Alpharius

[b1soul]

Falsehoods were first mentioned in Blood Games by Abnett IIRC

 

Custodes used the tech to infiltrate Hy-Brasil

[Lucerne]

...Wasn't the whole point of the Dorn and Alpharius guessing game that Dorn accurately guessed based on Alpharius's personality?

[StrangerOrders]

...Wasn't the whole point of the Dorn and Alpharius guessing game that Dorn accurately guessed based on Alpharius's personality?

This exact scene comes up actually.

 

Alpharius actually saw it as a learning experience both ways. He seems to admit that Dorn had valid points but also outlined why he believed that Dorn's critiques were also highlights of Dorn's own views.

 

There are alot of these good ruminations in the book, it takes a 'chapter' + 'short commentary' route to its layout and they arent always directly related. Their purpose is to outline how he sees things and contrasts it to ALOT of moments from other books to the point where I have immense respect for the amount of research Brooks puts in here.

 

What he thinks of his brothers is also shocking and interesting tbh. He envies Sanguinius, not for anything beautiful or his favor, he just really thinks it would be cool to have wings. He has MASSIVE respect for Malcador and goes out of his way to clarify it isnt a burn when he calls Guilliman a bureaucrat, he in fact sees it as a complement. He also gives very good observations on all of his brothers, including a surprisingly positive view on Russ and the Khan in particular.

 

He seems to really not like Horus though, which is surprising since thats the only Primarch he actively calls out in his monologues and musings repeatedly, where the others get occasional and multi-faceted reflections. He seems to feel a need to nitpick Lupercal to death at every turn.

 

But he also royally misjudges alot of them in ways that are telling of his own and admitted biases. He misjudges Fulgrim's own internal pressures quite badly, seems completely blind to Pert's ego and is (fatally) off on exactly how capable Dorn is of bending on his preferences and is also needlessly cruel while also being annoyed at his excuses sounding a bit flimsy even to him (He killed a Custodian just to prove a point once and he feels the need to go on a several page monologue as to why it was acceptable, with the end being that almost everyone still disagrees with him and Malc is actively disgusted. Its also implied this is the source of Valdor's loathing for Primarchs).

 

Some are even hilarious, he specifically notes some well known AL characters and specifically says he encouraged their individuality so that outsiders wouldnt just accuse his legion of being deliberately obtuse. Which is hilarious since we know from other sources that these same characters were still assumed to be meaningless code names and titles rather than actual people.

 

The funniest bit is probably that he notes that the facial surgeries the Legionaries have to look like him were neither originally his idea nor is he comfortable with it. In fact it actively turns him off because of the implied hubris of it. A fairly consistent theme in the novel is his discomfort with hubris and his grappling with the degree to which he was proud or just stating things as he fairly saw them.

 

Fantastic book honestly.

 

Of course, this was all a lie.

[mc warhammer]

that sounds great to me

[Lucerne]

Do we get anything more about Legion internal culture or commentary from non-Alpharius legionaires?

[StrangerOrders]

Do we get anything more about Legion internal culture or commentary from non-Alpharius legionaires?

So far (60% through), its just Alpharius.

 

BUT there is so much about the Legion's culture, why they do things and how that I am reminded in the best way of the AL PoVs from Praetorian of Dorn.

 

Why does Alpharius do the cloned face thing? Security and it gives him more leeway to do multiple tasks (including those that dont really need his abilities) at once.

 

Why use Alpharius as a name? Its a security measure and Alpharius from the beginning both knew his name and felt that it has no particular importance. What he does matters, not who his is. This is actually what won his respect for Russ, he recounts a feast where they sat together and Russ asked him 'what are you supposed to be?' and when Alpharius does the meme Russ clarifies that he doesnt care 'who' Alpharius is, but what. Alpharius respects that Russ seemed to be the only other one of them that both understood and accepted that Primarchs are just tools.

 

This carries back to the Legion culture thing, Alpharius ensured the Legion could survive without him and not do to him planning to die. He just thought that it was moronic to built an army that could be torn to shreds by a single death, regardless of how implausible. Its also why he has so many mortals and Magi in his high command, he thinks Astartes are better at alot of things but that they are building an Imperium for humans and that it was foolish not to include those who had the right talents.

 

Thats another reoccurring thing, Alpharius modeled himself very deliberately after something Malcador mentions to him off-handedly when he was young about him being a 'sword in the dark'. Alpharius wasnt planned for in the Emp's visions (its implied Omegon) was, and its sort of jarring seeing how frantically the Emp's recovery of him was (he literally jumped from a shuttle mid-air and telekinetically crushed the scavengers that were looting A's pod as soon as A became conscious), and Malc pushed hard to impress on Alpharius that he needed to be a guardian of the Imperium.

 

For example, we see the moment he decides he needs to help the Lion with Rangda. It wasnt because of the whole warmaster-thing, that was a lie to convince the Lion and play to his ego. It was because Alpharius was in a refugee camp and decided that he could not leave the northern fringe to burn when he had the resources and means to help out of pure pride.

 

That is sort of a funny contrast with Dorn, Alpharius mentions that he is irked by Dorn somehow being so humble but also being encased in Aurumite and having such an impressive record. He says that at that point your intentions do not prevent you from coming across like a braggart. The irony here being that Alpharius seems to have an obsessive need to both dress up his every good/evil deed in logic and to hesitate constantly over whether he is being hubristic or not. I'd suspect that is why he seems oddly fond of Dorn while also seeming annoyed by him, they are shockingly alike at their cores.

 

Its shockingly humanizing and in a very good way.

[Kelborn]

I start to regret not getting the LE.

 

Nonetheless, THIS is a must-read, even if I'm not that into Warhammer these days.

 

Thank you, guys, for sharing your thoughts. :tu:

[Preliminary Bombardment]

I liked the reference of what the legion was doing before the Rangan Xenoside, they were actively engaged throughout the Imperium suppressing dissent and ensuring things ran smoothly in the wake of the other Legions conquests. It makes perfect sense given his assumed role, and also would confirm how dangerous they were when they sided with Horus as that network was as old as the great crusade

[Lucerne]

Honestly now we just need a "so what were they doing during and after the Heresy" to finish their arc.

[Sviox]

Still waiting for my copy. According to customer service it has not even shipped yet 

[StrangerOrders]

Finished this a good while ago and boy did I struggle with how to rate it after finishing.

 

This book is a tale of two books, the first is the story of the Alpha Legion and 'Alpharius'. A good and insightful view into the XX Legion and a shockingly humanizing work for the mysterious twentieth primarch in a way which had me rating it very highly.

 

Then it hit a sudden screeching halt not long after the 60% mark.

 

This shift not only sent me reeling but also had me really struggling to figure out how the heck to talk about this.

 

To begin, this book should have been twice its length. At least.

 

Brooks tries and perhaps overdoes it by leagues, to make a battle and mini adventure to recount Alpharius meeting Omegon and it feels just the worst mix of rushed and contrived. It does some things well, the Slaugh are horrific. But the circumstances to get all of the actors there and doing things feels increasingly like Brooks has a very tight deadline that snuck on him and somehow made an Abnett ending seem like a graceful swan dive into perfection.

 

For context, we get the summary of the twins meeting in like 4 pages. 4 pages that are borderline painful to read in how contrived they are put together.

 

And that is not even the worst part.

 

The worst part is something Brooks does to Alpharius. The long and short of it is that a refugee couple he was interviewing saw his true self (the top secret of the millennia) and then his librarian got crippled somehow and he was left in a situation where he had to find a solution for the refugee trio.

 

Alpharius's solution? Well, a mechanic and housewife with a toddler are clearly prime Alpha Legion material so he brings them onboard and fills them in on all of his plans on the basis that they are probably resourceful if they managed to survive the Rangda (which is at odds with the fact the refugee camp he found them in was drowning in people.

 

Its something that I can't see any Primarch doing, much less the one that literally killed a Custodian on the grounds of 'well, he could have tried harder'. Alpharus in this book comes across as thoughtful and surprisingly humane in some aspects, but this was such an odd moment of overreach that I am still buffering as to what to say about it.

 

And the whole scene takes up a few dozen pages (and the anti-refugee riots which got uncomfortably dated awfully quickly, ironic coming from a refugee but their it is) which probably could have gone to making the whole Omegon thing less rushed.

 

Also the 'This is a Lie' thing makes more sense in context. Both the prologue and epilogue are Horus's 'finding' Alpharius. And to be very frank, the takeaway along with the imagery from the rushed finale was that 'Alpharius' as we know him was always Omegon. Not least of all because the Primarch's iconic wargear are his and from his introduction he is very apparently both more aggressive and arrogant than his twin. More 'Primarch-y' if you will.

 

But the thing is, for all of these issues. The book is worth it just for the first 3/5's and I recommend anyone read it for that alone.

 

I am not sure if it's Brook's deciding to include that odd section, mandatory bolter porn in a story where it did not really fit or just the need GW has to make Primarch novels weirdly short is to blame for the last section of the book but something went horribly wrong there.

 

Anyhow:

 

8 Twins/10 Shards of the Pale Plot Device. (9.5/10 for the first 60%)

[Moonreaper666]

Wasn't it Omegon that died on Pluto? The entire point of the battle was to point out vulnerabilities?


How does this new information fit into 'Board in Set' as in one hypothetical scenario Dorn going on the offense leads the Twins to take Terra for Horus?

Will all the information that we know which side benefitted the most from the AL during the Heresy?

Is it possible that despite the intention of the Twins their entire Legion has fallen to Chaos post-Heresy because without their two leaders the AL joined Chaos to give them a purpose?

[aa.logan]

So I woke up this morning with the question of whether

anyone else was there when Alpharius met Omegon, and if it actually happened after all

rattling round my head. Which fits the everything is a lie angle of the AL and is pretty nifty.

[Carach]

when is this supposed to be up for wider release? Is there a date set? 

[Aramis K]

I really dislike these staggered releases.

 

That said, I'd love it if the limited edition had subtle differences to the full release. Just a few details changing to make the truth even further out of reach. That would seem properly XX.

[Knockagh]

Finished this at last. Firstly I didn’t get to give this anywhere near the attention it deserved, and I certainly needs a reread but that said it’s a throughly enjoyable read. As I’ve said before I’ve found this series incredibly disappointing there have been very few really good books in here but this is definitely one of them. This was always going to be a difficult task, the twins were going to be tough to write and keep the mystique. Loved it all. Well except the fighting but at the end, hard to think of the aliens kicking primarch ass like that. But ignoring that and I do need to reread it so I might have missed something, it’s a fabulous book.

[Taliesin]

Amazon is now listing the regular hardcover for April, looks like that comes out mid April from BL.

[Sviox]

Anyone else still waiting for your copy?

[MegaVolt87]

I would really like to know more on why Alpharius/ Omegon insisted on being James Bond/ Agent 47 in secret missions when in the majority of times they did this, someone else in the legion could have achieved the same ends. That always kinda conflicted with their "hard mode" style of warfare in my mind by doing that themselves personally. I was always under the impression "the plan" was more important than who executes it for the AL. What's the point of boosting that ego if most people won't know/ or find out about it? I hope the reasoning is more complex than primarch cope. 

[aa.logan]

All the Primarchs are far more involved in frontline action than really makes sense, but this book establishes the fact that Alpharius

spent years without a legion and a long time without them being public knowledge, so it makes sense for him to 007 stuff- there literally wasn’t anyone else to do it, apparently

[Scribe]

Read the spoilers. I enjoy that everything AL is a mess. :D

[GAZ_AV_NZ]

For those of you trashing the author I suggest you read the book

Best Primarch book written

It would appear he's read and likely talked to Dan Abnett about his take as it feels linked in completely

 

Spoiler comment also contains spoiler from Alpharius

 

In Penitent

 

Valdor is the king in yellow running a pocket dimension massing an army

From Bequins comments about an alpha legion astartes being present with Eisenhorn then two pages on talking to Deathrow who is Alpharius

Is this the Primarch? Sounds like it is

She says twins talking about Alpharius and relates it to herself being cloned

I thought Dan pretty much confirmed it was Alpharius

 

Given he's alive and Omegon is dead as per Alpharius book confirmationing they swapped I felt it was him

Alpharius always lead important ground operations himself so its no surprise he is there himself

Most importantly psykers cannot read his mind

Malcador was unable to read his, Helped teach Alpharius to screen his mind

So Eisenhorn and Ravenor simply think its a general astartes when it's actually Alpharius himself

 

For those who were not aware Alpharius was the first Primarch found and was trained by Malcador

After finding Omegon he switched places with Omegon and lead from the shadows

Omegon led the legion during the heresy

Dorn killed Omegon

Alpharius knew Valdor very early on and it was Alpharius who started the blood games

It's fitting for him to be here in this book

Well done Dan

Edited April 2, 2021 by Kelborn

[Darkwrath121]

For those of you trashing the author I suggest you read the book

Best Primarch book written

It would appear he's read and likely talked to Dan Abnett about his take as it feels linked in completely

 

Spoiler comment also contains spoiler from Alpharius

Please use [**spoiler**] TEXT [**/spoiler**] to hide those spoilers. Removing the asterisks Edited April 1, 2021 by Darkwrath121

[DarkChaplain]

Hardback and audiobook editions are gonna go up on Saturday, according to WarCom.

[Lucerne]

Finally read it cover to cover.

 

Loved it. Alpharius was an unexpectedly amusing protagonist, I would not have expected "Alpharius runs on RPG PC logic" to be a valid comment, and  ALPHARIUS, HUMANITARIAN OF THE IMPERIUM is my new favorite joke. Lore-compliant, the complaints are silly, and my only complaint is that it could have been longer.

 

10/10 would definitely read again.