MAGNUS DID NOTHING WRONG
Finished 1k Sons novel, do I really need to read this for any interesting bits on the invasion of Prospero, particularly on more Magnus/1k sons perspectives or any other things, or is it just the Wolves' perspective of the battle?
FUCK furballs tbqh family
Reminder that everyone did some things wrong and this is why the Heresy happened, yes, this includes the Emperor.
Yes.
To see the Space Wolves perspective.
Then read Scars to see some Jaghatai-Magnus BFF moments and the Khan basically telling Horus and Dorn "Fuck off, I'm gonna find out the truth on my own."
Can I say - I was insanely disappointed by the 1K sons novel, but loved this?
I say that because the Marines in A Thousand Sons are fucking stupid and have no subtlety at all. Magnus is getting into DBZ-style powerlevel fights with Titans and you have psychic waiters/tai-chi sessions/telekinetic weapon assembly and cleaning.
This is completely at odds with 40K's aesthetic. Even if the Thousand Sons are masters of sorcery, they really shouldn't do shit like that so blatantly. Just compare what Magnus does in the John French novels: He's incredibly powerful, but he's also extremely subtle and hard to understand.
The reveal of the shattered statue influencing Magnus's enlightenment and the literal zombie ghosts? That was dumb shit.
I think Prospero Burns is a lot better, because it's about a generation-spanning conspiracy, memetic weapons, superstition-as-defense-mechanism and all the crazy concepts that only work in 40K. Hell, I'll say that it does even better work in building up the Thousand Sons!
When the invasion of Prospero actually happens, it's constantly stated that the Wolves are scared shitless. They know they're getting involved in some dark hoodoo shit, and this is EXACTLY what goes down. They incinerate 90% of the population, they outnumber the enemy, and they're still terrified of what happens when the Thousand Sons bust out the magic.
Compare that to A Thousand Sons, where you have a crystal-controlled Titan roaming out punching people with flaming fists. THAT was their secret weapon? That's fucking bullshit. It should've been something like "Brothers, we have no choice. We must break the seals, and speak the Unspeakable Word, to wreak ruin upon those who seek our doom."
Free, common and easy sorcery is at odds with 40K's ascetic but not 30K's. They didn't know it had a terrible cost yet, they thought it was just science and there were no such thing as daemons so they used that shit all the time for trivial things like cleaning a bolter.
The problem is that it's done too trivially. It would make sense if it was a kind of Egyptian-themed utopia, with priests and so on, but they treated magic like free energy. I don't think that has EVER been done in any depiction of 40K.
Even on Daemon Worlds, they handle magic the way you'll handle plutonium. Because that shit blows up in your face.
to be honest the emperor is like a total autist when it comes to dealing with people.
being immortal does that.
30K is not 40K. Getting to 40k requires hubris and trivial use of destructive powers. You're thinking of it like someone in the grim darkness of the 41st, rather than at the crest of the enlightenment crusade in the 31st. Shit was different then. They thought they were in control. It did blow up in their face, that's the arc. That's the whole point of the series.
Welcome to like every single discussion about why shit hit the fan in 40k.
The Horus heresy distilled.
Once upon a time a big dumb guy decided to leave the universe in the hands of his emotionally stunted Demi-God children. They misbehaved and wrecked his macaroni palace. Everything is fucked now.
We would have all been better off if they had been girls.
>We would have all been better off if they had been girls.
Actually made me laugh out loud when Malcador said that in White Scars.
...
For a time that is, until the big E clearly said
"stop it, stop it now"
He probably should have broken down the full chaos threat as well but he made it clear in no uncertain terms, stop stop stop.
What are some better Warhams novels?
I read a couple Ork short stories that were good.
>marines
>scared shitless
The only point that makes is that Space Wolves are shit. But anyone knows that. What kind of garbage marines shit their pants over sorcery? Fuck, I hate 30K
30k Marines didn't have ATSKNF yet.
You won't find it in Prospero Burns, all you'll find is Abnett's horrible OC rememberancer being a bitch and detailed descriptions of Fenrisian culture and cuisine
>superstition-as-defense-mechanism
This is never even explored, it's just thrown out as an excuse for why the Space Wolves are so oblivious to their own hipocricy.
"Being oblivious to your own hipocricy is advantageous!"
No shit. Anybody who's ever dealt with a hypocrite knows they do it for their own convenience. The problem is that Russ is never, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, forced to stare it in the face.
They CAN'T have Russ explore what a hypocrite he is, because that would break the bubble.
>M-MUH 1K SONS
Like a broken record Veeky Forums still can grasp shit.
Sorcery is directly channeling the warps powers
Shamanism is filtering it through mental blocks of custom and culture.
A 1K son sorcery would cause storms of pure Warp Lightning
A Space Wolf Rune Priest would cause LITERAL Lightning by using the warp
The subtle details are there.
Basically, the Emperor told Magnus to stop being a chaos faggot.
Prospero had shitloads of culture, even the pre-Magnus 15th Legion was all from Persia and had an insular culture.
Magic itself is inherently cultural, from the Kabbalah to Wicca to Thelema, every human concept of magic is based around culture.
Russ's problem is that he thinks his culture is some special snowflake that fell directly from heaven. He thinks he's found the ONLY source of magic that isn't tainted by Chaos, which is INHERENTLY IMPOSSIBLE. It would break the setting! One of the core concepts of 40k is that religion and magic (read: shamanism) are inherently tied to the Chaos Gods without exception.
The problem is that writers are actively trying to break the setting in order to make Russ a huge gay mary sue
>B-But Russ is a huge Mary Sue.
And you're crying because you're making up every excuse under the sun to defend Magnus literally looking into the warp and being too stupid he was chugging poison without directly studying it.
Look, I get it, you're a blind rabid fanboy so literally entrenched in some kind of complex you cannot see that Ritual and ceremony rule magic of all kinds.
You do the right ones, like Shamanism the wolves do or ritual bonding like the Grey knights or you can do the wrong ones.
And the sorcery the 1k sons were doing was wrong, and indeed most libarians were SORCERORS.
Let's make this extremely fucking simple. You need a firewall to make your magic safe.
Rune priests were using both Hexgramatical RUNES designed to dissipate and flow psyker energy already AS WELL as channel it through their very thick and heavily ritualised study of the warp.
The Sorcerors of Prospero tapped directly from the Warp, sure, they probably had magical wards, but they studied the Warp directly because it was SORCERY.
The Sorcerers of Prospero used rituals and methods of dizzying complexity. It was just a different complex method than the Space Wolves's.
Rune priest. Sorcerer.
Hexagramtical RUNES. Hexagrammatical NUMEROLOGY.
Heavy ritualized study of the warp. Heavy ritualized study of the warp.
Magnus set up the Librarius, and after the Heresy the Codex Chapters carried on with Librarians in his model. Non Codex chapters have all kinds of rituals and hoodoo, but Codex chapters for TEN THOUSAND YEARS have been accessing the Warp from the foundations that the Codex laid.
Think of the White Scars Stormseers. They sound like they fit your definition of "shaman".
But they didn't to Russ. To Russ, the Khan and his non-Fenrisian culture were sorcerers. Russ expected EVERYBODY to stop using ALL psychic power.
Except his Space Wolves. They're special. The White Scars aren't special.
No, The Emperor expected it.
Probably because the Rune Priests literally used Fenris as a Magical focus for all their magic.
Pretty sure the Emperor knows more about the Warp than his fuckboy son.
Its 30/40k, they can both be wrong, its okay.
1ksons for abusing warp powers beyond their control, and the speasyiffs for much the same. Its just in the process of happening via hypocrisy and hubris rather than already having happened.
The Emperor clownshoes'd himself into a vegetable. The entire story of the Horus Heresy revolves around the Emperor's great intentions falling short.
Russ didn't draw a line between acceptable magic and unacceptable magic, he drew a circle around himself, and said he was on the right side of the line.
Now, is he just a douchebag? Is his "superstition-as-defense" doctrine simply a cultural taboo that he can't shake when brought into the larger world? Does he just have a self centered viewpoint?
These things would all be okay! Lots of Primarchs are jerks and they all, without exception, are up their own asses and full of themselves. Even, maybe even ESPECIALLY Magnus.
But the worse option is that Russ is RIGHT, because that would mean that Fenris is home to a portal between the Warmhammer universe and Friendship Is Magic Pony Land where rainbows of CLEAN PURE HAPPY MAGIC sprout up. Fenris and has potable drinking magic, and the rest of the universe has Montezuma's Revenge.
That would make Russ the most hated figure in the universe by the fanbase. It would just be too out of line, too contrived, too ridiculous.
>We
Why would we be better off? I imagine you mean the 30-40k universe would be better off? Maybe.
But than what kind of game would we have?
Anyway, female demi-god Primarchs, who exhibit the same human psychological features as male demi-god Primarchs, seem just as likely to fall prey to the negative effects of their incredible power and the worshipful respect shown for their abilities. Oh, they also have highly experienced, exceedingly well equipped and trained armies which show absolute loyalty to their leader. I mean to say, male or female, the way control was distributed in the 30k universe made macaroni palace wrecking pretty fucking unlikely NOT to happen.
Big dumb guy was, well, a big dumb leader. Militarily, I guess he must have known what he was doing. I mean he was conquering the galaxy, successfully. But outside that field he shows a complete inability to manage and prepare most of his direct military subordinates for their duties under a different commander. Why didn't he give them more time to adjust? Give Horus nominal command during that last campaign, while staying with the fleet, advising and, if necessary, making command adjustments. Or having him named his official second in command at the point when he was realizing he had other business to attend to soon. But instead, doesn't he just make it a fun surprise for everyone? Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's how I remember it.
I'm ranting about stupid shit, I'm gonna go do something productive...like watch TV.