I'm reading the first Horus Heresy book. Has Horus already been corrupted before the books start?
Also I was wondering if anyone knows how fleshed out the Horus Heresy was at the beginning when 40K was first released? Do most of the intricate details come from stuff that's been released over the years?
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
it was not fleshed out at all in the beginning, and it was iterated upon until the books established official canon
The canon's flip flopped a bit as well. The Horus Heresy novels have somewhat cemented "what actually happened" but even the Horus Heresy novels disagree with each other on points depending on who the in-universe perspective/real life author writer is.
Horus vs the Emperor is probably the one that's been messed with the most? I have my own preferred view of how it went down but I think that the novel writers, in attempting to fit as much of the bits in as possible, have made a mess of it. Mostly down to "who did Horus kill that made the Emperor mad?" He killed Sanguinius, a Custodes (may be misremembering this one), a regular human soldier, a Perpetual. All of these are meant to be the final moment when the Emperor realised that Horus was beyond help (also, if Emps is so careless about his science experiments, why the regret and hesitation? this one isn't a plot issue, it's genuinely one of the quite interesting questions about the Emperor). Having multiple final moments is just confusing. It works when there's one final moment and who is killed changes depending on the storyteller, it doesn't work when a Black Library author is trying to fit multiple final moments into one story. "You killed Sanguinius! The son most like me! Now you must... Wait! You also killed a random custodes/guardsman/perpetual soldier older than I am, now you've really crossed the line!"
The canon's flip flopped a bit as well. The Horus Heresy novels have somewhat cemented "what actually happened" but even the Horus Heresy novels disagree with each other on points depending on who the in-universe perspective/real life author writer is.
Horus vs the Emperor is probably the one that's been messed with the most? I have my own preferred view of how it went down but I think that the novel writers, in attempting to fit as much of the bits in as possible, have made a mess of it. Mostly down to "who did Horus kill that made the Emperor mad?" He killed Sanguinius, a Custodes (may be misremembering this one), a regular human soldier, a Perpetual. All of these are meant to be the final moment when the Emperor realised that Horus was beyond help (also, if Emps is so careless about his science experiments, why the regret and hesitation? this one isn't a plot issue, it's genuinely one of the quite interesting questions about the Emperor). Having multiple final moments is just confusing. It works when there's one final moment and who is killed changes depending on the storyteller, it doesn't work when a Black Library author is trying to fit multiple final moments into one story. "You killed Sanguinius! The son most like me! Now you must... Wait! You also killed a random custodes/guardsman/perpetual soldier older than I am, now you've really crossed the line!"
I like to think the canon is in flux, not just from a literary perspective, but from the point of view of the characters themselves. That or it's Cypher messing with time travel.
As to what finally made the Emperor go full hog? Yeah, I preferred the versions where the Emperor was emotionally attached to his sons, but now I think that, when Emps saw Horus actually kill Ollanius Pius, he went "oh SHI- I could forever-die from this encounter!" and fired his lazor. His mind-lazor.
Really takes something out of the lore knowing that some people can just... regenerate. I wish the Emperor wasn't a Perp as well as being a psychic overbeing, it makes his life feel more important somehow.
You know, Ollanus does make a lot of sense. I hadn't really considered it as I dislike Ollanus being a perpetual but it totally makes sense from a "the Emperor is an egotistical jerk" angle.
Also I was wondering if anyone knows how fleshed out the Horus Heresy was at the beginning when 40K was first released?
If I remember correctly - and I could be very wrong, anyone who actually knows what's up please correct me - the Horus Heresy historical event was created in the late 80s when Warhammer 40k Epic came out.
While regular 40k is on the scale of a couple dozen soldiers (maybe) and a handful of tanks per side, Epic is played on the scale of hundreds of soldiers and dozens of tanks (and massive dropships, and gigantic Titan walkers, etc) per side. You couldn't really have 200 Space Marine minis on a table, so Epic required new miniatures: a tank the size of a regular 40k Space Marine; a 25mm base that had a whole squad of tiny Space Marines on it, that sort of thing.
When the game came out, they didn't have Epic-scale minis for every single faction; they just had Imperial units. If you wanted to play Epic, you had to play Empire vs. Empire. To explain why it made sense in-universe why these Space Marine squads were fighting each other, they just gave a hand-wavy one-line "Oh, yeah, there was like a civil war or whatever, and half the Empire turn baaaaaad. A long time ago. During the, uh... Horus... Heresy, the Horus Heresy, yeah, that's the ticket!"
I love that the most important thing to ever happen in Imperial history was made up for a game that nobody under the age of 50 has ever even heard of.
I was about to argue this, then remembered I turned 50 at the beginning of March.
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H3KnucklesBut we decide which is rightand which is an illusion.Registered Userregular
It was before my time (I'm not even 40 yet), but I knew about it because I like reading up on the history of how these kinds of properties develop over time.
Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
I do love how a lot of these things develop out of someone way back when writing a one-sentence lore description that they chose specifically because they liked the mouthfeel of the alliteration
I do love how a lot of these things develop out of someone way back when writing a one-sentence lore description that they chose specifically because they liked the mouthfeel of the alliteration
It's also interesting to read about the more political satrical stories and charaters they did back at the beginning. Obviously the made some missteps with stuff but warhammer (fantasy) protagonists were often misfits and minorities raging against the machine.
If they did something equivalent now the next AoS campaign would be about Borish Jonsson, a corrupt Kharadron Overlord trying to blow up Aqshy by riling up some hordes of orcs to make his own person realm on one of the remnants.
I do love how a lot of these things develop out of someone way back when writing a one-sentence lore description that they chose specifically because they liked the mouthfeel of the alliteration
“Horus Heresy” is a great collection of sounds
Isn't that the same thing as what happened with the clone wars and star wars? This one liner that just had to be fleshed out.
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
It’s more like 40K was actually a highly generic sci-fi world before the Heresy was invented. With half elves and everything. Then Adeptus Titanicus came along and the Heresy was why Titans of the same manufacture were fighting each other. Then Epic Space Marine came out and suddenly there was a Siege of Terra with traitor and loyalist armies of every imperial sub-faction. Then 2nd edition 40K came out and all the old random role play baggage got swept away, and 40K became, more or less, what it is today.
It's also interesting to read about the more political satrical stories and charaters they did back at the beginning. Obviously the made some missteps with stuff but warhammer (fantasy) protagonists were often misfits and minorities raging against the machine.
If they did something equivalent now the next AoS campaign would be about Borish Jonsson, a corrupt Kharadron Overlord trying to blow up Aqshy by riling up some hordes of orcs to make his own person realm on one of the remnants.
Say Mag Uruk Thrakka five times fast, then remember that the game was written by northern English anarcho-punks and Ghazghkull is best known for decimating mining settlements
It's also interesting to read about the more political satrical stories and charaters they did back at the beginning. Obviously the made some missteps with stuff but warhammer (fantasy) protagonists were often misfits and minorities raging against the machine.
If they did something equivalent now the next AoS campaign would be about Borish Jonsson, a corrupt Kharadron Overlord trying to blow up Aqshy by riling up some hordes of orcs to make his own person realm on one of the remnants.
Say Mag Uruk Thrakka five times fast, then remember that the game was written by northern English anarcho-punks and Ghazghkull is best known for decimating mining settlements
You know, Ollanus does make a lot of sense. I hadn't really considered it as I dislike Ollanus being a perpetual but it totally makes sense from a "the Emperor is an egotistical jerk" angle.
Humans having very rare, but battle turning Perpetuals marginally balances out the dumbest bits of the lore. All factions except the Imperium, which ostensibly was the strongest at one point in the setting, have literal, limitless reinforcement.
Daemons can't be permakilled with a few exceptions
Nids have 100% bio conversion (absolute BS)
Necrons don't actually die, just are damaged
Orks grow from fungus creation ex nihilo
Eldar live forever, same for Dark Eldar
No one cares about the Tau
It just never made any sense whatsoever humanity was able to fight and win wars against enemies that just go, "lol, no I have more forces, u didn't win." Especially the non-sense from their own rule books which makes each faction in their eyes basically invincible.
What do the perpetuals change about that? There are so few of them that it doesn't matter in that context I think. And humans have pretty much the same endless reinforcement bonus as other factions. The eldar really don't on the other hand. The can live very long natural lives but they don't get any reinforcements. And people do care about tau so dismissing them is for what reason? I don't really get the argument, maybe.
What do the perpetuals change about that? There are so few of them that it doesn't matter in that context I think. And humans have pretty much the same endless reinforcement bonus as other factions. The eldar really don't on the other hand. The can live very long natural lives but they don't get any reinforcements. And people do care about tau so dismissing them is for what reason? I don't really get the argument, maybe.
Primarches are campaign winners, not all of them but a few are. Plus the Emperor is essentially a warp god himself these days. As I said, it makes things ever so slightly less lobsided, not equal. No one is "winning" 40k. Not even chaos. Every other faction has a BS, "you didn't win" come back mechanic. The only thing humans had until the perpetuals were breeding. And they can't even do that as well as other factions.
Since it was unclear, my initial point was only that things were so hilariously lobsided in favor against the Imperium, you wonder how they ever survived 10k years since the Heresy. No active Primarches early on, no perpetuals, just God's own infantry with a bayonet and a flak vest against unkillable demon spawn.
manwiththemachinegun on
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Mr_Rose83 Blue Ridge Protects the HolyRegistered Userregular
The aeldari’s whole motivation is that they don’t have endless reinforcements
Putting your dumb spirit crystal in a robot is still immortality.
It’s also like being stuck in a sensory deprivation tank while being drip fed cocaine and lsd.
More importantly there’s definitely not an infinite number of them, robots or space elf soul batteries to power them. Maybe a few billion at best; Slaanesh ate the rest.
What do the perpetuals change about that? There are so few of them that it doesn't matter in that context I think. And humans have pretty much the same endless reinforcement bonus as other factions. The eldar really don't on the other hand. The can live very long natural lives but they don't get any reinforcements. And people do care about tau so dismissing them is for what reason? I don't really get the argument, maybe.
IIRC perpetuals mess up seeing the future. Which makes them a spanner in the works of various factions plans. Though I can't quite remember the details.
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Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
I find Perpetuals a pretty lame lore component but I’m generally against total and perfect immortality as a concept, generally
But “Perpetual” is a great name for them, Games Workshop occasionally really nails their proper noun game when they’re not using bad Latin
I find Perpetuals a pretty lame lore component but I’m generally against total and perfect immortality as a concept, generally
But “Perpetual” is a great name for them, Games Workshop occasionally really nails their proper noun game when they’re not using bad Latin
it's not exactly what I'd call 'perfect'
vulkan was captured and tortured for centuries and kinda went very insane
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
also, pious is just a dude in a universe with building size bugs and hulking superman and immortal robot zombies and he gets pulled into helping a cabal of aliens help save the universe against his will
DepressperadoI just wanted to see you laughingin the pizza rainRegistered Userregular
I think it was with a bunch of Penny Arcade guys on Champions Online that we made Imperial Guards and would just run around and rush enemies with our laserguns yelling about the Emperor
I think it's rad especially considering the Emperor eradicated nearly all obvious traces signs of Earth's old religions. But he can't kill Pious and that just must smart E something fierce. As a believer, it's positively delicious.
manwiththemachinegun on
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PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
I think it's rad especially considering the Emperor eradicated nearly all obvious traces signs of Earth's old religions. But he can't kill Pious and that just must smart E something fierce. As a believer, it's positively delicious.
Olly is older than Big E and they knew each other
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augustwhere you come from is goneRegistered Userregular
edited April 2021
I like the idea of there being a bunch of immortal human jerks and Emps just being the biggest jerk about it.
It also opens the door for the Primarchs to have an actual mom and for her to have an opinion on how all this bullshit has gone down.
Thanks for the replies, really interesting to see how it developed over time.
In other news Lord Kroak is getting a new model:
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Grudgeblessed is the mind too small for doubtRegistered Userregular
Yeah, that's an awesome model. I still think they should bring back the Space Slann - Mayan-style psychic sci-fi lizards would be amazing. Chameleon Skinks with poison-needle guns and Kroxigor with heavy solar beam lazors. I'd 100% totally would buy that army in an instant.
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Also I was wondering if anyone knows how fleshed out the Horus Heresy was at the beginning when 40K was first released? Do most of the intricate details come from stuff that's been released over the years?
Horus vs the Emperor is probably the one that's been messed with the most? I have my own preferred view of how it went down but I think that the novel writers, in attempting to fit as much of the bits in as possible, have made a mess of it. Mostly down to "who did Horus kill that made the Emperor mad?" He killed Sanguinius, a Custodes (may be misremembering this one), a regular human soldier, a Perpetual. All of these are meant to be the final moment when the Emperor realised that Horus was beyond help (also, if Emps is so careless about his science experiments, why the regret and hesitation? this one isn't a plot issue, it's genuinely one of the quite interesting questions about the Emperor). Having multiple final moments is just confusing. It works when there's one final moment and who is killed changes depending on the storyteller, it doesn't work when a Black Library author is trying to fit multiple final moments into one story. "You killed Sanguinius! The son most like me! Now you must... Wait! You also killed a random custodes/guardsman/perpetual soldier older than I am, now you've really crossed the line!"
I like to think the canon is in flux, not just from a literary perspective, but from the point of view of the characters themselves. That or it's Cypher messing with time travel.
As to what finally made the Emperor go full hog? Yeah, I preferred the versions where the Emperor was emotionally attached to his sons, but now I think that, when Emps saw Horus actually kill Ollanius Pius, he went "oh SHI- I could forever-die from this encounter!" and fired his lazor. His mind-lazor.
Really takes something out of the lore knowing that some people can just... regenerate. I wish the Emperor wasn't a Perp as well as being a psychic overbeing, it makes his life feel more important somehow.
While regular 40k is on the scale of a couple dozen soldiers (maybe) and a handful of tanks per side, Epic is played on the scale of hundreds of soldiers and dozens of tanks (and massive dropships, and gigantic Titan walkers, etc) per side. You couldn't really have 200 Space Marine minis on a table, so Epic required new miniatures: a tank the size of a regular 40k Space Marine; a 25mm base that had a whole squad of tiny Space Marines on it, that sort of thing.
When the game came out, they didn't have Epic-scale minis for every single faction; they just had Imperial units. If you wanted to play Epic, you had to play Empire vs. Empire. To explain why it made sense in-universe why these Space Marine squads were fighting each other, they just gave a hand-wavy one-line "Oh, yeah, there was like a civil war or whatever, and half the Empire turn baaaaaad. A long time ago. During the, uh... Horus... Heresy, the Horus Heresy, yeah, that's the ticket!"
I was about to argue this, then remembered I turned 50 at the beginning of March.
“Horus Heresy” is a great collection of sounds
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Ah, the Horus Heresy... or "Horusy", for short.
If they did something equivalent now the next AoS campaign would be about Borish Jonsson, a corrupt Kharadron Overlord trying to blow up Aqshy by riling up some hordes of orcs to make his own person realm on one of the remnants.
Isn't that the same thing as what happened with the clone wars and star wars? This one liner that just had to be fleshed out.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
Say Mag Uruk Thrakka five times fast, then remember that the game was written by northern English anarcho-punks and Ghazghkull is best known for decimating mining settlements
Mag Uruk Thrakka you say...
Humans having very rare, but battle turning Perpetuals marginally balances out the dumbest bits of the lore. All factions except the Imperium, which ostensibly was the strongest at one point in the setting, have literal, limitless reinforcement.
Daemons can't be permakilled with a few exceptions
Nids have 100% bio conversion (absolute BS)
Necrons don't actually die, just are damaged
Orks grow from fungus creation ex nihilo
Eldar live forever, same for Dark Eldar
No one cares about the Tau
It just never made any sense whatsoever humanity was able to fight and win wars against enemies that just go, "lol, no I have more forces, u didn't win." Especially the non-sense from their own rule books which makes each faction in their eyes basically invincible.
Putting your dumb spirit crystal in a robot is still immortality.
Primarches are campaign winners, not all of them but a few are. Plus the Emperor is essentially a warp god himself these days. As I said, it makes things ever so slightly less lobsided, not equal. No one is "winning" 40k. Not even chaos. Every other faction has a BS, "you didn't win" come back mechanic. The only thing humans had until the perpetuals were breeding. And they can't even do that as well as other factions.
Since it was unclear, my initial point was only that things were so hilariously lobsided in favor against the Imperium, you wonder how they ever survived 10k years since the Heresy. No active Primarches early on, no perpetuals, just God's own infantry with a bayonet and a flak vest against unkillable demon spawn.
It’s also like being stuck in a sensory deprivation tank while being drip fed cocaine and lsd.
More importantly there’s definitely not an infinite number of them, robots or space elf soul batteries to power them. Maybe a few billion at best; Slaanesh ate the rest.
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
But “Perpetual” is a great name for them, Games Workshop occasionally really nails their proper noun game when they’re not using bad Latin
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
it's not exactly what I'd call 'perfect'
vulkan was captured and tortured for centuries and kinda went very insane
Steam // Secret Satan
Olly is older than Big E and they knew each other
It also opens the door for the Primarchs to have an actual mom and for her to have an opinion on how all this bullshit has gone down.
In other news Lord Kroak is getting a new model: