Dropsite Massacre - John French

[DarkChaplain]

To quote some of Horus's lines from the Warmaster audio drama, set after Isstvan V, Calth and Signus, the Dark Angels pushing back at Thramas, Alexis Polux and the Retribution Fleet escaping from the Iron Warriors at Phall:

 

"The fire is lit, and all that was is cast to the wind. We are committed – he and I, my brothers and our Legions. All humanity’s futures bound together in this circle of blood. We are all the storm now. The Imperium will fall and rise by my hand. Or fall, and fall, and fall."

 

"You would say that I listened too much to Alpharius and Lorgar – that a war fought with deceit is doomed to fail."

 

"I cannot control them or their sons, and they know it. Mortarion and Perturabo and the rest, they can all feel it. They all know that this war is no longer something that can be guided, only ridden out. But they never understood me. Not truly, and they understand less with each passing second. They doubt. They think that I have lost my way. I can see it in their hearts – the pettiness, the pride, the seeds of ruin driving them on, feeding the tempest. With such creatures must I remake the future."

 

Horus is coping in that audio short. He knows things have gotten off track in many ways, on many fronts. This is after he finds out in Aurelian that Fulgrim has lost himself to daemonic possession, too. Things are falling apart, yet he talks himself into believing he's still in control of something.

 

It also makes very clear that Isstvan V in particular has done one thing for him: It committed the traitors to his cause. There is no going back for any of the participants. For Magnus, perhaps, as he was still holding out on full commitment despite being part of the council post-Isstvan V. But not for any of the Dropsite Legions. He has ensured that none of them could stand against his war against the Emperor. They might on occasion be bothersome to handle, pursuing their own goals all the while, but they have to see this through with him. Any freedom and autonomy they might gain is only after Terra has fallen, if even then. They cannot afford to stand alone against the Imperium. Horus has chained him to the Heresy, and every Legion is bringing more to the table than it takes.

 

Alpharius, in particular, is a vital piece in his game. He cannot afford to lose his network of spies and infiltrators, not at this point. He doesn't know, and never can know, all that the Hydra is up to. But he does not need to so long as he gets access to their resources as far as he needs them. He knows they're holding things back, that they're running circles around everything, but it's worth the price. They're playing their part, up until the opening of the Siege.

[Fedor]

On 11/12/2025 at 5:38 AM, Krelious said:

I thought it was good but I felt the book kinda lacked here and there in terms of focus and cool stuff wasnt expanded on. It starts off with balance and even heavy focus on the traitors and then shifts to the loyalists who have kinda typical boring sections outside the Ravenguard and that Salamander Dreadnaught, the loyalist side is like hey something funny is going on lets keep building the tension until the thing we know is gonna happen happens and ultimately the big moment is done better in Fulgrim and Aurelian. 

 

The other issue is that Horus is said to have a mind on everything and that he encompasses the entire battlefield and on top of that you also have Perty there as well so how come neither one of them can figure out that the Alpha legion who are known to be duplicitous and masters of sabotage have actively worked to sabotage the complete annihilation of the legions and the secrecy of the  four traitor legions. There seems to be plenty of evidence or suspicions of what they have done. You would think Horus being as smart as he is would be watching them instead of blindly trusting the alpha legion to not be double agents or have ulterior motives not in his best interest.  Like oh gee you involve the Alpha Legion in space operations of capturing enemy ships and then nothing goes right with that including an explosion and collision, you would think maybe Perty would investigate that instead of doing nothing at all. 

 

I think ultimately the novel kinda suffers from Fulgrim existing and doesnt even try to tread the same ground which is a shame because maybe the fight between Fulgrim and Ferrus could have been described by witnesses from both sides or maybe even idk Maloghurst is watching it using binoculars or whatever, he seems to be the biggest wasted character as I feel if anything the narrative started off it seemed like he was the main character.

 

To me this book was pretty good but felt like someone went to a buffet that forced you to take one of every item they had and maybe thats 21 different things and 7 are really good 7 are okay and 7 are like whatever or crap. 

 

The amount of AL actually helping the loyalists to any great extent during the battle was probably not that large. It's just that we focused in on the ones Omegon had control of.

Edited November 13 by Fedor

[DarkChaplain]

It also helps reinforce Legion and other AL outings throughout the series, by making it clear that the Hydra is playing all sides, post-Cabal "recruitment". We see them abandoning their Cabal contacts in Deliverance Lost, and we have them play both sides vs the White Scars, but overwhelmingly, we've seen the Anti-Emperor faction in action, with little note given to the loyalist-branch of the legion's schism. It's nice to account for it here, since this is the earliest I believe that we see them in action after Legion, if we look at the timeline.

 

Slotting the novel in before or after Fulgrim, but before Legion, also feels sensible then, because new readers will likely have plenty of questions about the AL intrigue, and find the reasoning behind it in the AL novel soon following in release order.

[Bestkeptsecret]

Does not the Horus Heresy series have 52 books in total? I do not understand why we had to wait till the series ended to get the following revealed in the Dropsite Massacre. 

 

Spoiler

The creation of the Noise Marines in the Emperor's Children legion by the collaboration of Fabius Bile and the Dark Mechanicum's Sota-Nul using bio-engineered augmentations. It was briefly mentioned in the Siege of Terra novel Saturnine by Dan Abnett that the EC were creating a lot of high-pitched noise that punctured the eardrums of baseline Imperial Troops, but the actual creation of the Noise Marines was never touched upon in any of the 52 Horus Heresy books. I am not referring to the Laer throat graft that Eidolon got, but the non-commander Noise Marines.

 

Edited Wednesday at 06:32 PM by Bestkeptsecret

[Malkydel]

40 minutes ago, Bestkeptsecret said:

Does not the Horus Heresy series have 52 books in total? I do not understand why we had to wait till the series ended to get the following revealed in the Dropsite Massacre. 

 

  Hide contents

The creation of the Noise Marines in the Emperor's Children legion by the collaboration of Fabius Bile and the Dark Mechanicum's Sota-Nul using bio-engineered augmentations. It was briefly mentioned in the Siege of Terra novel Saturnine by Dan Abnett that the EC were creating a lot of high-pitched noise that punctured the eardrums of baseline Imperial Troops, but the actual creation of the Noise Marines was never touched upon in any of the 52 Horus Heresy books. I am not referring to the Laer throat graft that Eidolon got, but the non-commander Noise Marines.

 

'Fulgrim' covers it with the Maraviglia. Marius, for example, is seen after it on Istvaan V, using the repurposed instrument-weapon. 

[DukeLeto69]

12 hours ago, Malkydel said:

'Fulgrim' covers it with the Maraviglia. Marius, for example, is seen after it on Istvaan V, using the repurposed instrument-weapon. 

The handling of such a major event in the HH in the original series was pitiful. You’d have thought a book dedicated to each major event was a no brainer rather than a sideplot in a book would have been clear in the memo!

[Bestkeptsecret]

16 hours ago, DukeLeto69 said:

The handling of such a major event in the HH in the original series was pitiful. You’d have thought a book dedicated to each major event was a no brainer rather than a sideplot in a book would have been clear in the memo!

 

Spoiler

I remember reading the Fulgrim novel more than 8 years ago. As I understand after finishing reading the Dropsite Massacre, the difference between DM and Fulgrim in the description of the creation of the Noise Marines, is that the scenes in Fulgrim can be categorized under "the occult origins of the Noise Marines" and the description in the Dropsite Massacre can be categorized as "the scientific and technical origins of the Noise Marines". The Maraviglia scene in Fulgrim reflects daemonic influence combined with loud and sensuous musical performance and the effects of the exposure of the Emperor's Children to the Laer Temple, whereas the scene of the surgery described in the Dropsite Massacre falls under Transhuman augmentation and reflects the technical details of the Noise Marine as seen in the 10th edition launch miniature of the Noise Marines this year. In earlier years, the Noise Marine figure appeared with an electric guitar and artwork depicted a crazed and bizarre refashioning of musical instruments whereas the current Noise Marine has an elongated ranged weapon in his hand which is similar to the device described in the Dropsite Massacre novel by John French. We can only wonder what would be mentioned in the original Fulgrim novel if the author had been John French instead of Graham McNeil. Perhaps the initial group discussion among the writers conceived the Noise Marine weapon as a refashioned musical instrument taken from the Maraviglia performance. However, when they discussed how to conceive the Noise Marine for the 2025 EC release, they went for a more technical approach which would reflect the collaboration of Fabius Bile's mad scientist operation skills and the technical expertise of the New (Dark) Mechanicum. The intention of the Black Library team for the Noise Marine to appear as the result of surgical procedure rather than warp influence daemonic shenanigans maybe developed later on.

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Bestkeptsecret