpharius.

Or excerpts from the Alpha Legion book, which was mentioned in Malevolance.

 

Definitely, something like Stand on Zanzibar or Kahlil Gibran's book about Jesus, just lots of snippets of imperial or enemy documentations, building to a shaky and unnerving portrait of the primarch with inconsistencies that can't add up. Making part of that purport to come from The Unbalanced Scales or from that one captured and interrogated AL warrior would be brilliant.

 

 

French has even done that sort of thing before in fact, with his audiodrama 'The Eagle's Talon'. Doing that on the scale of a short novel might make BL nervous though, I think they're fairly conservative when it comes to this sort of structural play. But can you imagine...

 

If we really wanted our fantasy Alpharius book, something like Pavic's The Dictionary of the Khazars would be wild. Two versions - call them the left hand and the right hand edition if 'Alpharius' or 'Omegon' editions are too on the nose - with subtly different covers. They contain the same story except for a critical sentence which differs between the versions and which casts the rest of the narrative into completely different lights. I can imagine BL practically salivating at the opportunity to sell not one but two expensive limited editions. Not going to happen but that would probably get me to give in and pay whatever.

[b1soul]

Really hope it's Abnett. Still think Legion is the best AL outing in the BL portfolio

[Knockagh]

Looks like alpha legions terrible twins are up next for the primarch series. No word on whose writing them yet. It’s going to be one of those books that’s either brilliant or a catastrophe. Their will be no mediocrity here.

[Karhedron]

I was disappointed that Praetorian of Dorn seemed to shut down the Alpha Legion storyline without any proper resolution.

[DarkChaplain]

I mean, them getting shut down on their "master plan" to dupe everyone, playing both sides plus their own, was the proper resolution. In their insane arrogance, they played themselves. They thought they knew better than everyone - be it Horus, the Cabal, Dorn, the Eldar, you name it - and.... turns out they didn't. They didn't get the payoff they were deluded enough to strive for even at the cost of putting their own Legion into a schism, with nobody trusting another even in their own ranks. And they never should have gotten that payoff in the first place.

 

Their inferiority complex turned into them believing themselves superior to their peers and cleverer than alien cabals, and even the Chaos Gods. It took Dorn to show them that they really weren't smarter than everyone, and now they're left with a broken Legion that doesn't even know what's what anymore, because they're still acting at cross-purposes towards a nebulous third path, with a half-Primarch having to abandon his own preparations while a large part of his sons acts independently towards designs he had no input on.

It's the perfect mess rooted in overestimating themselves.

[Fedor]

It also leaves things as open as possible in the best way for Alpha Legion tabletop players creating their own background, or writers looking to take a warband/faction in a certain direction for 40k.

 

I'm not sure their story could have ended any other way without hamstringing the Legion's place in the lore.

Edited September 10, 2020 by Fedor

[Lucerne]

I mean, them getting shut down on their "master plan" to dupe everyone, playing both sides plus their own, was the proper resolution. In their insane arrogance, they played themselves. They thought they knew better than everyone - be it Horus, the Cabal, Dorn, the Eldar, you name it - and.... turns out they didn't. They didn't get the payoff they were deluded enough to strive for even at the cost of putting their own Legion into a schism, with nobody trusting another even in their own ranks. And they never should have gotten that payoff in the first place.

 

Their inferiority complex turned into them believing themselves superior to their peers and cleverer than alien cabals, and even the Chaos Gods. It took Dorn to show them that they really weren't smarter than everyone, and now they're left with a broken Legion that doesn't even know what's what anymore, because they're still acting at cross-purposes towards a nebulous third path, with a half-Primarch having to abandon his own preparations while a large part of his sons acts independently towards designs he had no input on.

It's the perfect mess rooted in overestimating themselves.

 

Praetorian is an excellent novel but it really, really doesn't qualify as a resolution. (I'll note that Dorn was too pig-headed for any plan that involved talking to him to work, rather than them being outplotted as such.)

Except that we literally have a plot hook that Alpharius went in believing things were set up so that no matter how things went, the Alpha Legion was going to come out on top. You can say a lot about Alpharius's hubris, but it's narratively unsatisfying to go "Alpharius was literally making up in his private motive rant and there wasn't actually anything going on there beyond the guy known for intricate plots deciding to just wing it and do improv speech night with Dorn without anything else in mind". That isn't to say that the Alpha Legion's other plans worked, just that narratively speaking there obviously were other plans going on. Alpharius the character had a very specific and very certain belief that things were a win-win scenario, so what was the root of that belief?

 

The problem with the Alpha Legion as a whole is that writers haven't properly addressed their overall status in 40k as a Legion or how they arrived there from the events of the Heresy- and the idea of lack of internal trust isn't really one based in their narrative when every single time their themes are mentioned it talks about discipline, coordination, and unity of purpose, very often in out of character summaries. Paranoia/backstabbing is a defining theme for Iron Warriors and Night Lords, the AL less so.

 

The problem with the AL is they're missing at least two well-written novels: One in 40k showing what their status is that actually focuses on them as viewpoint characters so we can get the inside look the way we did with Night Lords and Death Guard- and a Scouring/post-Heresy novel to bridge the gap from "30k Legion with fingers in every pie" to whatever they are in 40k. We don't even know their legion status in 40k beyond snapshots of some warbands in the Eastern fringe post-Badab, some in the galactic core around that time, and a bunch of random oneoff warbands/villains of the week that pay lip service to being "Alpha Legion" because I guess the writer wanted CSM in blue armor rather than red that week- so the idea they're "broken" is more or less complete guesswork or extrapolation from decidedly unreliable footnotes. The Codex certainly doesn't say as much.

(Meanwhile in the Indomitus era, we apparently have the ones partying with Abaddon, playing merry hell in Pacificus as well as the Ultima Segmentum ghost ship?)

 

We have a better idea of who's who in the Iron Warriors and how their set-up works than we do the Alpha Legion- and while it being open-ended is nice, I'd rather like a proper 40k supplement or novel to shut down ridiculousness like "lol they're broken". I'm not saying to reveal everything and shut down homebrew, but they're in dire need of an ABD Night Lords or Lords of Silence-type novel about proper Alpha Legion that gives us a peek behind the curtain, rather than "warband that literally has no idea what's going on with the galaxy" or "literally random renegades dressing up". The Index Astartes was nice but we need something slightly more concrete.

 

On the subject of the Primarch novels, I do hope they hand Alpharius's novel to someone who at least does the research or is vague enough for missteps to be brushed over. This is a case where a badly written novel could seriously hurt the faction's already sparse lore.

 

Also, on the subject of bad writing, I don't know why Swallow keeps getting Blood Angels stories. It's doing no one any favors, really.

Edited September 10, 2020 by Lucerne

[Knockagh]

I have no idea who is the right author for this. I would like it to be ADB purely because I feel like I haven’t read anything by him in ages. But other than that I’ve no idea. Plenty I don’t want it to be but that’s another story. Haley can turn rubbish to gold but he is bound to have his hands full. I bet it will be Rob Sanders. Peter Fehervari could probably do a crazy Alpha legion that would leave us all more confused (which might be awesome). But I doubt he will.

[Lucerne]

I have no idea who is the right author for this. I would like it to be ADB purely because I feel like I haven’t read anything by him in ages. But other than that I’ve no idea. Plenty I don’t want it to be but that’s another story. Haley can turn rubbish to gold but he is bound to have his hands full. I bet it will be Rob Sanders. Peter Fehervari could probably do a crazy Alpha legion that would leave us all more confused (which might be awesome). But I doubt he will.

Despite the Sons of the Hydra surprise flub, the guy can write the Omegon side of things and Legion mentality fairly well. Haley...I'm ambiguous about given Lost and the Damned. ADB has flat out said he doesn't feel like writing Alpha Legion.

[bluntblade]

I do think we should've had a "wounded hydra" novella to follow PoD.

[Indefragable]

Alpharius-Omegon: The Unknowable Hydra

 

by Indy.

 

Synopsis: 

A boring operation by Space Marines, where they beat the snot out of a group of non-compliant humans. Bolter porn extraordinaire. But then the final chapter is when they tap into the enemy's communications array to hear:

 

"THEY'RE COMING OUT OF THE WALLS, MAN!"

"What do you mean HQ is gone?" 

"...but the 5th Brigade is flanking them! What do you mean the 5th Brigade never even left base?"

"...General Zander is dead!"

"...what do you mean Zander is dead? He just ordered us to push through the breach in the enemy..."

"THAT'S NOT A BREACH! Turn ba--"

"...but how can they be jamming us if they don't know that we're..."

 

[Tymell]

If they stick to the frequent "take an exemplary battle from the FW books and turn it into a novel" approach for Alpharius' book, my money would be on the Tesstra Compliance. It involves Alpharius himself and provides plenty of opportunity to exemplify both their supreme arrogance and the effectiveness of their style.

 

I do think we should've had a "wounded hydra" novella to follow PoD.

 

We still could. Unfortunately I think it's unlikely, but it would be far from the first time the series has jumped back and forth.

Edited September 10, 2020 by Tymell

[mawhis]

If they stick to the frequent "take an exemplary battle from the FW books and turn it into a novel" approach for Alpharius' book, my money would be on the Tesstra Compliance. It involves Alpharius himself and provides plenty of opportunity to exemplify both their supreme arrogance and the effectiveness of their style.

 

I do think we should've had a "wounded hydra" novella to follow PoD.

 

We still could. Unfortunately I think it's unlikely, but it would be far from the first time the series has jumped back and forth.

 

My assumption is that once the Siege series is over they'll continue into the Scouring. There's too much fertile ground there for them not to cover it - The Destruction of Caliban, The Iron Cage, The Rubric of Ahriman, Lorgar's Daemonhood and so on.

[StrangerOrders]

Praetorian of Dorn is my absolute favorite novel and I will level that I want French on this, since thats the book that sold me on AL. 

 

The issue with the Alpha Legion is that alot of their portrayals depend on what you want as a reader.

 

I really hate to say it but most of their appearance to me strike me too much 'BOOM! FWASH! PLOT POWERS ACTIVATE!' 

 

Like, it isnt that what they do bothers me or that I need to know every step, but when you prioritize being mysterious and vague above everything else? It stops being good writing and more that you have a Legion of omniscient McGuffins who can literally pull Athames and fleets inexplicably from their rear ends.

 

What I liked about PoD was that everyone else spent the book playing catchup and they were mysterious and all, but you saw their PoV. French has a head for convincing organizations and logistical elements and that book exploits it. The Alpha Legion isn't some army of invincible question marks that resemble a child saying "Well... Guess what! It was all my guys's plan and they still win so there", we see how they carefully weigh redundancy and network to establish assets that they might need over a prolonged window of time. 

 

Heck my favorite moments were those rare ones where two AL just stopped and took a moment to actually be genuine with one another and from that moment alone just about everything about them clicks. Especially with the obvious (and metaphysical) contradictions between what they are, what an Astartes innately is and the toll that contradiction is taking on their collective psyche. 

 

The resolution was to my liking (and I dont like Fists much) because it actually nuts up to give them a flaw, and I am sorry but being a bit arrogant after being literally invincible doesnt usually do it for me. Alot of the finest organizations in history have been undone by moments of human weakness or even moments resembling outright megalomania. 

 

I'll take a masterfully executed story of a masterful organization with a bitter end over 'Chaos BS except without magic or consequences' any day of the week there. 

[Scribe]

I went looking for PoD, and...cant find it in my collection. Better go remedy that. 

[DarkChaplain]

I still think the Primarchs novel should at least wrap up the Deliverance Lost Primarch Project plotline by featuring the Eskrador battle against Guilliman. Omegon apparently played the "loyalist" side more than Horus', so him handing the tech over to Guilliman, thus also prompting him to task Cawl with making Primaris, would at least also explain why we don't have millions of better Alpha Legion dudes running the galaxy by M41. If Omegon kept it from the rest, having them believe that what he gave Horus/Fabius was all he had (the tainted samples), him preseting it to Roboute could be a real character building moment.

 

Give me an Omegon novel, more than an Alpharius one. More introspection, less Sam Fisher. Omegon and Alpharius discussing their path forward, Omegon's having to pick up the pieces, realizing that the Legion is as shattered as that dagger, moving forward to Eskrador, looking at the broken state of the Imperium and the non-resolution to their master plan, with Chaos growing in influence within the Eye, and wanting to give the Imperium a fighting chance even if his own plan failed magnificently. Have Omegon take his leave from the Legion by faking his own death at the hands of Guilliman (something that'd spawn more rumors) and justify the at odds actions of various Alpha Legion cells within the modern setting.

[Kelborn]

[insert "this" meme]

 

Hopefully, we'll have some more clues but I assume that the community team will keep the news article ambiguous. Saying nothing at all, etc. because Alpha Legion.

 

And though my hopes are high, I doubt that it will close to what we are imagine it to be. :/

 

Because Alpha Legion and just as planned.

 

All Primarch novels stayed true to the Legion themes, bloody NL, Was and their Nails, perfection and the ECs. So expect some obscured schemes for the AL.

Edited September 11, 2020 by Kelborn

[Pariah32]

I still think the Primarchs novel should at least wrap up the Deliverance Lost Primarch Project plotline by featuring the Eskrador battle against Guilliman. Omegon apparently played the "loyalist" side more than Horus', so him handing the tech over to Guilliman, thus also prompting him to task Cawl with making Primaris, would at least also explain why we don't have millions of better Alpha Legion dudes running the galaxy by M41. If Omegon kept it from the rest, having them believe that what he gave Horus/Fabius was all he had (the tainted samples), him preseting it to Roboute could be a real character building moment.

 

Give me an Omegon novel, more than an Alpharius one. More introspection, less Sam Fisher. Omegon and Alpharius discussing their path forward, Omegon's having to pick up the pieces, realizing that the Legion is as shattered as that dagger, moving forward to Eskrador, looking at the broken state of the Imperium and the non-resolution to their master plan, with Chaos growing in influence within the Eye, and wanting to give the Imperium a fighting chance even if his own plan failed magnificently. Have Omegon take his leave from the Legion by faking his own death at the hands of Guilliman (something that'd spawn more rumors) and justify the at odds actions of various Alpha Legion cells within the modern setting.

 

 

This is exactly what I want. I could not agree more!

 

I think John French is a strong contender, he has expressed how he likes writing about them in seminars. I think Rob sanders could do a good job as the Primarch novella by him 'The serpent beneath' was a stand out novella from that anthology. However the big BUT shall we say, was that his 40k alpha legion novel 'Sons of the hydra' was for me very lacklustre.

Edited September 11, 2020 by Pariah32