What Veeky Forums's thoughts on Ciaphas Cain?

This. Sort of. Shit is always fucked because of a bunch of idiots, yeah, but Cain always has competent people to work with in every novel. I really want to read what happens when he's forced into a situation where there are only fuckups around him or no backup whatsoever. Jurgen is too based for words.

Also this.

I just want to say this again: Gunner first class Ferik Jurgen is the MAN.

I'm suddenly curious what the ghost of Cain would think of Amberly publishing the Cain archive.

I personally like the way he starts of as the coward then spends so much time pretending to be the hero, he actually becomes it. In Cains Last Stand, he is voluntarily doing courageous things, when he could simply flee or hide. It shows actual character growth as over a century of service and forced heroics would.

Also, Amberly is best Inquisitor. Ravenor and Eisenhorn are badass, but they aren't eating pasties from a destroyed pastry cart in artificer power armour because "I had had a very strenuous day."

Probably mad he can't sleep with her another time.

I also love the way he assumes the orks are a comedy enemy, then it shows just how dangerous they actually are. too often, in SM books, Orks are the comedy secondary villain, thats there for some laughs.

I think this is a problem with GW as a whole they can't seem to decide how orks should be portrayed at time. Sometimes you'd think people forget that these boyz got closer to taking Terra than Horus did.

Cain actually has a fair share of grim dark & one Ork encounter at Death or Glory showcases the after effects of an Ork slaughtering a village.

There'd be that, but he'd feel more embarrassment about being revealed as a 'fraud', and more than anything he'd feel overwhelming amusement at everyone's reactions. He thought it was hilarious when that Tallarn regiment incorporated him into their religion as a saint, this would be even better.

I always see Orks as funny at a distance. Then you realise that everything you were laughing at is running at you with an axe the size of a small bike

I think he would be mortified at first, then find it hilarious that most Inquisitors think its a clever satire written in self-parody.

>most Inquisitors think its a clever satire written in self-parody.

Okay wait, that's a thing? Where is that stated?

I remember in the second omnibus, Amberly mentioned that results became popular among her fellow inquisitors but more as entertainment than any serious "How can such a hero be this way & what's the source of his success?".

I think its in the intro to Caves of Ice, Amberly says she is surprised at how many of her fellow inquisitors are taking it as humorous reading and not a serious introspection into Cains psyche.

Shit yeah this user is right, its second omnibus. I haven't got my copies with me currently

Okay, but that's just them saying that his memoirs are funny, right? Because what you've said doesn't really equate to them thinking it's a massive lie and a joke.

They don't take the memoirs seriously. To me that means they think that it isn't truthful.

I enjoy them but I wish Sandy would stop focusing on 'nids/genestealers for a while

Yeah the Amberly saying "Im a Xenos Inquisitor so I look at what I know" is a cop-out, and its a bit over used.

Based on TTS I assume all Ordo Xenos inquisitors just ramble on about genestealers all the time.

even among the xenos there's plenty of material.

Cain's mentioned that he's had dealing with Eldar, both dark and normie , and I'd like to hear about that.

One of the audiobooks does deal with the Eldar. I think it's the devil you know, but I'm not 100% sure on that one. Then again, it's more akin to those short stories than the novel length ones.

So, who else catches all the values dissonance in Cain books that help subtly show the Imperium is still a nasty place to live? The stuff like Amberly fondly reminiscing on kid's entertainment revolving around depictions of people being burned alive or crushed under tnk treads, or Cain nonchalantly assigning people to be used as targets for live ammo target practice?

or Cain balking when an ambassador refers to the Tau as "people"

What type of world in the imperium are least likely to be that bad?

Agri-worlds if you live in the one city they have. Decent quality of life, mainly office jobs, and a low population and decent climate controls so very few natural disasters.

But since we know the Imperium is a self-righteous xenophobic place going in, does Cain's ill-ease with gue'vasa or being told the Imperium isn't wanted really count as values dissonance?

That, said, your'e right, they help remind us that the Imperium aren't really "good" people, as much as they think otherwise.

Uh... pretty much none? Those are expressions of some of the few "universal" Imperial values, namely martyrdom, ruthless authority, and loyalty to the Greater Imperium above all else - or else you die screaming as a heretic-traitor.

Let's be clear here: standard of life varies from world to world, but the Imperium imposes its own cultural impositions, ensuring there's a common thread of brutality and misery linking all of its worlds together.

It doesn't seem like those values would be much of an issue to the average joe working on an Agri-world or Hive world. I always figured the Administratum didn't give two fucks about the lowly citizens as long as they are paying the tithe and not starting cults.

Jurgen is the real hero.

Most in-universe readers think of the content, the numerous unstereotypical characters & the feats done to be too outlandish.

Comfiest commissar.

>ywn sip tanna with a qt inq

Riiight?

>ywn be jurgen

Would you really want to be a blank?

yeah

most people already think i'm repulsive anyway so it'd be a relief to know it wasn't just my personality

user we are all jurgen

I think if I were a blank I would make it a point to shake hands with every psyker I met.

I love the fact Jurgen is extra careful to keep Cain supplied with tanna tea in stories set chronologically after that.

>ywn have an assistant nearly as autistically efficient as Jurgen.

What disappoints me the most about BL stuff is there's only SPACE MARINES DOING SPACE MARINE THINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or IMPERIAL GUARD DOING IMPERIAL GUARD THINGS WEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that eventually become boring because it's so saturated.

We'll never get the story of an Administratum clerk named Bartlebius stamping papers.

There's Only War in this universe, so war is where the action is at.

We do get a few like that in short stories that Black Library publishes, and some books give us glimpses into the lives of civilians in these conflicts, and it rarely ends well for any of them.

Personally I'd kill for more Admech books. There's so much interesting lore there you could explore, but all we get is Forge of Mars filled with Black Temps and Cadians and Eldar that stole the entire show and the short stories to demonstrate the new units.

I want to see a Xenarite Schism book with a Biologis adept getting more and more radical in his experimentation along with his colleagues until the civil war erupts, I want a history-book overview of the Schism of Mars, or stories about politicking and intrigue in the Synod, the Mechanicus=][= (Malagra) tangling with DarkMech, any of Land, Decima, Cawl, Zagreus Kane, Scoria or Kelbor kicking ass, Baskilion Magi duelling Chaos ships in the blackness of deep space with logic and very big guns against the hells of the Warp, so on and so forth. Hell, give me a book of short stories about the Reductor warcrimesing their way through the threats that stopped the Astartes and Custodes during the Great Crusade, slowly diverging from Orthodox Mechanicum thought from necessity and possibly invention until they become the nomadic warfleets they're known for, etcetera, etcetera.

That's because slice of life doesn't sell.

Have you read the Ben Counter novel Dark Adeptus? Half the main characters are Tech-Priests and it's set on an ancient Forgeworld.

There's one I haven't ran into. Isn't that a Grey Knights book? My experience with Admech supporting characters makes me think they'll either be hilariously incompetent and irritating or in the case of Enemy Mech the Space Marine protagonists spend the entire time plotarmouring their way through the DarkMech? Still going to read it though, need my Admech fix, just sick of us being shat on in almost every recent BL book. Phil Kelly doesn't like us, so know that.

despite how great the cain novels are, they do contradict a lot of existing lore

the schola progenium is lot less grimdark in the cain novels, both the one cain came from and the one he set up are more like space west point instead of Spartan battle school of death

the implication that cain died before the fall of cadia is somewhat good news, at least
they also make references to pariahs

It is a Grey Knights book but it has really good descriptions of the sort of ancient archaeotech that forgeworlds just have lying around, the sort of techno-sorcery that makes the AdMech more than just a bunch of praying garage mechanics sitting around a burning oil drum, and how corruption can arise from a desire for knowledge or technological advancement.

That's because the Schola Progenium as presented in the codexes is dumb. Like, not even Judge Dredd's police academies are THAT grimdark.

And isn't the fall of Cadia in 999.M41? Cain lives into M42.

desu I prefer the canon of Cain stories instead of the edgelord-fest that was the tempestus codex, o.g. stormies & commissars were much better.

Sadly, he died without ever discovering SamASS.

It's a little grating how often certain lines get reused (If I'd know them that [bad thing] was going to happen, I would have [done a thing that equates to running away very fast], almost verbatim descriptions of Jurgen being smelly, Amberley complaining about the one Cain fangirl's writing, etc.)
Overall, though, it's an enjoyable series and a nice break from the "everyone has to be super serious all the time" tone of other 40k novels.

Caves of Ice is great, especiallyat the end when he happens to be havingg a private intimate dinner with Amberley in a hotel.

>the archive continues for several further pages after this point, but I have decided to end it here

>He thinks Cain is actually dead and isn't sat "retired" somewhere ploughing Amberley and getting comfy Juve treatments

They were fun at first but the gags got old really quick. But the time you've read book 3 you've pretty much exausted Mitchell's ideas for the series.

Check out the Shira Calpurnia novels. It's the closest you'll get.

Book 4 is actually one of the most different. No 597 Valhallan. We see him with only Jurgen & then some PDF. Orks are the main enemy. No tanna.

Oh you're saying it contradicts fluff like every third piece of fiction written in the setting?

Is that the one that had a Mechanicus enginseer with the prehensile tail that he bangs?

>no hot redhead colonel
Saddening.

>
In all honesty though I think it's kind of a good thing. I play Orks and while I play them mostly as a comedy race I know deep down that a lot of stuff they do is fucked up so I like a little bit of both in my ork lore.

>The tracks on the land raider crush the heretics
Presumably to the tune of "the wheels on the bus go round and round". It just makes me wonder what the other verses would be...

>the guns on the predator shoot the xenos
>shoot the xenos
>shoot the xenos
>the guns on the predator shoot the xenos
>all day long

Poor personal hygiene and devoid of souls or humour? Fuck he's right...

Schola Progenium was not "SUPERGRIMDARK" until codex Tempestus.

>the cannon on the baneblade kills the mutant
>kills the mutant
>kills the mutant
>the cannon on the baneblade kills the mutant
>all day long

I really like it. Not only is it a more lighthearted and less serious take on 40k, but it also gives a sense of the relationships the various offices, ordos, regiments, and species in the universe have, and a sense of how terrifying things in the universe are to regular people. E.g. Cain is willing to risk his fraudulent reputation if it means getting away from basic necron warriors, purestrain genestealers are more nerve wracking than watching Alien as an 8 year old, etc.
And Amberley hating every woman it's implied he slept with was quite good.

>And Amberley hating every woman it's implied he slept with was quite good.

>clearly the tech-priestess had part of her brain removed
>far too crazy

>obviously naive and clueless about how the galaxy works
>fat
>bitch

>jumped-up naval officer with ideas above her station
>clearly against regulations to be engaging with a commissar

Those footnotes are gold sometimes.

My personal fave is
>I do not, nor have I ever, been 'snitty'

>Those jumped up little mutants
Referring to the Navigators

There is the Adeptus Mechanicus: Tech Priest, By rob Sanders. Its about a Arch-Magos who builds a gellar bomb, it fucks up, and instead of try to fix stuff, he begins chasing the Iron Warriors warband who made it fuck up and trying to wipe them out.

Not really on-topic, but:

Just slogged through Eisenhorn and started chewing on Ravenor, and boy, is the grimdarkness-to-humour ratio totally flipped in there or what?

Compared to Cain, I counted a full total of half-a-dozen jokes in 3 books, most of which go something like this:

>man gets middle finger shot off:
>"hey, that was my favourite finger!"
>"well, it was on my top-ten-fingers list, anyway ..."

Yeah, I'll take a dozen repeats of the Jurgen's psoriasis effect on innocent bystanders any day, thanks.

What I enjoy about the Ciaphas Cain/ Ferik Jurgen duo is that they complete each other. In universe Ciaphas Cain is considered as some kind of Mary Sue but only thanks to Jurgen.

Their dynamic make it look like they can be replaced by an overpowered blank charismatic super-soldier. And yet we, as readers, know that both would already be dead without the other.

>then you realize that everything you were laughing at tellyported inside your baneblade and has killed half the crew already

ftfy

Yes

Titanicus by Dan Abnett is pretty good for AdMech. It's good because it shows life on a Forge World and the divide between the Imperium and the AdMech and how it affects daily life. That and the Titan combat is excellent.

What's Sandy & Dan doing now?

It's the interesting thing where, when comparing the Cain books to other stories, Flashman is all that comes up, but honestly Jurgen gives it a touch of Jeeves and Wooster as well.

>Nuffin personal, grot.

While Flashman's undoubtedly an actual asshole, Cain's a more ambiguous case. I doubt Cain would actually be considered a coward by IRL standards even at his worst but he's in the Guard & expected to have balls of adamantium.

i like the part where he has sex xD

Here is a thing.

Just read that the other day. Jurgen is fucking awesome.

I've read I belieeeeeeeve, the first two omnibuses. I remember the ork story and, yeah, that story burnt me out pretty quick. Yeah there was no Valhallans, but it's still Cain being 100% Cain, with the same sort of lucky coincidences and gags that follow Cain around.

That was a pretty pleasant read, bit wierd with a man named Sandy though.

I always got more of a Blackadder vibe. Hell, in Death or Glory, you even get the exchange of

>I have a plan
>A most cunning plan, no doubt.

It's both, really. And Blackadder was in part inspired by the Flashman Papers. Lord Flashheart and all that.

Correct me if Im wrong but isnt the schola progenium in Gaunts Ghosts pretty reasonable too?

you are right

Corporal Mari Magot is my favourite minor character

No not because lesbian redhead, but because she's incredibly hard to scare or impress, generally doesn't give a fuck and drives like a maniac

what do you guys think soylens veridians tastes like