The End and the Death Part I, II, III, ...

[Scribe]

  On 1/24/2024 at 9:17 PM, EverythingIsGreat said:

It is a bit weird that he's around in 40K after his grand plans collapsed, it probably has to do with the way his character was handled by HH/SoT. In the end, I suppose it was decided by GW that he stays in the picture. 

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What grand plans collapsed?

 

Chaos won. Its a state of ruin and eternal war.

[EverythingIsGreat]

  On 1/24/2024 at 9:28 PM, Scribe said:

 

What grand plans collapsed?

 

Chaos won. Its a state of ruin and eternal war.

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Well, this may be a PR "adjustment" because it seems to me the plan was

 

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fifth chaos god or humanity consumed (also probably equals fifth chaos god). Game set and match. Instead we have pretty much what was happening for tens of thousands of years before the HH, only now with an Imperium.

 

[SpecialIssue]

  On 1/24/2024 at 9:39 PM, EverythingIsGreat said:

 

Well, this may be a PR "adjustment" because it seems to me the plan was

 

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fifth chaos god or humanity consumed (also probably equals fifth chaos god). Game set and match. Instead we have pretty much what was happening for tens of thousands of years before the HH, only now with an Imperium.

 

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I think it's obvious that the Imperium and mankind is a terrible society and dominant species that only perpetuates and amplifies the misery and emotion that feeds the gods (why do you think they went after us as their client species after we demonstrated 200 years of galaxy-wide conquest and xenocide). If anything this was the best option for them; which is why they let go of Horus just a bit so that he could plead for death and egg the Emperor into killing him. They wanted an Imperium in stasis as a rotting carcass from which to gleefully feast from its decay and angst for the next 10,000 years. Their pawns are just pawns in the game - Horus, Abaddon, the legions - they don't care or really want anyone to 'rule' or ascend. They simply crave more emotion to fuel their very substance, nothing more.

 

[EverythingIsGreat]

  On 1/24/2024 at 11:37 PM, SpecialIssue said:

 

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I think it's obvious that the Imperium and mankind is a terrible society and dominant species that only perpetuates and amplifies the misery and emotion that feeds the gods (why do you think they went after us as their client species after we demonstrated 200 years of galaxy-wide conquest and xenocide). If anything this was the best option for them; which is why they let go of Horus just a bit so that he could plead for death and egg the Emperor into killing him. They wanted an Imperium in stasis as a rotting carcass from which to gleefully feast from its decay and angst for the next 10,000 years. Their pawns are just pawns in the game - Horus, Abaddon, the legions - they don't care or really want anyone to 'rule' or ascend. They simply crave more emotion to fuel their very substance, nothing more.

 

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And why is an Imperium needed for humans to be excessively emotional? Is the history of the real world any better? Emotions of all kinds are running rampant and are cunningly taken advantage of. It is a world perpetually in danger of falling into chaos. The fictional transfer of this into WH40K only differs in scale, because instead of a few billions we are dealing with trillions upon trillions of humans.

 

In any case the question was about Erebus and his machinations, not about Chaos.

[SpecialIssue]

  On 1/25/2024 at 1:01 AM, EverythingIsGreat said:

 

And why is an Imperium needed for humans to be excessively emotional? Is the history of the real world any better? Emotions of all kinds are running rampant and are cunningly taken advantage of. It is a world perpetually in danger of falling into chaos. The fictional transfer of this into WH40K only differs in scale, because instead of a few billions we are dealing with trillions upon trillions of humans.

 

In any case the question was about Erebus and his machinations, not about Chaos.

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And Erebus did exactly what he was supposed to. Why do both him and Lorger largely sit out the siege? The gods don't care who wins, only that the Emperor loses. Erebus and Lorgar are also pawns, maybe some of the few who acknowledge it, and perhaps only Erebus acknowledges/is clued in to what the gods actually want (he's a smug bastard isn't he). The gods would love nothing better than an eternity of symbiosis with the Imperium, a host and a parasite.

 

The Imperium and the culture it promotes is corrupt, oppressive, moribund, xenophobic, militaristic and schismatic on a galactic scale. It perpetuates the emotions that chaos thrives on by also perpetuating the dominance of the human race through its heavy-handed and extreme methods to extract military and industrial power, and its efforts to control it's population's mindset. The Imperium's success expands and ensures the reproduction of the trillions of untrained and unprotected emotional minds in some of the worst conditions and aggressive cultures imaginable. Imagine the despair and depression in the hives. Imagine the anger at your corrupt lords, or the warrior cults allowed to thrive on martial worlds for better soldiers, or the blind hatred for any aliens, or the ambitious power grabs and schisms and all the endless wars these provoke. That is suffering on a scale only the gods could dream of, over a timescale only they can grasp.

 

The heart of 40k is not a struggle with an external foe or outer incarnation of evil independent of us - but mankind's eternal battle with the very things that make us human.

[Scribe]

  On 1/25/2024 at 2:41 AM, SpecialIssue said:

The heart of 40k is not a struggle with an external foe or outer incarnation of evil independent of us - but mankind's eternal battle with the very things that make us human.

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[DukeLeto69]

Wait a minute! You mean the Imperium aren’t the good guys?

[Nagashsnee]

  On 1/25/2024 at 6:44 AM, DukeLeto69 said:

Wait a minute! You mean the Imperium aren’t the good guys?

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Don't listen to them, unlike Magnus the Imperium and the Emperor can do no wrong! 

[Ayatollah_of_Rock_n_Rolla]

  On 1/24/2024 at 9:05 PM, EverythingIsGreat said:

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Horus has previously shown an inexplicable need to have Loken's approval. I guess Loken is his Oll.

 

EDIT: sorry this is a response to the original comment of Ayatollah_of_Rock_n_Rolla, last referred to by lansalt.

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In this, more extensive write up, there's some additional detail, but it still sounds weird. Well, I'll see when I read it.

[EverythingIsGreat]

  On 1/25/2024 at 2:41 AM, SpecialIssue said:

 

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And Erebus did exactly what he was supposed to. Why do both him and Lorger largely sit out the siege? The gods don't care who wins, only that the Emperor loses. Erebus and Lorgar are also pawns, maybe some of the few who acknowledge it, and perhaps only Erebus acknowledges/is clued in to what the gods actually want (he's a smug bastard isn't he). The gods would love nothing better than an eternity of symbiosis with the Imperium, a host and a parasite.

 

The Imperium and the culture it promotes is corrupt, oppressive, moribund, xenophobic, militaristic and schismatic on a galactic scale. It perpetuates the emotions that chaos thrives on by also perpetuating the dominance of the human race through its heavy-handed and extreme methods to extract military and industrial power, and its efforts to control it's population's mindset. The Imperium's success expands and ensures the reproduction of the trillions of untrained and unprotected emotional minds in some of the worst conditions and aggressive cultures imaginable. Imagine the despair and depression in the hives. Imagine the anger at your corrupt lords, or the warrior cults allowed to thrive on martial worlds for better soldiers, or the blind hatred for any aliens, or the ambitious power grabs and schisms and all the endless wars these provoke. That is suffering on a scale only the gods could dream of, over a timescale only they can grasp.

 

The heart of 40k is not a struggle with an external foe or outer incarnation of evil independent of us - but mankind's eternal battle with the very things that make us human.

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Ok. I was looking for something a little more than a codex passage or GW promotional blurb, but so be it. After all science fantasy is an escape. However to reiterate, the question was about Erebus's portrayal. Chaos, like the Emperor, has no POV other than various characters' grandiose statements.

[Scribe]

Hard cover acquired. We are at the end.

[TheArtilleryman]

  On 1/25/2024 at 6:17 PM, Scribe said:

Hard cover acquired. We are at the end.

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There is still the death … :p

[Scribe]

  On 1/25/2024 at 6:23 PM, TheArtilleryman said:

There is still the death … :p

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That part will come in my review this weekend. ;)

[Celtic_cauldron]

  On 1/25/2024 at 6:34 PM, Scribe said:

 

That part will come in my review this weekend. ;)

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Only if the clocks are working the right way. ^^

 

Celtic_Cauldron 

[Sabadin]

Spoiler free, mostly done reading volume 3, none of the micro chapter nonsense that volume 2 had. At this point it's 100% clear the volume 2 micro chapters was Abnett being asked to pad page count to justify a 3rd volume.  

 

If you enjoy Abnett's style, Volume 3 is worth the investment. Enjoying reading it overall.

[DarkChaplain]

...jesus, if that write-up is real, we've got

 

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LILEAN CHASE at the Siege, the Cognitae, who Eisenhorn is hunting for, ten thousand years later?!

 

....and just as I'd expected, Kat is Moriana. Actae is Moriana. Their mind-shackle-stuff from the previous two volumes has somehow merged them together. So we have a second Moriana, who also isn't one of Malcador's original Chosen, but will become an Inquisitor, and later turn radical? Abnett pulls the switcheroo twice in a single book? Lol.

 

And Valdor stabby-stabs Abaddon and sees the next ten millennia. That's how you get your Yellow King, I suppose.

 

So.... Pandaemonium, eh? When?

Edited January 25, 2024 by DarkChaplain

[Scribe]

  On 1/25/2024 at 10:31 PM, DarkChaplain said:

So.... Pandaemonium, eh? When?

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Which is funny to me, because its the literal last thing I want to care about in the HH.

[EverythingIsGreat]

  On 1/25/2024 at 10:31 PM, DarkChaplain said:

...jesus, if that write-up is real, we've got

 

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LILEAN CHASE at the Siege, the Cognitae, who Eisenhorn is hunting for, ten thousand years later?!

 

....and just as I'd expected, Kat is Moriana. Actae is Moriana. Their mind-shackle-stuff from the previous two volumes has somehow merged them together. So we have a second Moriana, who also isn't one of Malcador's original Chosen, but will become an Inquisitor, and later turn radical? Abnett pulls the switcheroo twice in a single book? Lol.

 

And Valdor stabby-stabs Abaddon and sees the next ten millennia. That's how you get your Yellow King, I suppose.

 

So.... Pandaemonium, eh? When?

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Well, let's take it easy. Eisenhorn is hunting someone by that name who supposedly wrote that little book.

 

Is her existence in M41 a false flag? Is it the same Lilean Chase? Is "Lilean Chase" a Cognitae title in M41, not necessarily a name? These guys mess with the language of creation ( enuncia).

 

So Valdor saw something. Ok, is that an induced vision (by the bad guys). You stab me, good. I show you what I want you to see. Is it for real? Why should he see that at that time?

 

The  Moriana angle is interesting, but I don't have the yime now to go into it.

 

[Sabadin]

Finished, true Abnett style end to this journey.

 

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He really just couldn't help one more Samus "appearance" though lol. Still unsure how I feel about that reveal.

 

[DarkChaplain]

  On 1/25/2024 at 11:09 PM, EverythingIsGreat said:

 

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Well, let's take it easy. Eisenhorn is hunting someone by that name who supposedly wrote that little book.

 

Is her existence in M41 a false flag? Is it the same Lilean Chase? Is "Lilean Chase" a Cognitae title in M41, not necessarily a name? These guys mess with the language of creation ( enuncia).

 

So Valdor saw something. Ok, is that an induced vision (by the bad guys). You stab me, good. I show you what I want you to see. Is it for real? Why should he see that at that time?

 

The  Moriana angle is interesting, but I don't have the yime now to go into it.

 

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However, we know that Mam Mordaunt, who Beta Bequin believes to be Lilean Chase herself, even knows about stuff like the Interex, Kinebrach and so forth.

 

I'd expect Sindermann, who would become Inquisitor Veritus, of the founding few, to have kept her around, possibly as part of his retinue - and Sindermann was attached to the Interex crusade fleet. There's a lot of potential implications Abnett makes here.

 

And seeing how Sindermann/Veritus himself stayed alove for around 1500 years post-Siege - which is a fact as per The Beast Arises - and we're having Moriana still around now, helping out Abaddon, plus a time/space-hopping John Grammaticus AND a Valdor who seemingly knows the future and would've spent millennia to thwart it, eventually, things are very much up in the air.

 

At this point, Abnett & GW/BL can pull a lot of twists out of the hat and point at this book to justify it. Moriana? Actually not evil, just working the long con. Characters falling out of time? Yeah, John did it.

Heck, we even have precedence in Penitent that literal modern day or even historical items are flying about in the Bequin trilogy - which already points to significant time-shenanigans.

 

At the end of the day, this seems like a blank cheque for Abnett to flip the galaxy as we know it on its head come Pandaemonium, or whichever follow-up Inquisition stories he comes up with. Because damn me if this isn't a lot of setup for intrigue.

[Dornfist]

  On 1/25/2024 at 7:57 PM, Sabadin said:

Spoiler free, mostly done reading volume 3, none of the micro chapter nonsense that volume 2 had. At this point it's 100% clear the volume 2 micro chapters was Abnett being asked to pad page count to justify a 3rd volume.  

 

If you enjoy Abnett's style, Volume 3 is worth the investment. Enjoying reading it overall.

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There is one thing spoilerwise I want to know.

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How many "fragments" chapters or side chapters with random battles featuring Thane, Zephon, Rann, or new random loyalist character introduced last minute are featured in this latest entry?

I feel the reason I disliked volume II so much more than volume I, is that there was too many of the above that led to excessive padding, overindulgence, and filler.

[Scribe]

Mercifully (and weirdly) the micro chapters are gone, and its instead broken up into moments within a chapter in some cases.

[Sabadin]

  On 1/26/2024 at 2:45 AM, Dornfist said:

There is one thing spoilerwise I want to know.

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There's a handful of them still, but there's much more weight to those chapters in this entry, a large number of them go towards showing the impact the Black Rage had on the Blood Angels and how different loyalist factions reacted to it.

 

It was one thing reading an Imperial Fist go "That door shouldn't be there" for the 27th time in Volume 2. It's another reading an Imperial Fist fighting Black Rage Azkelleon and going "Nope, I want to put as many World Eaters between him and me as I possibly can"

 

Edited January 26, 2024 by Sabadin

[EverythingIsGreat]

  On 1/26/2024 at 2:37 AM, DarkChaplain said:

 

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However, we know that Mam Mordaunt, who Beta Bequin believes to be Lilean Chase herself, even knows about stuff like the Interex, Kinebrach and so forth.

 

I'd expect Sindermann, who would become Inquisitor Veritus, of the founding few, to have kept her around, possibly as part of his retinue - and Sindermann was attached to the Interex crusade fleet. There's a lot of potential implications Abnett makes here.

 

And seeing how Sindermann/Veritus himself stayed alove for around 1500 years post-Siege - which is a fact as per The Beast Arises - and we're having Moriana still around now, helping out Abaddon, plus a time/space-hopping John Grammaticus AND a Valdor who seemingly knows the future and would've spent millennia to thwart it, eventually, things are very much up in the air.

 

At this point, Abnett & GW/BL can pull a lot of twists out of the hat and point at this book to justify it. Moriana? Actually not evil, just working the long con. Characters falling out of time? Yeah, John did it.

Heck, we even have precedence in Penitent that literal modern day or even historical items are flying about in the Bequin trilogy - which already points to significant time-shenanigans.

 

At the end of the day, this seems like a blank cheque for Abnett to flip the galaxy as we know it on its head come Pandaemonium, or whichever follow-up Inquisition stories he comes up with. Because damn me if this isn't a lot of setup for intrigue.

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Well played. I agree with almost everything, there are details that I would be more tentative about, but they are minor.

 

If you had added game system considerations vs BL, and GW's corporate objectives as they relate to this small corner of their balance sheet, your post would be pretty much complete imo. 

 

It is much more interesting to me to not follow GW's surreptitious and occasionaly pretty crafty influencing of lore discussions, both in fandom and elsewhere.

 

So much  more fun that way.

Edited January 26, 2024 by EverythingIsGreat
typo

[Dornfist]

  On 1/26/2024 at 3:52 AM, Sabadin said:

 

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There's a handful of them still, but there's much more weight to those chapters in this entry, a large number of them go towards showing the impact the Black Rage had on the Blood Angels and how different loyalist factions reacted to it.

 

It was one thing reading an Imperial Fist go "That door shouldn't be there" for the 27th time in Volume 2. It's another reading an Imperial Fist fighting Black Rage Azkelleon and going "Nope, I want to put as many World Eaters between him and me as I possibly can"

 

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That's great to know! My hardcover arrives next week hopefully, so I look forward to a more focused story which arguably the previous entries should have done.