Speculative Discussion El'Jonson rumoured to return: what do you expect will happen?

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Time warps are an overused McGuffin if ever there was one.

[Scribe]

3 hours ago, phandaal said:

Gav Thorpe already retconned the destruction of Caliban to be caused by Azrael accidentally sending a warp storm back in time. Hard to get much worse than that, so why not?

 

Another example of why a selective and curated reading of the lore is clearly required for my blood pressure...

[Mjasghar]

Except it wasn’t an accident - either he caused the Fallen to be scattered or he let almost a legion worth of heresy era chaos tainted marines enter the modern era. 

[Felix Antipodes]

To be fair, I dont find the original lore - that it was a by-product of a punch-up between Luther and the Lion as any more credible 

Edited November 1, 2022 by Felix Antipodes

[phandaal]

11 hours ago, Mjasghar said:

Except it wasn’t an accident - either he caused the Fallen to be scattered or he let almost a legion worth of heresy era chaos tainted marines enter the modern era. 

 

The real choice was Gav's - he could either write nonsense, or not. He chose the nonsense.

 

9 hours ago, Felix Antipodes said:

To be fair, I dont find the original lore - that it was a by-product of a punch-up between Luther and the Lion as any more credible 

 

Orbital bombardment is more credible than a secret evil McGuffin reaching back through time, even in 40k.

 

Both of these comments miss the point, unfortunately. What makes this "twist" so egregious is the way it ties decades of lore into a tiny little self-contained loop, like something out of a Saturday morning kid's cartoon.

 

That, and evil time-warping McGuffins are dumb.

 

We can only hope that the Lion's return, if/when it happens, is handled with more respect.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, phandaal said:

 

The real choice was Gav's - he could either write nonsense, or not. He chose the nonsense.

 

 

 

Thats the biggest issue I have with Gav.

 

Luther - First of the Fallen is an excellent book, and his Eldar ones aren't bad.  But then we have the flip side and some of his Dark Angel books are terrible.

[Felix Antipodes]

Just to clarify, I wasn’t defending Gav or the time-loop storyline.  Gav is infuriatingly hit and miss with his output and the time loop plot is one of his worst ideas.

 

 Truthfully, I find most time travel stories lacking.

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Time travel can be a great mechanism but it just seems like most often it’s a cheap hack. And yeah Gav has some duds but I really enjoyed the Last Chancers series of novels - I think that is some of his best stuff.

[Gamiel]

My money is on that if the Lion returns it will be in the same form as Dorn did, as a tank/similar named in his honour.

[Arkangilos]

On 10/28/2022 at 4:51 PM, Scribe said:

 

The Luther, First of the Fallen book, really makes this clear. My favourite Thorpe offering actually.

 

The issue is, the DA are not on the level of Inquisitors or GK as far as carte blanche, and that is where they are going to feel a bit more 'at risk' of their behavior getting out to the wider Imperium.

 

You are of course correct though, standard Tuesday in the Imperium, internal disorder, betrayal, etc etc. ;)

Honestly my biggest disagreement with you on him going against Guilliman is more on the overt nature of the civil war, and the reasons provided. While I personally would rather them work together as allies, what you describe above is superior to what I read in the earlier posts.

 

The conflict should be more covert, and more about cover ups. He disagrees with something Guilliman does? He doesn’t challenge Guilliman in front of everyone at such a bad time, but he works against him behind the scenes. Guilliman won’t do anything because it’s a bad time, but doesn’t trust him. 
 

Guillimans forces figured out a secret regarding the fallen? That entire strike force disappears. But of course, it was in a glorious battle and the Lion sends his respects and honors them greatly. Guilliman is suspicious, but what will he do?

 

Both are still loyal to the Emperor, and both are nominally working with each other and have the appearance of allies, but the Lion is secretly working against Guilliman because he doesn’t think Guilliman is doing what he should.

 

”Big G, I had NO idea you wanted me to defend Proxima III!”

”Lion, I sent four separate people to direct you there.”

”Huh, they must have gotten lost in the warp. I did happen to successfully invade Farca VI, though!”

Edited November 3, 2022 by Arkangilos

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

It should be noted that the Lion is unaware of the second founding. Codex Astartes has prevented another Horus Heresy for 10,000 years (imagine if a man like Lugft Huron controlled a legion rather than a chapter); if you think about the crisis, Dorn was teetering right on the edge and it was he rather than Guilliman who threatened a second Heresy.

 

Math time:

Let's say I have a hundred thousand guys and you have ten thousand; I insist we split our forces into groups of one thousand; so now we each have one thousand; I don't see how this puts you at a disadvantage but I clearly see how this disadvantages me.

 

As noted above Codex Astartes was objectively in the best interests of the Imperium; the Lion's ignorance of the problems inherent to his own Legion much less the Legion-level of organization more generally is a testament against his alleged brilliance.

 

Here’s a good listen from Wolf Lord Rho:

 

 

Edited November 3, 2022 by BLACK BLΠFLY

[jaxom]

16 hours ago, Arkangilos said:

Honestly my biggest disagreement with you on him going against Guilliman is more on the overt nature of the civil war, and the reasons provided. While I personally would rather them work together as allies, what you describe above is superior to what I read in the earlier posts.

 

The conflict should be more covert, and more about cover ups. He disagrees with something Guilliman does? He doesn’t challenge Guilliman in front of everyone at such a bad time, but he works against him behind the scenes. Guilliman won’t do anything because it’s a bad time, but doesn’t trust him. 
 

Guillimans forces figured out a secret regarding the fallen? That entire strike force disappears. But of course, it was in a glorious battle and the Lion sends his respects and honors them greatly. Guilliman is suspicious, but what will he do?

 

Both are still loyal to the Emperor, and both are nominally working with each other and have the appearance of allies, but the Lion is secretly working against Guilliman because he doesn’t think Guilliman is doing what he should.

 

”Big G, I had NO idea you wanted me to defend Proxima III!”

”Lion, I sent four separate people to direct you there.”

”Huh, they must have gotten lost in the warp. I did happen to successfully invade Farca VI, though!”

 

That's actually a large part of their relationship in the Imperium Secundus arc. I never knew how badly I needed the Lion passive-aggressively handling Guilliman until I read those books. "I promise I won't send my legion into that area to hunt down Kurze," immediately followed by fire-bombing the region and going in solo.

 

14 hours ago, BLACK BLΠFLY said:

As noted above Codex Astartes was objectively in the best interests of the Imperium; the Lion's ignorance of the problems inherent to his own Legion much less the Legion-level of organization more generally is a testament against his alleged brilliance.

 

I apologize if this was covered in the video (I can't listen to it at the moment), but one thing of note was how the Codex Astartes was objectively in the best interests of the Imperium as it was post-Scouring. The traitor threat was believed to be largely gone and it isn't until the War of the Beast that there's any hint of something else that could threaten the Imperium as a whole. Breaking the legions into chapters made a lot of sense in that context, as they'd most likely have been operating at the chapter level anyway. A legion is overkill for dealing with xenos pirates, pocket kingdoms, or break-away systems. I think it's in Godblight (maybe Plague War?) where Guilliman acknowledges how the Chapters are not ideal for the wars he's been fighting and gearing up to fight against Mortarion, Ghazgull Thraka, and Abaddon.

 

I think the problem with the whole traitor Dark Angel issue is that it wasn't written well in Descent of Angels, the Lion's characterization has jumped around so wildly, and what should have been a slow burn was begun too early. The internal logic doesn't work with the set up we received, unlike the White Scars. The Khan was equally ignorant of the problems within his legion, but the problems were much more believable.