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

[Scribe]

3 hours ago, Corinthus said:

Scribe, I don’t want to argue anymore about your grievances with Abnett. You don’t like him, it’s alright. Let’s move on and try to talk about something in a way it doesn’t end in this is an absolute abomination and it shouldn’t exist. We are past that and it makes the conversation rather bitter and unpleasant for everyone.

 

To be clear, I'm sure hes a fine guy, but you are right its time to move on.

[EverythingIsGreat]

17 hours ago, cheywood said:

I wish I had more passion about this topic. Yeah, The End and The Death V1 is more bloated than a Great Unclean One. Yeah, Abnett’s prose in it is excessive even by BL standards. Yeah, I have no idea how Abnett’s got two more massive novels worth of story to tell. Yeah, the Siege has been dreadfully mismanaged by Kyme et al organizationally speaking. But I just don’t especially care about any of that. I love Volume 1 (still a little ways from the end of The End admittedly). 40k is supposed to be a maximalist mess and I love that Abnett decided to embrace that as only he can. 
 

More philosophically I love the contrast between Echoes and The End. 40k, to me, is about two things: the insane, nigh endless scale of the Imperium and the various foes it faces, and the human (or occasionally xenos) experience of being a cog in a system so large. To me Echoes just about perfectly captures the human experience in 40k. I cried reading that book more times than I can remember. It’s filled with pathos and rage, it’s a perfect encapsulation both of what it’s like to rage against the dying of the light and to descend into madness, howling the names of mad gods into the wind. The End on the other hand captures the absurdity and immensity of 40k brilliantly. It’s throwing everything at the wall, then picking up the wall and throwing that too. It’s a million little moments all stitched together into this mosaic tapestry of savagery, delusion, desperation and hope. Only Abnett would attempt such a thing, and only he could make it less than a monstrous disappointment, though I’m sure @Scribe and others will disagree (and I don’t think they’re necessarily wrong from a literary criticism standpoint). 

 

Some good points on what we know so far.

But, this is the 30K universe, not the 40K one. In the 40K universe, the events of the Heresy as described in the series never happened, unless one belongs to the infinitesimally small minority that has access to proscribed records, if such intact/untainted records still exist. Even we as readers with the omniscient worldview cannot make rigid statements about how 30K morphed into 40K. Not yet. Too many bits are still missing. All we know is that 40K is the result of 30K, and by any measure, these seem to be quite different beasts.

One thing that never changes of course whether it is M2, M32 or M42 is characters' motivations and aspirations. Fear, pride, hubris and greed being the bread and butter of all settings real or fictional. I believe many of the posters get upset when established characters'personality is "tweaked" to accomodate a storyline, especially when such tweaks seem to happen suddenly.

[EverythingIsGreat]

That said, I think there are very, very few instances any author has done a good job of communicating to us the characters' "organic" transformations, the monumental shift in perception of each protagonist regarding the universe they occupy and their role in it.  

[cheywood]

42 minutes ago, EverythingIsGreat said:

 

Some good points on what we know so far.

But, this is the 30K universe, not the 40K one. In the 40K universe, the events of the Heresy as described in the series never happened, unless one belongs to the infinitesimally small minority that has access to proscribed records, if such intact/untainted records still exist. Even we as readers with the omniscient worldview cannot make rigid statements about how 30K morphed into 40K. Not yet. Too many bits are still missing. All we know is that 40K is the result of 30K, and by any measure, these seem to be quite different beasts.

One thing that never changes of course whether it is M2, M32 or M42 is characters' motivations and aspirations. Fear, pride, hubris and greed being the bread and butter of all settings real or fictional. I believe many of the posters get upset when established characters'personality is "tweaked" to accomodate a storyline, especially when such tweaks seem to happen suddenly.

While I love the idea that 30k and 40k are distinct universes, in my mind BL abandoned that idea the moment Horus Rising finished. Abnett (and to some extent ADB and Wraight) are the only authors to ever attempt to distinguish 30k from 40k, and they can’t write every book. Other authors just write 40k but the Imperium worships atheism instead of the Emperor, at least in my mind. 

[Fedor]

That's going too far, and i especially don't think its fair on McNeill and Counter. Not going to argue about if the books were good or not, but they did clearly attempt a continuity of themes and stylings (the four humours being emphasised being the main one). At least, they tried within the very obvious editorial confines of needing Horus/SoH to be somewhat Chaosified already, by the end of the trilogy.

 

Something like Damnation of Pythos doesn't work at all if the author is making no effort to distinguish from 40k.

 

However, i don't think the nature of the story as basically a military campaign really helped in this context. The really in-depth worldbuilding that would get into the meat of the differences are not going to be best showcased there, as all the ENDLESS WAR is the thing they both have most in common. Looking back, i wish they had been bold enough to give us plenty of civilian focused books too. That would have been a good place to mix in other genres like crime/horror/political thriller and really dig into the wider differences.

Edited August 11, 2023 by Fedor

[EverythingIsGreat]

Indeed, and I believe that many of the Heresy books at least approach the universe with a different tone and vibe than most 40K books. I would call the difference hope. The lore explicitly and implicitly states that one of the 2 universes has forgotten what that is. The other knows it, even as it is being destroyed. This is also imo an underlying current in Damnation of Pythos, one of my favorite horror stories. That is regardless of the fact that it actually further bloated the storyline. It could have been a chapter in a main series book, and its own book apart from it. 

[cheywood]

2 hours ago, Fedor said:

That's going too far, and i especially don't think its fair on McNeill and Counter. Not going to argue about if the books were good or not, but they did clearly attempt a continuity of themes and stylings (the four humours being emphasised being the main one). At least, they tried within the very obvious editorial confines of needing Horus/SoH to be somewhat Chaosified already, by the end of the trilogy.

 

Something like Damnation of Pythos doesn't work at all if the author is making no effort to distinguish from 40k.

 

However, i don't think the nature of the story as basically a military campaign really helped in this context. The really in-depth worldbuilding that would get into the meat of the differences are not going to be best showcased there, as all the ENDLESS WAR is the thing they both have most in common. Looking back, i wish they had been bold enough to give us plenty of civilian focused books too. That would have been a good place to mix in other genres like crime/horror/political thriller and really dig into the wider differences.

I don’t think it’s going too far at all. Abnett wrote fascinating ideas into Horus Rising. It’s filled with questions about how the Imperium views itself, about the validity of conquest and the nature of the galaxy. Those are questions that never get asked directly in 40k. The tone is light but sharp, everything feels shiny and clean in a way the 40k Imperium never is. It feels like a new setting. I don’t get that from any of McNeill or Counter’s Heresy novels. They’re tonally dark, emphasize Chaos and strip the hope from the setting right away. They don’t ask interesting questions or interrogate the setting in any way as I recall. There’s just nothing meaningful to differentiate their 40k and 30k works besides lip service for me. Whether that’s because of the way the opening trilogy was structured or because Counter and McNeill lack the philosophical grounding to differentiate the settings I don’t don’t know. 
 

To make a more specific example look at the work Abnett did with Legion. So many of the various army units and characters in that book are linked to specific parts of Old Earth that Abnett obliquely references. It makes sense that there’s a link between the Imperial Army and Terra that’s never present in 40k, because the regional identities of Terra died with the siege. Abnett put all this work into establishing those regional identities, granting them a simultaneous sense of mystery and, for those who care to google, familiarity. McNeill and Counter didn’t do anything like that. Quite frankly I doubt they had the acumen to do so. 
 

edit: forgot to say I absolutely agree a more diverse Heresy series would’ve been wonderful for innumerable reasons.

 

1 hour ago, EverythingIsGreat said:

Indeed, and I believe that many of the Heresy books at least approach the universe with a different tone and vibe than most 40K books. I would call the difference hope. The lore explicitly and implicitly states that one of the 2 universes has forgotten what that is. The other knows it, even as it is being destroyed. This is also imo an underlying current in Damnation of Pythos, one of my favorite horror stories. That is regardless of the fact that it actually further bloated the storyline. It could have been a chapter in a main series book, and its own book apart from it. 

I would say hope died in 30k when Horus was stabbed. Individual books may have tried to work it in, but the series as a whole is exceptionally bleak just like 40k. I’m really not seeing the thematic differences you and @Fedor mention. But maybe I’ll feel differently when I finally work up the self-loathing to re-read the full series! I would love to be proven wrong. 

Edited August 12, 2023 by cheywood

[Krelious]

I like to imagine that ADB was deeply frustrated while trying to write Echoes of Eternity because he had to communicate with Abnett and its likely that Abnett said no this is going to be in my book 333 times. I guess Abnett never learned that brevity is the soul of whit or someone at GW told him to write a 2200 page novel to finish it off while force feeding him Adderall. When the series is over its likely going to be clear that ADB and Wraight wrote the best books. 

 

I think the cover of the final book should either be a rendition of the old artwork of Horus vs the Emperor with Sanguinious lying dead or Malcador sitting on the throne.

 

A third zany idea is the Emperor sitting on the throne but its half the 30k version when hes put on the throne with the 40k skeletal version to contrast as well as cement the idea that this is the final Horus Heresy novel going forward into the 40k setting. I think while the 30k setting is cool I hope that after the insane length and breadth of all the Horus heresy novels that this is the last we see of that era.

[lansalt]

There's still several loose plot threads, so I hope we get closure in short stories about characters like Alexis Polux.

Then there's the later Scouring era to explore.

[cheywood]

16 minutes ago, Krelious said:

I like to imagine that ADB was deeply frustrated while trying to write Echoes of Eternity because he had to communicate with Abnett and its likely that Abnett said no this is going to be in my book 333 times. I guess Abnett never learned that brevity is the soul of whit or someone at GW told him to write a 2200 page novel to finish it off while force feeding him Adderall. When the series is over its likely going to be clear that ADB and Wraight wrote the best books. 

 

I would bet all my money that, whatever their creative differences, ADB is absolutely in awe of what Dan wrote. Besides their close friendship he’s been Abnett’s biggest hype man for years upon years. His Echoes afterwords opens with him gushing over Horus Rising after all. 

[Ubiquitous1984]

5 hours ago, cheywood said:

I would bet all my money that, whatever their creative differences, ADB is absolutely in awe of what Dan wrote. Besides their close friendship he’s been Abnett’s biggest hype man for years upon years. His Echoes afterwords opens with him gushing over Horus Rising after all. 

He made social media posts about him and Dan having SoT meetings in the run up to the book being finished.  IIRC one of the meetings was at 5am or something similarly unsociable, so they clearly loved what they were doing!  Fair play to them.  

[cheywood]

45 minutes ago, Ubiquitous1984 said:

He made social media posts about him and Dan having SoT meetings in the run up to the book being finished.  IIRC one of the meetings was at 5am or something similarly unsociable, so they clearly loved what they were doing!  Fair play to them.  

Yeah, I went back and read Echoes’ acknowledgements again. ADB doesn’t get into specifics, but I think Dan played a significant role in his still being here. It’s wonderful when the artists you like are as known among their fellows for their kindness as they are famous for their art.

[EverythingIsGreat]

14 hours ago, cheywood said:

I would say hope died in 30k when Horus was stabbed. Individual books may have tried to work it in, but the series as a whole is exceptionally bleak just like 40k. I’m really not seeing the thematic differences you and @Fedor mention. But maybe I’ll feel differently when I finally work up the self-loathing to re-read the full series! I would love to be proven wrong. 

 

The problem maybe that 40K came first. Readers (and gamers too) are conditioned to the grimdark nature of that universe and tend to use it as reference. I wonder if similar expectations would have developed if 30K was first. To oversimplify, 40K is relatively all bad, while 30K, especially starting with the HH is relatively good-going-bad. It is certainly possible imo that a reader starting with the universe by going through the HH series would form a different image. Maybe this applies to the authors as well. To the artists. And to the IP creators.

[cheywood]

4 hours ago, EverythingIsGreat said:

 

The problem maybe that 40K came first. Readers (and gamers too) are conditioned to the grimdark nature of that universe and tend to use it as reference. I wonder if similar expectations would have developed if 30K was first. To oversimplify, 40K is relatively all bad, while 30K, especially starting with the HH is relatively good-going-bad. It is certainly possible imo that a reader starting with the universe by going through the HH series would form a different image. Maybe this applies to the authors as well. To the artists. And to the IP creators.

I don’t think that’s an unreasonable take, but  I’d maintain that the larger issue is most of the contributing authors treating the Heresy as ‘40k before the religion’. The same issue is happening in the Primarchs series at times, with so much foreshadowing of future strife and minimal emphasis on the Imperium as a flawed but vital, techno-autocratic empire ripe with possibility and dreams of greater days.
 

Look at Wraight’s Valdor novel, which very much does succeed in portraying a divide between 30k and 40k. A large portion of that book is about a high level Imperial functionary trying to challenge the power structures of the Imperium. It’s something you’ll never see in 40k. Meanwhile most of the Primarch novels are just the Imperium beating up on remnant/rebel human civilizations, something entirely in keeping with the Imperium’s demeanor in 40k. 

[DarkChaplain]

I don't think Valdor: Birth of the Imperium is a fair example. Space Marines barely even exist yet (of course they do, but nobody knows, we barely get to look at them, there's no actual PoV character etc), the Palace is a "recent" thing and the Crusade has not remotely started. Humanity is "still" basically stuck on Terra and the solar system.

 

By which I mean to point out that it's about as far removed from 40k as it's possible to be, in terms of the timeline, with barely any of the foundations settled so far. It's something you'll never see in 40k because it doesn't even play in the same park yet.

 

And yet still I argue that you'll find many of the elements of it in 40k novels as well, albeit at a different scale and in different contexts.

I'd also argue that the Primarchs novels suffer greatly from their battle focus / a lot of them being tied to ForgeWorld fluff, rather than exploring the characters in an organic way.

 

And then there's that issue that we have books that tried to differentiate themselves from the usual bolter stuff and then got slammed for being out of the ordinary / not what folks expected from them. Look no further than The Damnation of Pythos for an example, which has been raised further up already. Or the oft-maligned The Outcast Dead (which people only remember for its Custodes murder and timeline whimwham (despite that apparently being intentional, which wasn't obvious due to the audio drama sequel being heavily delayed), not for the brave attempts at being an unorthodox non-Astartes story close to the Palace proper.

 

...and then you have Tallarn: Executioner, which is just a brilliant novella, with a PoV that makes it approachable even for non-40k readers. And apparently instead of doubling down on that, John French and BL staff ended up following it up with Tallarn: Ironclad, which was decidedly not good, moved back into the usual territories and abandoned most of what made Executioner exceptional... at over double the pages, iirc. Tallarn as a whole is one of my biggest disappointments in the entire series, because it had all the setup to be among the best, had it stuck with the original DNA, the boots-on-the-ground military focus, the top-down interstitials giving context of the wider war in a semi-historical fashion, and the sheer horror of what happened to this planet.

 

....man, the HH series needed more Militarum-focused novels, or other Imperial institutions.

[EverythingIsGreat]

We are told that Terra went through thousands of years of isolation during the Old Night. The lore mentions humanity's regression in many areas including in such diverse areas as technology, culture, the environment, political and social organization and even the makeup of baseline genetic stock. And of course the frequent, devastating conflicts fought with terrible weapons. Then the Emperor appears, Unity is achieved, order begins to return, the Warp storms abate and humanity learns of its glorious past and is given concrete plans to reattain it. Bubbly. This takes several (many?) centuries where the promise of a better future not only entrenches but becomes daily witnessed reality. Humanity is given it's purpose and a way to achieve it. 

And like in every endeavor there are machinations, plots, jockeying for position, and opportunities, especially for ambitious people. It doesn't matter. These shenanigans are made possible because fundamentally this universe, as far as its inhabitants can tell, is one of hope and progress.

Until the HH is fully revealed in-universe, and we (the real world audience) and the universes inhabitants learn about or witness the dark undercurrents, foremost among them Chaos. But until that time, the Cinderella period of 30K is in full bloom. Past midnight, reality seeps in and the mood and tone of 30K changes. Until 40K crystallizes into the familiar dystopia where by M42 its inhabitants seem despairing and regressive. Depending on the IP direction, the overwhelming pessimism may eventually be seen as unrealistic as the overwhelming optimism was.

 

Outside of general lore tidbits we only have the HH Series (in BL, FW and GW depictions) and its offshoots as "documentation" for the above. They provide precious little detail and minimal breadth of coverage. But it's all we have. Under these constraints I believe that most books make a decent effort at trying to describe and incorporate the traits of 30K. The results are mixed, and maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think anyone can mistake most of the HH books for 40K books.

[cheywood]

@EverythingIsGreat That’s a very well written comment, but I think we’ll have to agree to disagree. I get where you’re coming from, but that just hasn’t been my experience with the Heresy. Horus Rising is the only book to fully give me that sense of optimism you speak about, though I think it’s palpable to a degree in Dan’s other Heresy novels and Wraight’s White Scars work. If you want to cite specific textual examples I’m happy to discuss further, but it’s clear on a broad level we have different opinions on the matter and I feel like I’m repeating myself a little bit, which isn’t great for quality of commentary. Thank you for such an interesting discussion! 

I do think this is a topic that could have a thread of its own in the future if others are interested. 

[SkimaskMohawk]

5 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

And apparently instead of doubling down on that, John French and BL staff ended up following it up with Tallarn: Ironclad, which was decidedly not good, moved back into the usual territories and abandoned most of what made Executioner exceptional... at over double the pages, iirc

 

I'll always disagree with you on this, Ironclad was one of the best books in the heresy full stop 

Edited August 13, 2023 by SkimaskMohawk

[EverythingIsGreat]

cheywood you are part of the discussion so pat yourself in the back! I agree with the characterization of Horus Rising, which also had the advantage of setting the tone and initial direction of the series. Perhaps other books didn't follow the 30K angle so explicitly, but my impression is that it was implied in parts of the characters dialogue and thinking, and the descriptions of the environment in which they act.

I don't have any ready examples, I suppose I can dig into it.

 

DarkChaplain covered a lot of ground well. I enjoyed Valdor, which I consider a 30K book. I'm not sure that it has any commonality with 40K stories though.

 

I agree 100% with the comments on The Outcast Dead, a sleeper when it comes to the number and magnitude of revelations about the background of the HH and 30K in general. Because of this, I believe it a core book in the series.

 

Unlike Damnation of Pythos which I enjoyed, I'm still undecided-leaning-on-negative about Nemesis, which reveals other aspects of the 30K setting (DC did not discuss this book). What they have in common is their detour from the main plotline. If there was a Series called "Horus Heresy Missions" I believe they could happily have a slot there. Imo their contribution to the main storyline is minimal.
 

[DarkChaplain]

Nemesis started out so well, with that whole murder mystery cult thing.... and then the book went another 400 pages after getting rid of that premise =/

[DukeLeto69]

While there have been a handful of attempts to carve out a more distinct identity for 30k, I think it is a shame we didn’t get more.

 

There is the challenge though that the 10k years after the HH were supposed to be stagnant (yet we have inconsistencies here, especially now with the Primaris and all their new toys). It’s the contradiction between the lore/setting and the need for GW to develop new shiny kits to make people buy them.

 

I think the HH needed to positioned more like Greek myth and a time of high ideals to ram home the tragedy of all that was lost and far mankind has fallen since that time.

 

Horus Rising attempted that. And I think that is one of Abnett’s strengths. Setting things up (rather than continuing or, ironically, finishing).

 

Really (hindsight and all) we needed to spend more time with the characters and the lore before Horus’ fall. We needed to feel that loss of hope and gradual slide towards the post heresy stagnation.

 

Saying that I think the 40k universe as we know it is not 10k years but more like 9k years as that first millennium is the foundation period with the Scouring and growth of Imperial Cult etc.

 

We saw SOME difference b/w 40k and 31k(ish?) with The Beast Arises (but that too went off the rails and became more 40kish).  

[Felix Antipodes]

This has always been something that I thought they missed with the HH series imho.  I’ve always felt the series as a whole should have been a downward slide with regard to the amount of brightness and hope within the setting, with Istvaan as the fulcrum, the level of grimdark slowly increasing the closer the civil war gets to Terra.

This shouldn’t be a 40K level of grimdark though, as that would take several millennia to fully develop.

 

Although there are plenty of examples of inconsistencies in the lore, I don’t see the Primaris as one of them.  They originate from the immediate post heresy when new and shiny wasn’t a crime (yet) and then spent the next several millennia hiding under a rock until Guilliman’s return allowed Cawl to take the wraps off without being burnt at the stake as a heretik.

[Lord Lorne Walkier]

On 8/11/2023 at 10:15 AM, EverythingIsGreat said:

 

 

But, this is the 30K universe, not the 40K one. In the 40K universe, the events of the Heresy as described in the series never happened, unless one belongs to the infinitesimally small minority that has access to proscribed records, if such intact/untainted records still exist. Even we as readers with the omniscient worldview cannot make rigid statements about how 30K morphed into 40K. Not yet. Too many bits are still missing. All we know is that 40K is the result of 30K, and by any measure, these seem to be quite different beasts.

One thing that never changes of course whether it is M2, M32 or M42 is characters' motivations and aspirations. Fear, pride, hubris and greed being the bread and butter of all settings real or fictional. I believe many of the posters get upset when established characters'personality is "tweaked" to accomodate a storyline, especially when such tweaks seem to happen suddenly.

 

The 40k information is not just old and hard to get.  It is also wrong intentionally.  XX Legion, =][=Ordo Reductoris... Propaganda on steroids. 

 

 

On 8/11/2023 at 5:18 PM, EverythingIsGreat said:

Indeed, and I believe that many of the Heresy books at least approach the universe with a different tone and vibe than most 40K books. I would call the difference hope. The lore explicitly and implicitly states that one of the 2 universes has forgotten what that is. The other knows it, even as it is being destroyed. This is also imo an underlying current in Damnation of Pythos, one of my favorite horror stories. That is regardless of the fact that it actually further bloated the storyline. It could have been a chapter in a main series book, and its own book apart from it. 

 

"Hope is the first step on the road to Disappointment"  Hope has a really bad press agent in 40k..  I hope , hopes death is also just a well told Lie.  My Inquisitor is a labeled a 'radical' because he attempts to use Hope as a weapon.

 

On 8/12/2023 at 9:33 AM, EverythingIsGreat said:

 

The problem maybe that 40K came first. Readers (and gamers too) are conditioned to the grimdark nature of that universe and tend to use it as reference. I wonder if similar expectations would have developed if 30K was first. To oversimplify, 40K is relatively all bad, while 30K, especially starting with the HH is relatively good-going-bad. It is certainly possible imo that a reader starting with the universe by going through the HH series would form a different image. Maybe this applies to the authors as well. To the artists. And to the IP creators.

 

I would say things would be different but worse, less fun.  Playing a game for a long time, thinking there was a chance it might all work out only in the end to see it was all for not would suck.

[Nagashsnee]

30k should have been different to 40k, the Imperium in 30k should NOT have been on the path to become 40k, one of the core themes to me of the Horus Heresy is the great loss of potential, how the Imperium was going down paths that would make things better only for them to be throw irrevocably off course by the Heresy. But the book series very very rarely remember that this was supposed to be a age of hope, betterment and enlightenment and 99% choose to just foreshadow 40k while winking at the camera.  

 

The one truly stand out book to this is Mechanicum, here the contrast is laid bare, technology IS progressing, things are being rediscovered/created, knowledge is being pushed and the future is brighter then ever.  Sure how this is done is still hotly contested between different followers of Martian religious dogma but even then compared to 40k even the conservatives elements of the Mechanicum are practically radicals, and some of the research done is of the no no kind.  But the fact remains the glimpses of mars we get in the book show a plethora of characters in all position of society working to make the future a better place.

 

The other such book is Know no Fear where we get a peak at the 500 worlds and what they are making, again bright hopeful people doing their part for the betterment of the species. 

 

The biggest failing of this is every single instance of them bringing up the faith in the god Emperor far too early and for far too little reason. We never got to see a Imperium of the Imperial truth, we barely got to see its believers, they went down the 'we must build up 40k' path so fast the ride had not even started yet. In 40k the marines are the last pillars of this old atheist belief, in 30k it sometimes feels like most of the marines are believers too. 

 

I have said it before but one of the HH biggest mistakes is in failing to add in the macro level tragedy the heresy should have been. They were so focused on adding layers of 40k on anything that moved they forgot that the GC imperium should have been as noble bright as possible (for warhammer), it should have been alien to the 40k imperium, if people from 40k ever actually got a true idea of the GC imperium they should want to burn it as a witch. Instead they made it a lighter version of grim dark, where everyone is just shades of grey and dirty secrets lie under every rock buts its a lighter shade of grey to 40k by 2%. But in doing this they took the large scale sense of loss out of the heresy.  Forget the webway and the Emperors master plan, the GC imperium SHOULD have been a better place overall to 40k. 

 

My favorite instance of a book getting the balance right is Sanguinius the Great Angel. Wait a sec mate! You scream! The book steeped in dark gothic secrets, murders and bloodletting? 100% yes. Because while the Blood Angels have their issues, the Imperium shown in it is a beast alien to its 40k counter part. Our main character wrote a well researched book on the atrocities and mistakes being carried out by the GC DURING the GC and lived. He flat out called out the night lords and world eaters are not living up the standard they have set for this great endeavor.  He not only survived it high society made the book the talk of the town, did Malcadors agents chase him from terra? Was he running for his life while the Arbites set the dogs on him? No, the average layman hated the book as meanspirited and unpatriotic.  But we know that both those legions were on the way to a day in court. The night lords were already practically renegades.  30k Imperium was the kind of Imperium where there WAS a line. 

 

In 40k a book that has sources, direct first hand accounts of atrocities and verifiable proof that bad things were being carried out under the aquila would have seen the author, editor, printer and proofreaders dead. And the planet it was printed strip searched to make sure no copies survived.  Here at worse the authors career took a hit.  It also shows here and there with the background characters, people work hard yes, but not so hard as a chapter serf cant hit up the bar on a friday, factory works get propaganda yes, but not brainwashing do or suffer 100000 of agony kind, just happy pictures of happy angels fighting the happy fight. You know normal level work propaganda, :cuss: they probably promised them all a raise if they hit their targets. 

 

Sure the Imperium is still not a good guy, it never will be, but the overall impression from everyone is that they are doing it all so that each tomorrow is left better then yesterday. So when you read a 40k book there is an actual sense of loss. A fundamental difference in society that is at its sourced a result of all the sacrifices, compromises and changes made BECAUSE of the Heresy. 

[skylerboodie]

On 8/13/2023 at 6:12 AM, DarkChaplain said:

Nemesis started out so well, with that whole murder mystery cult thing.... and then the book went another 400 pages after getting rid of that premise =/

 

I've not read any of the Warhammer Crime series yet, but I've always thought of parts of Nemesis (the Spear story) when I think of what Warhammer Crime may be like