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

[Nagashsnee]

There are so so so many important things to explore in the scouring, most of them non marine. 

 

Things like the iron cage, caliban and the like while important for their respective chapters/legions and their fans pale in comparison to the actual big events, the scouring IS the foundation of the imperium and the factual death of the great crusade, the mechanicus, the early years of multi church imperial faith and its prosecution even while it spreads like a cancer. The pull back of the talons into the palace/telepathica and obscurity.  The rise of the administratum as a actual power not subservient to the military,  Nearly every major thing in 40k  will be set up in its early form in this period, from the need to keep feeding the throne, to the high lords actually becoming top of the food chain (with G man being the head high lord), the splitting of the imperial army into its many parts. 

 

Up to know everything is the Imperium has been about 2 things, the great crusade and the Emperors/Malcadors secret projects. The scouring is the realization that the crusade is over, and those projects are dead. Its the need of the survivors, mostly non primarchs (who of course mostly ran out to give chase) that there is no real plan, no real authority, and no real end goal. Unlike 40k the scouring is not about survival, its about vengeance and filling the voids that cannot really be filled. About the various powers in the Imperium being able to ask eachother who put THEM in charge?

 

The reclamation of mars and formal re ordering of the Mechanicum into the Mechanicus on the red planet alone could support multiple books as the binary succession is finally allowed to resolve itself without the threat of constant death keeping all the internal factions working together and the other loyalist forge worlds find out just what was agreed upon. 

 

What do we do with the Vostroyas out there that disobeyed orders but never went traitor? That were semi-neutral? What do we do about the fleets that pop up and have never even heard about the heresy?  The sectors who sided with horus but never went chaos? Or even worse were lied to and had no idea where the arms and munitions were ending up? 

 

You want proper scouring stories? Its not the iron cage, its Vulkan and the Khan trying to expeditionary fleets who come home to report great success but happen have  Iron Warrior armor/thousand marine elements, while Russ and Dorn are pulling out the guillotine. Its a legion tempestus battle force finding out that 70% of the legion joined horus but the 20% on mars went down fighting for the throne and having to decide what THEY are going to do.  

 

And sure marines sell and we are going to get ALL the bolter porn they can pump out. But one of the HH greatest failures and something that its best books did is look and explore the NON marines. To frame the astartes by means of the wider Imperium and not just hyper focus on the power armor.  Plus most of the marines (comparatively speaking) are dead or running. More then ever the majority of the scourings fighting would be done by non marines or fresh youngbloods. 

 

On the traitor side the amount of rage/depression would be hard to process. You are thousand son tactical marine #2546. You dad is a daemon, your homeworld is dust, everything you ever believed in is dead, your STILL not sure why any of it happened and you finally have a chance to breathe, catch your breath and look around you and the final cherry on the mountain despite giving up all your ideals and hopes and dreams, to side with the lost and the damned, you failed.  Its not a happy day.  And then you start to find out JUST how much wrong Magnus actually did.  

Same goes for most traitors legions, its easy to go along with things when everything is constantly in motion and you need to react now now now. But this is the period where they can look back and actually judge how it was all handled. And start to become very very bitter, and very very angry.  Only the marines are the smallest %. Its the forge worlds who went for Kelbor and now have to deal with fact that they lost and angry angry people are coming. About entire systems who won their local wars under the banner of the eye of horus. About the HUGE amounts of support personal/fleets/planets the marines will leave behind as they run run run. 

 

Try telling post siege Dorn that maybe its best if we pardon some of them? But logically speaking once they vent for a decade or so they probably do take in huge areas of traitor space back into the fold. 

 

I have rambled on allot, but for me the scouring has so so so much potential, and I am terrified BL will just rush headlong into it, with no plan, no goals, and no clear idea of WHAT they want to achieve creatively (business side =$) and how they mean to do it. 

 

Final edit: The heresy lasted less then two decades, at best guess the great scouring took between 1-2 centuries. There is ALLOT of meat on them bones. Not even touching the Xenos aspects. 

 

Edited January 5 by Nagashsnee

[darkhorse0607]

I guess my biggest worry about the Scouring is that it's going to do exactly what the Heresy ended up doing in terms of shifting focus away from the marines towards primarchs

 

I'm here for non-marine stories. Give me political stories as well. But we all know that probably won't be the focus.

 

I want to know about random marine #2546 as @Nagashsnee has stated. Tell me about that. Tell me about how they're watching the Imperium change and are trying to deal mentally with the fallout of the Heresy, and the splitting of them and their brothers into chapters. Tell me about the traitor marines that are having to deal with falling that far from once a position of pre-eminent power to scrounging for ammo and equipment as they're being chased across the stars. Or how loyalists are dealing with the fact that the Imperium they fought for during the Crusade and what it stood for is essentially gone in favor of worshipping the Emperor as a religious figure during the post-Siege era.

 

GIVE ME A BOOK ABOUT THE FOUNDING OF THE GREY KNIGHTS YOU COWARDS. I want to know how they're dealing with that as well. Dealing with the fact that the fate of humanity is being decided during the Siege/post Siege and they're on Titan isolated and potentially not knowing what's going on

 

What I don't want is another 20 books about the Primarchs. A few about their transitions to where they are in the current timeline, are fine. But I don't want the rest of the Imperium to be sidelined again in favor of Primarch fight number 603. We got enough of that during the Heresy series as it became mostly about that, and are getting enough of that in the current 40k time period.

[DarkChaplain]

I just don't see why any of that needs to be covered in a "Scouring" series at all. We've had books covering events from that timeframe, including some very direct tie-ins for the Blood Angels / Flesh Tearers as they find their new home world and talking about the aftermath of Sanguinius' death. The Wolves had Parting of the Ways (which was excellent) and Battle of the Fang, which already illustrate the changing nature.

 

And then we have The Beast Arises, which shows us the Imperium around 1.5 millennia later, after the first Black Crusade (which we may or may not see in ADB's Black Legion series yet, if it ever continues). We see what has become of institutions, what has been established, and a break from the Heresy era into complacency.

 

I would definitely like to see some individual novels, including, yes, a Grey Knights founding novel (I'd take a trilogy, really), dealing with the Damnation Cache on Pythos - which we know is a big deal, has been set up both outside the Heresy and inside the series - and some lingering questions surrounding it all. The Iron Cage I could envision better as part of an informal John French Imperial Fists vs Iron Warriors "saga" too, as a standalone, with no need to label it as a scouring series novel.

 

But I really am not interested in a formal Scouring series or subsetting to be opened up. There's been enough in the way of flashbacks all around to illustrate the era where it matters.

 

Lastly, we have enough taglines and subseries already, most of which were sparsely populated and either neglected and dropped or not popular enough to even tickle much activity on here. I'd rather BL put out noticeably more Characters novels, Crime and Horror after getting freed of the Heresy as a must-do, than shackle their authors to another subsetting right away, soaking up attention from readers and authors both.

 

It's like codifying that does not need it. Slapping a label on something that should at best be loosely connected by virtue of a similar era - one that lasted quite a long time, if we talk about Primarch disappearances.

Edited January 5 by DarkChaplain

[darkhorse0607]

I don't think (or necessarily want) it to be a gigantic series either, I'd much prefer it just to be open to the authors to dip in and out, or perhaps a trilogy here or there (in the same vein as the Black Legion series or Night Lords series), I just don't think that BL are going to leave it as that because everything seemingly (or most things) has to be the biggest thing since the Heresy

 

 

[EverythingIsGreat]

Imo, the most important outcome of the HH (per pre-existing lore) regarding the Imperium is the foundation, organization and remit of the Inquisition. Without it, the Grey Knights make no sense. It is the only Imperial faction that is outside the Imperial Hierarchy, according to lore created, to a large extent, to police that Hierarchy (including the SM, High Lords etc). It "reports" directly to the Emperor. It wields pretty much absolute power and has first (sometimes exclusive) call on any of the Imperium's resources and all kinds of "forbidden" stuff. It may be the faction most responsible for the way the Imperium looks like 10000 years later. How did all this come about?

There will likely be some light on this by BL/GW. Perhaps in typical patchy, disjointed, summary exposition with plenty of gaps and arcs open to misdirection. Some aspects would be interesting. The interaction of the newly formed Inquisition with the Alpha Legion and their operative networks would be one of several.

Edited January 5 by EverythingIsGreat
typo

[Scribe]

48 minutes ago, EverythingIsGreat said:

Imo, the most important outcome of the HH (per pre-existing lore) regarding the Imperium is the foundation, organization and remit of the Inquisition. Without it, the Grey Knights make no sense. It is the only Imperial faction that is outside the Imperial Hierarchy, according to lore created, to a large extent, to police that Hierarchy (including the SM, High Lords etc). It "reports" directly to the Emperor. It wields pretty much absolute power and has first (sometimes exclusive) call on any of the Imperium's resources and all kinds of "forbidden" stuff. It may be the faction most responsible for the way the Imperium looks like 10000 years later. How did all this come about?

There will likely be some light on this by BL/GW. Perhaps in typical patchy, disjointed, summary exposition with plenty of gaps and arcs open to misdirection. Some aspects would be interesting. The interaction of the newly formed Inquisition with the Alpha Legion and their operative networks would be one of several.

 

In an ideal world this is what we would be seeing in the very early Scouring. The Inquisition would be out there looking for traitors, the Primarchs would be cleaning up the various inter-Legion messes, and Rob would beginning reforms.

 

There isnt really a 'series' here, but a true setting/era.

[Cactus]

There are some great story ideas here but personally I don't think GW will launch a BL Scouring series. It doesn't tie as neatly into the two space marine brands that they're building and I doubt they have the resources and the appetite for such a commitment. The Old World is getting some novels but those are supporting a new miniatures release (and rereleases) so duh! Maybe Chris Wraight will do something about the early Inquisition and Adeptus Terra but I don't hope for any more than that.

 

What I am certain of is that it won't appear in (checks thread title) another volume of The End and the Death.

[DarkChaplain]

3 hours ago, EverythingIsGreat said:

Imo, the most important outcome of the HH (per pre-existing lore) regarding the Imperium is the foundation, organization and remit of the Inquisition. Without it, the Grey Knights make no sense. It is the only Imperial faction that is outside the Imperial Hierarchy, according to lore created, to a large extent, to police that Hierarchy (including the SM, High Lords etc). It "reports" directly to the Emperor. It wields pretty much absolute power and has first (sometimes exclusive) call on any of the Imperium's resources and all kinds of "forbidden" stuff. It may be the faction most responsible for the way the Imperium looks like 10000 years later. How did all this come about?

There will likely be some light on this by BL/GW. Perhaps in typical patchy, disjointed, summary exposition with plenty of gaps and arcs open to misdirection. Some aspects would be interesting. The interaction of the newly formed Inquisition with the Alpha Legion and their operative networks would be one of several.

 

We've already had the Grey Knights "returning" to the Imperium and making deals with the Inquisition in The Beast Arises, and we know that Ianius/Janus is around to make those deals. The same series also had the Inquisitors starting to think in Proto-Ordos, the first established Deathwatch squad and so forth. A lot of the changes aren't part of the Scouring era, but post-Primarchs and War of the Beast, which was the big wake-up call, prior to the 2nd Black Crusade, and the reign of Vangorich. Obviously, the Codex Astartes and Legion-related reforms happen during the Scouring era, but even the Ecclesiarchy didn't just happen because of Keeler going for a walk.

 

And, relating straight to TEATD:

Spoiler

Sindermann is one of the four founding Inquisitors, named Veritus, still magically alive somehow ~1500 year after Ullanor. He gets assassinated by Vangorich.

 

[EverythingIsGreat]

4 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

 

We've already had the Grey Knights "returning" to the Imperium and making deals with the Inquisition in The Beast Arises, and we know that Ianius/Janus is around to make those deals. The same series also had the Inquisitors starting to think in Proto-Ordos, the first established Deathwatch squad and so forth. A lot of the changes aren't part of the Scouring era, but post-Primarchs and War of the Beast, which was the big wake-up call, prior to the 2nd Black Crusade, and the reign of Vangorich. Obviously, the Codex Astartes and Legion-related reforms happen during the Scouring era, but even the Ecclesiarchy didn't just happen because of Keeler going for a walk.

 

And, relating straight to TEATD:

  Reveal hidden contents

Sindermann is one of the four founding Inquisitors, named Veritus, still magically alive somehow ~1500 year after Ullanor. He gets assassinated by Vangorich.

 

 

Sure, but I was referring to something a little more comprehensive and focused, although absent game-related commitment to the Inquisition by GW I don't as I stated before, have high hopes. According to existing lore the Inquisition was created by Malcador who was tasked by the Emperor, obviously before Malcador sat on the Throne and before Anabasis. That would be a nice place to start. Loose ends could be folded into it, such as, to speculate: the remaining perpetuals' fate and history, Fo's work etc. I have low expectations. I mean to begin with, you would think that the Inquisition would have permanent assets embedded with important persons such as Cawl, and around the surviving Primarchs. Did they learn nothing from the Alpha Legion?

[DarkChaplain]

Horus Heresy Characters: Sindermann.

There, a one-off novel that can do all of the transition work from Malcador's Chosen & Dorn's Interrogators to the Proto-Inquisition. It'd be able to cover 1500 years of reminiscences and iterating and would actually be clearly associated with the relevant arc.

 

Aside from that, we know that Malcador assembled the first Inquisitors, we even have their names (even though somewhere along the lines, the character of Yasu Nagasena, who brought up the Rosette thing, was dropped), but they're not formally Inquisitors at this point. Not Malcador, not Xanthus, not Lemuel Gaumon aka Promeus, nor Moriana, and definitely not Kyril Sindermann.

 

Those are the founding four, and unless Malcador manages to shoot them a telepathic goodbye message / activates some sigil voodoo (another thing Abnett seems to have invented, huh?), it would seem that the established fluff has once more been upended anyway.

Then again, we also got the reason why the Inquisitors, at least those original ones to be, have this extreme authority: Because they originally, literally, did receive it from Malcador, to the point where they'd even rival Custodes in terms of clearance. It stands to reason that this authority was simply "inherited" by their followers and passed down as fact, til everybody believed it to be a certainty. That's good enough for me.

 

As for Cawl in particular, he hardly matters, and won't matter for quite a long time. He doesn't arrive at Terra til well after the Siege is over, and assimilates the brain of another person first, then buggers off. It'd probably be a century or so before Guilliman approaches him as a relative free spirit and supposed genius, but considering the level of secrecy surrounding the Primaris job, I highly doubt any Inquisitors even know about Cawl's import. He's a relative nobody for millennia. The Inquisition don't keep tabs on any whacko techpriest without prior cause - if they did, a lot of books wouldn't have played out the way they did...

Edited January 6 by DarkChaplain

[DukeLeto69]

19 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

There are so so so many important things to explore in the scouring, most of them non marine. 

 

Things like the iron cage, caliban and the like while important for their respective chapters/legions and their fans pale in comparison to the actual big events, the scouring IS the foundation of the imperium and the factual death of the great crusade, the mechanicus, the early years of multi church imperial faith and its prosecution even while it spreads like a cancer. The pull back of the talons into the palace/telepathica and obscurity.  The rise of the administratum as a actual power not subservient to the military,  Nearly every major thing in 40k  will be set up in its early form in this period, from the need to keep feeding the throne, to the high lords actually becoming top of the food chain (with G man being the head high lord), the splitting of the imperial army into its many parts. 

 

Up to know everything is the Imperium has been about 2 things, the great crusade and the Emperors/Malcadors secret projects. The scouring is the realization that the crusade is over, and those projects are dead. Its the need of the survivors, mostly non primarchs (who of course mostly ran out to give chase) that there is no real plan, no real authority, and no real end goal. Unlike 40k the scouring is not about survival, its about vengeance and filling the voids that cannot really be filled. About the various powers in the Imperium being able to ask eachother who put THEM in charge?

 

The reclamation of mars and formal re ordering of the Mechanicum into the Mechanicus on the red planet alone could support multiple books as the binary succession is finally allowed to resolve itself without the threat of constant death keeping all the internal factions working together and the other loyalist forge worlds find out just what was agreed upon. 

 

What do we do with the Vostroyas out there that disobeyed orders but never went traitor? That were semi-neutral? What do we do about the fleets that pop up and have never even heard about the heresy?  The sectors who sided with horus but never went chaos? Or even worse were lied to and had no idea where the arms and munitions were ending up? 

 

You want proper scouring stories? Its not the iron cage, its Vulkan and the Khan trying to expeditionary fleets who come home to report great success but happen have  Iron Warrior armor/thousand marine elements, while Russ and Dorn are pulling out the guillotine. Its a legion tempestus battle force finding out that 70% of the legion joined horus but the 20% on mars went down fighting for the throne and having to decide what THEY are going to do.  

 

And sure marines sell and we are going to get ALL the bolter porn they can pump out. But one of the HH greatest failures and something that its best books did is look and explore the NON marines. To frame the astartes by means of the wider Imperium and not just hyper focus on the power armor.  Plus most of the marines (comparatively speaking) are dead or running. More then ever the majority of the scourings fighting would be done by non marines or fresh youngbloods. 

 

On the traitor side the amount of rage/depression would be hard to process. You are thousand son tactical marine #2546. You dad is a daemon, your homeworld is dust, everything you ever believed in is dead, your STILL not sure why any of it happened and you finally have a chance to breathe, catch your breath and look around you and the final cherry on the mountain despite giving up all your ideals and hopes and dreams, to side with the lost and the damned, you failed.  Its not a happy day.  And then you start to find out JUST how much wrong Magnus actually did.  

Same goes for most traitors legions, its easy to go along with things when everything is constantly in motion and you need to react now now now. But this is the period where they can look back and actually judge how it was all handled. And start to become very very bitter, and very very angry.  Only the marines are the smallest %. Its the forge worlds who went for Kelbor and now have to deal with fact that they lost and angry angry people are coming. About entire systems who won their local wars under the banner of the eye of horus. About the HUGE amounts of support personal/fleets/planets the marines will leave behind as they run run run. 

 

Try telling post siege Dorn that maybe its best if we pardon some of them? But logically speaking once they vent for a decade or so they probably do take in huge areas of traitor space back into the fold. 

 

I have rambled on allot, but for me the scouring has so so so much potential, and I am terrified BL will just rush headlong into it, with no plan, no goals, and no clear idea of WHAT they want to achieve creatively (business side =$) and how they mean to do it. 

 

Final edit: The heresy lasted less then two decades, at best guess the great scouring took between 1-2 centuries. There is ALLOT of meat on them bones. Not even touching the Xenos aspects. 

 

That sold it for me and I was sceptical on having a Scouring series!

 

However, to echo others...I think this should be a setting not a sequential series.

 

Personally I would rather see the ten millennia of the IoM split into eras/settings and books set in that timeframe flagged as such. Not formal branding like the Horus Heresy, but some label that says this book is set in 34th millennium (for example).

 

I do not like the idea of everything (released by BL) after HH simply being W40k because it isn’t. In-universe the IoM evolves. I do want to see the post HH immediate fall out. As @Dark Chaplain says, we had the Flesh Tearers book and Battle of the Fang which could, in my opinion, be repackaged as The Scouring Era.

 

We’ve had TBA which was mixed but in places very good.

 

I want to see what the Imperium is like during the Age of Apostasy but want to know those books are set in that era.

 

All that would of course need tight editorial and IP stewardship though!!!

Edited January 6 by DukeLeto69

[Rob P]

I feel we're straying off topic but have to agree with Dark Chaplain.

 

The Horus Heresy has a specific end and therefore has a trajectory to a climax.

 

If any lesson has been learned from it then it should be that a narrative and a setting should be severable. I suppose the best example would be the Dawn of Fire series Vs all other 40k books.

 

Before Indomitus/primaris GW was much more comfortable with setting stories from 31k-40k but now it seems everything has to be in the post rift setting. This makes sense if the stories drive the overarching narrative arch, but they rarely do.

 

Whether the scouring is a setting or just part of post HH to pre-rift setting, I'd dig a multitude of novels whether they by standalones or trilogies, but I've no interest in 60 books with a loosely chronological plot structure necessitating investment in every book.

 

 

[EverythingIsGreat]

Good day,

 

Conceptually, the Scouring is just a galaxy-wide mopping-up operation. A narrow exposition centered on the military aspects would be optimal for GW, as it can directly translate to game scenarios. Something similar, in fact, to the way BL presented the HH Series, where the non-military aspects received limited attention comparatively.

 

In-universe, there is a story to be told about how the Imperium after the HH became a completely different beast from the one before it. A regime founded on and by betrayal, whose absentee nominal ruler becomes for all purposes, a caricature. After the SoT, what would the mindset of the survivors be? That mindset (or the most dominant one) will determine the Imperium that will become. We do have characters already ruminating upon the events, but I wish a better bridge to the "new" Imperium would be a least faintly visible in volume 3.

 

In-universe, the issue (for the Emperor) is trust. Outside of Malcador (and Oll ... er ...), absolutely no one in the Imperial Hierarchy can really be trusted. If anyone was, they would have been told about Chaos in no uncertain terms, without hints and winks. Including the constructs closest to him genetically and doctrinally (the Custodes). Chaos is insidious. It is obvious after the betrayal that a different arrangement is needed, one that is not only arms-length from the rest of the Imperium while secretly policing it, but also one whose remit includes opposing the secret foe. It would be out-of-character for BL/GW to portray EMalc as latter-day converts to such realizations. It would be far more believable if the pair begun planning for a new arrangement as soon as it became obvious that Chaos was making a move, going all-in (turning Horus/Isstvan III. But the Horus Heresy may have been the diversionary campaign. The real war of the Heresy may have ALWAYS been the Webway War. Lose that baby, and it is the End and the Death. This is supported by the fact that Magnus being used as a tool for the breach into the Palace pissed EMalc more than Horus' betrayal). Operationally, EMalc had the foresight to create the Alpha Legion, the organization whose ops doctrine fits Inquisition-style operations very well. And one whose operations included infiltration of presumably friendly formations as a security/intelligence prerogative.
 

[MarineRaiderII]

I think they should take a page from Hollywood and go prequel I would like a series leading up to the Crusade starting told from many perspectives. DAOT would be a great starting point for me. I want to understand the E, Malodor's early relationship.

Lastly ,just once I would love a book or two from an accountant who can explain the numbers of this universe as how did humanity get millions of worlds ( I have read millions, no longer a million) with just the forces Terra could muster in 175 years even with 20 Legions and thousands of fleets. 

[cheywood]

15 minutes ago, MarineRaiderII said:

I think they should take a page from Hollywood and go prequel I would like a series leading up to the Crusade starting told from many perspectives. DAOT would be a great starting point for me. I want to understand the E, Malodor's early relationship.

Lastly ,just once I would love a book or two from an accountant who can explain the numbers of this universe as how did humanity get millions of worlds ( I have read millions, no longer a million) with just the forces Terra could muster in 175 years even with 20 Legions and thousands of fleets. 

I’m personally not a fan of exploring much pre-heresy. The Primarch and Character series have done a decent job balancing mystery and interesting stories, but a full on series feels like far too much of a peak behind the curtain. The DAOT especially needs to keep its mystique. Not that I wouldn’t read it of course. 

[Felix Antipodes]

The DAOT would be too far back for me.  I wouldn’t mind something on the conquest of the Sol system before the Crusade started, especially the battles in the outer system (Saturn, Jupiter) but I wouldn’t go further back than that.

[DukeLeto69]

5 hours ago, MarineRaiderII said:

I think they should take a page from Hollywood and go prequel I would like a series leading up to the Crusade starting told from many perspectives. DAOT would be a great starting point for me. I want to understand the E, Malodor's early relationship.

Lastly ,just once I would love a book or two from an accountant who can explain the numbers of this universe as how did humanity get millions of worlds ( I have read millions, no longer a million) with just the forces Terra could muster in 175 years even with 20 Legions and thousands of fleets. 

There is an inherent problem with prequels. We know how they end. We know which characters survive. It removes some of the drama. Also, personally, I want anything before the HH to remain myths and legends. Sometimes wish the HH had remained myths snd legends too!

[System Sound]

An interview (or rather a monologue) with Dan Annett about Vol.3

 

 

 

The most interesting part, at least for for me:

All three volumes took almost 2 year to writte, and that was done over a year ago. Since then he's written another novel. It's set in 40k and is part of already ongoing series.

 

[Taliesin]

If he considers the Interceptor City sequel part of a series...it could still be that , but I think most people will read that and think Pandemonium.

Also because that has a lot more hype and steam coming off the release of Penitent.

 

Though I suppose perhaps another Gaunts Ghosts prequel might be likely too.

 

Interesting that he says he would like to return to the Horus Heresy, but as a setting, and focusing on smaller characters.

Edited January 8 by Taliesin

[Roomsky]

The idea he would write more Heresy about non-major players was 100% the most exciting part of that, for me - both in that it suggests we'll get more stories to flesh out the setting and that Abnett's contributions wouldn't be focussed on altering major players... again. 

[Dornfist]

5 hours ago, System Sound said:

An interview (or rather a monologue) with Dan Annett about Vol.3

 

 

 

The most interesting part, at least for for me:

All three volumes took almost 2 year to writte, and that was done over a year ago. Since then he's written another novel. It's set in 40k and is part of already ongoing series.

 

Just watched this!

 

I honestly have always loved how Abnett wrote Horus (not to say other BL big names have not handled him well). And the Lupercal of the first book of the series can indeed be glimpsed in these last pages, even though he is lost to madness. Those Horus chapters are really well done, and it will be interesting to see his POV in the big fight.

 

I agree with Abnett about Malcador: I also became quite fond of him through his first person POVs, and was devastated by his sacrifice. And as @Roomskysaid, I think it is very exciting if Abnett comes back to write about non-major Heresy players!

[EverythingIsGreat]

Deciding not to use the Emperor's POV is interesting. It seems GW is keen on keeping this a mystery. Many more options available that way.

[DukeLeto69]

I would have said the other book was 100% guaranteed to be Pandaemonium (note spelling Fraters) but Abnett saying he needed something fresh and different casts a bit of doubt. Then again the Bequin books are indeed different but the tie back into tEatD would surely mean Abnett did not get enough distance so Interceptor City or another Gaunt’s Ghosts Dossier?

 

Would love ALL three of course! 

[tgcleric]

Love listening to that man talk about writing. 

[Felix Antipodes]

12 hours ago, Taliesin said:

If he considers the Interceptor City sequel part of a series...it could still be that , but I think most people will read that and think Pandemonium.

Also because that has a lot more hype and steam coming off the release of Penitent.

 

Though I suppose perhaps another Gaunts Ghosts prequel might be likely too.

 

Interesting that he says he would like to return to the Horus Heresy, but as a setting, and focusing on smaller characters.

 

No, he has written the final volume of the Dawn of Fire series.  It will be coming soon in parts 1 thru 5.