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moodymisty · 6 months ago

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I follow you for darksiders, but seeing your wh40k posts, the worms are slowly starting to take over. 😅

I also read one book (sign of faith) that I kind of liked (I like character suffering to end in some merit, but it seems in this universe it's not how I usually imagine/like)...

From your writings I'm starting to take in interest the custodes, Guilliman, Vulkan and Corvus.

Could you recommend some standalone books? I wrote down some from your recent asks to check out, but if you can suggest more I'd be happy!

It's Monday morning where I am, so whishing you a nice week, may your work hours pass quickly!

I apologize in advance for this

I'm going to use amazon links just so you know what I'm referring to for sure, but they're available as ebooks on Black Library as well if you're a charlatan that doesn't like physical books. These are my own personal opinions, please don't burn me alive.

Now, not all of the primarch books are good. But they are good standalone books if you enjoy getting into a particular primarch/legion and how they think. I can vouch for the Konrad Curze one (it's the best one imo), and the Alpharius one. I also see a lot a lot of people that say the Angron one and Lion'el one is good but i haven't personally read them.

There isn't too many Vulkan/Salamander books sadly, I can only think of Tomb of Fire but that's a series. For Corvus, there's the Corvus anthology. You don't have to read HH to follow, it's largely just about Corvus and raven guard specific adventures.

Unfortunately compared to Girlyman, there really isn't much for Vulkan and Corvus. They're largely ignored by BL along with the White Scars.

I know it's not technically a standalone book but Night Lords omnibus is a fucking mandatory read. It's 3 books and you can get the all in one book on amazon for like 20 bucks. Even if you don't like Night Lords/Chaos, the writing alone makes it such a good read.

The Infinite and the Divine is another mandatory read. It's a good break from Space marine content too, since there's so much of it.

I haven't personally read this one so i can't vouch for it, but if you like human/astartes interaction Legacy of Dorn is supposed to be decent.

If you like Guilliman, I highly recommend the Dark Imperium trilogy. Again not a single book, but it's a good series that really shows just how different Guilliman is from his legion now, and how he's having to jump right into fighting a war he had hoped would be long ended by now.

Helsreach is very good. Death korps of Krieg is also supposed to be good, but I can't vouch for it personally.

I'm sure there's so many other books I'm missing. I can't vouch for them all because I've only read a few dozen or so, but these are some of my personal favorites.

Now an added note here: The Horus Heresy books are a nightmare. BUT, you can read them as standalone if you want, because they're less of an coherent storyline and more of a webbed mess of content like Star Wars. If you have a rough idea of the main 'idea' of the Heresy, you can read them solo. In fact many people do just pick and choose the HH books they want to read based on what legion they're interested in. I recommend Betrayer (angron content <3), The first Heretic (Lorgar and his piss kink lol), Fulgrim, Deliverance lost, and Unremembered Empire.

#I give the worst fucking advice known to man please do not listen to me

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asamiscuddlepillow · 2 years ago

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Why Ciaphas Cain is the only good Imperial Character; Or How I Got High And Wrote Words

Alright, so, last week there were a couple discussion on the Imperium. One about how people are being real weird about the imperial "PURGE THE HERETIC AND XENOS" memes, and one about how people are too big on the Imperium characters everywhere and not enough on the non-human factions. In the former, pretty much everyone agreed that the Satire of the Imperium was being lost, and I posited (mostly to agreements) that the fault was partially on GW for playing into the facist glorification of Space Marines and Imperium characters. In the later I said "Ciaphas Cain is the only good human character" and that one people did *not* agree with.

Well hang onto your butts, 'cause I'mma explain why the latter is true, and it's because of the former.

Part Alpharius: The Imperium isn't funny

I have a challenge for you. Find me something that is a joke about the Ultramarines, who are the flagship and front-and-center advertisement for the setting. Find me something that is an obvious satirical joke about them, that a person who's never touched the tabletop or the novels knows. Find me a joke about them that a regular person knows that doesn't come from Emperor's Text-to-Speech.

Find me a joke about them that doesn't have the slurs from Emperor's Text-to-Speech original first episode.

Odds are you cannot. There isn't a joke, or a satire, present in how they are sold to people. In games, and videos, and comics, and even the majority of the novels the Space Marines in general are just sold straight up as stolid warrior monks who are the only defense of the imperium against the ravening dark. They are flawed, sure, in various ways. But those flaws are simply something that these epic warriors need to overcome and struggle with to show how cool and awesome and powerful they are, and how the rightness of their cause must truly be just to allow them the strength of will to carry on in this grimdark universe of eternal war.

This extends further to the greater Imperium as a whole. It's a giant and plodding bureaucratic nightmare, sure. But that is presented not as the Kafkesque joke it needs to be most of the time, but simply the byproduct of having such a huge and sprawling galactic empire without real FTL. Once again, a flaw that the stolid and heroic characters need to overcome to be able to defend humanity from the crawling hordes of destruction. It isn't a joke, it just is.

"Sure it's terrible," the thought is, "but it's the only way to keep humanity alive and that's worth it in the end."

This isn't funny. This isn't a joke. And that's a problem because it makes it tremendously easier for people to just accept it straight up.

But random internet stranger, satire doesn't always have to be funny!

This is, in a way, true. Satire does not, in fact, need to be a comedy. But I think it does need to be *funny*. It needs to have a joke, an implicit contradiction and paradox that you look at, internalise, and then go "Oh, heh, yeah that's kind of funny". Satire is meant to be a mirror you hold up that reflects a real societal issue, and expanded to an absurd degree to show the inherent wrongness of it, the cruelty or idiocy or straight up idiocy of something. It is absolutely essential, or else you fall into that trap the t-shirt talks about.

This is part of why having the Imperium as the cover boys for the game is a bad idea. Because anything that might be considered satirical about it only works when you dig deeply into lore and history and setting, or when you compare it to, say, the Orks. Orks are, after all, THE joke of 40k. Which is why they're A joke, but that's beside the point.

However, even then, that point gets diluted very easily. See, for example, Helsreach. Here we have one of the most stolid and squarejawed Chapters of space marines possible set against a neverending tide of Orks. And all of it is played as a straight up war story, epic and dramatic and... Not satirical. And Helsreach is going to be an entry point for people into the setting, thanks to the fan-animation movie on Youtube, along with the Astartes shorts. This is a problem.

But the boo-

We fans who read books and game books and know lore and dig into shit aren't the people I'm addressing. Hell, most everyone in this sub is someone who understands the core satirical idea of Warhammer 40k and is able to play with it or around it, depending on mood.

I'm talking about the General Public here. The people who only know 40k from, say, the video games. Or the memes. Where does the core satire and joke of the setting come off for them? Name me one game that has come in the 40k setting that does so (Maybe Darktide, I dunno, I haven't played it, maybe some of the dialogue is funny? But that kind of gets lost as well in the rest of everything because the biggest reaction I've seen about Darktide is "I feel so awesome and cool shooting the bolter"). The only time it kind of comes close is with the Orks, but that hardly counts because, again, Orks are THE joke of 40k (which is why they are a joke) and it very easily is played off as "Cool badass awesome space marine smashes through the silly stupid joke race in between doing awesome things to protect the imperium".

This is a problem.

Enter: Ciaphas Cain.

Ciaphas Cain is the only good Imperium character. Both good, morally as a person, and good as in well done and fitting with the original goals and themes of the setting.

He's a fop. An idiot. A coddled man-child who wants to live the easy life and coast on his laurels. A lazy coward who's only still alive because the actual cool hero of the story, Jurgen, is at his shoulder with a Meltagun constantly and a super-special-secret-superpower to protect him from everything else. Tyranids? It's fine Jurgen is there to disrupt their mindlinks. Chaos? It's fine Jurgen is there to counter the sorcery and melta people. Eldar? Same. Daemons? Same. On and on it goes. Cain is literally a bumbling swashbuckling rogue from a pirate movie but set into a Lovecraftian universe of horror and madness and death.

And that's kind of funny.

Everytime Cain tries to get out of a dangerous situation, he just makes it worse for himself. He wants to be a lazy asshole and get drunk? Whooops genestealer cult he has to dismantle. He wants to take some RR away from the front? Whoops Slaneeshi cult he has to deal with. Every time he tries to pass off his duties and his responsibilities, he's forced to do them but worse to even get out alive, and every time he does everyone around him thinks he's a big damn superhero who's braver than any Primarch and a true scion of the imperium. Which means if he wants to keep having the easy posh lazy life full of booze, he needs to play into it. Which just puts him into dangerous situations. Which he tries to get out of but then ends up in worse situations and has to get out of them. Which makes people around him think he's cool. You get the point. And through this foppish laziness he coasts through the Imperial ranks, a useless bastard who is important because he's important, a lynchpin of Imperial Propaganda and Morale that doesn't want to be there, hates being there, and every time he tries to squirm out of it just becomes even more important, we see the brainless bureaucracy of the imperium in action. That he's been listed as KIA and come back so often that the Imperial record keepers got mad and passed a law saying he is never to be listed as anything but MIA even after being burried in fully military honours on Terra is canon.

And that's pretty funny.

He is besties and lovers with an Inquisitor. An Inquisitor who is editing his memoirs and, despite the fact they are restricted and basically no one will ever read them, she still puts a lot of work into organising them, putting in little footnotes and explanation texts, finding volumes written by other people about the same thing to fill in the blanks than Cain's narcissism ignores, and has a runny commentary on everything happening in the books. That conceit of how the novels are presented are amazing, because you get macro-and-micro stuff happening, and you're able to have the satire present without distracting from the narrative. I have had the satirical nature of the Imperium presented to me better through these footnotes and asides than in basically any other product about the setting, ever. The tracks on the landraider crush the heretic nursery rhyme anyone? And it does this in a way that is, literally, canon.

And thats damn funny.

Cain has been present for a lot of the major conflicts against every major enemy of the Imperium. He's met Tau and Chaos and Dark Eldar and Tyrannids and Necrons (oh my). Hell, I learned more about the Kroot and the Tau from his first book than anywhere else. He's been a minor lynchpin in many important events in the setting, but in a way he's always off to the side. Never *the* major hero, but *a* hero. I remember reading some stuff on the 13th Black Crusade and having that Voice guy who can turn people to his side just by talking. And I went "Hey is that the guy Caine killed in that one book?" No it's not. It's another guy with the same powers but who isn't as major that Caine just happened to be involved with killing. That's the joke. And it's not a bad one.

(But this part isn't so much about the joke as it is about how Caine is the perfect introduction to the setting for a newbie. Because he's met basically *all* parts of the setting, he's a great way to get people into it. The 40k show should be a Caphias Caine series and I will die on this hill.)

But you said he was the only morally good person and you keep going on about how he's a useless foppish asshole jerk

There's this thing, from way back in the days of being a baby progressive online, that said "Intent is not fucking magic". It was used to counter the whole "Well I didn't INTEND to offend you or say something hurtful therefore I didn't do anything wrong". No, intend isn't fucking magic, you may not have intended harm but you did harm.

That swings both ways. Caine does not intend to be a caring, just, protective, encouraging, and wonderful commanding officer. He is trying to be a selfish lazy asshole that doesn't do any work. Why doesn't he summarily execute troopers when, *even in the current day and age he would be fully in the right to do so to some of them with our own military*? Because the paperwork sucks, and if he does it too much he might get shot in the back by his own men when no one is looking. Absolutely pragmatic and selfish, almost dangerously so.

But the result is that, at the end of the day, he takes care of the troops around him. People are encouraged by Caine being around because they know that, when the going gets tough, Caine is the kind of man you want at your side, and you'll watch his back because he watches yours. That he's a brave and selfless person, who respects the life of his troops, and wants to see them come home again alive and unhurt. Caine is one of the only people in the entire setting of 40k who makes the lives and service of probably the *only* truly innocent and blameless people in the entire imperium, the regular guard trooper, better. He intends to save his own neck and make his life easier. His entire career has been a rejection of the Imperial Way of Life because that way is hard and requires work, so he doesn't do it.

But intent is not fucking magic and Caine is in fact a force of unmittigated good in the setting. He makes peoples lives better in a horrible world of monsters and madness.

And that's fucking hillarious.

But what about these other characters

Look I'm sure you can find a bunch of people in the lore that also care about civilians and Guardmen. Gaunt is probably one of them, from what I understand. The problem with them is that they play it straight. It isn't a joke. It isn't satirical. It is serious people being serious in a serious world and fighting against all odds and coming out the other side heroic. They intend to protect their troops and civilians for the troops and civilians sake. And this not only isn't funny, but intent is not fucking magic. Because they are serious and treat it all seriously, and the result is that... They continue to uphold the Imperium. They do not try to reject it, they play into it. It isn't a joke that elevates them, it is a serious and tragic flaw they combat to make their heroism more epic.

And that isn't funny.

In Conclusion

Orks should be the major cover boys of 40k. That would sell it better as a satirical setting. And Ciaphans Caine is the only good human character.

Addendum

are you saying the caine books are good?

No they're fucking garbage. Absolute trash. Pretty much everything is, from every setting. Even the works of art you think are masterpieces contain something you find insufferable, I'm willing to bet. The only thing that isn't garbage is the thing you are in the current process of writing this moment. And if you put it down and come back to it later and re-read it, you'll go "What fucking idiot fuck wrote this fucking garbage" Everything is garbage, but people appreciates part of the garbage that is less garbage. The cream of the garbage, if you will.

They are a lot of fun though. Addendum the second: Bringing Satire back to Space Marines

Lets give this a shot. Shouldn't be too hard, right? I'll start.

Ultramarines: Requirement to fill out forms in triplicate before any combat drop. Once the expected ammunition is expended during combat, they have to hunker down and call back to base and fill out a new logistical analysis of the combat theater and update their forms. When an enemy fleet enters Ultramar space, they send out several forms of censure and demands to please quit the space or there shall be a full meeting of the Ultramar Emergency Response Council, with an estimate time for response to be a decade give or take three years. When Guilliman is asked about the horror of the modern imperium he shrugs his pauldrons and says "Well they filled out the proper documentation so there is nothing I can do, but I have put in a petition with the High Lords requesting a meeting to discuss opening a dialogue about drawing up a study group to examine the possibility of analysing the current status of Imperial doctrins for further evaluation by-" and then people just leave and he rambles for three hours.

Blood Angels: They all talk like dracula. When they land on a planet they keep making remarks about peoples delicious looking necks. When exposed to mirrors or direct sunlight they cringe and throw up their arms and hiss for a while. When asked about this they go balistic and slaughter an entire planet for implying they are Night Lords.

Space Wolves: The space wolves book already make them a joke, but make it more of a joke. It's not a land speeder, it's a land wolfer. They don't have adeptus astartes, they are all adeptus theriomorphus. Change their emblem to be three wolves howling at the moon. Logan Grimnar is spotted staring off into space, gently sighing as in every way except physical, he is a wolf. Their rune priests make most of their income to maintain the chapter by opening up comissions on furaffinity.

Addendum the second PS A lot of people have told me, when I originally posted this, that this isn’t “Satire” as much as it is memes. In response to those people, who will never see this; The first goal is to make space marines not cool. To make them stupid, silly, and dumb. To take away the aura of badass space monks battling against impossible odds, to remove the patina of fascist worship that enshrines them. Once that is done, we can worry about making them “Properly Satirical” Also and further; making them stupid idiots is satire, because they are the avenging angels of the imperium the scions of the emperors flesh himself, and they are stupid idiots.

#warhamemr 40k #warhammer 40000 #ciaphas cain #jurgen is the only reason cain is alive #even amberly is only around him because of jurgen #meltas solve everything #warhammer 40k #a reddit repost where I just coppied the raw text #also its my own post so its legal

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captainblacklobster2 · 9 months ago

Video

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Helsreach | Paint It Black (Sebastian Böhm)

#youtube

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leareadsheresy · 9 months ago

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Galaxy in Flames

This post contains spoilers for Galaxy in Flames, by Ben Counter, first published as a novel on (as nearly as I can tell) October 10th, 2006.

I'll be honest, I don't have a lot to say about this one. This book is the story of how Horus took the major part of the Sons of Horus, Death Guard, Emperor's Children, and World Eaters Legions to the Istvaan system on false pretenses of putting down another rebellion, and on the planet Istvaan III deployed those portions of them he judged most likely to object to his rebellion against the Emperor in a spearhead strike against the planetary capital, then bombarded the planet from orbit in an attempt to kill all the potential loyalists in a first strike. Saul Tarvitz, an Emperor's Children marine from Horus Rising, does some investigation behind the scenes, figures out the plot, then flees to the planet's surface in time to warn the spearhead, who take shelter underground, allowing many of them to survive the bombardment (virus bombs that otherwise kill all life on the planet, including its six or so billion civillian inhabitants). What follows is then three months of fighting on the surface in the ruins of the planetary capital, with the loyalists in slow retreat, getting whittled down to buy time in the hope that word has gotten out of Horus's treachery and a relief force will be sent to rescue them. No relief force arrives, but their slow defeat does tangle up the traitor forces in time for word of Horus's treachery to make it back to the Imperium. Loken and Torgaddon, the loyalist half of Horus's advisory Mournival council, fight Abaddon and Aximand, the traitor half; Abaddon and Aximand both live, Torgaddon dies, and Loken's fate is left unclear (spoilers he survives and is a character in later books).

It ends like this:

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In the meantime, three embedded civilian observers who've been secondary characters in the last two books escape from Horus's flagship the Vengful Spirit to the Eisenstein, the one ship in the fleet held secretly by loyalists, which escapes and will be the subject of the next book. One of them, Euphrati Keeler, is now preaching the Emperor's divinity, manifesting miracles, and being called a saint.

It's essentially an extended action story with a jailbreak B-plot. It makes some odd pacing decisions, basically skipping from the bombardment to the last few day of the siege; I feel like it could have wrung more drama from making the situation more grinding and desperate... but then I'm just describing Helsreach, which is not surprising because Helsreach did this better.

All but one of the traitors have ridden a slip-and-slide down into Saturday morning cartoon villainy in this book; they're now all sneering monsters, constantly internal monologuing their own sense of superiority and expressing petty contempt for everyone around them, including amongst each other. Horus imperiously tells people who were his trusted allies, friends, and close confidants in Horus Rising how cool he is and how they'd better not fail him; those former close confidants and trusted allies just accept that he's right to do that and then treat their former friends and subordinates the same way. It's not even that they feel out of character; they don't really have characters. The exceptions are Lucius, who's like that but more so, because he's one of the series' designated ultra-assholes like Erebus, and Aximand, who kills Torgaddon and feels bad about it. I assume that'll come up later.

Look, it's fine. It does the job it sets out to do. It doesn't fail in any interesting or infuriating ways like False Gods did; the ending is reasonably affecting if you like Saul Tarvitz. It successfully novelizes some lore that was around for decades and moves the events of the series forward. This is one of the most important events in the Heresy and we'll be re-visiting it a lot in future material; I hear some of that future material treats it better than this did.

Euphrati Keeler's role is weird. You would think the book would be interested in playing with tone when it comes to the death of the atheistic Imperial Truth and the birth of the Imperial cult, but like the death of all native life on Istvaan III and the betrayal and murder of the loyalists by their traitor brothers, it's all presented in a very matter-of-fact manner.

#horus heresy #Galaxy in Flames #warhammer 30k #lea reads heresy #read along #YouTube #Galaxy in Flames spoilers

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