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

[lansalt]

38 minutes ago, Roomsky said:

The lead-up to Skalathrax was depicted. That book stopped before the actual war and never got a follow-up, it's only half a narrative.

35 minutes ago, DarkChaplain said:

The most we got on Skalathrax was a short story by Laurie Goulding

I honestly don't remember Skalathrax having much more to it after Khârn began his rampage. I've read those stories and I think they did a decent job of explaining how the WE splintered into their 40k warbands during the Scouring.

[Marshal Rohr]

Skalathrax was from before the modern GW studio and BL team got their hands on the world eaters. Khârn was destroying his own men’s tents and you’d be hard pressed to find a single depiction of a world eater capable of putting up a tent in any codex in the last ten years. You get random WE like Lheor in a novel and need to convince yourself the whole time that’s a guy from the same legion as three books of Abnett saying how they can’t do anything but kill. 

[grailkeeper]

5 hours ago, Roomsky said:

 

• The Ultramarines' war on the Night Lords

 

 

Before the Heresy kicked off one of the few things we knew about Gulliman, and possibly the only thing we knew about the Ultramarines during the heresy was that Gulliman got the Gauntlets of Ultramar from a chaos champion at the Gamalia Reclusiam Massacre.

 

I dont think we know what that was, but a massacre does sound Night Lordy. I'd always assumed it was a khornate champion but cant remember why.

[Felix Antipodes]

9 hours ago, Marshal Rohr said:

Do you even want to read a Scouring series? Does anyone besides redditors and loretubers? How can anyone care anymore?

 

Do I want to read it?  Yes, but as others have said, as an overarching imprint like Crime or Horror not a series.  As @Roomsky and other pointed out, there are tons of untold stories that would fit in such a period.  I would set the endpoint at Guilliman’s interment (I think he was the last Primarch left standing) which gives the era of TBA time to establish itself.  There are other eras that could benefit from this approach as well, including the usual suspects wishlisted by others here (myself included) like the Badab War, Age of Apostasy, Macharian Heresy, Abyssal Crusade, etc.

 

What I don’t want is such a setting/series tying up the majority of the BL talent pool to the detriment of all else.  While (imho) the M42 Dark Imperium setting is too new and malleable, leading to things like Haley having to revise his books, there are stories there that need to be told as well.

 

TLDR: Do I want to read it?  Yes, of course!  Isn’t that why we are here writing and critiquing this stuff after all?

[Dornfist]

12 hours ago, Roomsky said:

I maintain that not showing the Ultramarine's arrival in full was the right call, thematically we shouldn't be getting any catharsis by the end, it's important that both sides be left feeling like it was all for nothng. I'll agree that seeing Dorn's resolve breaking as the Emperor is enthroned would have been nice though. This whole experience is supposed to be what sends him spiralling post-Heresy.

 

 

Honestly? Yeah, but only because the cat is thoroughly out of the bag at this point on maintaining any mystique of historical events. We now have novels that deal with the build-up to and the eventual fall-out of:

• Ahriman's Rubric
• Skalathrax
• The Destruction of Caliban
• The Iron Cage
• Eskrador
• The splitting of the legions
• Lucius' death and rebirth with the legion
• Rogals Death on the Sword of Sacriledge
• The Ultramarines' war on the Night Lords

But no novels covering the events themselves. In some cases, this is pretty intensely annoying when there's no good reason to dance around the subject anymore. I generally feel the same about the Age of Apostasy and the Badab War.

You forgot to add that Rogal only died...IN PRETEND.

 

Personally, I'm only interested in "The Destruction of Caliban", and "The Iron Cage". The others not so much.

[DukeLeto69]

14 hours ago, Rob P said:

This is one of the things that Indomitus really solidified - the current setting.

 

Yes, prior to that we had a few books in the deep dark past of 'not 41st millenium', but the game and stories (other than the main line campaign books) were set anywhere in the last couple of thousand years of the setting and a few further back but post-HH. Primaris in particular (and the rift) segment stories moreso into a 'before the current timeline' and 'during the current timeline'.

 

This segmentation does lean in to the Scouring setting being a thing. I suppose especially the temporal immediacy from the Siege and before the War of the Beast.

 

I wonder by the end of it whether the periods between the Beast and the Rift will become more segmented to reveal less of a general stagnation from the Siege and more a series of crises that lead to the present timeline?

 

Personally I would love the 10,000 years between the Horus Heresy and Indomitus Era to have “mini settings” such as Nova Terra Interregnum, Age of Apostasy etc. 

[Rob P]

2 hours ago, Dornfist said:

You forgot to add that Rogal only died...IN PRETEND.

 

Personally, I'm only interested in "The Destruction of Caliban", and "The Iron Cage". The others not so much.

I feel that the Destruction of Caliban is more constrained than any other event. That is plenty we don't know but the 40k Gav Thorpe trilogy seems to tell us the how.

[grailkeeper]

There's a lot to be said for leaving things inchoate and mysterious. Its better in a horror movie when you dont see the monster for the same reason. The potential is often better than the final product.

 

The heresy used to be like that. 60+ books later- what bits are we better off for knowing more about? 

[Blood Angel Scout]

I took the end scenes with the Emperor being interred by Dorn and the others, coupled with Malcador's comments about it being the right thing but for the wrong reasoning, in that the primarchs and Valdor's belief that it will heal and restore the Emperor, which the external reader know doesn't happen, and it's that that is the bigger breaking point for them. 

 

Could sort of see it as after a couple of days, they're noticing that the wounds still aren't healing, the Emp still hasn't psychically communicated, meanwhile the rest of the loyalists have now arrived and they're slowly realising they are completely alone now, as well as everything they relied on has been torn apart. All the loyalists at this point of the HH have been shown in lore, to have questioned the Emperor's approach, the chink of doubt alluded to in Vulkan's confrontation with Magnus as how Chaos operates and without even Malcador around to help, I see this period of time as a great opportunity to explore and develop will see the beginning grounds for schisms involved with the Second founding. 

[DarkChaplain]

9 hours ago, Felix Antipodes said:

 

I would set the endpoint at Guilliman’s interment (I think he was the last Primarch left standing) which gives the era of TBA time to establish itself.

 

He's actually sort of the first to fall (depending on when Vulkan and Corax nope out, post-Codex). His last thoughts are of his brothers Russ and Jaghatai, and Russ leaves only after Guilliman has gone. So I'm not sure that'd be a good stopping point anymore, if we want Jaghatai covered. Russ's feast and departure speech are already covered elsewhere, so I don't think it should even be touched in another book, though.

[Nagashsnee]

I think the start (but not the actual events) of the first black crusade would be a good end point. It marks the beginning of the long war for the Imperium and sets many of the 'cornerstones' in place for the setting.  Plus the death of Dorn ( tho GW in their never ending need to keep primarchs going at every single point of the timeline is making his death 'his death' for a while now). 

[Karhedron]

1 hour ago, DarkChaplain said:

He's actually sort of the first to fall (depending on when Vulkan and Corax nope out, post-Codex). His last thoughts are of his brothers Russ and Jaghatai, and Russ leaves only after Guilliman has gone. So I'm not sure that'd be a good stopping point anymore, if we want Jaghatai covered. Russ's feast and departure speech are already covered elsewhere, so I don't think it should even be touched in another book, though.

 

I think the list of Primarchs disappearing goes like this.

014.M31 Siege of Terra
015.M31 Corax disappears into the EoT in a 1-man ship
015.M31 Johnson vanishes during the destruction of Caliban not long after the Siege of Terra (however long the Warp translation to Caliban took).
084.M31 Jaghati Khan lost in the Maelstrom pursuing Dark Eldar Corsairs.
121.M31 Guilliman fatally wounded by Fulgrim at the Battle of Thessala.
211.M31 Russ vanishes on the 197th anniversary of the Emperor's Ascension.
781.M31 Dorn is lost and presumed killed in an attack on the Chaos Battleship, Sword of Sacrilege.
544.M32 Last sighting of Vulkan during the Battle of the Beast.

[Marshal Rohr]

Why would Corax go into the Eye of Terror decades before the Traitors did?

 

 

edit: Also I was talking to a friend about it last night, I hope you all realize a Scouring series isn’t going to be about the things that existed before - it’s going to be about Cawl and the Primaris project. 

Edited February 21 by Marshal Rohr

[Karhedron]

Just now, Marshal Rohr said:

Why would Corax go into the Eye of Terror decades before the Traitors did?

 

We know from Slaves to Darkness that some Legions had already established strongholds in the Eye of Terror even before the Siege. The Emperor's Children are a specific example. Fulgrim had ascended and presumably didn't want to have to spend effort on remaining manifested. I suspect that it was pretty clear within a year where the Traitors were heading. Even if some of them were conducting a fighting retreat, others were outright fleeing for the Eye.

 

 

I might have the date wrong for Corax. He headed for the Eye one year after euthanising the deformed Raptors he had created to help rebuild his Legion after the Dropsite Massacre. It looks like he took some part in the Scouring first so possibly his flight to the Eye was later than that. It was still fairly soon after Guilliman published the Codex Astartes as Corax supported the breakup of the Legions.

 

[Marshal Rohr]

The Codex comes seven years after the siege in 021.M31

[EverythingIsGreat]

In the old lore, the Scouring lasted seven years too.

[DarkChaplain]

2 hours ago, Karhedron said:

 

I think the list of Primarchs disappearing goes like this.

014.M31 Siege of Terra
015.M31 Corax disappears into the EoT in a 1-man ship
015.M31 Johnson vanishes during the destruction of Caliban not long after the Siege of Terra (however long the Warp translation to Caliban took).
084.M31 Jaghati Khan lost in the Maelstrom pursuing Dark Eldar Corsairs.
121.M31 Guilliman fatally wounded by Fulgrim at the Battle of Thessala.
211.M31 Russ vanishes on the 197th anniversary of the Emperor's Ascension.
781.M31 Dorn is lost and presumed killed in an attack on the Chaos Battleship, Sword of Sacrilege.
544.M32 Last sighting of Vulkan during the Battle of the Beast.

 

Jaghatai was still around when Guilliman "died". From Dark Imperium:

 

Quote

They mourn me already, he realised. I am dead. I cannot die now, not now. There is too much to do. Too much, too much. What will Russ do without me, or the Khan? Too much…

 

Vulkan also actually reappeared during the War of the Beast, he had been thought gone and lost for centuries already. It was a big surprise that he was actually still alive and around.

 

Corax also refers to the war having been won, by the time he goes to execute the Raptors in Weregeld. By the time he appears before Lorgar (the first of his brothers he is hunting in the eye), the Word Bearers had already established themselves along with survivors of the Siege, it appears. It stands to reason that he didn't leave until the scouring had taken off and the grip of Chaos on realspace had been broken.

[TheArtilleryman]

37 minutes ago, Marshal Rohr said:

The Codex comes seven years after the siege in 021.M31

 

22 minutes ago, EverythingIsGreat said:

In the old lore, the Scouring lasted seven years too.

I smell Nurgle

[Alpharius902]

12 minutes ago, DarkChaplain said:

 

Jaghatai was still around when Guilliman "died". From Dark Imperium:

 

 

Vulkan also actually reappeared during the War of the Beast, he had been thought gone and lost for centuries already. It was a big surprise that he was actually still alive and around.

 

Corax also refers to the war having been won, by the time he goes to execute the Raptors in Weregeld. By the time he appears before Lorgar (the first of his brothers he is hunting in the eye), the Word Bearers had already established themselves along with survivors of the Siege, it appears. It stands to reason that he didn't leave until the scouring had taken off and the grip of Chaos on realspace had been broken.

Dark Imperium messed up the timeline on that aspect, the Khan's always been established as having disappeared around seventy years after the Heresy. Malevolence (one of the Forge World black books) even has Guilliman telling a group of White Scars legionaries that arrived back to known space in 087.M31 that their gene-father has disappeared

 

To my knowledge, the order of disappearance is:

• 014.M31 - The Siege of Terra
• 014-016.M31 - The Lion is lost during the Destruction of Caliban occurs sometime here (Caliban's location becomes "classified information" in 016.M31 - Crusade, page 93)
• 021.M31 - The Second Founding
• 022-023.M31 - Corax leaves for the Eye of Terror, having left his self-imposed exile within the Ravenspire after a year and a day for killing the Raptors in the wake of the Second Founding
• 085.M31 - The Khan is lost following the Battle of Corusil V, taking the 1st Brotherhood with him into the Webway in pursuit of a Drukhari Archon (Codex Supplement: White Scars - Page 27)
• 121.M31 - The Battle of Thessala, Guilliman is interred into stasis following combat with Fulgrim
• 211.M31 - Russ leaves Fenris for the Eye of Terror alongside his personal guard (occurs on the 197th anniversary of the Emperor's Ascension)
• 700s.M31 - Vulkan leaves Nocturne one thousand years after the founding of XVIII Legion (Index Astartes IV)
• Late 900s.M31-Early M32 - Rogal is killed/lost during a Black Crusade (Dorn is known to have called for the Third Founding - The Aegidan Oath)

[grailkeeper]

Vulkan mentions to an Imperial Fist in one of the beast series that he'll mention him to Dorn. Its got the clear implication that not only is Dorn alive but Vulkan knows where he is. Wherever he is at that point he's not in charge of the Fists anymore and has left them.



 

[TheArtilleryman]

13 minutes ago, grailkeeper said:

Vulkan mentions to an Imperial Fist in one of the beast series that he'll mention him to Dorn. Its got the clear implication that not only is Dorn alive but Vulkan knows where he is. Wherever he is at that point he's not in charge of the Fists anymore and has left them.



 

Ooh interesting 

[Roomsky]

I always read Vulkan's reference to Dorn as his being out of touch with current events, being that he devoted himself to protecting a single planet. Guilliman referring to the Khan I chalked up to delirium, as he was in the process of dying via poison. I wouldn't really hold BL to account for either statement.

[DarkChaplain]

Yeah, Vulkan was cut off from the Imperium at large, with little idea about galactic events, for centuries. He's also been known to get a bit muddled in the head due to his many deaths.

[Nagashsnee]

I always read it like he was expecting/hoping to die vs the orks and thus 'see Rogal again'. 

[Tymell]

Tangent, but the fact that Volume II came 3rd in the "Book of the Year" votes tells me either the voting thing is faked, or the audience's tastes are very different to my own.