GW, BL and the End of Things

[Moonreaper666]

19 hours ago, Scribe said:

 

Besides, we already have child soldiers, they are called Astartes.

 

Not as Grimdark as TRILLIONS of underage, untrained, Guardsmen banzai charging the enemies of the Imperium every hour!

 

Loyalist Astartes do die a lot in 40k.

 

10 hours ago, EverythingIsGreat said:

 

I am sure there are reasons for the resurrection of the Squats in current lore. Mind you, there are quite a few differences between 1st edition Squats and 9th edition Votann, which is to be expected as the setting evolves.

The evolution may be opportunistic on the part of GW. For example, in-universe, the current state of affairs was caused by Necrons. They warded real space against Chaos via Blackstone, and it took a supposed martial genius like Abaddon to figure out that he had first to remove Blackstone in sufficient quantity in order to launch a proper campaign against the Imperium.

I have no way of knowing, but in all probability that was not what GW had in mind when they first introduced the Necrons.

For me, Tyranids are most intriguing. They are supposedly exo-galactic yet they react to stuff we normally think of as galactic, like the Astronomican and the Warp (the lore up to now sets the actionable universe of WH40K as being confined to the galaxy). Why do Tyranids relate/can act upon that stuff? Maybe it will be clearer in the 23rd ed. Rulebook.

 

The Votann should have Chaos versions as well. Greed, Envy, Hate, Ambition. They are just as human as the Imperium.

 

What is the population of the Votann? The Chaos version should have a quarter of their numbers, but increasing while the Votann's numbers are going down (even before the Rift)

 

Ka'Bandha and other Khornate followers have gone outside the Galaxy

[Scribe]

32 minutes ago, Moonreaper666 said:

Not as Grimdark as TRILLIONS of underage, untrained, Guardsmen banzai charging the enemies of the Imperium every hour!

 

Your understanding of the logistics is challenged to say the least.

[EverythingIsGreat]

15 hours ago, Moonreaper666 said:

Ka'Bandha and other Khornate followers have gone outside the Galaxy

 

Could you give more related information? Where is this mentioned?

[Moonreaper666]

9 hours ago, EverythingIsGreat said:

 

Could you give more related information? Where is this mentioned?

 

Trying to remember. Ka'bandha is in the Warp going through it in insane speeds, there he saw many galaxies or universes. Devastation of Baal I think

 

A female servant (former Guardswoman became prisoner) wears her lord's armor (World Eater) and goes through a trip throughout the galaxy and beyond, seeing only blood

 

The Eldar can't escape Slaanesh. Should they go to another galaxy or universe, Slaanesh will catch up to them. The Beheading

 

In the Chaos Knights Codex, the Chaos Gods can see all of time and space

 

Chaos Daemon Codex has Ku'gath's Nurglings carry his heavy ass across the Universe

 

"'This Universe will burn as countless others have burned before it!' There can be no victory agaisnt Chaos"

-Wolfsbane

[Arkangilos]

On 4/23/2023 at 8:31 PM, Moonreaper666 said:

Devastation of Baal I think

Don't quote me on this, but I am about 100% certain with no doubt that that is not the case. Could be wrong.

 

On 4/22/2023 at 7:23 PM, Moonreaper666 said:

Not as Grimdark as TRILLIONS of underage, untrained, Guardsmen banzai charging the enemies of the Imperium every hour!

Don't quote me on this either, but I'm fairly certain that, as a whole, that has never been a thing. 

 

I think, for the sake of truth and credibility, you ought to actually cite your sources. Like, not, "I think it's in this" or "-wolfsbane" or something else like that.

 

Try something like, "Book x, page seven, 'the exact quote provided here' ".

 

For example, "On page 324 of Fires of Death, "trillions of children were drafted and sent screaming into the enemy. The commissar smiled as a lone tear came to his eye at the sacrifices made by the faithful. Alas, it was all for nought.'" Only something real, not that exact thing and not made up.

[wecanhaveallthree]

Quote

Don't quote me on this, but I am about 100% certain with no doubt that that is not the case. Could be wrong.

 

It definitely happens. Mephiston yeets Ka'bandha outside of reality. This makes him SO ANGRY that, despite being in a place where he could obtain a true understanding of universal mechanics and know more than anybody else, ever, he just headbutts his way back into reality and decides to kill Tyranids on the moon instead. It's in chapter twenty-six.

 

 

[Arkangilos]

9 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

 

It definitely happens. Mephiston yeets Ka'bandha outside of reality. This makes him SO ANGRY that, despite being in a place where he could obtain a true understanding of universal mechanics and know more than anybody else, ever, he just headbutts his way back into reality and decides to kill Tyranids on the moon instead. It's in chapter twenty-six.

 

 

But does it happen as Moonreaper describes, in the context of Moonreaper’s post? 
 

I’ll go back and listen to that chapter later.

 

Just listened. I was right, it did not happen. 
 

As a reminder, Moonreaper’s claim was that he went *out of the galaxy*.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Arkangilos

[EverythingIsGreat]

I think Arkangilos is correct.

 

Just got my hands on this from a friend, and the passage is regrettable.

Mephiston uses sorcery to hold Ka'Banda at bay (the BA Librarians are too weakened to banish it to the Warp), so it is somehow slapped into spaces between worlds or between realities, whatever that could mean. Or between the cushions of the cosmic couch, where the ring you lost 10 years ago is hiding. Anyway, News Flash!!! Multi-dimensional space!! Ka'Banda, being a bad sport as well as apparently an entity even more spectacular than the Four for being able to affect such extracurricular activity, is upsetting the delicate balance of infinite, interleaved universes! How rude!! I mean compared to such shenanigans, messing with the trifling Realspace/Warp dimensions seems like a total comedown. No wonder it's enraged. 

However it's not that it can really do any damage willingly. Too weak for ambulatory activity, it is just falling. And falling. And falli..

Never mind, the Great Rift happens in the parochial Warhammer universe and this somehow affects every effing thing in Creation, including allowing the daemon to grow back some ba.. wings, so he can go back merrily doing what enraged berserkers do.

 

I was relaxing, but this passage definitely harshed my mellow mood.

[Scribe]

Wow, who wrote that bit of genius?

[wecanhaveallthree]

Fraters, fraters. You're quibbling over the absolute smallest of semantics.

 

Quote

Ka’Bandha fell through the hidden spaces between worlds. The occulted gears of creation rushed by him. In the machineries of being were the inner secrets of the universe displayed to him. The daemonkin of Tzeentch would have damned a dozen eternities for a glimpse of what he saw, but Ka’Bandha did not care for knowledge. The things on display were valueless to him, and the wonders of infinity whirled by unappreciated.

 

Ka’Bandha fell forever and for no time at all, until a wave of change rippled out through the multidimensional space he infected, upsetting the delicate workings of infinite, interleaved universes.

 

If you're going to suggest that the intent of Ka'Bandha's Wild Ride was that he did not, in fact, leave the galaxy - and if we really want to get down in the muck, we could say that the Warp itself is no part of the galaxy, so he was already outside of it when Mephiston peeps in on him in front of the Skull Throne - I think you're really arguing for the sake of argument. I very much like 'fell between the cushions of the cosmic couch'. He was certainly in a place where people don't usually go, with a perspective probably only Kairos has had a glimpse of previously (and Kairos didn't come away from that experience unscathed). The words, the clear intent here are that Ka'Bandha was outta there.

 

From a holistic perspective, I'm really unsure why you're arguing at all regarding Chaos having a unique vision of time and space. Horus absolutely does crow at Russ in Wolfsbane about how Chaos is gonna burn it all down, as they've burned it all down before. We did indeed have that wonderful scene in Godblight where Nurgle's daemons chat about how this galaxy is pretty much over. I mean, you don't get much clearer than the destruction of the Old World itself, where Chaos literally blows up the planet, gets bored and moves on. That's how Chaos rolls.  They break their toys and find something new to play with.

 

Hasn't this always been how we understood Chaos?

[EverythingIsGreat]

53 minutes ago, Scribe said:

Wow, who wrote that bit of genius?

 

Guy Haley

[Scribe]

This is why I wish authors were held to the basic facts of the setting.

[Arkangilos]

44 minutes ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

Fraters, fraters. You're quibbling over the absolute smallest of semantics.

 

 

If you're going to suggest that the intent of Ka'Bandha's Wild Ride was that he did not, in fact, leave the galaxy - and if we really want to get down in the muck, we could say that the Warp itself is no part of the galaxy, so he was already outside of it when Mephiston peeps in on him in front of the Skull Throne - I think you're really arguing for the sake of argument. I very much like 'fell between the cushions of the cosmic couch'. He was certainly in a place where people don't usually go, with a perspective probably only Kairos has had a glimpse of previously (and Kairos didn't come away from that experience unscathed). The words, the clear intent here are that Ka'Bandha was outta there.

 

From a holistic perspective, I'm really unsure why you're arguing at all regarding Chaos having a unique vision of time and space. Horus absolutely does crow at Russ in Wolfsbane about how Chaos is gonna burn it all down, as they've burned it all down before. We did indeed have that wonderful scene in Godblight where Nurgle's daemons chat about how this galaxy is pretty much over. I mean, you don't get much clearer than the destruction of the Old World itself, where Chaos literally blows up the planet, gets bored and moves on. That's how Chaos rolls.  They break their toys and find something new to play with.

 

Hasn't this always been how we understood Chaos?

You need to keep up with the context of the argument. 
 

Moonreaper said that several people (not everyone in the warp) left the galaxy. As in, not in the warp, but in actuality.

 

Someone asked for a source. 
 

He gave a false source.

 

I said he was wrong.

 

You jumped in and said Kab did get smacked into the warp, but you did not provide evidence he left the galaxy in the context that Moonreaper provided.

 

I listened to the chapter you cited.

 

The chapter you cited supported your argument, but not Moonreaper’s.

 

So I was not wrong, and Moonreaper was not right.

 

We aren’t playing semantics. We are debating a claim. 

[Arkangilos]

28 minutes ago, Scribe said:

This is why I wish authors were held to the basic facts of the setting.

It wasn’t that bad. Have you not read the book?

 

Also, Guy Haley is by far one of the best 40K BA authors. 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Arkangilos

[wecanhaveallthree]

Ka'Bandha is explicitly not in the Warp as we understand it. He goes from being in front of the Throne in Khorne's domain, to 'somewhere else'. Between The Cosmic Cushions. Some outside space where it seems that both the Warp and the material universe can be observed on some different mechanical level. It's not named, and it doesn't need to be, because the clear intent is that he's somewhere wholly different (and doesn't really care, because he's a very angry boy). He's not in the galaxy. He's not in the Warp. Moonreaper is right; I'm always right. You are, for some reason, defending a position that because Ka'Bandha was not located in the materium outside the known bounds of the galaxy, he never left it. He was apparently just lucid dreaming or something. They must grow the good stuff in the Brass Citadel, I suppose.

 

I really have to ask, because I've seen this a lot - and forgive me for being so ignorant of forum history and context - but there seems to be a certain glee in piling-on our fellow frater, and the responses directed towards them tend to be particularly negative. Why? They've provided a source that supports (in my view, quite strongly) their claim. It's a fair cop. What's the trouble?

 

Quote

This is why I wish authors were held to the basic facts of the setting.

 

Some basic facts are better off forgotten.

 

Enuncia, f'ex.

Edited April 25, 2023 by wecanhaveallthree
sneaky jabs at abnett. jabnetts.

[Scribe]

17 minutes ago, Arkangilos said:

It wasn’t that bad. Have you not read the book?

 

Also, Guy Haley is by far one of the best 40K BA authors. 

 

I dont have Haley remotely close to my top authors, and after some of his work that I felt was wasted money, I havent bought another of his books.

 

Cosmic cushions indeed.

[EverythingIsGreat]

The thing is, Haley is using the omniscient Studio voice here. It is not a character musing, imagining, or perceiving all of which are comfortably ambiguous. 

Apart from introducing a brand new interdimensional reality which seems more fundamental than the Webway (which may be an artifice and not an "organic"part) it does not explain how an entity that has great trouble surviving outside it's natural habitat is able to retain whatever passes for consciousness among such creatures.

This is not POV. It is the way things are, according to BL. Canon, in so many words.

Well, we'll see if this has legs.

 

[Scribe]

14 minutes ago, EverythingIsGreat said:

The thing is, Haley is using the omniscient Studio voice here. It is not a character musing, imagining, or perceiving all of which are comfortably ambiguous. 

Apart from introducing a brand new interdimensional reality which seems more fundamental than the Webway (which may be an artifice and not an "organic"part) it does not explain how an entity that has great trouble surviving outside it's natural habitat is able to retain whatever passes for consciousness among such creatures.

This is not POV. It is the way things are, according to BL. Canon, in so many words.

Well, we'll see if this has legs.

 

 

I need a 'tired' emoji response.

 

40K has a working 'cosmology'. There is no need for this kind of nonsense. Its so, so, so, annoying.

[Arkangilos]

2 hours ago, wecanhaveallthree said:

Moonreaper is right; I'm always right. You are, for some reason, defending a position that because Ka'Bandha was not located in the materium outside the known bounds of the galaxy, he never left it. He was apparently just lucid dreaming or something. They must grow the good stuff in the Brass Citadel, I suppose.

I don’t think you were following the argument, and I think you are refusing to accept that. And he can’t be right if you are right because he says Kab was in the warp, and you said Kab was not in the warp. So what is it? Did he move so fast through the warp he went into other galaxies (Moon’s position), or did he move into a different universe?

 

You can’t both be right. If moon is right, then he did go to other galaxies. Because the warp does have locational significance. The position where you exit in real space depends on your position where you exit in the warp.

1 hour ago, Scribe said:

I dont have Haley remotely close to my top authors, and after some of his work that I felt was wasted money, I havent bought another of his books.

 

Cosmic cushions indeed.

At least read Dante.

Edited April 26, 2023 by Arkangilos

[EverythingIsGreat]

Good day,

 

Re: Devastation of Baal etc.

We can only speculate about the reasons (if any) behind such dangling, or "orphan" plotlines. I think Haley wanted a reason to slow down Ka'Banda so the Chaos forces would not have complete, conclusive victory in this telling and so the Rift would arrive before any such eventuality. Having Mephiston and the BA librarians banishing him would dramatically change the storyline and introduces other complications. But that falling through the cosmic cushions, was it really necessary? It kept Ka'Banda from consuming the planet before the Rift arrived, but why not just show that Mephiston's Erebus-level sorceries weakened the daemon enough to have the same effect?

 

So maybe something else is cooking, and we haven't got the scent of it yet.

To bring another orphan plotline (from the HH/SoT) into view, have Oll's argonauts encountered this same reality in their travels? I faintly remember them going to strange places (not in realspace/warpspace duality, and not in the webway) that they had to immediately get away from.

[Bobss]

afaic this topic has only gained traction in parallel to the emergence of Reddit and the hordes of people there who feel the need to debate a canon as ever-changing and contradictory as 40k. That isn't to say this topic never popped up in forums in the 2000s, as it did, but imo this has only begun to be debated fervently by the Goku-vs-Superman crowd in the last 10-or-so years

 

999.M41 was fine. Roomsky understands this as he's a well-considered person, and probably a similar calibre mind to those who built this IP in the 80s and 90s. Meanwhile we have corporate interests latching onto the 40k equivalent of Muhammad-Ali-vs-Mike-Tyson barbershop talk. Some of the best series written by BL explore the millennia between 30k and 30+10k. The biggest problem I have with the recent Arks of Omen lore is how everything just appears or happens because the plot demands

 

I'm not saying the Siege of Vraks, Necromunda and The Infinite and the Divine can't all exist in the same IP, as they can, but I don't think this macro-level faction-vs-faction stuff really has a place, and with each Primarch returning it basically sets up either a 30-10k sandbox or WHF's End Times lite

 

Neither of which I care for. Give me Black Legion book 3 or a 10-book Age of Apostasy series by Chris Wraight. We vote with our wallets at the end of the day

[DukeLeto69]

“Give me Black Legion book 3 or a 10-book Age of Apostasy series by Chris Wraight.“

 

Count me in!

[Roomsky]

59 minutes ago, Bobss said:

999.M41 was fine. Roomsky understands this as he's a well-considered person, and probably a similar calibre mind to those who built this IP in the 80s and 90s.

 

D`awwww, too kind. But no one reads my webcomic Bobss, so I can't be quite that amazing.

 

Agreed with the general sentiment though, and I take psychic damage whenever another power level thread pops up on r/40klore. The Black Library authors should take notes from some arms of the fandom, because liking a faction because of how strong its members are is a perspective more alien and incomprehensible to me than any xenos in a novel I've read. Ditto people who say a novel is bad because their toy soldiers lost in it.

 

I mean, I've never even played the tabletop game, but I think 40k was better with and MADE for "your dudes." 40k wasn't designed for these big narrative shifts, and of course the setting can evolve, but I don't think we're out of the "square peg in a round hole" era yet. Age of Sigmar is much better tailored for an advancing world state and I wish more people appreciated how cool AoS is because it might mitigate the narrative sludge 40k is turning into.

[DarkChaplain]

My problem with the AoS narrative is pretty similar to the one I have with 40k: It's split between studio books / Battletomes and Black Library. Black Library is always behind on developments and I always feel like I'm missing something on the meta-arcs. But the individual, character-driven adventures? Neat.

 

On the other hand, I don't think that Arks of Omen is as bad as I'd expected. Particularly the Lion's entry seems to build on a lot of BL developments from the last decade. There's payoff from plotlines that reach back to the Heresy's 20th entry, The Primarchs, Legacy of Caliban etc. That's the kind of :cuss: I wish the GW studio did more often, instead of ignoring BL or running in parallel.

 

Which is why I hope we'll actually get the novel treatment for these events sooner rather than later, particularly because they involve Dante, and we had him built up over three novels by Haley, Angron's force of nature existence had a novel, the Lion is prequel'd already and the Dark Angels have tons of works leading up to this in one way or another.

If BL didn't publish at least a big novel about this stuff, I'd be furious. But it's also a really interesting state of things to be left with right now, with many imminent character moments that will be much better suited to a novel or three.

[Scribe]

2 hours ago, Bobss said:

That isn't to say this topic never popped up in forums in the 2000s, as it did, but imo this has only begun to be debated fervently by the Goku-vs-Superman crowd in the last 10-or-so years

 

We had it all figured out on Portent.