Post-2016/"New" 40K Fluff: Wasted Potential, But Not Beyond Repair.

[Matcap86]

7 hours ago, jaxom said:

It just occurred to me how weird it is that none of the Primarchs, with all their brilliance, followed in the Emperor's foot-steps and learned about gene-science. Even Fulgrim (and I think Corax, too) left it to the apothecaries. Like, how difficult should it be for a primarch to double-check that there are no hidden mind-control portions to the Primaris organs if they took a week to learn about biology?

Very out there theory: Might be they got gene-locked out of that? That the emperor was afraid that they might start to experiment/improve upon his designs and become too powerful/create monsters. Or it might be what happened to the lost legions. That one of them started to experiment and got sanctioned for it. 

[Xenith]

Really nice and well thought out post, detailing some good interpretations, @Evil Eye! No time to respond fully now, but making a mental note for later. I think the setting is still as grimdark as ever, but people tend to gloss over that in favour of easy memes - and even when GW tries to go really grimdark, for example, sacrificing sisters of battle for the greater good, certain vocal parts of the community get into a twist and screech about it. GW is treading a fine line, and from your observations, seem to be doing ok. 

[Gederas]

7 hours ago, Felix Antipodes said:

Eventually, the only difference between the pre-Primaris and Post-Primaris Blood Angels, for instance, will be that they will have the additional Primaris implants and upgraded armour/weaponry.

AD-B touches upon this in Spear of the Emperor. At the end of the day, Primaris are just Space Marines.

Best way I can sum them up is with a car analogy: Space Marines are like the Chevrolet Corvette. Firstborn are C1 to C7 (model years 1953 to 2019), iconic, with only minor redesigns over the lifespan. Primaris are the C8 (2020-present), which has some major updates, but these updates were mostly what the original designer Harley Earl wanted when they first started but was told no (biggest change was the 'Vette going to a mid-engine layout, which some car people said "wasn't a 'Vette anymore!" because of it.... Despite the C1 being mid-engined when it was introduced)

1 hour ago, Xenith said:

Really nice and well thought out post, detailing some good interpretations, @Evil Eye! No time to respond fully now, but making a mental note for later. I think the setting is still as grimdark as ever, but people tend to gloss over that in favour of easy memes - and even when GW tries to go really grimdark, for example, sacrificing sisters of battle for the greater good, certain vocal parts of the community get into a twist and screech about it. GW is treading a fine line, and from your observations, seem to be doing ok. 

That's because people seem to screech whenever Sisters of Battle suffer consequences of being a military force

Edited July 21, 2022 by Gederas

[TheVoidDragon]

I really, really dislike the idea of yet more loyalist primarchs returning. Guilliman was a big event that shifted the status quo, affecting the setting to its core in a quite substantial way. It wasn't something done in a whim but rather as part of a huge overhaul to multiple things in the setting. To have another loyalist return and do that again I think would take away from the overall focus and scope of it, getting closer to Horus Heresy 2.0 in a way that turns the setting into something with a large focus on a few specific demigod heroes who have to play an integral part of major events or at the least be a big factor that has to be considered - it would basically become "their" story in a way, as if they're protagonists things revolve around. I don't want to see that happen to 40k. I feel adding more super important powerful "hero" characters for the Imperium would be detrimental to their core themes and the setting as a whole. I don't want them to become just another character in the setting who's there now.

I've seen the whole "The Lion returns and he's MAD" thing suggested before and while that would be a twist on it, do people honestly thing that Guillimans return and those other things alone have been exhausted of their potential to the point it's time to shift things up for the entire setting once again? It's only been a few years and they've barely started as such. To move the baseline of the setting once more would feel like it's undermining that and is asking for what are big special important setting changes to us, and what in-universe are utterly monumental grandiose events (that used to be that sort of "false hope" situation that was part of the core of the themes of the setting) to become the norm and be made quite mundane, not to mention in-universe it would be conflating all those (what should be) once in several millennia events into having multiple occurrences in just a few hundred years. "A long-gone hero of the Imperium has returned to save us in our hour of need? Ehh, he's a bit late now, we already got one of those just last week...".

The supercharacter creep is already bad enough when we've got characters like the Silent king and a High Lord of Terra recently.

[phandaal]

8 minutes ago, Gederas said:

AD-B touches upon this in Spear of the Emperor. At the end of the day, Primaris are just Space Marines.

Best way I can sum them up is with a car analogy: Space Marines are like the Chevrolet Corvette. Firstborn are C1 to C7 (model years 1953 to 2019), iconic, with only minor redesigns over the lifespan. Primaris are the C8 (2020-present), which has some major updates, but these updates were mostly what the original designer Harley Earl wanted when they first started but was told no (biggest change was the 'Vette going to a mid-engine layout, which some car people said "wasn't a 'Vette anymore!" because of it.... Despite the C1 being mid-engined when it was introduced)

Primaris certainly were not presented as "just Space Marines" when they were released. It was more along the lines of "not your grandpa's lame old Space Marines," and the "best of the best of the best, sir, with honors!" Even recently with that Successors anthology, there was a cringe-worthy passage about a Primaris Marine breaking chains that would have held a mere Space Marine.

GW may be moving away from that portrayal, but if so it is not all that obvious. Hopefully we do get there soon, because the whole "See how Chapter [x] reacts to Primaris Marines" story beat is itself lame and old at this point.

[Gederas]

3 minutes ago, phandaal said:

Primaris certainly were not presented as "just Space Marines" when they were released. It was more along the lines of "not your grandpa's lame old Space Marines," and the "best of the best of the best, sir, with honors!" Even recently with that Successors anthology, there was a cringe-worthy passage about a Primaris Marine breaking chains that would have held a mere Space Marine.

GW may be moving away from that portrayal, but if so it is not all that obvious. Hopefully we do get there soon, because the whole "See how Chapter [x] reacts to Primaris Marines" story beat is itself lame and old at this point.

Well seeing as how it's been six years since their introduction and actual good authors have written about them, I don't think we should continue whining and moaning about the introduction. Because this is how we've kept the whole "Dark Angels are traitors because a Fallen said so".

 

Go off the more recent and well-written stuff, not the janky ham-fisted early stuff

8 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

I really, really dislike the idea of yet more loyalist primarchs returning. [...] The supercharacter creep is already bad enough when we've got characters like the Silent king and a High Lord of Terra recently.

The genie is out of the bottle my friend, and it isn't going back in. Angron is coming out, if not this year then early next year. And Fulgrim has been confirmed as active in realspace again. 4 Daemon Primarchs for the cult Legions. This isn't counting the 8th ed Chaos codex also confirming Lorgar and Perturabo are out an about again.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Gederas

[Karhedron]

8 minutes ago, TheVoidDragon said:

The supercharacter creep is already bad enough when we've got characters like the Silent king and a High Lord of Terra recently.

Super Characters have always been part of certain factions. Eldar have been able to run a fragment of their War God since first edition and Pheonix Lords since 2nd. Chaos has Daemon Princes and Greater Daemons etc. The desire to give every faction a huge centrepiece model is understandable.

Personally I remember back to 1st and 2nd edition where the fluff was still changing and evolving. It was really only in 3rd edition that the clock stopped regarding fluff advancement. I think GW went to far with Fantasy in blowing up the Old World to reboot it as AoS but for me, 8th/9th have been a breath of fresh air and got me back into the setting after a bit of a hiatus. I agree that the fluff in the core books and even Dark Imperium seemed a bit of a let down but Plague War and the Great Work have done wonders to improve it. It is a shame that these books could not have been released more quickly at the start of 8th but there we go. I am still looking forward to reading Godblight and the Dawn of Fire series.

As for more Primarchs, I think that genie is out of the bottle now and it is a matter of "when" rather than "if" another loyalist appears. I am happy with GW being an evolving story again although I appreciate those whose beards are not as long as mine may feel differently. 

[phandaal]

Just now, Gederas said:

Well seeing as how it's been six years since their introduction and actual good authors have written about them, I don't think we should continue whining and moaning about the introduction.

This is not reddit. Please avoid that "whining and moaning" stuff. It adds nothing to the discussion.

3 minutes ago, Gederas said:

Go off the more recent and well-written stuff, not the janky ham-fisted early stuff

Would be happy to read a depiction of Primaris that is both recent and well-written. As mentioned, the Successors anthology was in fact recent. That one example was the worst I saw, but the majority of the book was "look how different Primaris are, see how their chapters react."

ADB gonna do what ADB gonna do, but it is not an indication of the overall quality of the lore.

Maybe the very newest books are different?

[Orange Knight]

I do agree that we need to be mature and understand that there are different sides to GW and the way they portray things.

Their marketing spiel and the actual lore are two different things. Why are people still hung up about the way the marketing team presented Primaris "out of universe"? Yes, they did talk Primaris up on Warhammer Community, but their lore in the better BL novels is solid. I think there is definitely an element of unjustified complaining that really has no place, 6 years after the fact. It is perpetuated daily as memes and complaints on social media, and it does drip into this forum as well.

@phandaal

The successor anthology does, unfortunately, have some bad writing. My suggestion is to stick to the recent works by Chris Wraight and Guy Haley, these two are the main custodians of the advancing 40k narrative and the most key, current events.

 

[lansalt]

40 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

The successor anthology does, unfortunately, have some bad writing.

It's uneven, but I liked the Crimson Fists story about their relationship with their new primaris that didn't experience the destruction and loss of the infamous Rynn war.

[phandaal]

19 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

I think there is definitely an element of unjustified complaining that really has no place, 6 years after the fact. It is perpetuated daily as memes and complaints on social media, and it does drip into this forum as well.

In threads about new Primaris models and new stuff like Castellans of the Rift, bringing up old dirt would certainly be uncalled for. In a discussion about lore from 2016 onwards, talking about the nature of Primaris Marines' introduction is relevant.

Especially in the context of how Primaris are presented in Black Library publications, which to be clear is what I was referencing - not WarCom marketing or anything like that. The fact that some of it was presented in 2016 is a non sequitur, since the same characterization has continued into 2022.

Regardless, there is no reason to mischaracterize posts. None of this is personal.

54 minutes ago, Orange Knight said:

Chris Wraight and Guy Haley

These guys are solid, yeah. Vaults of Terra has been excellent so far.

[jaxom]

It's like comic book characters. Some creative teams can really draw out their potential and others can't. Or some have a preference for what a character's status quo should be and others look to shake it up.

[twiglets]

As others have mentioned, I got the impression that OP hasn't read all of the fluff when reading through his post. 

Personally, while 40k has always had its weak books, that hasn't really changed the fact that it is currently the best pulp sci-fi universe that exists in popular fiction.

It just seems to be it's nature, it has such a vast library, iirc there are like 500 warhammer 40k/30k books in total, which makes it impossible for all of them to be bangers. The Horus Heresy's weak books didn't change that it's the best universe, and 40k's weak books didn't change that it's the best universe. GW has consistently managed any weaknesses well and kept the ship on course being a really damned good universe, both in the Horus Heresy and 40k. 

 

I also have to +1 on that 40k really can't go down the civil war path again, it's just too much after the Horus Heresy, I don't know many people that could stomach another 56 book saga along similar lines. 

 

The direction that I think is more likely, and what they might be taking inspiration from:

 

 

 

If the Lion comes back I wouldnt be surprised if he does argue and have disagreements with Roboute, it's in his nature because he is very dogmatic, ruthless, and has high friction interpersonal skills. 

I think it likely he will simply pack up his bags and leave for the dark imperium and eventually end up ruling over it as the "eastern roman empire" while Roboute rules over the western roman empire.

What that entails after I'm not sure. In history the western roman empire collapsed and the eastern one endured for a very long time. 

Whatever makes for the most epic of stories I suppose. Maybe we will see terra attacked not in a civil war, but by the xenos, the barbarians, and for the lion to come in and save the day at the last moment, but at some horrible cost. The imperium getting damaged also opens up the possibility of the Tau empire expanding and becoming a more serious threat as it has more room to expand, as well as other xenos empires.

 

 

 

Edited July 22, 2022 by twiglets

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

11 hours ago, TheVoidDragon said:

I really, really dislike the idea of yet more loyalist primarchs returning. Guilliman was a big event that shifted the status quo, affecting the setting to its core in a quite substantial way. It wasn't something done in a whim but rather as part of a huge overhaul to multiple things in the setting. To have another loyalist return and do that again I think would take away from the overall focus and scope of it, getting closer to Horus Heresy 2.0 in a way that turns the setting into something with a large focus on a few specific demigod heroes who have to play an integral part of major events or at the least be a big factor that has to be considered - it would basically become "their" story in a way, as if they're protagonists things revolve around. I don't want to see that happen to 40k. I feel adding more super important powerful "hero" characters for the Imperium would be detrimental to their core themes and the setting as a whole. I don't want them to become just another character in the setting who's there now.

I've seen the whole "The Lion returns and he's MAD" thing suggested before and while that would be a twist on it, do people honestly thing that Guillimans return and those other things alone have been exhausted of their potential to the point it's time to shift things up for the entire setting once again? It's only been a few years and they've barely started as such. To move the baseline of the setting once more would feel like it's undermining that and is asking for what are big special important setting changes to us, and what in-universe are utterly monumental grandiose events (that used to be that sort of "false hope" situation that was part of the core of the themes of the setting) to become the norm and be made quite mundane, not to mention in-universe it would be conflating all those (what should be) once in several millennia events into having multiple occurrences in just a few hundred years. "A long-gone hero of the Imperium has returned to save us in our hour of need? Ehh, he's a bit late now, we already got one of those just last week...".

The supercharacter creep is already bad enough when we've got characters like the Silent king and a High Lord of Terra recently.

You can’t keep being traitor primarchs back to gang up on guilliman.

it just wouldn’t make sense, and once the first loyalist returns further returning loyalists doesn’t upset the status quo, it generally maintains the status quo.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

19 minutes ago, twiglets said:

As others have mentioned, I got the impression that OP hasn't read all of the fluff when reading through his post. 

Personally, while 40k has always had its weak books, that hasn't really changed the fact that it is currently the best pulp sci-fi universe that exists in popular fiction. It just seems to be it's nature, it has such a vast library, iirc there are like 500 warhammer 40k/30k books in total, making it is impossible for all of them to be bangers. 

The Horus Heresy's weak books didn't change that it's the best universe, and 40k's weak books didn't change that it's the best universe. GW has consistently managed any weaknesses well and kept the ship on course being a really damned good universe, both in the Horus Heresy and 40k. 

 

I also have to +1 on that 40k really can't go down the civil war path again, it's just too much after the Horus Heresy, I don't know many people that could stomach another 56 book saga along similar lines. 

 

The direction that I think is more likely, and what they might be taking inspiration from:

 

 

 

If the Lion comes back I wouldnt be surprised if he does argue and have disagreements with Roboute, it's in his nature because he is very dogmatic, ruthless, and has high friction interpersonal skills. 

I think it likely he will simply pack up his bags and leave for the dark imperium and eventually end up ruling over it as the "eastern roman empire" while Roboute rules over the western roman empire.

What that entails after I'm not sure. In history the western roman empire collapsed and the eastern one endured for a very long time. 

Whatever makes for the most epic of stories I suppose. Maybe we will see terra attacked not in a civil war, but by the xenos, the barbarians, and for the lion to come in and save the day at the last moment, but at some horrible cost. The imperium getting damaged also opens up the possibility of the Tau empire expanding and becoming a more serious threat as it has more room to expand.

 

 

 

Being a son of sanguinius i hope that doesn’t happen.

what I think would make more sense would be for the lion to take the role of war master or whatever militant title you want, while guilliman does what he was created to do, and administers to his father’s empire.

 

the lion would be responsible for the overall military strategy on both sides of the imperium, leaving how to achieve those military goals in imperium secundus-i mean nihilus to Dante, while he personally runs the campaigns on the other side.

Edited July 22, 2022 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[Felix Antipodes]

This is exactly where I see things going.  The Lion leading the military side and Guilliman running the admin (with an occasional field role within Sanctus when the Lion is busy elsewhere.  Possibly with Dante taking on the eastern half of Nihilus.  Not sure it’s what I want but I see it coming.

[lansalt]

@twiglets I'd argue that Ultramar has always been the "Easter Roman Empire" of the Imperium, and that the Lion and Guilliman already learned to trust each other by the end of Imperium Secundus, or at least that was their character arc.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

57 minutes ago, lansalt said:

@twiglets I'd argue that Ultramar has always been the "Easter Roman Empire" of the Imperium, and that the Lion and Guilliman already learned to trust each other by the end of Imperium Secundus, or at least that was their character arc.

Though I kinda hope that if lion comes back they have a scene that goes something like this “really? A blondy bloody boi in gold in charge of half the imperium…again?”