#valdor birth of the imperium

[stlptr]

[scp-xxxx]

The essay about relations in Valdor: Birth of the Imperium.

[sculptorofcrimson]

"Ophar had never been deceived – he understood why the Custodians looked the way they did. If you concealed your killers in the armour of gods, then they would be worshipped even as they raised their blades. Ophar had lived through the darkest of times, witnessing atrocity from coast to mountain, and knew murderers when he saw them. It didn’t matter what they wore, nor how politely they expressed themselves – Valdor’s soldiers had been created to kill, and kill, and kill again. They had no other function. Emotion had been knocked out of them, replaced by a horrifying sangfroid that bordered on the mechanical. They were devils. They were products of an age of nightmares." - Valdor, Birth of an Imperium, 100

Murderers? That’s calling them lightly. I prefer what that one Thunder Warrior called him:

“You’re a lying, murdering bastard, and we were all supposed to be cracking down on them.”

-That One Thunder Warrior(Whose Name I forgot)

[marsskop]

Fav #wh40k character?

Constantin Valdor.

I am simply fascinated by his character (and the way Chris Wraight, in particular, writes him). I could write an essay about Valdor... Instead, have this ramble with a silly pic in the end ;)

Dour, reserved, quietly spoken, intelligent, and dry; preternaturally calm and infinitely intimidating. A man of no pride with one goal in mind. His emotions are etiolated, and emotions of others are hard to decipher. Obsessed with his armor and weapons, as every Custodes is, and obsessed over mistakes that should be fixed.

"You are the bringer of the new age. You are the warden of the old. You are the destroyer. You are the preserver."

The first of the Custodes, supposedly the template for all of them (nature, nurture). He knew more about the Emperor's plans than most. His sole goal is the protection of the Emperor, and he cares not for the Imperium.

The Apollonian Spear, given to him by the Emperor, a restraint that tells stories of the foes Valdor slays (and imagine what happens when he slays daemons). The way he fights -- first, calculating as he stands still, then moving into action in the most optimal way. The inherent symbolism of Custodes armor, and them, in turn, and the connection between a Custodes and their armor.

How Valdor sees that humanity was "bled from" them, their dreams plucked away, their emotions left to wither.

‘What is left for you, Constantin?’ Ushotan breathed, blood bubbling up between his burned lips. ‘What more can He take from you that He hasn’t already?’

Valdor drew in a long breath, then plunged the knife in, ending the primarch’s agony. For a moment he did nothing else, his head bowed, the storm exhausting itself around him and coating the land in a film of pale, drifting grey.

Then, slowly, he withdrew the blade.

‘Nothing,’ he said, very softly. ‘Nothing at all.’

All excerpts are from Valdor: Birth of the Imperium by Chris Wraight. It is an awesome read, I highly recommend it! I'd say it is my favorite book in the whole Warhammer40k (by the number of rereads alone).

Also, have a silly pic.

[thegodemperorsmycopilot]

Before all of them, Dante, Mephiston, even Sanguinious, there was this. A simple run of experiments that never ran to completion. This right here is probably what created the Blood Angels' flaw: what appears to be the simple act of someone getting pulled off their job.

If this had been run to completion, imagine the possibilities, if this was indeed for the Blood Angels.

No obsessed demons hounding them.

No need for the Sanguinary Priests.

How different they may have been.

Excerpt is from "Valdor: Birth of the Imperium".

[leareadsheresy]

Mission Statement: Committing to a Mistake

I'm going to read all the Horus Heresy stories. I'm going to do it in publication order.

To be clear, I'm not going to read all the books in publication order; I'm going to read all the stories in publication order. There are a lot of stories that were initially published in, like, Horus Heresy Weekender pamphlets or as web fiction years before they saw print in later anthology volumes. I've made a list. Making it took an evening that would have been better spent on almost any other activity, up to and including just going to bed early, but now I've got it. All I need to do is go back and refine it from publication month to publication day for specifically those stories that were published daily as part of one-story-per-day monthly events, but those don't start to become a factor until much later so no hurry on that.

I haven't decided yet whether I'll listen to audio dramas in cases where a story was first released as an audio drama and later re-released in text. I'm not really a fan of audio books. Also, this includes the Heresy 1st edition Black Books, Primarch novels, and character series novels like Valdor: Birth of the Imperium. All told there are eighty-five books in this list, and if you break it out by individual short stories there's about 253 items, though that does include both short stories and the anthology volumes that compile them, as many anthology volumes that compile previously-published short stories add a framing narrative. If I read one novel's worth of text a week, which to be clear I am absolutely not committing to doing, it'll take me a year and a half.

Why am I doing this? Well, there's a number of reasons.

The first is it's absurd to sink this much energy into being an… enthusiast, I guess you could say, under protest�� for a setting while absorbing most of it second-hand, and as a wise man once said, the time will pass regardless. But the second reason, the real reason, is I need to know. I cannot take my understanding of this work being filtered through YouTube Lore Explainers anymore, or worse, overly verbose fan wikis, people who themselves only understand it from watching YouTube Lore Explainers, or people who have read the books but have no critical faculties and read them through the lens of their memories of If the Emperor had a Text to Speech Device. I have to see it for myself. I need to be able to filter the words of the text from the memes.

The third reason is I hope having a long-term project like this will distract me from other stupid projects that might be expensive, like adopting new hobbies.

Why publication order by story instead of publication order by compiled volume or chronology? Well, I'm interested in how the narrative develops over time, not just from an in-universe perspective but from the real-life one as well. I'm interested in, for example, reading Book I: Betrayal in the context of being the first proper Horus Heresy game book published six years into the novel series, and how what it says about the traitor legions on Istvaan III reflects what the novels have said about them up until that point. Also, it ought to help me get through the allegedly terrible Salamanders stories by reading them one at a time in between other works, instead of all at once when I reach Born of Flames.

To amuse myself, I will proceed on the assumption that the Horus Heresy 1st Edition Black Books are flawed in-universe history texts, and the novels are flawed dramatizations, both referring to a hypothetical "real" set of events that cannot be perceived directly. This should insulate me from the worst of the critical whiplash stemming from when an important character from better books shows up and has important character development done awfully in a book that's awful.

Here's my history with the works: Years ago, I read Horus Rising and thought it was pretty decent, if clumsy in its introduction of Samus during the first part of the book. I then read halfway through False Gods and thought it was God damn awful, just taking the character work from the first book out behind the chemical sheds and shooting it in the back of the skull, and I quit the series. Later, I read Book I: Betrayal, about halfway through Book II: Massacre, and skipped ahead to Book III: Extermination because I'm a giant Raven Guard goober for some damn reason. I've also read Deliverance Lost, the Corax anthology, the Corax: Lord of Shadows Primarch novel, and parts of Book VI: Retribution and Book VIII: Malevolence. I will be re-reading all of these as I get to them in the reading order list.

My original plan was to pick up where I left off, but upon realizing that I'd left off halfway through False Gods and not like ten pages into it the way I remembered, I went back to the start of that book, then realized it had been so long since I read it and Horus Rising that I didn't remember which events had happened in which book. So I've started from the beginning again. I am currently about a third of the way through my second read of Horus Rising and have just started Part 2: Brotherhood in Spiderland, which I mention by name here because it's named Part 2: Brotherhood in Spiderland. I expect my next entry in this blog will be thoughts on Horus Rising Part 1: The Deceived, and I'll get around to renovating the appearance of the blog itself thereafter.

If I should fail in this endeavor, lose interest or drift away, good. This is a terrible idea.

And for the record, Lea is pronounced "Lee" and I've read all of Homestuck.

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

What book was that with Ushotan?

Valdor: Birth of the Imperium

[screamingatthevoid]

Infinite power cannot be overcome. We are finite, limited by law. So, deception. You will cheat them. You will cheat all of them. And us.

Constantin Valdor to the Emperor of Mankind (Valdor: Birth of the Imperium by Chris Wraight)

[scp-xxxx]

Friendly reminder that every time Ushotan goes on a mountain, he nearly fucking dies(or actually dies.)

1. Maulland Sen was held on a mountain and he nearly died

2. Mt. Ararat was held on a mountain and he ALSO nearly died

3. The Palace Coup was held on a mountain and he actually died

Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.

Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that Ushotan just suffers terrible luck on mountains.

(Valdor and the Custodes only won because Ushotan was on a mountain. /j)

[sculptorofcrimson]

Quick question, who’s the twinkiest twink in Valdor: Birth of the Imperium?

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One thing I find interesting is the juxtaposition between Valdor and Russ. They play off each other in an very interesting "not quite enemies, but certainly not friends" sense, since their relationship was canonically quite strained after Prospero, and Valdor is infamous for his loathing of Primarchs.

Hold my beer, I wrote an essay on this...

“‘Constantin would have let them all burn, had I not been there. I wonder if he would have been happy to do it. Had he known then what he knows now, he might have lit the taper himself. But then he was given an order, and of course Constantin cannot disobey an order.’” - Birth of the Imperium, 89

Astarte’s musings on how Valdor would have been fine to let the Primarchs burn, if not for the fact he was ordered to save them.  

“‘That if the primogenitors were truly scattered, can it be wisdom for us to seek them out? Should they not be left where they are? Destroyed? If they live, they will have the touch of their captors on them.’” - Birth of the Imperium, 151

Valdor’s first instance of knowing the Primarchs’ survival, and he already disapproves of them. 

"Constantine Valdor was renowned throughout the Imperium as bith a worrior of sublime skill and a paragon of honour. By contrast Leman Russ had done little to gainsay his reputation as a barbaric killer who led other barbaric killers. The two seemed an unlikely pair, and some among the higher echelons of the Divisio Militaris expressed some concerns over their selection as commanders of the Censure Fleet, yet it is evident from a variety of sources that both commanders held a deep respect for the abilities of the other. Despite this, the early stages of the Prospero campaign were to open a rift between the two commanders of the Imperium, ironically due to the iron-clad loyalty of both commanders. For where Russ had concluded that to best serve the Imperium Magnus must die, Valdor would not deviate from the Emperor's orders to take the Crimson King alive. While Valdor would eventually defer to Russ as the Emperor's chosen commander of the Censure Fleet, relations between the two commanders would remain strained during the fighting on the Thousand Sons' homeworld." - Inferno

Whatever "respect" Valdor had for Russ was, literally, broken on Prospero, especially after the Burning forced Valdor's hand.(He was there to arrest Magnus, not set him on fire! Russ, this is all ya fault, apologize to the Lord Banana!)

"‘Primarchs,’ he said finally, a single, withering expletive that sounded as close to a curse as the captain-general of the Ten Thousand would ever get." - Magisterium

Valdor, being generally annoyed at Primarchs.

"‘What took you so damn long?’ Russ demanded, hawking up a gobbet of spittle and loosing on the ground. He went helmless, the only one of them there who did – a statement of arrogant confidence that struck Samonas as borderline crazed. ‘We’ve been killing witches without your Sisters to blunt their fangs.’

Valdor stiffened a little. ‘It was your wish to engage first, lord,’ he said.

‘True.’ Russ laughed. There was a strange light in those bestial eyes – Samonas thought he looked half mad. ‘True! But you took your time when the order came.’

Order. No living man gave the captain-general an order, save the one who had created him." - Magisterium

Russ tries to order Valdor around. Valdor eventually(and begrudgingly defers, according to Inferno), but absolutely is not pleased. 

"“Dorn knows there is old rancour there. There always has been. Constantin, with his eternally saturnine disposition, has never even tried to disguise his feelings towards the primarch sons and their Astartes offspring. It’s not jealousy, or even resentment. It’s doubt, a grave uncertainty, a wary lack of faith in the new instruments that have been fashioned to supplant his kind.”" - The End and the Death III

Valdor, hating the Primarchs(as usual).

Valdor and Dorn, refusing his aid: " Several times, Dorn turns to offer Constantin his hand, or support the captain-general over some especially stubborn obstacle. Every time he does, Constantin shakes him off, or fixes him with a scowl of such contempt that Dorn withdraws his hand. 

'Damn you!' 

'You're hurt. Let me help you.' 

'Damn your help.'[...]

Dorn hears a sound behind him, a clatter and slither of rocks. He turns in time to see Constantin overbalancing, pitching backwards as washed-out stone gives way and he loses his footing. 

Dorn reaches out instinctively. He grabs Constantin’s wrist and prevents a fall that, at the very least, would have compounded the captain-general’s already critical injuries.

This time, Constantin does not shake him off." - TEaTD III

"Russ glanced back at Valdor, a sly smile on his fanged face. ‘Oh, that’s it, is it?’ He laughed again, but it was an ice-cold sound. ‘You have the power of Magisterium, and wish to cling to it.’ Russ paced back to him again. He was always moving, restless, like a tempest bound up inside the sham-form of a man. ‘Don’t try to invoke the Lex with me. You claim to speak for my Father, but you’re not His blood, are you? Not like we are. That’s what really gets you, isn’t it? You’re His instruments. He’d toss you aside in an instant if He cared to. We, though. We. We’re family.’ Russ gave out a great belly-laugh then, amused by the idea. ‘You’ll never understand that.’

Valdor didn’t reply for an instant, seemingly genuinely nonplussed.

‘There are so many errors there,’ he said eventually, ‘I do not even know where to start.’" - Magisterium

Valdor and Russ’ ideologies clash very evidently. The fact that Valdor is constantly “other” from Primarchs occurs multiple times when Valdor is present, including this time, ever since Birth of the Imperium where Valdor’s inhumanity was a core theme(and so was sacrifice, I wrote an essay on relationships in BoTI, if you wanna check that out).

And finally, a slightly funny part.

"Samonas watched them go. The Aquilon guard remained static around them, their helm-faces magnificently blank. ‘Is he… in his right mind, lord?’ he ventured, looking up at Valdor enquiringly.

Valdor didn’t respond immediately. He watched the Wolves race into battle, whooping and hollering. It was impossible to gauge what he thought behind that ornate mask of auramite and carnelian.

‘Primarchs,’ he said finally, a single, withering expletive that sounded as close to a curse as the captain-general of the Ten Thousand would ever get."

Valdor doesn't even give an answer lmao.

And finally, Valdor being actually mad, which is damn near impossible. Since Valdor barely feels rage(he couldn't even try to rage when Leman asks him to).

"‘He has unleashed something he does not understand,’ Valdor said, staring at the distant Russ and speaking slowly and deliberately. ‘Just as Magnus did before him. What is it with them all? Where did they get this monstrous pride?’

More flagstones cracked, and Samonas heard the sighing creak of breaking stone. There was no sign of the primarch of the Thousand Sons now, only the endless bellows of his assassin. He lurched over to Valdor across the tilting flags, daring to reach out to pull him back from the edge.

But at last the captain-general turned away. As the debris of a world’s demise blew about them in furious eddies, he finally reached up to remove his helm. It came loose with a hiss, and Valdor inhaled the first unfiltered air of doomed Prospero.

The captain-general was furious. Never before had Samonas witnessed such raw anger on that normally implacable face.

‘They are the architects of this,’ Valdor said, speaking to the storm. ‘All of them.’

He turned to look at his thrall.

‘It could have been prevented,’ he said grimly. ‘Yet when the hour came, we merely watched them being born.’"

Finally, Valdor regrets the creation of the Primarchs. Understandable, Valdor, very understandable. Let's just say he was…so very, very displeased with Russ.

Valdor, not being angry:

"‘He’s dead, Constantin!’ Russ roared, finally rousing himself and shaking the dust from his pelt. ‘All the plans are dead too. We’ve pissed like dogs all over them and now the galaxy stinks from our spoor. Look around you. Try to see this world as those with a soul see it. Try, just for a moment, to be angry.’ Valdor does try. He indulges the Lord of Fenris, and tries. All he hears, though, are the voices of the slain. ‘"

He still comforts Russ, which is perhaps one of the few times where he shows favortism for a Primarch(Dorn may be the one he gets along with the best, especially after Prospero):

"And then, Valdor does something so out of character that even he is surprised by it. But then, this is a time of extremity, the moment when one epoch passes to another, and all but the most mechanistic soul cannot fail to be stirred by that.

He places his hand on Russ’ shoulder, and exerts a faint pressure of reassurance.

‘It is not over yet, Wolf King,’ Valdor says, in as empathetic a manner as he has ever managed. ‘There are sagas yet.'"

Finally, Valdor's departure.

"But he cannot tell the Wolf King to do one thing and allow himself to do another. Valdor has always been bound by the laws, even those he made for himself. He rises, reaching for his armour. By the time he leaves, there will be nothing left of him in the chamber – no sign, no message, no cryptic clue.

He slips out unnoticed, for the path has been prepared for a long time, and unlike Russ he takes no companions with him. That, too, is as it should be – he has never been a gregarious soul.

He looks back only once, just as his lander powers up on the platform. The heart of the old Palace is still there, horribly damaged but structurally intact, and within it, buried deep, is the one who made those things in the beginning. For a moment he cannot take his eyes off that sarcophagus, trying to guess whether He knew how this would transpire from the start, or whether, as seems likely, this is a desperate chance set against unthinkable calamity. Once, Valdor half dreaded the appearance of his master’s voice within his mind, knowing that it would be there only to give orders or make demands, but now that it is silent, he misses it. There are many species of solitude, but this, for one such as he, bound inextricably to the one who made him, is among the worst.

‘Only in death,’ he whispers before leaving."

Many times, Valdor’s “otherness” is shown, especially in his lack of ability to form relationships. It’s literally hopeless for him to try and connect with mortals(as Dorn reflects), but at least Primarchs can understand him a little better, even if Russ and Dorn both agree that Valdor will never understand emotions.

A very important part:

"Dorn wonders if Constantin, or any of the Custodes, are even capable of being close to another person. He suspects that friendship, like the capacity to question, is simply extraneous to them, incompatible with their frame of being.” - 254, the End and the Death

Imagine being Valdor and Dorn essentially narrates how you have no friends.

I would simply roll over and die from emotional damage as the Emperor intended.

Maybe one day I’ll write a whole essay about Valdor, Dorn and Russ(and how Valdor fucks up social interactions even worse than me).

I finally read the Valdor novella recently and it renewed and refreshed my extreme russ/valdor brainrot but also was just in general extremely solid and enjoyable.

Chris Wraight continues to carry forward the whole Apollonian-Dionysian theming they have going on which makes me bonkers insane because between that direct contrast being drawn between them and Two Metaphysical Blades they’re pretty much out and out canonically soulmates.

Valdor being neutral to negative about the primarchs in his novella while also, per TMB, patiently waiting for the person the Emperor has promised will wield the other spear (what will eventually become the spear of russ) to show up remains a very funny bit of irony.

[ask-valerian-40k]

Every-time I read a novel involving the Thunder Warriors I just end up liking the Black Legion more and more, fuck the entire system; burn it down to the ground 

[disisphlebotinum]

Valdor: The Birth of the Imperium. Starting now.

Am I finished with the first Dragonlance book, the first Expanse book, or the first Practical Magic book? no. Have I started Six of Crows? no.

I blame @djemsostylist

[pattern-53-enfield]

listened to Valdor: Birth of the Imperium

I need to hunt out more pre-Crusade Warhammer fiction because it is so much more interesting. I desperately need more Thunder Warrior content.

[scifi-fantasy-horror]

Valdor: Birth of the Imperium 

Art by  Aaron Griffin

Novel by Chris Wraight