Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Horus Rising: The Deceived (IX)

Contents of possessed Space Marine may differ
from those shown (copyright Games Workshop).

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

Consequences are terrible things, and we would be better off without them. Not better people. But better off.

Six members of Brakespur squad are dead, because no-one thought to correct them on the things they thought impossible. Soon enough half a galaxy would follow suit. We have been making this point for a little while now, but then it can hardly be overstated.
And yet.

Had Loken recognised the nightmare that that seeped into his friend's being, would he still have hauled Xavyer Jubal to safety after their desperate duel? Would the thought still have struck him, on however subconscious a level, that something might be done for his fallen friend? Or would he have seen nothing but a hell-birthed monster fit only to be cast into the pit it twisted above?

For had that been Loken's choice, two more remembrancers would have survived long enough to meet their end in a hail of bolter shells at Horus' command. On the other hand, Euphrati Keeler might never have encountered the necessary catalyst to become the being she ultimately did. Inspiration. Saint. Saviour of the Imperium.

The most simplistic message one could take from this would be that Loken's ignorance ironically saved the whole of the galaxy. This is an obvious point, true, but like many such clear and simple ideas, it cannot withstand close scrutiny. Had the Astartes Legions been offered the insights on the Empyrean they needed and deserved, the Heresy (which, you may remember, we concede was inevitable in some form) would have taken so different a path as to render Keeler's involvement almost certainly unnecessary.

It would be more illuminating to consider that this critical moment, where Jubal found himself suspended above nothing with only Loken to save him, was only possible because Horus saved Loken from a similar fate above the sun-swivel towers of High City. It was Horus' virtue that saved Loken, and Loken's virtue that first saved Jubal and then - thanks perhaps to his friendship with Mersadie Olition - allowed him to kill what remained of his friend in order to save a remembrancer he barely knew.

In saving Loken, Horus set about a chain of events that would go on to defeat a rebellion of which he had not yet conceived. The Sons of Horus's cupidity might have declared the beginnings of the Heresy, but the Luna Wolves' honour had sealed the rebels' doom before the first virus bomb had whistled down from the 63rd fleet.

This can only be an argument for trusting our protectors. Not for trusting them blindly, of course. The Warmaster's treachery most certainly taught us that lesson. But for believing we can trust them without blinding them to the truth. Ten thousand years on, and our Imperium insists more violently than ever that there must be no "why"; that every action, thought, sanction and execution be prescribed by rules and traditions utterly impervious to logical thought, rhetorical appeal, or emotional plea. Our overlords would have us believe that there exists no other way to cultivate order in a hostile galaxy. This is transparently and cruelly untrue. Without reason, justice is random, and randomness is chaos. One might as well argue great masterpieces can be placed on the canvas with kitchen knives and flaming torches.

In the name of stymieing Chaos, we have allowed chaos to run free, brutal and unpredictable and agonising. Punishment is certain, but the reasons for it are not. A galaxy of humans has shrunk its perceptions and its expectations to the point where all that matters is how one minimises the risk of betrayal. The fear of another Heresy has blinded us to the qualities of man that made Horus' treachery so unthinkable to begin with.

In this sense, the Warmaster was more successful than he ever knew. If the Imperium today were to encounter the Imperium of the Luna Wolves, we would crush it outright from fear and suspicion. Our purpose fell with Horus' loyalty. Our nobility died with Istvaan III. A lonely carrion god joins with ten thousand trillion souls on almost a million worlds as they pick at the wreckage of what we once had, and as they ape uncomprehendingly the motions of heroes we no longer dare to become.

When a new Long Night falls, let it be known that this is why. When the warp swallows us once more, remember those who could have grasped our arms and pulled us out of the darkness. For they are gone now, buried long ago, and Horus himself is only the start of the reason why.

The rest we must take upon ourselves.

------

What Was

This week, we're focussing on Loken's memories of the Crusade to date.

An alien species that will only fight in prescribed locations is an interesting idea.  What do you think of it, and of the Luna Wolves' response?

I think they were bastards. Also, I think there's a degree of fear there.  They knew that if they fought in the battle zones, they couldn't be certain of the outcome.

So you're saying they have a fear of failure?

Yeah. They're worried about potential losses, so they're using the excuse that the enemy isn't following their rules either. What rules would those even be?

The rule that says you can fight anywhere, I suppose.

But they didn't seem to make any attempt to explain that to them.  I suppose it's an interesting idea, though. Lots of cultures have places that you're not supposed to fight in, and I guess once you've decided war is the worst thing possible... Still, they were dicks. Maybe they just didn't like the implication that they were pretty much the worse people ever.

What was your reaction to the alien cavern system and its perfect relief map of Terra?

How do we know it's alien and not human?

From how old it was?

But maybe humans were out here long ago? Maybe the Emperor is lying about it all.

Why would he do that?

To keep them under his thumb!

How would faking the provenance of a map help with that, you paranoid nudnik.

I still don't think their Terra is the real Terra. It's all a tissue of lies.  Everything is lies.

Do you just mean this is fiction?

Do you ever look around this country and think "What we really need here are more people in giant hats"?

 It would make life more interesting. It would be difficult, though, wouldn't it? I mean, who makes them all? Do they have multiple hats?  Do they have to change them every day?  How many different designs do they have to come up with?

Maybe it's one hat for weekdays and one for Sunday best?

It'd all be Sunday best for a celebration, though.

True. When Horus left maybe they all went back to work in their giant bowler hats.

They don't seem very useful.  If you're going to go to the effort of making a giant hat, it should at least do something.

You're concerned that the giant festival hats are purely decorative?

No, but they should have some purpose.  Like, maybe a birdbath on top?

Maybe the planet had eight suns, and this is the only way to survive.  Giant Speedy Gonzales sombreros are standard issue to prevent skin cancer and spontaneous combustion.

Do children get smaller hats?

I'd imagine an eight foot hat isn't noticeably less dangerous than a slow moving car.  I presume you need a hat license.

I'm concerned about the materials needed. You'd need a lot of felt. Does that come from sheep? Are this the future of the Welsh?

(Please, no emails. She gets to make these jokes; her parents are Welsh.)

What Is

You mentioned last time you thought the attack on the insurgent stronghold was a bit impersonal and uninspiring.  Did you enjoy Loken and Samus trying to kill each other in their slippery-slope duel?

It was definitely more gory. It was better. Hard to follow, but that's probably deliberate because of the speed. I don't understand why they weren't quicker to bring him down given he's broken all those rules.  Why don't they carry tranq-guns. They should carry tranq-guns.

Easily said, though isn't it? Would you kill me if I suddenly murdered one of our friends.

You're not a trained killer with intimate knowledge of the army's working. If they didn't have tranqs, they should have cut his legs off.  No, his arms, even better, because that's how he was carrying his weapons.

That much I can't deny.

So chop off his arms, and you can replace them with mechanical ones if and when he's no longer crazy.

How convinced are you by Sindermann's diagnosis of Jubal; a pathogen interacting with enemy propaganda on Samus?

Well that was exactly what I said it was last time.  The fact that he was gloating makes me think it's some kind of parasite looking for escape.  It's going to come out of his stomach any minute. WHOOSH!

Yes, that's exactly how that would sound. Though it's not like I know, really. I'm basing this on Alien, which probably doesn't have the full force of medical veracity behind it.

WUGPLUSSH!

Better.

Oh, and I told you Astartes would end up fighting each other! I want my accuracy recorded for posterity.

Yes, my love.

Any thoughts on Loken's decision to rescue Jubal rather than letting him fall?

If he has option to save him, he shouldn't have let him fall.   Loken might feel a bit guilty for having promoted Vippus (Vipus) over Jubal.  And he thought it was a possession, so maybe he hoped the iterators could do something about it.  There's lots of reasons not to let him fall.  Not least the fact that finding out how this happened is going to be much easier with Jubal's body.

What Will Be

What next for Euphrati Keeler?

I don't think she's dead. Loken will probably save her because of his relationship with Mercedes (Mersadie). But she's seen things she shouldn't have, so maybe the Astartes will claim she's like a stork, sent to spy.

A stork?

Like in Egypt.  Maybe they'll just remove her Remembrancer license.  Or the other option would be to elevate her, actually let her in on what happened and impress on her the importance of keeping quiet.  Meanwhile, the can use her picts to demonstrate how horrific the rebels were, to justify further war. They could even destroy the whole planet, then they can go play with the Blood Angels.  I think that's unlikely, though; they won't want this weakness exposed.

Of course, there may be anti-war elements who want their hands on Keeler's pictures as well, to try and derail the Luna Wolves.

What reactions can we expect from the other characters once they learn of what happened in Samus' fane?

Sindermann is going to have a lot of research ahead of him, which might make him question his faith. Loken is going to confide in Mercedes, and even admit he can feel fear. The rest of the Astartes are just going to carry on as normal. I don't know if Vippus will have to face questions or even charges over shooting Jubal.  I think it's going to be hushed up, though obviously the Mournival and Warmaster will have to know. The former will sweep it under the rug, dismissing any notions of superstition, and insist it was malfunctioning breathing equipment or something. Horus may be more sympathetic to Loken's questioning - though he has the safety and well-being of the entire Legion to consider, so there will be limits. 

I imagine that Horus and the Mournival will try to limit how many people know about it, though Jubal has helped with that by killing those remembrancers.  Given the backstory, I think they have enough trust in Sindermann that they'll leave him alone. They'll have to "quieten down" the original Imperial soldiers who heard Samus' whispering. They might end up wiped out in an accident they can blame on the other side, or just sent to the front on a suicide mission.

The Sacred And Profane

Horus Rising: The Deceived (VIII)

Luna Wolves in action (copyright ilqar)

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

When last we broadcast, we discussed the arrogance at the heart of the Astartes Legions, and how that arrogance doomed the Great Crusade to failure long before Horus fell from grace. The transformation of humanity from a collection of living, breathing individuals to be protected into a theoretical construct to be won meant that the theoretical cost to civil war shrunk to almost nothing, and Horus himself bears no more blame for that than any other primarch.

But it is not the primarchs for whom the ultimate blame for this must lie. It is the Emperor himself. We have mentioned already the strange fact that the Astartes remained ignorant of the forces of Chaos for so long despite having been founded on a world from which the Eye of Terror could be seen.  This fact alone demonstrates that the Emperor's decision to keep his warriors ignorant of the perils of the Warp was an active decision requiring effort to maintain.  Not a lie of omission, in other words, but a purposeful campaign of misinformation.

The problems with this approach are obvious. It's not just the most immediate objection - by definition the Astartes cannot operate in theatres of war beyond the reach and interest of Chaos, which makes encounters ultimately inevitable (a fact which to this day remains the most plausible explanation for the destruction and expunging of the II and XI Legions).  It's the idea that the Astartes can be trusted to conquer the galaxy, but not to understand the galaxy.  That's a supremely dangerous mode of thinking. At worst it leaves them horribly exposed to manipulation - which, of course, is exactly what happened - but even at best it ensures the aims of the endeavour and the realities will drift further and further apart, as more and more discrete events that cannot be rationalised throw the vector of Imperial truth further and further from its intended direction.

The true degree to which the Emperor erred here we will discuss further when we bring you the truth about the fall of Prospero and Magnus the Red, but the effects of the mistake are already all too clear.  We see it in the final assault on the Sixty-Three Nineteen loyalists (and how quickly they found themselves renamed "insurgents") in the Whisperheads. Loken is so determined to seek rational explanations and lecture dying men on the pointlessness of their faith - that nothing can exist but what he already knows to exist - that the arrival of Samus utterly blindsides him.

This would be first time XVI Legion was unprepared to recognise the signs of impeding tragedy. A few months later, it would happen again, and the galaxy would burn as a result.

------


What Was

There's not really much new revealed in this chapter, and with the focus here being what's happened to Jubal and the nature of Samus, we'll skip this section this week.


What Is

Who is Samus?

Samus is everywhere.  Samus is the person standing right next to you.

I'm so glad you've been paying attention.

Is it a hallucinogenic in the water?  They talked about the water a lot, and made a point of the Astartes walking around without their helmets on.  Maybe they've inhaled it.  That doesn't explain the vox chatter, but maybe that was a previous victim broadcasting.  The problem with that idea is that Euphrati is hallucinating Samus' voice. How would she get the idea that it was Samus?

All of this would explain why the locals are so keen on collecting the water from the Whisperheads.  They want that to spread the word of God around.

Kind of like Native Americans and peyote, in some sense?

I'm sure we did something similar, until the Christians got here and ruined all our fun.

Yeah, a lifetime of boring inactive mushrooms is all Jesus had to offer us. I could be off my tits on acid at a blood-soaked orgy right now. Hell of a way to spend breakfast, I tell you.

Actually, maybe Janus (Jubal) is using this as an opportunity to get back at Loken for passing him over for command.  "It wasn't me, it was Samus."

Reading this chapter again, I was struck by how Abnett seems to be running two genres at the same time.  The first, unsurprisingly, is the action set-piece of the Tenth Company Terminators assaulting the insurgent stronghold.  How much were you and are you grabbed by this kind of futuristic war action?

Well I do enjoy a good fight scene, but this wasn't all that brilliant. I've read better. But then it wasn't supposed to be much of a fight anyway, given how much the Terminators dramatically overpowered the other team. 

So did you prefer the earlier battle scenes, or were you too busy trying to figure out what was going on?

Yeah.  I think the problem here is that there's no focus on individuals. The Terminators are described as a group, there's no single perspective to latch onto other than Loken's.  It would have been good to see something of the insurgent's panic at their utterly unstoppable attackers.

I see what you mean. It'd be like seeing the whole of the Battle of Hoth from the perspective of General Veers.

If you say so.

The second genre this chapter plays with is horror.  The build-up to Samus will be familiar to anyone who's watched a few horror films: the suggestion a place is haunted, the whispers dismissed as pranks until that becomes impossible, and the final reveal of whatever is lurking in the dark.  How well did that work for you?

(Fliss pulls a face.  It is not the face Dan Abnett would want to be seeing right now.)

No. I just figured it for a battle tactic.

We talked a lot last week about the reasons the remembrancers have been allowed to the surface.  A the time, you mentioned Maloghurst, and we discussed whether he had his own agenda in letting them down to the surface. Here we find they've been set down miles from the action.  How does that feed into your thinking?

Well, I assume they'll be allowed to see the after-effects of the battle, but that's a problem because they won't see the context and the reasoning. They don't see the field of dead Imperial soldiers that the Astartes can show as reason for the assault.  Nor do they see how effective the Astartes in combat.

Plus, maybe the Astartes get bloodlust - or battle lust -

Wolverine's berserker rage?

- whatever. Maybe in battle they'd be unable to tell one human from the other whilst fighting.  Or someone else would get to them.  Lot of paperwork if you get all your remembrancers killed.  'Ealth and Safety gone mad.

A common theme of both previous chapters and our discussions has been whether the people on Sixty-Three Nineteen could just been left alone with their planet and their religion.  Has the fact the insurgents were apparently protecting fanes to the murderous Samus changed your mind?

No. They weren't hurting people.  They'd never been heard of before, so they obviously weren't causing a problem out in the universe.  And you're always going to get rural areas where religion takes a particular hold od people

Yes, let us not forget the Death Cults of Somerset.

I don't think Somerset is rural enough

Somerset: insufficiently rural. Got it.

Isn't Midsomer there?

Does that have death cults?  I would watch Bergerac fighting murderous cultists, I won't lie to you. Moving back on topic, though, what about the effect on their own planet? This weird system of hallucinogenic water and murderous lunatics, or whatever's going on?

All we know was they were collecting water and putting tokens in it.  There's no evidence of blood sacrifices, or feeding virgins to dragons. If you chuck money into a wishing well, do you deserve to die?  Or be told you're stupid?

There's a hell of a difference between those two responses, you realise.

"You're going to die, there is no afterlife, and you've wasted a penny. Idiot."


What Will Be

With only two chapters left to go in the novel's first part, what do you think lies ahead for Loken, for Samus, and for the remembrancers?

I assume we're going to go back to "where is Mercedes (Mersadie). Presumably they'll have to kill Jubal and deal with the fallout of his rampage.  Will Loken start questioning what happened, or will his faith in science be strong enough for him to explain it away?  Maybe Euphrati will be the next to go crazy, since she can already hear Samus.  But she might not do it until she's back on the ship.  She might kill all the iterators, who are so obviously priests no matter what they say.  Then everyone will be lost and confused, and they might sod off home and leave the planet alone.

Descent Into Madness

Horus Rising: The Deceived (VII)

Astartes Stormbird, Ultramarines Chapter (copyright Games Workshop)

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

This is it.  The short, screaming dive from the Vengeful Spirit to the Whisperheads marks the boundary between two eras of the Luna Wolves' participation in the Great Crusade so different each side is almost unrecognisable from the other.  Once the landing gear on Garviel Loken's Stormbird sinks into the earth, everything changes.

The fact that the warriors of the Emperor would ultimately find themselves clashing with the intelligence of Chaos was, of course, inevitable.  It is far more surprising that it took as long as it did.  For more than two hundred years the Luna Wolves fought their way across the galaxy entirely unaware the forces spilling from the realm they saw as nothing but a way to shorten their campaign were anything more than vicious and mindless predators. A campaign launched from Terra, lest we forget, a planet from which the Eye of Terror is all too obvious. Did not one Astartes stare at that violet wound in the night sky and wonder whether it was something the nascent Imperium might want to check up on?

Much of the explanation for this inconsistency comes down to the Emperor, of course, but we shall discuss that particular problem in more detail next time. For now, we shall remain focused upon the front-line Astartes, and the remembrancers about to follow them to the surface.

Consider the timing of the decision to allow a half dozen civilians to accompany - albeit at some distance - the Tenth Company into battle.  Just days before, a fellow remembrancer was beaten almost to death on the surface of Sixty-Three Nineteen. The response by the Astartes is to say nothing to his colleagues, and then endanger six more remembrancers by bringing them into a war-zone.

Obviously, none of the remembrancers chosen to visit the planet were worried about the danger. That was their job, to charge heedlessly forwards until they meet an immovable object, most commonly death. It is the job of the Astartes to save people, even and most especially from themselves. Yes, Kyril Sindermann notes his concern for the remembrancers' safety, but he spends more time noting his concern that the remenbrancers will be unable to understand the true nature of the Astartes, red in tooth and claw.

And note Maloghurst's position: it is critical the Astartes be sufficiently well-documented. His interest begins and ends with how the remembrancers can benefit his Legion.  As an isolated example, that seems entirely reasonable - the equerry to Horus looking out for Horus' best interest.  Start to consider his position with that of Sindermann's, however, and the comments of Loken, and the utter disinterest with which Karkasy's fate has been greeted (for all that, yes, the man brought it entirely upon himself), and you begin to see a pattern - the Luna Wolves are interested in the remembrancers only insofar as they can benefit the Luna Wolves.

Again, these are human beings.  These are the people the Astartes Legions were created to protect.  And yet somehow, they have become beside the point. Not just the remembrancers, humanity in general is simply a yardstick by which the Legions measure each other.  This many human worlds reclaimed is impressive, that many is not.

We have argued before that the specifics of the Horus Heresy are irrelevant; that galactic civil war was always inevitable.  This is why. The entirety of the Great Crusade was based on an unsustainable model of humanity and Astartes wanting the exact same thing.  The very moment that changed, the instant that man concludes their worlds are safe enough already, it was inevitable that war would break out.  Loken was always wrong: Astartes need war, and in the absence of it, will create their own one.

Because for them, humanity is nothing but a concept.  Because from the Emperor to Xavyer Jubal, it was arrogance all the way down.

------


What Was

We got a scrap of detail about the "Unification Wars" this chapter, something to do with the Yndonesian Bloc and the Pan-Pacific Tribes. Has that given you anything else to go on regarding back-story?

I'd always been thinking these people had left Earth for some reason, but now I'm thinking not.  Except the people on Sixty-Three Nineteen seem to be the original people as well. So it's confusing. These Astartes weirdos have reunited everyone else who went into space, but there's been some arguments about the Emperor. Did the Ydonesian Bloc not agree with him?  I'm really not getting this yet.

Is there anything to be said about the discovery that the Luna Wolves are the sixteenth Legion?

Didn't we already know that? Isn't that why the world is called Sixteen Ninety-Three?

No, it's Sixty-Three Nineteen. They're the sixty-third expedition, but the sixteenth Legion.

Oh. Then does that mean the Emperor had fifteen failed attempts before the Astartes worked? Or maybe not. Have the Imperial Guard (Imperial Fists) been given a number yet?

I don't think so.

And does that mean there's at least fifteen more Horus siblings?


What Is

What's happened to Mersadie Oliton?

I don't know. I thought she was going to be with Loken, but maybe not.  Maybe she's already on the ship, ready to go down. Maybe Loken has already diddled her to death. Maybe its connected to Karkasy?

I thought that was interesting, actually, that they haven't gone into much detail on that.

Why don't the other iterators know about Karkasy getting beat up?

I have another question: why respond to a remembrance getting the crap kicked out of him by sending more remembrancers into danger?

Well the Astartes want them all gone in any case.  Maloghurst seems to be the only one who wants them to stay. Probably because of what Euphrati has done for him, making him a hero across the fleet with her pictures.

Actually, I wonder if Maloghurst is deliberately attempting to turn people against the Crusade by showing them the truth about how horrible the war is.  Either because of what's happened to him, or to try and turn people against the Emperor, or Horus, or Loken, depending on how he does it.

Anyway, back to Mersadie.  Maybe she was a blood sacrifice in the Mournival ritual.  Or maybe they're deliberately keeping her away from Loken because they've figured out the effect she has on him.

What do you think about Maloghurst's insistence that the truth can never be wrong?

Depends on the truth, doesn't it? There's plenty of examples in history of people thinking that exact same thing, and releasing information so terrible people have risen up against it. We talked about this earlier. Why would he want to show people the horror of war?  Is he trying to show people the true cost of war, now that he's been horrifically injured?  Showing the generals who sit up on their horses-

Space horses?

Unicorns.

I know you were going to say that.

We know that there's horses in the future because the Astartes have been spliced with horse DNA.

No they haven't!

It says Loken has a horse-like head.

And I say Eric Cantor has a head like a shoe-box, but it doesn't mean I think you could open his face and find a pair of Doc Martens.

Anyway, it'd show the generals what's really going on. Maybe Maloghurst is thinking along the same lines as Loken - what's the point of all this.  Bringing all of this to the attention of the big-wigs.

Or it could be a test to see what the remembrancers think of all this, to judge how the people on Terra would react to the truth.


What Will Be

Who is Samus, and what effect will he have on the story?

It could be anything. One of Horus' brothers. The Emperor. A god.  One of the Mournival.  Just some bloke trying to freak out the attackers, like Loken said.

Where did the idea of Horus' brother come from?

Well, they sound similar. Is Samus an Egyptian name?

Er... *checks*. Greek. Or Irish.

OK. So a classical reference, maybe.  But who knows?

As we've discussed, it's interesting that even after what happened to Ignace Karkasy, the decision has been made to allow a half dozen remembrancers access to the surface. Any thoughts on what might happen to them whilst they're on Sixty-Three Nineteen?

I don't imagine all of them are going to be returning.  I would imagine that whatserface - the imager - will, though.  Abnett has killed off named characters before, but they've been secondary with nothing special about them.  Will an imager be a problem for the Astartes? Maybe they want rid of her. Not everyone is necessarily happy about the effect her pictures had on Maloghurst and his reputation. 

Or maybe something will happen to whatserface but Loken will save her because she's friends with Mersadie.  Or maybe the iterator will keep an eye on her because he has such respect for her work.

Performance And Cocktails

Horus Rising: The Deceived (VI)

Rogal Dorn (copyright Games Workshop)

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

Those amongst you with even the most passing familiarity with Imperial history will know that following the events of the Horus Heresy, the Imperial Army and the Legiones Astartes were divided up by the Lords of Terra and by Roboute Gulliman, respectively.  The justification for this unprecedented alteration to the structure of the Imperium's armed forces - first put into place by the Emperor himself - was to ensure no single commander could ever again marshal the sheer volume of forces Horus threw into battle against his former comrades.

Whether such a precaution was wise or necessary is beyond our humble organisation of renegade scriveners and honourable naysmiths to determine.  That said, it is difficult to imagine that having employed such steps a decade earlier would have proved any real block to Horus' ambitions.

Consider the first briefing Captain Loken attended following being raised into the Mournival.  For a simple soldier committing to carrying out his orders faithfully and promptly, it must have been baffling to see so many illustrious personages of the Imperium showing each other so little respect.  The fleet commander mistrusts the Astartes.  The Astartes look askance at the Imperial Army.  The Mechanicum seems to hold more or less everyone in contempt.

Horus' advantage was never in the sheer quantity of manpower and materiel the Emperor granted him as Warmaster.  It was the skill with which those assets he did not control directly he was able to manipulate.  Given the role the primarchs were created for, it's hardly a surprise history has focused upon their prodiguous strength and speed, and their phenomenal tactical gifts, but in the final analysis what made Horus the logical choice for Warmaster - and which eventually spelled doom for the Imperium as it was originally conceived - was his preternatural gifts of charm and persuasion.  For all that primarchs such as Angron and Perturabo wasted such gifts in favour of bloodthirst and petulance, respectively, the martial prowess of the Emperor's sons was never their most dangerous quality to anyone not standing directly before them.

Consider: Horus was able to persuade fully six other primarchs to rebel alongside him (seven if one chooses to include Fulgrim, though the mechanism of his downfall was already close to completion by the time the Warmaster became involved).  Would replacing those six legions with hundreds of Astartes chapters prevented him from the machinations by which he caused one half of the Imperium to fold itself over and strike at the other?  Or would there simply be more targets for him to work his will upon?

The Imperium is safe from another galaxy-spanning civil war not because no single person now commands more than a few thousand Astartes.  It is because no primarch remains alive and in a position of authority within the civilisation of man.  With the death of Rogal Dorn (who, amongst more actions in the defence of mankind than we can ever hope to chronicle, was responsible for the inclusion of Garviel Loken into the Mournival) and the disappearance of Vulkan, the Imperium found itself bereft of its most tireless and stalwart defenders.  It also found itself free for the first time from the possibility that the Heresy could ever repeat itself.

There are still those who believe that Roboute Guilliman's corpse is repairing itself within its stasis field on Macragge. That Vulkan and Corax, Leman Russ, the Lion and the Khan, all will one day return to the Imperium.  To save it from its darkest hour.  To rally the desperate, bone-tired defenders of humanity for one final stand against the tide of xenos, heretic and daemon.

But what if this happens and they argue as to how the defense be enacted?  The most terrifying thought a man can have is not that we are alone in the void, with no-one to come to our aid.  It is that this might be the best of all possible fates.

------


What Was

Exclusively revealed: Horus has a brother. In fact, he has a minimum of ten.  We've talked quite a bit about what the Astartes are and how they come about.  What are your thoughts on the nature and origins of the primarchs?

We're back to the God question. It specifically says the Emperor is a god, and the primarchs are demigods.  The Emperor might be a DNA crazy person.

I might need a bit more than that.

Well, like that film Splice. The Emperor could be a combination of a man and a unicorn and a troll.

Yes, that is exactly the plot of the film Splice.

That was Splice, wasn't it?  With that girl who had  all that extra DNA bits?

Yes, it was.  It's the inclusion of the unicorn I'm having problems with.  And the troll, unless you're being rude about Rodney from Stargate: Atlantis.

Well, whatever. I just chose things at random.  Actually, unicorns probably wouldn't work, would it?  Too innocent.  It'd never splice.

That's right.  Haven't you heard that Loverboy song? "Unicorn and troll DNA just won't splice!"


What Is

It's made clear at the end of the chapter that Horus is a savvy politician, and has strong reasons for what he does and says when conducting briefings.  Given that, why do you think he started things off with a nervous architect?

He's making a point.  He sees a time  beyond the war, and he wants everyone to know that.  Also, to know that he's got no problem with the idea that humans can be the equals or even superiors of Astartes and Primarchs, at least in some respects.

That, or he's sneaking things into the plans for the new city, and  reckons people won't pay as much attention to things whilst the architect is in charge rather than him directly.  Statues of himself, and things.  I've changed my mind about where this is going.  By which I mean I've bothered reading the title of the book.  It's quite a big clue, really.

The conversation between the Mournival and First Captain Sigismund over drinks is aimed at people who already know the story.  Some of it is interesting for how on the money it is, and some of it is interesting for how far from ther mark it proves.  As someone who doesn't know which is which, did you pick up any implications as the Astartes spar with each other?

It'd be a very boring  series  if Garviel turns out to be right.  It's not even in human nature for him to be right. There'll always be some humans - namely narcissists and psychopaths - who'll rise to the top and cause trouble.  They'll always want to oppress someone.  Like gingers.

I'm glad you had the chance to get that in there.  Ginger power!

They had a ginger pride parade in Edinburgh the  other day. So, you know, it's a thing.

Yeah, but Edinburgh?  Not exactly enemy territory, is it?

Apparently one fifth of all the world's gingers live  in Scotland.

I knew there was a reason I keep going back there.

This is probably a difficult question to be objective about, given how much Dorn seems to have reinforced your idea of who Loken is, but what do you think of Dorn and his Imperial Fists, as compared to Horus and the Luna Wolves?

It just felt like typical banter between different regiments.  Which is definitely quite a human thing to do.  And Dorn is probably being a bit polite since he's not in overall command here, so his actual personality is a bit hard to determine. He's maybe just as good at some other job as Horus is at conquering.  Is he like the Kingsguard for the Emperor?  So that would mean when the civil war starts he stays loyal to the Emperor.  Or he stabs him in the back.

So you've decided that Dorn will either stay loyal, or not stay loyal.

Yes.  Horus is definitely going to turn against the Emperor.  Actually, Dorn probably will stay loyal, because he's close to the Emperor, and all the other brothers will turn against him.  He'll have to be like Shiva.

What?

The Hindu God with multiple arms.  He'll need eight arms.

What?

Because he has ten brothers.  And, er, two legs.

Yes, that is how combat works. That's why octopuses rule the sea.  And why we had so much trouble with those millepedes on holiday.

They were dead!

They were half dead.  That's still enough to take on five hundred ants, apparently.

Also, do the Astartes take people's essences so they can be reborn?  "Gene seed", is it?  So it's a bit like Splice again.  But not with a unicorn or a troll.  It's with a horse.

I just... what?

Because Melisandre (Mersadie Oliton) said Loken had an equine head.  And equerry means something to do with horses, doesn't it?

There was an awful lot of factions and rivalries touched on in this chapter.  The Mechanicum don't like bowing to Horus.  The fleet commander doesn't seem to care much for Astartes.  At least two of Horus' brother primarchs are outraged he was chosen over them to be Warmaster.  Loken has sworn to defend his lord from enemies both from without and from within.  Where should he start  looking first?

At Horus himself.

Twist!


What Will Be

If and when the Vengeful Spirit and its fleet move on, where do you think they're headed?  To help out the Blood Angels, or to check out the possibility of an intelligent and possibly alien civilisation?  

This is my Fighting Fantasy question, by the way.

Fighting Fantasy?

You know. "If you want to go left, turn to 221".  We could do the Fighting Fantasy books after the Horus Heresy.

(Stony glare)

I think they'll head after the  Blood Angels.  That seems to be the way things were heading.  But then why mention the Sagittary stars?  Maybe the Luna Wolves go and help the Blood Angels, and while they do that, the colonists will go over to the Sagittarius stars and all get eaten by aliens. Like in that film where all the colonists get eaten by aliens*. Or was that Stargate?


* This is honestly what she said.  It's not quite as bad as the time a friend of mine asked me if I'd seen that film about a robot that was also a policeman, but it's close.

Things To Do In High City When You're Dead Drunk

Horus Rising: The Deceived (V)

Reaver Titan, Legio Mortis
(copyright Games Workshop)

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

Presented here for the very first time since it was smuggled out at great cost from a Tarask-class vessel moments before it was scuttled by Battlefleet Isoka, five verses of a poem apparently written some centuries after the conclusion of the Horus Heresy.  The author is unknown, as is the manner by which he or she acquired so much detailed knowledge of events that took place so long before.

On the world that almost passed us by,
Numbers sit o'er its name, erased,
Where the fool Karkasy found his muse,
And lost his mind, and fell from grace.

Whilst upright he was no upright man.
Whilst down none chose to mourn his plight.
But the ugly truth that no-one saw?
There's little doubt that he was right.

For Garviel, Terra claimed every world,
As did Abaddon in his turn
Proclaim Horus lord of mankind,
And none foresaw how all would burn.

He retched truth along with liquorice stink
This poet in a drunkard's drawl
He spat out the future in a bar
He lost his teeth in pointless brawl. 

Why? Just for knowing what comes to pass
Nought we've begun will prove to last.
Wars fought to keep hold, no man can win,
The only victor there: the past.

Note that the owning - or reading - of this poem carries the death sentence on every Imperial world.

------


What Was

Let's change gears here, and try another round of word association:

Titan

A giant robot type thing. Like that thing in your drop-box (she means drop-pod, and my Death Company dreadnought), only much bigger, and with multiple Astartes inside.

Mechanicum

Er, I don't know. Are they elite engineers, architects, and builders?

Legion

Don't remember. Are they the Astartes who aren't Luna Wolves.  The ones that are builders?

Imperium

The court of the Emperor? A group of counsellors from various different branches of the elite?

This would seem to confirm the hypothesis that there's an awful lot of background being thrown at the reader, maybe too much.  And yes, there is information on the above that Fliss hasn't managed to retain, but she's read each chapter carefully at least once, so if it isn't sticking, I don't think it's her to blame.


What Is

This is the first chapter of the book to not feature any Astartes at all, besides the two sentries at Momnus' speech. We've talked already about whether the book benefits or suffers when the Astartes characters are off-set by the human perspective.  How does it work when they're (temporarily) removed entirely?

It's fine. With Karkasy introduced, you've got to use him, and you should be following his thoughts and actions.  It's important to learn about the unrest on the planet, and you'd not get that from watching the Astartes wandering around.  Everyone would be too scared to act 'normally'.

A related question: there's really not much that happens in this chapter in terms of the wider story - not unless you think there's going to be a major outcry over Karkasy's fate, and that seems unlikely. So why did Abnett bother to include it?

I think it'll inform something later on.  Surely questions will be raised over Karkasy, at least.  And yes,  the Astartes probably won't care, but the remembrancers will.  They might have to have escorts all the time from now on, which might lead to remembrancers and Astartes - read: Mersadie and Garviel - spending more time together.

Also, up until now, all we have is the official line that the planet is compliant, and that's ridiculous.  People aren't just going to willingly turn round and support invaders after they've just had their religious leader killed.

You had a very low opinion of Ignace Karkasy when you first met him.  What are your thoughts on his character now you've spent an entire chapter in his company?

It did help to have a back-story and read his thoughts.  He's clearly human, and his self-doubt makes him seem less of an arrogant dick.  I like how he thinks about how ridiculous it is that people would want to worship the Emperor as a god, but then he has these silly superstitions about his notebooks.

Speaking of which, I'd like it entered into the record that Karkasy is totally right; writing on paper is much better than typing into a computer.  Did they keep calling it Bond?  Isn't that a paper company already?  Did anyone get money for advertising them like that?

You're a well-read woman; did you know "ordure" is synonymous with "shit"?

No. Is it French?

(Actually, yes it is.  See how we're both entertaining and educational? No need to thank us, internet!)


What Will Be

We have talked already about the central paradox of the Great Crusade: that they're all convinced there's no god because the almighty and perfect Emperor has told them so. We learn here that some people are explicitly squaring that circle by naming the Emperor a god.  Where do you see this idea going?

There are two possibilities that occur to me here.  The first is that the Emperor worshippers are eventually going to be found out, and the Luna Wolves are going to be ordered to kill them, which obviously Loken isn't going to be happy with.  The other possibility is that someone is going to try to assassinate the Emperor - and maybe even succeed - because it's been mentioned that he can only really become a god once he's dead.

Mourneys

Horus Rising: The Deceived (IV)

The Mournival (copyright Aerion the Faithful)

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

It has already become clear that the origins of the Horus Heresy are too many and complex for any single observation to suffice as to why events unravelled the way they did. Nevertheless, were one so crass as to try, one could far worse than this: the Heresy came about because of critical failures in the chain of command.

Well of course it was.  The point's very accuracy renders it banal.  The second most powerful man in the galaxy stops taking orders from the only man who can give him orders? Of course that's a failure in the chain of command.  Even so, it is worth pursuing, because the nature of command across the Sixty-Third Expeditionary was more complicated than it might first appear.

There were two organisations which cut across the standard tree of authority by which the Luna Wolves were structured.  "Cut across" is an apposite term, not just for the damage they ended up causing, but because whilst the chain of command is generally considered to be vertical, these groups ran horizontally, supposedly existing without rank or superiority.  The first of these, the Warrior Lodge, we shall consider later.  For now we shall focus on the second: the Mournival.

The Mournival, for those unaware, was a grouping of four company captains, who acted as advisers to Horus himself, their relative seniority forgotten entirely in the pursuit of counselling and defending their primarch.  Such was the aim, at least.  In practise, like any group that considers itself indispensable and which survives for centuries, the Mournival became arcane and ritualistic, a role which became important by dint of its existence, rather than its utility.

Garviel Loken almost grasped this, the night he was inducted, but his pride at being nominated and his relief at being able to address Ezekyle Abaddon on equal terms distracted him at the crucial moment.  Even so, he might have had some success in seeing the trees in the forest - rather than the moon in the sunken garden - had his suspicions not been focused upon the Warrior Lodge instead.

It's interesting, in fact, that Loken simultaneously held such suspicions over the Lodge, but embraced the Mournival so totally.  Of course, it's not difficult to list the differences: the Mournival exists in the open, the difference in ranks is negligible, and its stated purpose has obvious utility.  None of that, though, is what truly separated the two in Loken's mind.  Loken framed his fears in terms of the dictates of Imperial Truth, but really, his fear was more fundamental: so tight-knit an organisation sooner or later starts to drift apart from what surrounds them.

Because the idea of a horizontal structure eliminating differences only goes so far.  There are still two layers; those within and, beneath them, those without.  To Loken, outside the Lodge, this was a concern.  It never occurred to him that the same problem could lay dormant within a group he observed from the inside.

Once again, in the lantern-lit darkness of the ruined garden of some nameless citizen of Sixty-Three Nineteen, Captain Loken was so close to understanding.  When his new brothers assured him the rituals he was witnessing were mere pantomime, the immediate thought should have occurred: does that include those aspects that are supposed to mean something?

For Garviel Loken was the last member of Horus' private retinue to be asked to swear loyalty to the primarch and to the Emperor both.  Like so much else in the Mournival, the oaths to the Emperor had become a ritual, something one simply did, thought about no more than the painting of the moon upon a new initiate's helmet.  A horizontal arrangement of men, even Astartes and even primarchs, cannot include the Emperor.

So Loken was right, in a sense, when he looked askance at the Warrior Lodge.  He diagnosed the problem, after all.  It was merely the location of the infection that escaped him.

Until Davin.  Until it was all too late.

------


What Was

This chapter mentions primarchs, and a few morsels regarding how the Astartes come about.  How clear/amusing is your conception of the Astartes at this point?

I am now under the impression that the modification of the Astartes is linked with Horus - some part of him is put into them: they're GMed using his own... something.  The primarchs must be next in line after the Emperor - they call them gods.  And they say they're not born; so they must be test-tube babies.  Literal test-tubes, in this case.  There was a lot here about humans being weak and afraid of the Astartes.


What Is

Why do you think Loken is so keen on offering an exclusive to Oliton after she pissed him off so completely earlier?  Where do you see their relationship going?

The same direction I've thought it's been going for quite some time.  She's a part of his conscience.  He obviously has questions, and if she's asking the same ones, he knows he's not alone in wanting answers. Like how lecturers say that if anyone asks a question, there'll be ten more people who wanted to ask it, but were afraid to.

How reasonable do you think Loken is with his objections to the Mournival ceremony?  Is he mistaking tradition for superstition, or has he put his finger on a legitimate problem?

It's probably a logical concern, given they say their whole faith is based around the idea that superstition shouldn't exist. If that's true, then being inducted into one of the greatest available roles through superstition invalidates that.  There was a phrase used in the ceremony which may prove useful if Loken ends up battling against the Imperium and/or the primarchs; that he could use to justify his actions.  It said something about protecting the Imperium from all evils, foreign and domestic, basically.  That sets him up for fighting against superiors who he thinks are corrupt.

Also, I'm a bit suspicious about the naming in the ceremony.  They say the oath can only be broken by death, but I'm wondering if some of them started asking too many questions, and got killed for it. I also thought: "thirteen, unlucky for some".  Tarik does mention luck quite a lot.

Abnett's description of a night in the ruined garden is his first opportunity to give us some descriptive prose without it needing to be shackled to either action scenes or to exposition.  Are you enjoying his style?

Yeah, it's alright. This concludes my analysis of Abnett's prose.

I worked out that the p value of the same two people out of four surviving nine deaths in the Mournival is 0.012, allowing us to discard the null hypothesis that Mournival members have equal chances of being killed at any given point.  Have you any ideas as to what's being this disparity, and are you regretting shacking up with a probability geek?

See my previous answer; also, I want to see those calculations.  Did you do a continuity correction?

Why the hell would I need to do that? Think about the basic nature of -

No, it all comes down to what test you use.

(This goes on for some time.)


What Will Be

Four chapters into this first part, who do you think are "The Deceived", and what bearing will they have on what's coming?

I think this section will end with someone - maybe or maybe not Loken - realising they've been deceived by Horus. Maybe Mersadie will help Loken work it out, something to do with using her weird head stuff.  Maybe Abaddon and Torgaddon turn out to not really have been in the Mournival since the very beginning.  Also, the other two remembrancers might be involved, though I could just be hoping that so that something nasty might happen to the obnoxious one (Karkasy).

Here Beginneth The Lessons

Horus Rising: The Deceived (III)

Captain Garviel Loken (copyright Games Workshop)

 Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

As one considers the technological marvels and enlightened philosophies of the Great Crusade, it is hard not to dwell upon how far Man has fallen.  Our means and our ends are so petty and inadequate compared to those that have gone before.  Not for nothing to so many whisper fearfully that this is the "Dark Millennium". There can scarce be a man or woman across the range of this galaxy who wouldn't find their lives easier had they be born whilst the Emperor Himself still walked from world to world.

Except, of course, for the Ecclesiarchy.

Consider the task of the Imperial Preacher.  Consider the mindset.  Walk forward, proclaim the divinity of the Emperor, burn alive those who shake their heads.  Repeat until you are dead or everyone else is.  The encroaching darkness which seeps into every thought of every man and woman on every Imperial world does nothing but strengthen the Ecclesiarchy's self-justification.  Every setback is proof the galaxy needs the Emperor more than ever.  Every angry denial means the redoubling of effort is still more important.  In the final analysis, there is no conflict between declaring the Emperor a God, and mercilessly butchering those who refuse to praise him.

Such coherence escaped the Ecclesiarchy's ancient forefathers, the Iterators. For them the central tenet of the truth was not that the Emperor was god, but that the concept of gods itself was ludicrous. Science and, more importantly, logic was judged the fundamental bedrock of existence.  A pretty idea, no doubt, but the Iterators betrayed it utterly when they used it as the justification for war.

Logic, in the end, simply wasn't enough.  Logic cannot exist in a vacuum; it is of use only when one wishes to extrapolate from one's fundamental principles to create a coherent whole.  All to often, those bedrock ideas are unreachable by logic; one cannot use a tool to tear itself apart.  If I believe blue to be the most pleasing of all colours, it is logical that I paint my crawler blue. If my hab-neighbour feels just as strongly regarding the superiority of red, then he too is logical to paint his crawler red.

If we share the crawler, however, logic can only tell us that neither of us can be completely happy with the paint-job that ultimately results.  The idea that the best course of action is to murder my neighbour and steal the crawler lies not in logic, but in something else.

This is the great tragedy of the Great Crusade, the rot that would ultimately eat its conquests away almost entirely.  "We do not think we are right, we know we are right" was Kyril Sindermann's guiding principle. It was a statement of overwhelming hubris.  With this as a foundation, the newly-forged Imperium could never stand.  We can spend all the hours we wish pouring over the myriad ways in which the Horus Heresy might have been avoided, but to do so is to miss the point.  Horus' fall to Chaos was never inevitable, right up to the moment he ordered the virus bombs deployed.  But something was always going to happen.  Something was going to be born from the idea that if a man simply thought hard enough he could not err.

More to the point, there was never any way to avoid tragedy when one's unbreakable rule is that there can be no divinity because the Emperor has said so.  This tragic combination of logic and hubris, of rejection of religion but unquestioning devotion to a single man, would tear apart the galaxy one way or another.  The specific form of this disaster we can blame upon Horus.  The fact that such a disaster was inevitable we can lay at the feet of the Emperor himself.

------


What Was

How does the arrival of a new type of Astartes and the (briefly mentioned) idea of Old Night fit in to your conception of the novel's back-story?

Well, I still haven't gotten my head around who the Luna Wolves are, yet.  I'm choosing to believe they're a battalion of werewolves.

So what would that make the Imperial Fists?

Who? I don't know.

But you got Luna Wolves = werewolves just from the name.  What does "Imperial Fists" suggest?

Crowns with fists?  How would I know?

I'm imagining a fiddler crab with a sceptre in its teeny claw. "Obey me, puny vertebrates,or it's the claw for you! K-KLACK!"

Someone should draw that for us.

Are these Imperial Fists the personal guards of the real Emperor, then?  Old Night is presumably when humanity split, and some went off to try and find a new home, or something.  I don't know.  When do we get to the easy questions?


What Is

What do you think it says about the Imperium that they chose to send poets to cover their crusade, rather than journalists?

Is that really that different?  They're both telling stories.  One is just through the medium of poetry.  We've already had war poets.

Yeah, because they were already in a war.  No-one said "Oi, Siegfried; head on over to that trench line and capture its violent horror through verse".

But you've got people who volunteer to enter battles and chronicle them.  I've read enough fiction to know that.  Like musicians who follow knights to compose songs about them.

When you say "read enough fiction", do you mean "watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail"?

No, and shut up.  Journalism is a pretty new field compared to, you know, killing people en masse; the people who usually chronicled military conquests were generally less interested in being objective (to the extent  journalists are truly objective now).

How well do you think Kyril Sindermann does in justifying the actions of the Great Crusade, either to his pupils, or to Garviel Loken?

Is he justifying anything?  He spends more time telling Garviel doubts are healthy.  The bits where he is trying to justify himself go horribly wrong.  It's just so obviously self-contradictory.  You can't say people who think they're right shouldn't push it on others, but if you know you're right, that's different.

As an agnostic, how much sympathy do you have for the idea that a dedication to secularism and science is something that should be proselytised as fiercely as possible?

I don't think it's at all a good idea to start tearing people's belief systems away from them. What are they left with? How will that lead to a stable society? Offering people what you consider enlightenment would be OK, I guess.

But how do you draw the line between enlightening others and pushing your views on them?

You teach those who want to be taught.

Is it more fun hanging out with the Astartes, or the remembrancers?

I'm not sure either is better. You need them both. That human perspective is vital, particularly since it looks like Garviel is going to need to explore his human side.  I think the remembrancers are going to be important there.  So I guess I don't mind who we're with as long as it keeps changing. You know, up to a limit.  I don't want this going all Martinesque, with a new character every ten minutes, all of whom die.

Do you subscribe to Ignace Karkasy's theory that a culture's worthiness to survive is directly proportional to the quality of its booze?

No. Well, not really.  It's too down to individual tastes, isn't it?  We're never going to agree on good booze quality.

What?  What about champagne?  Created for us by that proud martial race; the French?

Yeah, but hampagne is fucking horrible.

...A point well made.  Maybe we should limit the scope of the question: what booze could we point to if we wanted to justify Britain's survival?

God, I don't know.  Cider, maybe, but that's hardly to everyone's tastes, is it?  Mead?

We should credit that one to the mighty Vikings, really. What about ale?

The Germans do better beer.

If you like lager, maybe, but-

And what about the Chinese.  Do they even drink anything?

Not that I know of.  Maybe that's why they developed as a culture so quickly.  Or maybe they were just off their tits on opium the whole time.

This is becoming awkwardly racist.
 
And what about the Mongols?  They spent all their time quaffing fermented yak's milk, and they had the greatest contiguous empire in human history.  Though maybe they were just so sick of getting pissed on sour milk they were invading every pub they could find in Christendom.

Yeah, this really isn't helping.

At least we haven't had a pop at the Americans.  Every alcoholic drink they make is awful.

What about California wine?

OK, the wine is great.  But when are California going to invade anyone?  How does one weaponise a surfboard?

Schwarzenegger looked like he was happy to have a pop at someone. 

Fair point.


What Will Be

Now that you've learnt the fleet is engaged in bringing what they see as enlightened atheism to the masses, have you changed your mind on where you see this going?

Well, they say it's atheism, but given they keep talking about the Emperor and Horus like they're gods, it's not clear what difference that makes.  They even say things like "Oh, the Emperor" and "By Terra".  That's just substituting new words in for "Oh God!".  They're still spreading a religious message; they're just pretending not to.  It's all still "You have to believe in the Emperor".  Kindermann even tells Loken that he should do things just because the Emperor tells him.

You mentioned in our discussion of chapter 1 that you thought trouble would end up brewing between Garviel and Abaddon.  How's that theory shaping up?

If this was a fantasy novel (Fliss' usual genre of choice), I'd say it was shaping up perfectly. Kindermann has told Loken questioning orders is a good thing, so it's obviously being set up for him to question too much.  Possibly with Oliton's help, who may or may not teach him how to love.

I thought chapter 2 made it clear that the Astartes don't have that kind of drive.

Yeah, but if he's exploring his human side, who knows?  Maybe that's why the remembrancers are in the story; they're going to help Garviel work out how to be human.