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

[Karhedron]

5 hours ago, TrevorLoLz said:

Say what you want, but the concept of Lorgar landing on Terra, gloating over Horus's failure, internal monologues aplenty, only to have his head blown open by Narek would be excellent.

Of course, that can't happen because we know that Lorgar becomes a Daemon Prince.

 

Perhaps the injury is what triggers his ascension as the Chaos powers decide he is too useful a tool to get splattered.

[EverythingIsGreat]

2 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

Perhaps the injury is what triggers his ascension as the Chaos powers decide he is too useful a tool to get splattered.

Considering that Lorgar has spent the time since locked in his room dealing with "issues" and he won't come out, Chaos' payoff has been nothing to write home about.

[Dornfist]

2 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

Perhaps the injury is what triggers his ascension as the Chaos powers decide he is too useful a tool to get splattered.

That's a cool concept and interesting you mention that, as it reminds me of an interview where ADB said how hard he pushed for Lorgar to get killed by the Angel during the Siege lol. It would be funny if Narek blasts his brains open for sure. Will it happen though? I'm not sure. But we may get that surprise even though we all know he makes it out.

[Nagashsnee]

How would he even make it to terra? The ingress routes in the materiel  are overrun by loyalists, horus controls space/time and hates his guts so warping in would be a push, even if a ship got in system his shame and exile was very very public, would he battle his way in system? 

 

Like I know these issues can be resolved, but its allot of work to just have him show up and then have another primarch 'death'.  Part III has so much work to do closing plot lines is bringing lorgar back in really going to add anything to make it worth it? 

Edited January 18 by Nagashsnee

[darkhorse0607]

1 hour ago, Nagashsnee said:

How would he even make it to terra? The ingress routes in the materiel  are overrun by loyalists, horus controls space/time and hates his guts so warping in would be a push, even if a ship got in system his shame and exile was very very public, would he battle his way in system? 

 

Like I know these issues can be resolved, but its allot of work to just have him show up and then have another primarch 'death'.  Part III has so much work to do closing plot lines is bringing lorgar back in really going to add anything to make it worth it? 

 

I mean he could narnia door it like Loken and apparently everyone else is doing, or use an athame to do what the group of perpetuals did, I forget how Erebus manages to pop up everywhere but Lorgar I would assume can do the same etc.  Explaining how he got there I don't think would be a problem, especially since apparently everyone can be anywhere because space/time is broken

 

I don't think it should happen, there's a long list of things that need doing in PT 3 before that, but I don't think the "how" would be that much of a sticking point compared to everything else going on

[EverythingIsGreat]

40 minutes ago, darkhorse0607 said:

I forget how Erebus manages to pop up everywhere

 

From memory, I believe it was in one of the short stories? Erebus was taught to either fly or warp-jump unaided (or both) by the Davinite crone that was instrumental in the plot to turn Horus. Achtub (or similar) I think was her name. Erebus went back to Davin to kill her. This may be one explanation, plus whatever other tricks he picked up/was gifted.

[Dornfist]

23 minutes ago, EverythingIsGreat said:

 

From memory, I believe it was in one of the short stories? Erebus was taught to either fly or warp-jump unaided (or both) by the Davinite crone that was instrumental in the plot to turn Horus. Achtub (or similar) I think was her name. Erebus went back to Davin to kill her. This may be one explanation, plus whatever other tricks he picked up/was gifted.

Yup: the "Shards of Erebus" story by Guy Haley in the "Mark of Calth" anthology. Also, don't forget time has stopped cos warp shenanigans and Narnia doors as frater @darkhorse0607 said and...and...THE END AND THE DEATH IS HERE!!!

[tgcleric]

On 1/16/2024 at 8:54 AM, DukeLeto69 said:

Execution of a plot point/line aside, you cannot assume the inclusion of Perty and lads was Abnett’s unilateral decision! He may be a/the big hitter but he is still a writer for hire servicing a client.

I've discovered it's not worth arguing this. Half this forum seems to either not know how writing works, or prefers to assume and speculate on a variety of people's intentions they have no insight of and make sweeping declarations about how black library works with no evidence.

 

Worse, usually ignoring actual evidence and statements from the team. The book was written over 2 years. All the authors had multiple meetings splitting up sections and understanding what each other were all writing. Not once has the contrary been shown. 

 

But for the past 2 years if you read this forum you would assume Dan abnett has never spoken to the other authors and just wrote whatever he wanted and then nick Kyme, instead of reading and editing the tome he received, ran to abnetts house and cooked him dinner and whispered sweet nothings into his ear. 

 

 

[TheArtilleryman]

19 minutes ago, tgcleric said:

I've discovered it's not worth arguing this. Half this forum seems to either not know how writing works, or prefers to assume and speculate on a variety of people's intentions they have no insight of and make sweeping declarations about how black library works with no evidence.

 

Worse, usually ignoring actual evidence and statements from the team. The book was written over 2 years. All the authors had multiple meetings splitting up sections and understanding what each other were all writing. Not once has the contrary been shown. 

 

But for the past 2 years if you read this forum you would assume Dan abnett has never spoken to the other authors and just wrote whatever he wanted and then nick Kyme, instead of reading and editing the tome he received, ran to abnetts house and cooked him dinner and whispered sweet nothings into his ear. 

 

 

I knew Nick Kyme was Erebus!

[Dornfist]

48 minutes ago, tgcleric said:

I've discovered it's not worth arguing this. Half this forum seems to either not know how writing works, or prefers to assume and speculate on a variety of people's intentions they have no insight of and make sweeping declarations about how black library works with no evidence.

 

Worse, usually ignoring actual evidence and statements from the team. The book was written over 2 years. All the authors had multiple meetings splitting up sections and understanding what each other were all writing. Not once has the contrary been shown. 

 

But for the past 2 years if you read this forum you would assume Dan abnett has never spoken to the other authors and just wrote whatever he wanted and then nick Kyme, instead of reading and editing the tome he received, ran to abnetts house and cooked him dinner and whispered sweet nothings into his ear. 

 

 

"In the midst of Chaos, Abnett found within himself an invincible calm". "It was 40 seconds into editing".

 

Jokes aside, I do wish Kyme had been stricter with Abnett considering how much filler the first volumes have. Hopefully next volume will be more focused on the main story beats as we reach curtain call.

Edited January 18 by Dornfist

[EverythingIsGreat]

5 hours ago, Dornfist said:

Yup: the "Shards of Erebus" story by Guy Haley in the "Mark of Calth" anthology. Also, don't forget time has stopped cos warp shenanigans and Narnia doors as frater @darkhorse0607 said and...and...THE END AND THE DEATH IS HERE!!!

 

Thanks. I reread the story, nicely done, packing lots of juicy bits and interesting hints.

 

1. Erebus breaks 8 shards from the Kinebrach Anathame (the remainder also has a story):

 

Quote

This was the weapon that he had stolen from the interex, the blade that had wounded the Warmaster and turned him to the true way. It was a holy artefact, and key to a plot that spanned tens of thousands of years.

 

The full story of the Horus Heresy, "a plot that spanned tens of thousands of years” has yet to be told. So, Character A behaving in a certain way for 63 volumes but the opposite way on the 64th is a mere pittance. When all these thousands of other volumes are written, this seemingly nonsensical change in the Character will/may make perfect sense.

 

2. The crone on Davin (Akshub) before Erebus kills her after learning from her to use the shards for warp passsage:

 

Quote

 I have foreseen that you will attempt to call down the Ruinstorm upon the galaxy and stir the oceans of time into a tempest. 

 

Oh-oh. She knows the Clocks will stop. Who else is in on this? And we are only in Book 24 of the Horus Heresy.

 

3. The editor (Laurie Goulding) in the Mark of Calth Afterword:

 

Quote

the Horus Heresy always has a habit of moving on to the next big story and leaving a lot of the minor threads behind. This is where I think anthologies come in, since they provide a chance for short stories or novellas to pick up where the novels leave off, and vice versa.

 

 

Dedicated to everyone complaining about the POVs of minor characters bloating the novels or the phoned-in appearance of other characters etc. There may be plenty of future SoT anthologies to put things into perspective. Maybe the bloat is not a bug, it is a feature.

 

Btw, this post is on the light side

Edited January 18 by EverythingIsGreat
confounded

[SkimaskMohawk]

5 hours ago, tgcleric said:

But for the past 2 years if you read this forum you would assume Dan abnett has never spoken to the other authors and just wrote whatever he wanted and then nick Kyme, instead of reading and editing the tome he received, ran to abnetts house and cooked him dinner and whispered sweet nothings into his ear. 

 

What's the worst option?

 

That abnett didn't do his due diligence and wrote some off/divergent/disrespectful versions of characters and made some some geography screw ups?

 

Or that he did study other authors works and took all the feedback/meetings and his best efforts resulted in terrible fafnir/zephon/typhus after all of the that?

 

Or that he did the studying and research and decided he didn't want to follow along after all?

 

Because it can't really be anything else.

 

Maybe my mind will be boggled with justification come Saturday. Maybe it's an alt reality that the breaking of time-space brought about. Maybe the afterword is filled with the other authors claiming abnetts characterization as the definitive and authentic versions. 

[DarkChaplain]

1 hour ago, EverythingIsGreat said:

2. The crone on Davin (Akshub) before Erebus kills her after learning from her to use the shards for warp passsage:

 

 

Oh-oh. She knows the Clocks will stop. Who else is in on this? And we are only in Book 24 of the Horus Heresy.

 

 

Well, we had the Ruinstorm for most of the series, ever since Calth, timeline-wise. Which makes the way things at Terra work now even weirder, honestly.

 

Also, come to think of it: The Shards of Erebus short story from Mark of Calth was actually written by Haley. I didn't even think of that, but in that light, the next two Dawn of Fire novels should be interesting indeed...

 

Spoilers for Dawn of Fire:

 

Spoiler

It very much looks like, as I speculated before after The Iron Kingdom, the Hand of Abaddon and other pawns of the Despoiler have been collecting the Shards of Erebus-Athames, or whatever became of them in the last ten millennia since the Heresy. It appears that they now have all of them.

....which also makes you wonder how they ended up where they did, and how Chaos would've acquired, for instance, the ones from the safety of Ultramar.

 

Really seems that Abaddon is trying to reforge the Anathame.

 

Also, while there are eight Shards of Erebus, strangely, Oll's knife isn't one of them. It's got the same powers, seemingly, allowing warp travel and all that jazz, but it's got a different origin. So there are nine reality-cutting knives, in theory...

Edited January 18 by DarkChaplain

[EverythingIsGreat]

2 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

Also, while there are eight Shards of Erebus, strangely, Oll's knife isn't one of them. It's got the same powers, seemingly, allowing warp travel and all that jazz, but it's got a different origin. So there are nine reality-cutting knives, in theory...

Edited 2 hours ago by DarkChaplain

 

It's hard to keep track of all these blades, it's like midnight in the street of knives. You also have Erebus giving the fulgurite to Grammaticus. But I thought that Oll's athame was one of the 8 shards? Will have to search. In any case, 

 

Spoiler

Oll lost it. Don't know if it will be found before the SoT concludes.

 

[EverythingIsGreat]

DarkChaplain is right  Oll's athame was taken from a WB cultist, and it wasn't a shard of Erebus. The circumstances are described in Know no Fear, by everyone's favorite author.

[tgcleric]

5 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

What's the worst option?

 

That abnett didn't do his due diligence and wrote some off/divergent/disrespectful versions of characters and made some some geography screw ups?

 

Or that he did study other authors works and took all the feedback/meetings and his best efforts resulted in terrible fafnir/zephon/typhus after all of the that?

 

Or that he did the studying and research and decided he didn't want to follow along after all?

 

Because it can't really be anything else.

 

Maybe my mind will be boggled with justification come Saturday. Maybe it's an alt reality that the breaking of time-space brought about. Maybe the afterword is filled with the other authors claiming abnetts characterization as the definitive and authentic versions. 

 

Probably closer to that last sentence than you think. Definitely closer to that than the other two options. But I just don't see or agree with that characterization anyways.

 

 

[TheArtilleryman]

Quote

So there are nine reality-cutting knives, in theory...

Philip Pullman has one too…

[Nagashsnee]

14 hours ago, tgcleric said:

I've discovered it's not worth arguing this. Half this forum seems to either not know how writing works, or prefers to assume and speculate on a variety of people's intentions they have no insight of and make sweeping declarations about how black library works with no evidence.

 

Worse, usually ignoring actual evidence and statements from the team. The book was written over 2 years. All the authors had multiple meetings splitting up sections and understanding what each other were all writing. Not once has the contrary been shown. 

 

But for the past 2 years if you read this forum you would assume Dan abnett has never spoken to the other authors and just wrote whatever he wanted and then nick Kyme, instead of reading and editing the tome he received, ran to abnetts house and cooked him dinner and whispered sweet nothings into his ear. 

 

 

 

Show me dont tell me, BL told me they had meetings and planned it all out, but they did not show me it with the product i got. The team made statements on what they were going to do, they did not, so who cares what they said?  The authors all kept in contact to make sure they did not overlapped? They overlapped...book 8 part I especially. 

 

GW says fans will have a chance to buy the Siege LE at 10 (in print, by email, every single time), but see thats what they are telling me, what they show me is 09:56-57 its already sold out (before they told me anything). Show, dont tell me.  I may 'not know how writing works', but i am pretty sure show don't tell is a key part of it. 

 

The book was written years before they kept lying about how many books there are?   Or was it was a draft and they had no idea on what the final book number was, were they lying on the number of books for years? Or was the split a more last minute affair. So which is it? Honestly who cares! They showed me in print (and told me) that this is a 8 book affair. It isnt. Hell my LE has the 'to be concluded in...' printed in it only for it to not be the case. See I am showing that this 3 parter was at best a wild chaotic rush to printers affair. And something rushed and decided on last minute will always always suffer.   

 

I have been very fortunate in my life to have attended a great many GW/BL/FW events and spoken to enough of them (Abnett and Kyme included) to have a very basic understanding (tho these things do change) on BL workings. Not speculation, but BL telling me how BL works. . I also have a basic understanding on how a large corporation works (tho I wish I did not, and instead had a better understanding on how winning the lottery works).

 

For the past 2 years on this forum you would assume that while unfortunate the III part siege finale has not met with universal acclaim. Indeed many are finding it a let down, with bloat and poor editing being common complaints across both books.  And its fine to not share that view, many people are loving it! And thats fine too, but telling other people they they lack the very very very basic critical thinking skills to draw opinions on the book and what it shows of its creation process is simply insulting. 

 

 

 

[Rob P]

There have been a few examples of inconsistent character development in this series (HH not just SoT). Lorgar was mismanaged. Is he super powerful and clever or the coward? There was no arc on this, he went back and forth in characterisation.

 

To a lesser extent, Little Horus. Abnett planned for him to always be at odds with Loken, but it was clear from most other characterisations that he was suffering doubt leading to death at the hands of Abaddon/Horus. Preference, but I wanted the latter.

[EverythingIsGreat]

19 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

 

Well, we had the Ruinstorm for most of the series, ever since Calth, timeline-wise. Which makes the way things at Terra work now even weirder, honestly.

I don't know. In-univetse, the Ruinstorm is not just another warp storm, and may have a special locus on the Sol System. Akhsub uses the expression "oceans of time". Haley may have purposefully used this phrase. There are no "oceans of time" in realspace. Time may be relative, but it is linear and discrete (in whichever direction). Akhsub (Haley) may be referring to warptime with its extreme dilations and other effects, "oceans of time" fits  time in the warp. These oceans of unorthodox time are stirred to a tempest by Erebus, or so Akshub has far/foreseen. So is she saying that warptime will be screwed? Maybe even... stop?

 

Playing devil's advocate here.

Edited January 19 by EverythingIsGreat
typo

[DarkChaplain]

19 hours ago, EverythingIsGreat said:

DarkChaplain is right  Oll's athame was taken from a WB cultist, and it wasn't a shard of Erebus. The circumstances are described in Know no Fear, by everyone's favorite author.

 

Further, it's also the subject of Athame by John French, which shows the journey of the blade until Oll takes it.

 

As for the Ruinstorm, it was centered on Ultramar last I checked, with the Word Bearers using Calth as a ritual sacrifice basically, to get it started and shroud the galaxy.

 

The Ruinstorm has also been easing since the titular novel's events, which is also why the Loyalists would originally have been able to make for Terra - if only the Astronomican was still lit. What is happening at Terra is a different phenomenon with different causes and effects.

[EverythingIsGreat]

Good story, that Athame one. It (apparently) has the Emperor tens of thousands of years before the Imperium, enuncia, Cognitae during the Great Crusade, Kasper Hawser, Murza, and pre-Heresy corrupted Word Bearers skulking in a mysterious Chaos-tainted planet. I wonder who the narrator is, though I have ideas.

I will revisit the part where it is lost, in TEATD part 2.

[DukeLeto69]

Which anthology is the Athame story in?

[darkhorse0607]

20 minutes ago, DukeLeto69 said:

Which anthology is the Athame story in?

Mark of Calth I believe

[EverythingIsGreat]

24 minutes ago, darkhorse0607 said:

Mark of Calth I believe

Correct. It has 8 sections (of course) one for each handler. Oll is last.

 

Spoiler

Breaks into 3 pieces during the confrontation of the Companions and Erebus in TEADT part 2. It is recovered and Actae, dying, is keen for Oll to keep the pieces.

 

 

Edited January 20 by EverythingIsGreat
typo