The Lion - Son of the Forest by Mike Brooks

[Kelborn]

Hail!

 

You know the drill. I know the drill. Everyone knows the drill!

 

Let's use this one to talk about our expectations and fears about the upcoming and certainly highly expected novel!

 

Btw. does it count as "called it" when I was wishing for one some days ago? ;P

 

Cheers,

Kel

[wecanhaveallthree]

Now taking bets for which named Dark Angel will take mortal wounds, and be faced with the decision to die - or cross the perilous RUBICON PRIMARIS! Dun dun dunnn!

 

For my blood money, I would like to see a bitter, angry Lion doubling-down on his 'I'm the only person who can make the hard choices' attitude circa Dreadwing. I will be deeply disappointed if we get an introspective, mellow, 'mea culpa' Lion. I don't want reasonable people. I want big, angry spacemans making bad decisions! We've already got Mr. Reasonable in Guilliman. Let's have a Primarch-sized Colquan, please.

 

 

[helterskelter]

I am wondering what the situation would be like if the Lion rocks up to the Rock with 20,000 of his former dreadwing/firewing lads from 30k that are loyal to him and telling the rest of the 40k DA to get over it. 

"Any chaplain pipes up you're getting your head punched clean off"

[Felix Antipodes]

Would be nice to see the Lion calling in the Unforgiven leadership and reading them the riot act.  I go off for a quick 10k nap and look what you kids did to the house!

[Orange Knight]

I expect that the Lion has been active over the last 10k years, but has somehow been imprisoned/restricted in the way he operates similar to Draigo.

 

I expect the novel will probably end in the current timeline, with the Lion making the choice to go and see his brother and father.

 

I hope we get some interaction between the two brothers, but I fear we won't. 

[grailkeeper]

If he's secretly been active it means he has an idea of what's happening in the Imperium. I find that a little disappointing. This is a chance to have a 30k character wake up in the 40k setting. Nevermind Primaris- Space Marine Chapters should be news to him. The God Emperor and the state of the world generally should be news to him. It'd be far more satisfying to see how he deals with huge philosophical shifts like that.

 

Tldr: it is more interesting to have him be like this 

Edited March 30, 2023 by grailkeeper

[Tolmeus]

55 minutes ago, grailkeeper said:

This is a chance to have a 30k character wake up in the 40k setting

 

You mean exactly like Guilliman? 

[Nagashsnee]

2 minutes ago, Tolmeus said:

 

You mean exactly like Guilliman? 

To be fair the lion went from the Siege to sleep in a very short time 1-2 years, other then the Heresy all he knows is GC era Imperium and Emperor.  Guiliman FOUNDED the modern imperium, ok he did not see the rise of the church, but chapters, the goverment the main PILLARS of imperial power and life were laid down by him. He never thought they would get so rusty but he knows what they are.

 

While similar on a surface level they are very different in many regards. 

[grailkeeper]

16 minutes ago, Tolmeus said:

 

You mean exactly like Guilliman? 

Nope. The Imperium underwent large structural reforms after the Heresy, many of which were instituted by Gulliman. The Lion missed all of these. Its pretty different. Gulliman is a 31K character, The Lion is a 30K character.

Edited March 30, 2023 by grailkeeper

[Karhedron]

My guess is that the Lion has been awake since the opening of the Great Rift so he has been around in 40K long enough to find his feet but not long enough that it is strange that he is only just coming forward now. Marbus's attack to free Luther would be a perfect time for him to awaken but there needs to be some reason for hi to find himself on the wrong side of the Rift in Imperium Nihilus. He is cut off from the bulk of his sons and the stable portion of the Imperium. So he goes back to basics and sets out on a one-man crusade to try and purge each world of its biggest monsters.

 

The book probably starts shortly after Guilliman arrives in Imperium Nihilus. The beginnings of order being restored are enough for the Lion to start making contact with the wider Imperium to find out what is going on. The first things he finds out are that he has missed Guilliman at Baal but that Dante has been appointed Regent. He also learns that Vashtorr and a bunch of the Fallen are making for the Somnium Stars with the loyalist Dark Angels in hot pursuit. So he gathers whatever forces he can scrape together and petitions/orders Dante to help him get to Somnium in time to intervene.

 

Now we only have to wait 3 weeks to find out how wrong I am. 

[Tolmeus]

2 hours ago, grailkeeper said:

Gulliman is a 31K character, The Lion is a 30K character.

 

Good point. Forgot for the moment, that the Lion experienced the Siege of Terra but "vanished" after that.

[DukeLeto69]

The Lion “And stop bloody calling me ‘The Lion’ I know it sounds cool and all but my name is Lionel!”

[Galloway]

Curious to see if/how this book (or maybe future work):

1.  Connects with or builds upon the upcoming Cypher book regarding his identity, purpose, and the Lion sword. Or general clarifies what the role and purpose of Cypher is in a galaxy where the Lion is active again.
2.  Examines what it means for the Lion to be the "Knight of Nihilus" while Dante is the Regent of Imperium Nihilus. With Guilliman in the picture as well, sort of an interesting iteration on Imperium Secundus from HH.

 

[b1soul]

21 hours ago, Orange Knight said:

I expect that the Lion has been active over the last 10k years, but has somehow been imprisoned/restricted in the way he operates similar to Draigo.

 

Off youtuve...GW mentioned the Lion woke in Nihilus/post-Rift (guess would be before the main Arks of Omen plot), so he may have been active for a few decades prior to the current siege of the Rock? Question make as I'm still not sure what the canon time-lapse is between advent of the Great Rift and "current" 40K. Has it been well over a century or just a dozen or so years? Still confused...

 

23 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

I would like to see a bitter, angry Lion doubling-down on his 'I'm the only person who can make the hard choices' attitude circa Dreadwing. I will be deeply disappointed if we get an introspective, mellow, 'mea culpa' Lion. I don't want reasonable people. I want big, angry spacemans making bad decisions! We've already got Mr. Reasonable in Guilliman. Let's have a Primarch-sized Colquan, please.

 

I want intelligent and reasonable (in his own mind) but not mellow. Mellow is too much of a 180 turn from the Lion's core character. He's obviously not a Guilliman clone. Before induction into the Order as Mr. Knightly Knight, he raised himself in a warp-corrupted hellhole The Ist Legion was a legion of proscribed-tech-toting exterminators...the destroyers of Rangda. He got backstabbed by his mentor-turned-best-friend. He has much more of a mistrusting, callous violent streak, more domineering and merciless (RIP Nemiel) than everyone's favourite superhuman bean-counter.

 

But the Lion should be smart, calculating and ultimately loyal to the Emperor and His ideals for the Imperium, and he is capable of humility and acknowledging shortcomings, though such humility is not one of his core traits...in contrast to, say, Vulkan.

 

The mistrusting feral child will always be in him, but I also want to see character development and growth.

[wecanhaveallthree]

I agree with 'growth', but I think people often conflate 'growth' with 'positive change'. Growth can also mean a calcifying of previously-held beliefs, or a return to them, an entrenchment of them. The Lion learned to trust through Imperium Secondus and Ruinstorm. They all but go skipping off into the sunset hand-in-hand. But he was hurt afterwards - he saw the futility of his efforts. Terra fell, the Emperor died because people he trusted and relied upon couldn't get the job done. If they had been more ruthless, more ready to make sacrifices, more Lion-like, maybe the day could have been saved. Maybe things wouldn't have turned to :cuss:. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Growth, in this situation, means became enmeshed, gnarled roots and branches twining into impenetrable foliage. The Lion's moment of trust and weakness saw the death of the dream. Growth means never trusting anyone else to make the hard decisions ever again.

 

We saw what happened when his idea of loyalty was put to the test. He would've destroyed the galaxy rather than let Horus have it. I expect more of the same in corrupted Nihilus. 

[b1soul]

Well, characters can always double-down on their flaws. You could call that negative growth. The most interesting development may be a mixture of negative and positive growth.

 

I'd prefer a plausible scenario with an intelligent Primarch, who sadly miscalculates or goes down a dark path for compelling reasons.

 

At the end of the day, I want to avoid grimdark for the sake of grimdark. That's just not my bag and I think the setting has evolved from its much more satirical roots.

[Karhedron]

3 hours ago, b1soul said:

Question make as I'm still not sure what the canon time-lapse is between advent of the Great Rift and "current" 40K. Has it been well over a century or just a dozen or so years? Still confused...

 

Current is a difficult term to pin down. My understanding of the timeline is that Godblight ends 12 years post-Rift with Guilliman preparing to cross the Rift into Imperium Nihilus.

 

The 10th edition trailer is clearly set post-Baal so maybe a few more years have passed. Mephiston crossing the Rubicon is a post-Baal event. At that point, we had no indication that Dante had yet crossed the Rubicon so maybe a bit more time there.

 

Based on this we can probably assume that AoO and the start of 10th takes place 15-ish years post-rift. It could be further into the future but the 10th edition trailer talks as if Baal was still a fairly recent victory. I don't know how the Psychic Awakening events fit into the timeline as most of these are also post-Baal.

[Triszin]

On 3/30/2023 at 5:27 AM, grailkeeper said:

If he's secretly been active it means he has an idea of what's happening in the Imperium. I find that a little disappointing. This is a chance to have a 30k character wake up in the 40k setting. Nevermind Primaris- Space Marine Chapters should be news to him. The God Emperor and the state of the world generally should be news to him. It'd be far more satisfying to see how he deals with huge philosophical shifts like that.

 

Tldr: it is more interesting to have him be like this 

Lion being stuck in a game of Jumanji for 10k years...

 

I like it.

[b1soul]

“I don't know how the Psychic Awakening events fit into the timeline as most of these are also post-Baal.”

 

Vigilus also really confusing

[byrd9999]

The Lion and Guilliman will be at odds with each other. Guilliman will stick to one side of the rift and the Lion will command the Nihilus side. Plenty of inter-primarch conflict coming up :)

 

 

 

I want a pissed -off Lion who suffers no fools.

[DarkChaplain]

1 hour ago, b1soul said:

“I don't know how the Psychic Awakening events fit into the timeline as most of these are also post-Baal.”

 

Vigilus also really confusing

 

Vigilus takes place mostly before Dark Imperium. Calgar is there around halfway through the Dawn of Fire timeline, but not Primaris, while he has crossed the Rubicon fairly recently by Dark Imperium in the revisions. He's going to head back there after Godblight, though. So after Dark Imperium, Guilliman is likely heading to Vigilus himself, crosses the Rift and ends up at Baal after a while.

 

Various Psychic Awakening events supposedly take part during the Dawn of Fire timeline, too. They're referenced in passing in some novels, but also featured in the appendices. The Pariah Nexus stuff, for instance, and Magnus pulling the Planet of Sorcerers into real space were already mentioned as parallel events. The Magnus stuff is likely happening a couple of years after Wolftime, considering that Ashes of Prospero is that novel's direct follow-up.

 

But on the other hand, we can't really be sure about Nihilus at the best of times. The rift has messed with space and time over there. While Baal won't have been cut off (via warpstorm) for a century now, it's still going to be around 12-15 years. I'd hazard a guess that the Lion's return will be around 20 years post-Rift, just to keep some buffer for in-between storytelling open.

[Scribe]

7 hours ago, b1soul said:

At the end of the day, I want to avoid grimdark for the sake of grimdark. That's just not my bag and I think the setting has evolved from its much more satirical roots.

 

Grimdark is the factual point. :D

[Blood Angel Scout]

10 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

...The Lion learned to trust through Imperium Secondus and Ruinstorm. They all but go skipping off into the sunset hand-in-hand. But he was hurt afterwards - he saw the futility of his efforts. Terra fell, the Emperor died because people he trusted and relied upon couldn't get the job done. If they had been more ruthless, more ready to make sacrifices, more Lion-like, maybe the day could have been saved....

 

We saw what happened when his idea of loyalty was put to the test. He would've destroyed the galaxy rather than let Horus have it. I expect more of the same in corrupted Nihilus. 

For me, the part of quote from him regarding failing the Emperor and his brothers means he's looking at his actions of the past as being the failure, that by going off to destroy the homeworlds of the traitors was futile, destroying Caliban was the result of his previous approach.

 

I agree with the need to see growth in his character as well as the element of retaining his own identity so think it would be interesting if they play on more of his huntsman aspect, less the grand knight theme, stalking the target until position for the perfect strike then hit it with everything. Also theorise/suspect his new forest warp walk technique is due to the two watchers in the dark who are on the base of the new model and would it give a "lore" explanation.

[DarkChaplain]

  

10 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

I agree with 'growth', but I think people often conflate 'growth' with 'positive change'. Growth can also mean a calcifying of previously-held beliefs, or a return to them, an entrenchment of them. The Lion learned to trust through Imperium Secondus and Ruinstorm. They all but go skipping off into the sunset hand-in-hand. But he was hurt afterwards - he saw the futility of his efforts. Terra fell, the Emperor died because people he trusted and relied upon couldn't get the job done. If they had been more ruthless, more ready to make sacrifices, more Lion-like, maybe the day could have been saved. Maybe things wouldn't have turned to :cuss:. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Growth, in this situation, means became enmeshed, gnarled roots and branches twining into impenetrable foliage. The Lion's moment of trust and weakness saw the death of the dream. Growth means never trusting anyone else to make the hard decisions ever again.

 

We saw what happened when his idea of loyalty was put to the test. He would've destroyed the galaxy rather than let Horus have it. I expect more of the same in corrupted Nihilus. 

 

 

The Lion went after traitor homeworlds in part because the Astronomican went out and he believed Terra had fallen. He went into vengeance mode because he thought the Siege was already over. His Legion doubted his course, but he literally lied to and kept the truth from them until way late into the game. He was completely baffled when the Astronomican came back online and he realized what a fool he'd been.

 

His despair doesn't come from his brothers not being able to "get the job done". It was because he was stricken with grief and frustration at his own actions/inaction leading him to be too late to make any sort of difference. He tried to bump off the responsibility for it on Russ, who he arrived alongside with on the home stretch, going so far as to stabbing him, which Russ just let happen.

...because he knew the Lion needed an outlet for his self-loathing at the time.

 

The Lion gave up after Ruinstorm. He went for a scorched earth strategy because he couldn't think of anything else to do. Unlike Guilliman, who kept pushing forwards even as the Astronomican was faint or extinguished, with Guilliman's usual methodical planning, the Lion stopped trying to get to Terra for a while.

 

He didn't see "the futility of his efforts", he saw that he's made the wrong efforts altogether and might have inadvertedly caused this outcome. He wasn't angry at his brothers - not even Russ, really - but himself.

Edited March 31, 2023 by DarkChaplain

[wecanhaveallthree]

Quote

that by going off to destroy the homeworlds of the traitors was futile

 

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Dreadwing makes it very clear that he knows it's futile in the sense of contributing to the Siege or any future military campaign. He's not doing it because there is a genuine strategic value to doing so, he's doing it out of spite. By his reckoning, Terra and the Emperor are gone, so there's no fight left to fight. Just indiscriminate destruction. He's even killing his allies to get his hands on their weapons to cause more destruction. The Lion isn't like Guilliman, to go off and build a pocket empire and try and hang on, he's not even like Russ - Chaos' 'lever' on Russ is that he could still save some segment of humanity if he ditched the war (which Russ refuses, but certainly has an impact on him). The Lion isn't interested in abstracts, or even really interested in humanity. He never has been. He's not wired that way. He did, indeed, let Caliban be stripped of its culture and environment as Luther alleges because he was not interested. 

 

'Loyalty is its own reward' is an enormously sinister line when we understand it to mean 'I will continue to kill in the Emperor's name, regardless of whether that is of any benefit to anybody'. Loyalty for the sake of loyalty rather than reason is why people got their heads punched off. 

 

I don't want a tempered, subtle, 'huntsman' Lion. That has never been his character, at least to me. When I think of all his motifs, I think of the stereotypical Knight Templar, Good Is Not Nice, the fact that a holy knight or paladin's power doesn't come from oaths or morals - it comes from a patron deity. The Lion is empowered by the Emperor, temporally if not spiritually (yet?), and the Emperor is vastly cruel in the name of destroying 'wrong' and 'evil' and 'Chaos'. So too is the Lion. His 'oath', his 'loyalty', is all he has in the grim darkness of the far future.