'Siege of Terra - The End and the Death Volume 1' by Dan Abnett

[darkhorse0607]

14 hours ago, Corinthus said:

So, it's been a moment since the End and the Death part 1 dropped. Any news about part 2? Confirmation about a possible third part? If they are going to space part 1 and part 2 by six months I'm going to be really pissed.

 

Not anything they've said officially. The rumor originally was that they showed off the cover so early because they had planned to put part two out by the time 10th ed launches, so there's no splitting the hype between the Heresy and 40k. But now we are so close to 10th launching, that I don't think that's going to happen either because normally with a new big box they kind of clear the rest of the month for releases.

 

But then again, this is Black Library, so it could be any time between two weeks ago and they forgot to tell anyone, and the end of the year.

If it's not announced today I don't think we will see it before late June/July but who knows

[Taliesin]

20 hours ago, Corinthus said:

So, it's been a moment since the End and the Death part 1 dropped. Any news about part 2? Confirmation about a possible third part? If they are going to space part 1 and part 2 by six months I'm going to be really pissed.

 

Think youre definitely looking at six months apart considering part 1 released in Feb, possibly more.

[System Sound]

I wouldn't be surprised if they keep it till Black Library Celebration 2024...

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

Going to say probably a fall release with the preview going up aug/early sept 

[TrevorLoLz]

On 5/27/2023 at 6:58 PM, Lord Lorne Walkier said:

I

Loken is on the other side of the ambush but the same thing happens.  One side is moving through the battle space, 'combat-ready and wary/  Their optics and sensoria are particularly large and sensitive'  Loken's 10th co, Locasta Tactical squad are astartes but they are not, 'purpose-specific clade designed for line infiltration, and group-unified by stealth-adaptive coding',  The 10th is just a Battle Company.  The invisibles needed 'Wonderful form of field tech' to do what Loken was able to do with just Kneeling?  

 

Loken is an Invisible.

 

This is a reach and, respectfully, you are clutching at straws.  One of the points of that battle in Horus Rising is to show the sheer dominance of the Astartes as they attack 63-19, otherwise the reader is left wondering why we care so much.  

In relation to this Skitarri ambush, you are making a lot about one scene in a book and using that as a sqaure peg to bash into the round hole of a few of your theories.

I would not be surprised if Loken was turned into a psyker now, just because he's had everything else happen to him, but the earlier books definitely do not suggest he is anything else other than a true blue standard Space Marine leader who said "no" to treachery while everyone else did.  That is the point of his character, not being some super secret alpha psyker exception.

[Arkangilos]

On 5/18/2023 at 8:20 AM, TrevorLoLz said:

I think, at least on the loyalist side, the Unforgiven Chapters take that mantle.

Yeah, I think the Sons of Dorn, Sanguinius, and the Lion all pretty much are the three “cohesive” ones, explicitly stating that pretty much all the successors with very few exceptions always back each other up in times of need as if they are one legion. I don’t know much about the IF, but I know on the BA side that is what happens. Baal is about to get attacked and all but a handful show up. One because Dante didn’t want them there, one because they were too far a way, and one because they might not have gotten the message (but maybe?). And I could be forgetting one but it is a “recent” founded chapter that didn’t have much history with them. Heck, even excommunicated chapters showed up.

 

But if we want to get REAL honest about the, the MOST post heresy cohesive chapter would be the Space Wolves. They never split :p

[Blood Angel Scout]

On 5/27/2023 at 10:28 AM, Lord Lorne Walkier said:

I thought I might actualy have a chance to convince you on this.  I went back to some old posts digging for something i had quoted and found out that we have been arguing about whether Loken is a psyker since at least 2011.

Blood Angel Scout said:

 

 

 

I think you just don't want this to be true so I have 0% chance of changing your mind.  

 

 

 

I re read the part of Horus Rising when Loken encountered the 'Invisibles', and I think I found something.

 

 

 

 

Loken is on the other side of the ambush but the same thing happens.  One side is moving through the battle space, 'combat-ready and wary/  Their optics and sensoria are particularly large and sensitive'  Loken's 10th co, Locasta Tactical squad are astartes but they are not, 'purpose-specific clade designed for line infiltration, and group-unified by stealth-adaptive coding',  The 10th is just a Battle Company.  The invisibles needed 'Wonderful form of field tech' to do what Loken was able to do with just Kneeling?  

 

Loken is an Invisible.

Yeah, thought this was familiar...

 

As many have said, it was a reach then and in part now, mainly because at this point in the Siege, everything's broken, time and reality. I will acknowledge the current ability shown by Loken could be psychic in nature, yet we still haven't seen him consciously activate, deploy, use it intentionally. Even the descriptions are loose inferences, leading it more to the reader to interpret. 

 

If he does turn out have been psychic the whole time, it takes away from any sense of character development as well as raise questions about why he didn't use his abilities from the beginning or throughout the series, his many interactions with daemons, why the fake out for being a GK Grand Master or would he need to be psychic for being one of the possible Inquisition or so many other events that could've went differently

 

All of that may still yet be answered but it still isn't a confirmed thing and is why many of us are trying to say basically you think x, I think y about Loken, based upon the lack of a definitive point of reference.

 

Not trying to be dismissive cause I get it, you want it to confirm your nearly 12 year old theory and if it happens well done, you saw something the majority of us didn't, will admit didn't see it yet until each of us read something otherwise to confirm it either way, we're going to keep going round and round, getting further off-topic.

 

As to Part 2 I'm wondering what order the final events occur, in terms of the impact of Sanguinius's death and the subsequent rage of the BA...is that what turns the battle on the surface or is it a temporary stop gap? Do the DA get the Astronomican lit before or after The Emperor's defeated Horus?  Will there be a last conversation with Malcador when they bring him to the Throne? How will Dorn get out and where's his cohort of Fists-no mention of them either?

[DarkChaplain]

I'll flip this around from the Fists, and both Angels:

 

The Ultramarines have so many successors, Legion-cohesion is basically no longer achievable. There are some Chapters with stronger links to home, but they're pretty autonomous even then.

The White Scars are independent by nature. Even during the Great Crusade, they were hardly the most coherent force, and their free-spirited nature hasn't diminished since.

The Wolves never had successors until Primaris got around the issues with the gene-seed not working with non-Fenrisians. They only really had the Wolf Brothers experiment, which "failed" and was canned back during the Battle of the Fang.

The Salamanders have some pretty diverse offspring, I'd say, but still not much in terms of numbers. Those we know about might not even get along all too well with the progenitor Chapter.

The Raven Guard I feel are a bit too trimmed towards stealth and insurgency forces to offer the same level of shoulder-to-shoulder cohesion you'd see from most Chapters/Legions.

 

We know for a fact that the original Imperial Fists successors had that Last Wall protocol ordered by Dorn, to reform the Legion for all intents and purposes. It's what let the original Chapter survive during the War of the Beast.

 

The Blood Angels share their Curse and while they might not see eye to eye on their methods on dealing with it, they're still in close contact by way of council and characters like Astorath putting down Black Ragers all over, no matter which Chapter they came from. Even the exiled ones came around to help defend Baal during the Tyranid invasion, which is probably the most recent concerted bloodline-cooperation we've seen in the timeline (excluding the Primaris Greyshields, obviously).

 

The Dark Angels share their status as Unforgiven, their secret shame, among the successors, so coordination is required to keep them from getting in each others' ways hunting the Fallen and keeping track. Would be pretty messy if one Chapter had cleared a name off the list and the rest still thought he was alive and kicking three millennia later, right? Unlike the Blood Angels, they also keep their close association more under wraps, because it might lead to uncomfortable questions.

[Lord Lorne Walkier]

On 5/29/2023 at 2:32 PM, TrevorLoLz said:

 

This is a reach and, respectfully, you are clutching at straws.  One of the points of that battle in Horus Rising is to show the sheer dominance of the Astartes as they attack 63-19, otherwise the reader is left wondering why we care so much.  
 

 

The sheer dominance is on display, for sure, with only one exception.  This scene with the Invisible ambush.  They are the only thing that slows them down.  The ones who killed Sejanus.  I am reaching, for straws.  I did the same thing when I said Loken would live past Istavaan III.  I was way out on a Limb there.  Did not break.  I also said Loken would turn out to be a Psyker.  Even less agreed with that then just being alive.  What did you think about those questions?  Where you on the right side?

 

In relation to this Skitarri ambush, you are making a lot about one scene in a book and using that as a sqaure peg to bash into the round hole of a few of your theories.

I would not be surprised if Loken was turned into a psyker now, just because he's had everything else happen to him, but the earlier books definitely do not suggest he is anything else other than a true blue standard Space Marine leader who said "no" to treachery while everyone else did.  That is the point of his character, not being some super secret alpha psyker exception.

 

The suggestions you say are not there, are hidden, subtle.  If you are so sure they are not there, you will miss them.  I saw them, only after re reading the book looking for a clue as to why or how Loken might still be alive after Istvaan III.  If you get the feeling that Loken was 'just a guy', you aren't so much wrong as tricked.  Also plenty said no to treachery,  he just lived where most others died.  I could point you to the hints, chapter and verse, but I've found it kinda pointless if there is no desire to even look, or find what might be there.

 

On 5/29/2023 at 4:18 PM, Blood Angel Scout said:

 

If he does turn out have been psychic the whole time, it takes away from any sense of character development as well as raise questions about why he didn't use his abilities from the beginning or throughout the series, his many interactions with daemons, why the fake out for being a GK Grand Master or would he need to be psychic for being one of the possible Inquisition or so many other events that could've went differently

 

All of that may still yet be answered but it still isn't a confirmed thing and is why many of us are trying to say basically you think x, I think y about Loken, based upon the lack of a definitive point of reference.

 

Not trying to be dismissive cause I get it, you want it to confirm your nearly 12 year old theory and if it happens well done, you saw something the majority of us didn't, will admit didn't see it yet until each of us read something otherwise to confirm it either way, we're going to keep going round and round, getting further off-topic.

 

 

1) ' why he didn't use his abilities from the beginning or throughout the series,' 

 

This I have the answer for.  He is a 'latent' psyker. Latent- ' (of a quality or state) existing but not yet developed or manifest; hidden or concealed.'  I don't think he is hiding it but it is concealed.  I think it is all about the Council of Nikaea.  I think Horus chose to suppress the psykers in his legion.   I guess by hypnotherapy.  Until Satunine, Loken thought he was no psyker.  The thing with Latents is they need some kind of Trauma to get over the block.  For Loken, it was a seriers of traumas.  1st was Jubal.  When he was fighting him he got hit hard and blacked out for a split second.  Right after he was about to slip over the edge of a bottomless pit and only a 'fury' saved him.  The next one I've identified is when he squared off with Abaddon, on Istvaan III.  Right after Lil Horus killed Torgaddon, Loken rushed Abaddon and had a moment of hate filled rage that surprised even him.  Then he was buried and left for dead, marooned.  He went crazy and lost himself.  Cerberus was the result.  Rubio felt the power of this mind and was overwhelmed by its power (Legion of one).  The last break was when he was about to die to the Deamon Tormegeddon in Satunine.  He had Rubio's force sword in his hand and in a last ditch effort used the power within to kill the thing.  Anger was also apart of this.  It is the common thread in his breaks.

 

You seem willing to concede that in the right circumstances Loken can use the force sword.  You say that you are still unconvinced though.  In 8th- 9th edition 40k, the use of a force weapon is a force power,  just like smite.  Its a power that all psykers can use.  Is this not the 'definitive point of reference' you need?

 

While I was having all this swirl around in my head I thought of something even more out there.  In the End and the Death, Loken was appearing in places far away from where he was moments before, unexpectedly.  When I read it I was thinking that the warp was acting up.  But I got to thinking and Loken was the only one who this was happening too as far as I can tell.  Was Loken Teleporting? I think so.  If so then that's Invisibility, and Teleport.  Granted the Teleport was uncontrolled but if he could get a handle on it. Very scary.

[SkimaskMohawk]

1 hour ago, Lord Lorne Walkier said:

While I was having all this swirl around in my head I thought of something even more out there.  In the End and the Death, Loken was appearing in places far away from where he was moments before, unexpectedly.  When I read it I was thinking that the warp was acting up.  But I got to thinking and Loken was the only one who this was happening too as far as I can tell.  Was Loken Teleporting? I think so.  If so then that's Invisibility, and Teleport.  Granted the Teleport was uncontrolled but if he could get a handle on it. Very scary.

 

If it's not the warp basically shattering distances and time across terra and is just loken being special, then the book is one of the worst I've read. And it has nothing to do with loken being special; Abnett already has so many inconsistencies from echoes to his story that he needs "time and distance are all screwed up" to cover for him. You can't have the Delphic battlements be the last wall, a wasteland surrounding it, and all the set up in Echoes, for so many imperial forces to be surviving and fighting up to the lions gate still. For the imminent daemon threat in the sanctum that necessitated the closing of the eternity gate to not be mentioned or happening at all. For dorn and his crew from bhab to get back into the palace. 

 

The book needs it to blanketing event, or it falls apart. Also the bhab evac and death guard attack are totally instances of distance warping.

[Moonreaper666]

2 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

If it's not the warp basically shattering distances and time across terra and is just loken being special, then the book is one of the worst I've read. And it has nothing to do with loken being special; Abnett already has so many inconsistencies from echoes to his story that he needs "time and distance are all screwed up" to cover for him. You can't have the Delphic battlements be the last wall, a wasteland surrounding it, and all the set up in Echoes, for so many imperial forces to be surviving and fighting up to the lions gate still. For the imminent daemon threat in the sanctum that necessitated the closing of the eternity gate to not be mentioned or happening at all. For dorn and his crew from bhab to get back into the palace. 

 

The book needs it to blanketing event, or it falls apart. Also the bhab evac and death guard attack are totally instances of distance warping.

 

To be fair a lot of Dorn's forces are outside Eternity Gate dying to buy timr

 

I thought it's implied Malcador or the Emperor are helping Loken?

 

I always thought of Loken as the loyalist rival to Abaddon and the Warp resonates in both of them

[Lord_Caerolion]

I mean, one of the key themes of the book is that reality is breaking down, time is coming to a standstill, and distance is malleable.
Loken is absolutely not the only person this is occurring with. 

[TrevorLoLz]

Agreed with Lord_Caerolian that it’s exceptionally clear in the book that time is warping and nothing makes sense. Hence why Loken takes various “wrong turns” and ends up at places completely different to where he should be.  
 

Suggesting it’s Loken “teleporting” (either wilfully or because he’s a “latent psyker”) is reading too much into it.

[Lord Lorne Walkier]

5 hours ago, Lord_Caerolion said:

I mean, one of the key themes of the book is that reality is breaking down, time is coming to a standstill, and distance is malleable.
Loken is absolutely not the only person this is occurring with. 

 

Time has stopped for everyone.  There are tons of examples to prove this.  Not everyone has noticed it to the same degree though.  As for Distance being malleable, I'm not so sure.  Maybe Keeler's group is on a long march but they are not poofing from one place to the next.   They are in a warp storm so we can make any kind of reality we want but only Loken is teleporting that we know of.  Maybe you have some examples I've overlooked?  Loken says to Ahlborn..

 

'I think the empyric is in us deep, it is warping everything.  Time.  Spaces.   The materia of the world and the Palace.  My being here is not possible, and yet here I am.  The impossible, Ahlborn, no longer exists.'

 

The next scene says he is with Ahlborn for 20 mins then he steps off the street they are on into a yard.  Ahlborn and the crowd they were with are simple gone.  Why did Ahlborn get left behind?  If one were to teleport, that is how it might feel.  Later Loken tells the same to Sinderman but in more detail.  He thinks distances are blurring.  For him they might be.  No one else has made this observation that I can tell.  Lokens belief that this is happing might be what is triggering his movements, though they came after...

[grailkeeper]

Dan Abnett will be giving a talk on this soon if any 9f you are near Rochester.

https://www.store104.co.uk/blogs/events/the-end-and-the-death-and-other-stories-an-evening-with-dan-abnett

[Blood Angel Scout]

How do the Sons of Horus react once the Emperor kills Horus? Anytime a primarch has been killed, we've seen their legion go into rage mode and for me, it's the release of the primarch "soul" (or lesser daemonic/warp spirit trapped in human shell) that is the trigger so will this be the same as all lore up til now is that the Emperor fully deletes it from existance and I'm not sure if any Sons or Black Legion have mentioned that impact on them? 

[grailkeeper]

 

22 minutes ago, Blood Angel Scout said:

How do the Sons of Horus react once the Emperor kills Horus? Anytime a primarch has been killed, we've seen their legion go into rage mode and for me, it's the release of the primarch "soul" (or lesser daemonic/warp spirit trapped in human shell) that is the trigger so will this be the same as all lore up til now is that the Emperor fully deletes it from existance and I'm not sure if any Sons or Black Legion have mentioned that impact on them? 

They run away from the Siege and the other traitors hate them for it. ADB has mentioned this a few times.  Could all change I suppose.

[Blood Angel Scout]

On 6/5/2023 at 11:01 AM, grailkeeper said:

 

They run away from the Siege and the other traitors hate them for it. ADB has mentioned this a few times.  Could all change I suppose.

 That's what I'm wondering about as we saw Abaddon struggle to get a force together to head to the Vengeful Spirit and as you say the Black Legion novel referenced the retreat plus the short with Abaddon in the warp alone after he hid the Spirit. I'm guessing it will/should be different to how Death Guard felt at Mortarion's death, portrayed as a sense of withdrawal or absence, opposed to the cold fury of the Scars in Warhawk, as it's not the release of the soul or banishment but the complete obliteration of one. 

 

It's also going to be interesting to see that hatred among the other legions transpire, as other than Fulgrim and his unconfirmed location on Terra, the rest of the traitor primarchs are gone and said legions are doing their own thing. 

[Xenith]

On 6/5/2023 at 11:01 AM, grailkeeper said:

 

They run away from the Siege and the other traitors hate them for it. ADB has mentioned this a few times.  Could all change I suppose.

 

Yea, this has been in the fluff for well over 20 years now, probably dating back to 2nd ed or earlier. Other legions thought they could still win, however the BL pulled out and ran off back to the eye, ther other legions hated them for it, and ravaged them into near death in the legion wars within the Eye - only rescued once Abaddon re-emerged and united the remnants of the BL. 

[DarkChaplain]

The weird thing now is that we know the Iron Warriors are almost all gone, with only stubborn stragglers remaining.

 

The Word Bearers didn't participate in large scale, with Lorgar not being around at all despite having been there in old fluff.

The Night Lords were there in part under the Painted Count, but he got axed early on and the Legion isn't really coherent at the Siege.

The World Eaters just had their Primarch banished and their leadership is otherwise broken to the core, with Khârn and others being goners. They're mindlessly raging for the most part.

The Thousand Sons haven't fully committed from the beginning, and while Magnus went to support Horus after he got cast out of the Throneroom, the Legion isn't all there, and Magnus got his butt whooped in the Webway.

Fulgrim has gone off after Saturnine and not played a role since, with the Emperor's Children twiddling civilians somewhere, but barely pursuing the real war effort anymore.

And Mortarion? Gone, banished, with Typhus usurping control. He's happy with what he's got right now, I'd wager, and I can't see him pursuing the war to the bitter end when he's already reached his personal goals.

 

I just don't see how there'd be the sort of major outrage against the Sons of Horus after the rout. Almost every single other Legion either pulled out, never committed properly or went off to do their own things halfway through. If anything, right now, the Sons of Horus are the only Legion still pretty much committed to winning this thing. How could such unified outrage about their "cowardice" form when the ones among the other Legions who did take it seriously are dead, and the others have fallen to their gods' whims?

 

Feels like one more of those issues with axing so many vital PoV characters and organizational structure so early into the Siege. Right now, the pressure on the Loyalists is basically all about "Chaos is here, time/space is f'd up, the Gods encroach on the Emperor", with the Legions being cannon fodder. I'm not seeing the great generals of the Crusade making their maneuvers, the rank and file crushing resistance, etc. We've been told many times throughout the Siege that it's "no longer a Legion War", and it's true - but that also means that I can no longer see the Legions themselves as all too upset about the thing failing, or even see them as a serious threat to Terra, when all I'm seeing is how they've fallen apart half the Siege-series ago.

[Inferno XXVth]

26 minutes ago, DarkChaplain said:

 

I just don't see how there'd be the sort of major outrage against the Sons of Horus after the rout. Almost every single other Legion either pulled out, never committed properly or went off to do their own things halfway through. If anything, right now, the Sons of Horus are the only Legion still pretty much committed to winning this thing. How could such unified outrage about their "cowardice" form when the ones among the other Legions who did take it seriously are dead, and the others have fallen to their gods' whims?

 

It's the same principle of Aesop's fable of the Wolf and the Lamb. A tyrant will always find a pretext for its tyranny. It's not about being reasonable or logical, it's about being angry, bitter, and stuck in the Eye of Terror after being promised the galaxy. The Sons of Horus were simply the weakest link, having lost everything during the Siege. No other reason to hunt them down like dogs is required.

Edited June 6, 2023 by Inferno XXVth

[Sothalor]

The Sons of Horus have the unfortunate position of being the "face" of the traitor legions - they were the most visible, the most favored, the pre-eminent Astartes against the Emperor. That also makes them an easy psychological and material scapegoat for when things have gone horribly wrong.

 

We see it all the time in our own world in everything from sports to corporate ladders to playground cliques to communist dictatorships.

 

Yesterday's Darling Celebre is today's Enemy Number One.

[grailkeeper]

https://www.amazon.com/End-Death-Horus-Heresy-Siege/dp/1800268785?ref_=ast_author_dp

 

End and the Death 2 Release date announced. Its Nov 3rd#

 

The second volume of book 8 in the Global best selling The Horus Heresy: Siege of Terra series.

Terra is besieged. Humanity’s salvation lies on a knife edge. The Warmaster Horus’ bloody seven-year crusade has led to this: the cradle of mankind, where he is to kill his father, the Emperor.

With the war at this critical juncture, Sanguinius, primarch of the loyalist Blood Angels, braves the horrors of the Warmaster’s flagship, The Vengeful Spirit, with a single purpose in mind: to slay his brother Horus, decapitate the Heresy once and for all, and stop the forces of Chaos from taking Holy Terra.

But at the whim of a Warmaster fallen so far from grace, the Dark Gods will not make Sanguinius’ task an easy one, and as the war edges towards its explosive, bloody conclusion, events are about to unfold that could either save humanity, or plunge it headlong into an eternity of darkness.

[Karhedron]

Is this basically all about Sanguinius fighting his way through the Vengeful Spirit to confront Horus? We have already had Sangy confronting his fate in Ruinstorm, I hope this is not a retread.

[Roomsky]

You might say you... Fear to Retread?