Please please please don't deconstruct the emperor!

[Nabterayl]

Um i don't envision the emperor nor do i invision the great crusade as mass genocide nor do i look at his plan as being a bad thing am i crazy? no the emperor saw what chaos was and was ready to defeat chaos as well as protecting humanity from vile alien scum. thats the central idea behind 40k.... had the emperor been able to complete his goal then humanity would have been set. chaos would not be what it is the orks and other xenos races would be crushed under the boots of humanity. the heresy is that tragic event that dashes the emperors dreams and plans. that is the central storyline.... humanity would be alive and well under his rule. inmstead its broken down into a nightmare this was and is not the emperors imperium it is a twisted version a version built by corrupt men and opressive control of the high lords of tera. I know i do not view my space marines as evil nor are my imperial guard a bunch of genocidal lunatics... the tau are a bunch of subjugating commies you have chaos who wants to kill all orks who are certianly evil nids are evil then you have eldar who are just as evil because they will do what ever they need to do in order to survive. yes they are portrayed as the good guys because they help the imperium when it suits them and yet they are just as likely to stab them in the back when it suits them as well. sure space marines kill whole worlds that rebel. you would do the same thing to keep territory... the romans did it... do we call them a bunch of genocidal evil megolomaniacs? for me the emperor is julius cesar he did what he had to do.

Well, as has come up several other times in this forum, 40K has room for the story you want to tell. We absolutely do think that the Romans were a bunch of genocidal evil megalomaniacs. So was Alexander the Great, and pretty much every other monarch with "the Great" after his or her name. That doesn't mean they didn't have wonderful, inspiring qualities, or that they didn't do any good in the world. You can be a genocidal megalomaniacal mass murderer and war criminal and still be a hero, after all. The Emperor was certainly out to destroy Chaos, because ... well, because. I guess if you think Chaos is evil, that's good. He was certainly a charismatic leader, a visionary, and a fearsome warrior, all of which I personally consider intrinsically admirable qualities even if they aren't always used in the service of admirable causes. But it wasn't just Chaos that he declared war on. He also declared war on every form of non-human sentient life in existence, because ... well, because. He declared war on the very idea that anybody but he could lead humanity, so if a planet didn't want to join the Imperium they were declared race traitors and conquered. He declared war on the very idea of religion, because he was convinced that religion was intrinsically evil. He decided to conquer the galaxy biologically and culturally because he was convinced that he knew what was best for it. As Polybius said of the Romans, he created a desolation and called it peace.

But that's just one way to tell the story. It fits the facts, but it emphasizes them in a particular way. It's the version of 40K I find most compelling. It's not the version that everybody needs to find most compelling.

This is a king! He is the epitome of pre-Arthurian, Anglo-Saxon Gut Kenning. And when he dies, it's like when Beowulf dies, when Theodin falls at Pelinor Fields, when Caesar is killed, when king David dies, but now we can't celebrate him, we have to deconstruct him, subject him to our watered-down, post-Christian, slave morality, and talk about his cruel imperialism and lack of interest in social justice. God forbid we should, "for God's sake, sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings," because as Miller says, "who weeps for these, weeps for corruption."

One of the things I like best about 40K is that it has room for both. I don't see why you can't admire the heroism of a space marine who accepts a life of slavery even as you view him as a slaver and a slave, or why you can't admire an ork for defiantly pursuing a life of happiness even if that happiness involves the savage slaughter of dozens or hundreds of other sentient beings, many of them defenseless. Realizing the horror of the fact that Alexander killed more Greeks than the Achaemenid Empire did in its entire existence doesn't need to stop you from admiring the way that he inspired those around him to believe in themselves and what they could accomplish. Villainy and heroism are not incompatible with each other in real people.

[daboarder]

Not at all! Just because you know more about something does not lessen it's wonder. Ancient man thought that the lights in the sky were gods moving about in the heavens -- but now modern man knows them to be balls of gas, stars of brilliant light; but for all that knowledge we still gaze upon them with as much delight as before. If anything, I appreciate the modern setting of WH40K more now that I am more fully seeing into the past. You need to put yourself further into the shoes of the characters within the stories, to explore their minds in a fashion unique to first-person perspectives.

actually yeah thats pretty much EXACTLY what it does, particularly when the details are bland and trite story telling that is getting to where its supposed to be about as fast as a japanese manga.....

The HH was powerful because it relied on each persons own imagination to build the story, as such it was essentially limitless in its scope. By putting down in text what happened all those endless possibilities are now destoryed as we KNOW definitely how it happened.

take horus, instead of his fall being shrouded in mystery and the power of chaos, a story which used to conjure up the idea of climactic psychological struggles between horus and the powers of chaos, we have a trixie marine getting the warmaster stabbed.....

Also there was the chance for the primarchs to be truly and utterly evil but almost all of them bar fulgrim have been repainted as tragedies of misunderstanding instead of unique falls from grace.

[Katharon]

actually yeah thats pretty much EXACTLY what it does, particularly when the details are bland and trite story telling that is getting to where its supposed to be about as fast as a japanese manga.....

The HH was powerful because it relied on each persons own imagination to build the story, as such it was essentially limitless in its scope. By putting down in text what happened all those endless possibilities are now destoryed as we KNOW definitely how it happened.

take horus, instead of his fall being shrouded in mystery and the power of chaos, a story which used to conjure up the idea of climactic psychological struggles between horus and the powers of chaos, we have a trixie marine getting the warmaster stabbed.....

Also there was the chance for the primarchs to be truly and utterly evil but almost all of them bar fulgrim have been repainted as tragedies of misunderstanding instead of unique falls from grace.

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. You're mad because the HH series has not lived up to your particular expectations and in doing so "ruined" whatever version of events you yourself had created in your mind's eye.

[daboarder]

wow man, please put more words and attitude in my mouth. I'm not mad, I'm just bored with the Horus heresy and explaining why in my opinion its a bad thing (or more realistically just not that good).


Its nothing to do with expectation its about allowing the imagination of the audience to do the work for you.
This has been how GW wrote the horus heresy in the past, now they have "unveiled" that and removed the mystery it can live up to no ones imagination. the old heresy concept was a collective built from the minds of every single player and fan of 40k that contributed to it. (an extreme example being the old fly lords campaign) the new one is the product of a handful of minds, and will always lack the depth that the human imagination was able to provide.

[Katharon]

wow man, please put more words and attitude in my mouth. I'm not mad, I'm just bored with the Horus heresy and explaining why in my opinion its a bad thing (or more realistically just not that good).


Its nothing to do with expectation its about allowing the imagination of the audience to do the work for you.
This has been how GW wrote the horus heresy in the past, now they have "unveiled" that and removed the mystery it can live up to no ones imagination. the old heresy concept was a collective built from the minds of every single player and fan of 40k that contributed to it. (an extreme example being the old fly lords campaign) the new one is the product of a handful of minds, and will always lack the depth that the human imagination was able to provide.

Firstly, I apologize for assuming you were angry. That was what I inferred from your post and the language therein. Hard to convey tone in text.

Second, there were a lot of reasons behind them not revealing too many details about the HH before the series began publication. The major reason, one that I confirmed when I had an awesome chance to meet Mr. Priestley at a Warlord Games event, was that the game makers themselves hadn't thought that far out. They didn't make a more detailed background because no one at the time thought there was a need. Instead, the vague knowledge that "modern" 40K had fit with that fact and there was no need to elaborate. It was only recently when there was more vocal demand from players to know more, and that BL had a sufficient number of able authors capable of it, that GW decided to take that step. It was also a great commercial success (#1 reason for any company to do anything).

Lastly, I would remind you that those "handful of minds" are some of the best 40K authors that have yet been published. Dan Abnett being my personal favorite. If anyone could be expected to write such books in detail and well, then I would expect it to come from Mr. Abnett.

[Katharon]

Also, what the heck is the Fly Lords campaign? I've searched a bit and can't find any references. The only time I am aware of players directly influencing the story with GW's concent was the Eye of Terror campaign, which they subsequently stopped doing when they realized how quickly the story was changing.

[daboarder]

it was a campaign book done by bigred and the blokes at bols long before FW was doing the horus heresy (4th ed I think), they've done 3 actually. it was based on the horus heresy info to date, and was made with considerable community input. honestly it was a fantastic piece of work and I can't wait till bigred decides to do another. (perhaps the apostasy?)

Horus heresy
the badab war
Macharius crusade

[url]http://www.scribd.com/doc/48680502/Codex-Warhammer-30k-Horus-Heresy[/url]

[daboarder]

Heres another example of inconsistencies in the HH

Prince of crows, night haunter is stuck on teh lions flagship

Vulkan lives (he is being tortured by the night haunter on the night haunters ship)

but in unrembered empire, we get vulkan appearing on calth, at the same time the night haunter is escaping from the lions ship....

WTF?

[BrianDavion]

the obvious answer to that daboarder is that Cruze ended up trapped on the Lion's flagship sometime between when we last see him in Vulkan lives, Prince of Crows.

warp travel tends to be pretty weird, I think it's safe to say that it travels at the speed of plot. so we have no long how long Vulken was teleporting before he ended up over Mccragge. we also have to remember, Vulken is INSANE. even by the beginning of Vulken lives, he was seeing and hearing things. it's entirely possiable his perceptions where warped

[Katharon]

Anything not done by GW is fan-made, so even if it was a "big" event, such as a BoLS -sponsored campaign, it's not going to advance the story at all. It will/would be forever fan-fiction "What if".

As to the inconsistencies in the HH series, I can only say that it was bound to happen. It's such a plethora of interweaving story lines that some slippage is bound to happen. It shouldn't, because I expect the BL team to know better than that, but it happens.