GW, BL and the End of Things

[Roomsky]

4 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

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.

 

Oh agreed on the transmission of information in Age of Sigmar DC - I despise it when multi-media projects that have important plot beats scattered across formats (thankfully we're still not as bad as any incarnation of Star Wars.) I just mean that the state of the galaxy that 40k being built on is an ever-deteriorating shadow of past glories is so baked into the setting that the big changes we're seeing clash with much of what makes 40k so unique. Part of 40k's identity is that things are SO BIG that an individual, no matter how heroic, how adept, can accomplish nothing in the face of an uncaring universe.

 

Age of Sigmar meanwhile is tailored to an ever-evolving world-state and so a big shake-up is just part of the setting's appeal. AND its tone happily supports hero-hammer and larger than life individuals far more than 40k does. AoS is a setting and a story all in one. 40k was just a canvas, til recently. IMO, it's true potential still lies in it's strength as a backdrop rather than something that "progresses." 

Edited April 26, 2023 by Roomsky
Mentioning scale

[EverythingIsGreat]

Considering that BL was created to flesh-out and embellish the background, it is not surprising that their offerings normally follow development rather than lead it. They still market their products as items that collect and collate the existing background bits from different sources into coherent storylines.

 

Personally I see this discussion as exploring possible future iterations of the setting and how these may relate to preexisting offerings. Jarring deviations from established lore such as the bit from The devastation of Baal may be unsettling, but they may also offer a glimpse into ideas that are in gestation or development. Or not.

[Petitioner's City]

On 4/26/2023 at 10:11 PM, EverythingIsGreat said:

Considering that BL was created to flesh-out and embellish the background, it is not surprising that their offerings normally follow development rather than lead it. They still market their products as items that collect and collate the existing background bits from different sources into coherent storylines.

 

But when GW created BL (from Inferno into novels in 1999) there was minimal advancement of a main story, as such, for either main setting. Yes we had a few years later Armageddon and the Eye of Terror campaigns in 40k, or narrative beats like leviathan arriving as a third hive fleet, but things kinda didn't go anywhere - or were abandoned even (as happened with the Eye of Terror results). 

 

The advancing story really was a thing that built up to the end of 7th, and has existed since, in its fragmented, variably successful form. Until that point, BL really didn't have anything to be behind as such, and sometimes was "in front" accordingly.

 

[DarkChaplain]

To add to that, books like Ciaphas Cain have sections set in M42, the Blood Angels stuff iirc was likely set around there as well. The entire Uriel Ventris series as far as I recall was set no sooner than 999.M41, and we get Pavonis, Tarsis Ultra, Medrengard, and the long way home with the big traitor assault on Ultramar by Honsou and M'kar. All of that stuff was not going to fit in a single year even at the best of times, discounting warp travel.

 

Stuff like more Necron tombs popping up, and them suddenly not just being mindless robots but also having sentient leaders and cultures, never fit into the brief narrative niche we had.

 

In other words: 999.M41 has always been malleable. There were too many parallel events and aspects that would need big retcons going back decades and centuries, to be plausible.

 

As such, I find the solution Guy Haley went into via Dark Imperium and Dawn of Fire rather satisfying, with the Historitors and the Ordo Chronos trying to figure out an actual timeline and getting frustrated at this exact problem with plausability.

 

Clocks just stopped from a fluff perspective, but events, new toys, they never stopped coming, especially not with BL.

[EverythingIsGreat]

There are differences between embellishing/filling-in and advancing/developing the setting. It seems to me that BL offerings are mostly of the fill-in type. Not that they don't sometimes add forward/lore-changing stuff that may or may not become canonical. An indication may be the voice used by the author. Character, in-universe voices can be more flexibly contradicted by other characters/in-universe situations.

 

The Cain series (a favorite of mine) I would put in the category of "in the grim darkness of the far future there is occasional, very rare, comic relief mostly of the dark comedy variety". Outside of it happening mainly in M42 (like a good part of the Inquisitor Czevak series) I don't see how it affects the setting. All it points to is that the status quo continues into the next millenium, and the Imperium in M42 is still pretty much the Imperium of 999.M41. OTOH the Czevak series brought a brand new element that I could find nowhere in the lore previously: a predictive (not just descriptive) map of the Webway. This by itself may be just a gimmick. BUT: if GW wants to pursue it, this has setting-changing possibilities, including in game play. And this is just one possible direction based on only one series, among many.

 

I have read the Uriel Ventris books, but it was a long time ago and don't remember details. Is there any plot tendril there that if developed, could actually move the setting the way Abaddon's 13th Crusade did?

 

It seems to me that the more recent BL stuff dealing with the setting post-Rift just follows the setting as it currently is described. Sure, stuff like the Ordo Chronos are interesting, but not new. I remember previous mentions (probably in GW Inquisition-related material?). How timeline-related mumbo-jumbo can be added coherently to the setting is a big question and a fairly tall order in general. Compared to time-warp shenanigans resulting in Mobius-strip type incoherent/twisted storylines, Tyranid-related setting upheavals seem easier to write. That is, assuming the current setting does not stay pretty much in stasis for the next 30 years. The smart money would likely bet on that. 

 

[EverythingIsGreat]

Here's a new thing that was introduced in the HH Series: Fo's supposed Astartes kill-switch. This could be kinda huge. Obviously in-universe this hasn't happened in 10000+ years (or, it hasn't happened yet), and the reasons for that may or may not be eventually explained. In the real-world, Fo's final sanction is only a few years old. Perhaps not co-incidentally, a new iteration of SM (the Primaris) has been developed. In-universe it would be out-of-character (excuse the pun) for Cawl not to take the sanction into account (supposing it still exists and it actually works), and make the Primaris invulnerable to it. In real-world that is nifty way to sell additional minis (for a new setting, a future iteration or supplement that involves the "original" SMs having been wiped out by Fo's poison pill).