Fighting Fire With Fire

False Gods: The House Of False Gods (IV)

The final fate of iterator and remembrancer both,
a braying zealot devoid of subtlety (copyright Games Workshop)

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

Here, in the final hours before the Delphos opens and the ministrations of the Serpent Lodge can be judged, it seems a vital argument has at last been settled. Not the conflict for Horus' soul, of course.  That still stretches ahead of us.  We are thinking of a far older, far more slippery contest: science against faith.

In one sense, this has always been a false dichotomy, at least as far as the denizens of the Warp are concerned.  What does it matter how we categorise inconceivably powerful beings from outside our reality, with abilities utterly beyond our capacity to understand, and who will reward or destroy us depending on the fealty we show them.  What does it matter whether we label such horrors "xenos" or "gods"?

Let us judge the conflict on its own terms, however. For some time now it has been clear that some, like Kyril Sindermann, are convinced that the arc of history bends towards secularism. That humanity will continually - albeit fitfully, and not without the occasional backslide - advance to the point where we have no further need for deities.  That ultimately there will be nothing left in the universe so far beyond our paradigms that we must judge it not merely beyond us, but above us.

In contrast, there are those such as Ignace Karkasy who see our time in the glow of secular reason as nothing more than one point in a cycle; a brief moment in the sunlight before we plunge back into the depths of slavish, mindless obedience to a god we hurriedly construct ourselves as we feel ourselves tipping over the edge.

It would be hard at this point to argue Karkasy has not been vindicated. The need for the comforting certainties of religion apparently reaches such peaks as to cause men and women to worship even those who specifically forbid it. Ignoring our god is apparently preferable to not believing in him. And the reasons for that conclusion are all around us here, in the final hours of the Great Crusade.  What is it that links Sindermann and Keeler and those poor souls who offered crudely-scrawled prayers following the Mournival's massacre of helpless civilians? Fear.  Fear of a universe in which vile demons can possess the greatest soldiers mankind has ever produced. Fear that those same soldiers might crush us against the bulkhead without even truly noticing us. Fear that, after all the sacrifices and triumphs that were born from centuries of forging a galaxy-wide empire of humanity, that we might in fact be all alone amongst widespread, uncaring stars.

So it goes. Humanity will apparently stop at nothing to gain solace.  They will respond to terror by worshipping the one who offers the best chance to alleviate that terror, irrespective of what that person actually desires. They will respond to bloodshed by worshipping the highest authority of the architects of that bloodshed.  And the Astartes are no different. The Word Bearers apparently crave supplication so much they will gladly invert it 180 degrees rather than see it fade, will happily betray every single tenet they once considered sacred just so they can still hold something sacred.

In short, the human need to believe in something utterly outstrips their desire for justice, for virtue, for coherence, for anything.  All that matters is that they have someone to blame for their mistakes (even if it their fellow worshippers) and they have something to point to as proof that we not forever horribly alone here in our haphazard disc of lights hanging precariously in an ocean of utter nothingness.

Which is ultimately just what Erebus is counting on.Which is ironic, really, because as a Word Bearer - the First Chaplain no less, a strange term for a nominally atheistic operation - Erebus is part of a wholesale rejection of the Emperor's teachings and positions, and yet this very approach to converting one's opponents is exactly what the Emperor relies upon himself. He has humanity venerating the Astartes, the Astartes venerating the Primarchs, and the Primarchs venerating him. At every level, unquestioning obedience and unthinking love have been hardwired into the Imperium's most basic operating principles.  Like the denizens of the Warp, what could it possibly matter if we call him Imperator or God-Emperor?  This is a being who not only created the twenty greatest warriors humanity has ever known, but then toured the galaxy beating those paragons of martial prowess up until they agreed he was best. Part of what made Erebus' lies so easy to believe was the simple fact that the Emperor could not have done more to present himself as a God if he had in fact wished to try. Promising the wrath of the galaxy's most powerful being if anyone cross him by declaring him God certainly feels like mixed messages.

The real problem is a little more subtle than that, though. The constant protests from the Emperor that he was no God generates a paradox inside our minds - a perfect being insisting on their own imperfection. The response is to treat any imperfection that does appear as being vastly important, because it allows us to resolve the contradiction. Unfortunately, in the process the perfect being collapses in on themselves, their armour suddenly no longer impenetrable. And somehow, far more often that not, the observer finds a way to blame his former "god" for their own poor assumptions.

What better way to explain the Word Bearers, who are so dedicated to their assumptions that they'd rather just turn their telescope in a half-circle than spend so much as a minute wondering whether the thing was built sensibly to begin with. How do we explain Horus' hatred first of himself and then his father as soon as it is discovered - or even implied - that mistakes are not in fact utterly inconceivable?

In short, the Word Bearers have learned from the Emperor they have sworn to stop learning from in order to use their own deepest flaw as a way to bring about their greatest triumph. It's a complicated and bitterly ironic business, but then what family feud isn't? Who even needs to fight over the existance of divine beings when we have so much ordnance to launch within our own families? One way or another, it always comes back to the people we expect to be perfect, for no better reason than they created us. More to the point, it comes back to what we do when we learn the utterly obvious truth.

Speaking of which, the Delphos is about to open, and Horus is about to decide...

------

What Was

So the Word Bearers got their knuckles rapped for being so into bigging up the Emperor.  Does that make sense of Erebus' actions now? 

Maaaaaybe. This falls into my theory from last week that that "future vision" was just something the Word Bearers had already built. Is Erebus worried that Horus will outshine the Emperor?  Or is it just that now the Emperor has shouted at them, they no longer believe? But that doesn't make sense.  Surely when someone denies their divinity you believe it all the more.

I suppose it depends.  There's a big difference between denying your divinity, and handing out detentions over it.

Detentions?

That might not literally have been the punishment.  I believe the word "censure" gets used.

Doesn't sound like much of a punishment.

If you think you're doing God's work, it probably stings quite a bit.  Speaking of which...

What does it imply for Euphrati's shiny new cult?

Maybe nothing.  It'll come down to a numbers game sooner or later.  How many of your own people can you punish?

I don't know, but I'll bet it's more people than Euphrati can cobble together.

It's not just her now, though. You've got Sindermann signing up.  He'll bring the other iterators.

Yeah, but how many converts can they plausibly find in one fleet?  The Emperor has already slapped down the Word Bearers, and there are tens of thousands of those guys.

But the Emperor didn't need to slap them all down.  Just Lager.

Lorgar.

Indeed.

What Is

Is Loken making a sensible choice with regard to protecting Karkasy?

Over the poems? We don't even know what's in them.

We know Loken called it "libellous trash".

He changed his mind pretty quick.

Not everyone will, though.  Karkasy's bound to piss someone off with this stuff.

Because it mentions the massacre?  Why is that such a big deal?

Because a bunch of people died, Fliss.  Gods, you're cold.

I mean, Loken might not think it's that big a deal since they're already being sued by Voldemort.

Varvaras. And I think "suing" might be low-balling it a bit. It's not like the Fleet Commander had out a super-injunction. Or so I have been instructed to say.

Maybe Loken could try and finger Abaddon.

Why would he do that?

To get him sent down.

I know they've had a falling out, but I don't think Loken is hoping to stitch the First Captain up like a kipper. Why have we gone all wide-boy today?

He's pretty angry about the whole Horus thing, and feeling guilty about the massacre.

Is he?  How guilty can you really be feeling if you don't believe you should be punished in any way?

He's punishing himself.

That doesn't count. You just think it does because of all that Angel you've watched.


What is it Euphrati is dragging Sindermann off to see?

No idea.  She can't be stupid enough to be taking him to see more of the faithful.

I presume it's connected to the writing they're looking at.

Probably. My first thought was that it matches the writing on the anathame, but I don't see when she'd have gotten a look at it.  My only other thought is that it might be on those images of Jubal she spent so long studying.

Whereabouts on the picture could they be, though?

I dunno. Flickering in and out, like some kind of ghostly script?


Is Karkasy right about humanity always returning to the worship of some new God?  Or will we ultimately outgrow the idea?

Well, what culture ever evolved without coming up with its own religion?

None that I know of.

Right. So just by the law of averages, we're in trouble.

Except back when we could meaningfully talk about independent cultures, we didn't know anything.  The argument goes that as we learn more, we start to push God out of things.

There were plenty of people in antiquity who knew a massive amount.  Pythagoras was a complete genius, but he had some utterly bonkers ideas. Didn't he refuse to eat beans because they looked like testicles?

Something about humans and beans being genetic brothers, I think.  But point taken.

And the Romans went around destroying anything they couldn't use.  If they hadn't torched the library at Alexandria, the human race could be twice as smart right now.

All fair points. I'm not saying increased intelligence/knowledge is a sufficient condition for atheism - I have a big problem with atheists who say that, in fact - but I guess one can colour an argument that says a full suffusion of enlightenment is needed for it to "work". But the Romans reference has me thinking about religious fundamentalism stifling science, and tipping us into a Dark Age.  Do we clutch at fundamentalist religion as we turn our back on science? Or does a rise in fundamental religion cause us to turn our back on science.

You ran on a bit there.

Yeah. I only mention this because it becomes important later.




What Will Be

Now that the wolf and the dead man have both been revealed to be who you'd guessed they were right from the start, which way do you think Horus is most likely to jump?

Presumably Hrosu will be smart enough to heed the warning he got from his fat friend.

Temba?

Yeah, about the Warp lying. And I presume Horus has never completely trusted Erebus, otherwise whey would he have needed to pretend to be Hastur?

Good point.

And even if Erebus does manage to persuade Horus about the Emperor being evil, I don't see Horus leaping into an attack.  He'll want to talk first.  He always does.

He might have changed his mind since what happened on Xenobia.  But if Horus is at best going to ignore Erebus and at worst proceed cautiously on what he's been told, what are the last five chapters of the book actually going to be about.

I think the fleet is about to be split in two between Emperor worshippers and Horus fans.

A Serpent Swallowing Its Own Tail

Re-Primer (Regular weekly post below)

During one of my infrequent journeys into the heart of intoxication with Chris Brosnahan this weekend, the topic of my "Heresy of Horus" blog came up, and it was suggested that it might be time for a restatement/expansion regarding what exactly this blog is, and who it's for.

The basic idea here is to contrast how different the experience of reading tie-in novels is for those who are long-term fans of the relevant franchise, and those that are complete newcomers.  There are a lot of reasons this is interesting, or at least interesting to me. I like seeing how people assemble their understanding of a fictional world and their predictions about where stories set in that world will progress. I know that this kind of tie-in fiction regularly gets something of a bad rap in certain circles because so much of the work has been done by others, and it's interesting to see whether there's anything obvious unsatisfying or substandard about these novels for those unsullied by the larger picture. Plus, of course, the internet has a long and glorious history of sites based around a couple saying dumb things to each other, which is why my girlfriend Fliss plays the role of neophyte here.  Maybe some of this is your bag too.

Onto structure.  Each week Fliss and I read a chapter from the Horus Heresy novels (this week is chapter fifteen of the second book, False Gods) and argue about whether it was any good or not.  Before we get to that, though, I start each post off with some ludicrous cod-philosophical ramblings from a fictitious renegade archivist from the 41st Millennium, based on some development in the week's chapter.  These often contain spoilers, so if that's something you're worried about - or if you just want to skip straight to the good bits - just scroll down until you get to the Q&A.  It's easily recognisable; the first question is in bold red text.

Chris also asked me about the intended audience for this blog.  It is true, I'm afraid, that there might not be a massive amount to be taken from this blog if you haven't read the books in question (though long-term Games Workshop alumni will probably get the general idea either way).  I did think about summarising each chapter as we went, but even if I weren't nervous about GWs reputation for extreme litigiousness, the degree of detail a summary would need to contain for what follows here to truly make sense makes the idea rather daunting.  Reading or having read the books in question is probably the only way to get the best out of this blog.

But hey; we take five months to cover each book.  You can catch up with where we've got to at the cost of £12 (£8 if you don't need your copies to be new) and by flicking through just 700 pages of text, and in the process get to read two books set in what I genuinely believe to be one of the most interesting fictional worlds ever produced.  Sure, the actual books themselves are never going to be confused with high literature, or even the smartest schlock, but in the category of trashy light reading they acquit themselves entirely reasonably.

Plus you get forty posts and counting of entirely free analysis and discussion, chapter by chapter. There's even a comment section so you can join in our sniping!

Something to think about, perhaps.  Anyway...

False Gods: The House Of False Gods (III)


Praetorians. In fairness, they're much scarier
when they're not taking on a Primarch (copyright Games Workshop)

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

Ten point two millennia ago, or thereabouts, the most powerful man our race ever produced or ever feasibly could produce stood in a cavern miles beneath the surface of war-ruined Terra and said to himself something like "This is just the place to begin."

So history records, anyway. How can we ever know the truth?  And would we even understand that truth were we to reveal it?  We know so little about how the Emperor's plan to create his twenty favourite sons began. In some ways, we know even less about how it ended.

It is easy to not realise this fact, mainly because the one thing we do know about the nascent Primarchs' final seconds on Terra is so astonishing and important: the sudden disappearance of these would-be saviours into the Warp. It is almost understatement to note this event reshaped the face of the galaxy. It is little wonder we focus so much upon it.

Amid the thousands of ways in which Erebus earned the hatred and contempt of all who know his name, however, he did provide us with one small service here. He forced us to concentrate on the details.

Before we begin to pick through Horus' experience of his own time-line, let us deal with the obvious first: this was not some illusion created by "Sejanus" and his allies out of whole cloth. Tucked in at the edges, perhaps.  A few licks of paint here and there. But not a total fraud, any more than was the image of a Terra long gone or the droning metal horrors of an Imperial Shrine World. Chaos does not invent wholesale.  It lies with the truth. The chances of success are greatly increased, and it's more fun, too.

This fact is critical, because it prevents us from simply dismissing out of hand Horus' encounter in his father's laboratory.  Most, if not all of what transpired was an accurate rendering of the day the Primarchs were scattered.  "Accurate" does not mean truthful, though. At least, it doesn't have to. Shorn of all context, facts are ugly, brutish things, a clever man can lead them in any direction he chooses.  Which, of course, is Erebus' aim, and we will not forget that.

Despite all this, however, Horus' betrayer raises questions worth tackling. Some are harder to answer than others, of course. Why did every one of the eighteen Primarchs whose names we have recorded find themselves on human worlds in a galaxy strewn with alien life and filled with barren spheres of rock and giant clouds of poisonous gas?  Does it matter? The Emperor wanted his sons to survive so he could find them. Chaos wanted them to survive because it is hard to win supreme killing machines to your side once they have choked to death on an airless world.

"Sejanus'" point about the Emperor only being able to create twenty Primarchs is slightly harder to answer. At least, it is to answer fully.  To some extent, this question at its heart is no less foolish than asking why, if the humans of the Dark Age of Technology could design and build the gigantic, all but unstoppable Imperator Titans, they didn't ensure every single world in their Empire was guarded by ten thousand of them.  That a task is hard is not proof that it cannot be done except by cheating.

That said, we do not yet have a full answer. Yes, it is clearly folly to suggest a handful of Primarchs is proof the hand could not have been the Emperor's own. If nothing else, there's no obvious explanation as to why Chaos would want to so limit the number of Primarchs either; the more that were created, the harder the Emperor would have found it to keep them all under control. But that line of reasoning immediately suggests another - what if the Primarchs were kept at a score precisely because the Emperor was concerned about losing control?

It's entirely obvious why Erebus would not suggest this possibility, but it fits in with what we know about the Emperor. Did he not, after all, create Leman Russ to be his executioner?  Was not Russ tasked on at least two occasions and potentially three to track down and kill a fellow Primarch?  The Emperor was never unaware of the possibility of betrayal, his arrogance came in never conceiving that he could fail to spot the betrayal in time.

Lying with the truth, as we said (an even more obvious example: the idea that the Primarchs were tools to be "cast aside" once the galaxy was conquered - of course that's what they were, but Horus' horror at the idea of completing a mission he volunteered for is entirely his own problem).  But all of this is simply circling the true question: why did the Emperor turn his back?

As with all the most important questions, this is difficult to answer. In part that's because the tale seems to break down as this point, as though the tricks the Emperor plays with causality leaves its marks in the very narrative we have pieced together.  Why ask Horus not to follow the path that leads to disaster and then immediately allow that path to open up?

All at this point is desperate speculation, of course, but we can construct only three possibilities.  The simplest is that the Emperor knew of no way to prevent the theft of his children without risking their deaths in the resulting struggle. Another is that the Emperor did indeed see an advantage in allowing his children to be scattered.  There is some benefit to spreading the Primarchs across the the galaxy, experiencing radically different human cultures, giving them different viewpoints and skills. With their unstoppable martial abilities, they were in less danger than their situation would suggest, and whilst such widely variant upbringings would make eventual assimilation difficult, well, it's not as though the Emperor hadn't already decided to dedicate himself to unification under all circumstances. Besides, foil this attack, and another one will be launched the day after. Or the day before.

There is a third possibility, however; the only one that truly explains why the Emperor seemingly made his decision only after his brief exchange with Horus. Perhaps the Emperor recognised Horus more fully than he let on.  He might not have been able to identify which of his children had grown into the towering bald figure that stood before him, but Primarchs as a breed are hard to miss. An adult Primarch standing beneath the tube that holds his own infant form, which is about to be thrown into the time-bending depths of the Warp?  It hardly takes the Emperor's intellect to understand what the Emperor's intellect understood at that moment.

Seeing Horus watching the kidnap attempt was proof the kidnapping succeeded.  That battle was already lost.  The Emperor let Horus fall into the Warp because Horus travelled back in time, and Horus travelled back in time because he once fell into the Warp.  It's a circular structure the Thousand Sons might recognise; along with anyone who studies Kyril Sindermann's precis of the nature of the serpent of chaos.  Effect follows cause follows effect.  Ultimately Chaos can see the future because it can create the future.  There was nothing left for the Emperor to do but let Horus know that there was still time to step aside. If his plea sounded distant and unconvincing, consider the difficulty he faced, trying to talk to an adult son he never met at the very moment that son is being kidnapped as a baby.  A certain degree of stilted expression has to be expected. All Horus had to do, after so many months of bemoaning his father's absence and desperately wishing for advice and guidance, was to listen then and there. To make just one last effort to trust his father, before the Great Crusade ended and Chaos lost its opportunity.

Horus, of course, didn't listen at all.


------


What Was

Any initial reactions to seeing the Primarch Babies get sucked into the vortex? Is "Sejanus" right about it being a deliberate plan by the Emperor? 

I always figured the Primarchs got scattered somehow - the only surprising fact is that Horus is surprised.

He always thought it was an accident.

Giant wormhole appears and sucks you up? Seems like an accident to me.

So you don't believe this story about it being retribution over some broken pact?

Erebus is certainly lying in part, since Chaos has been planning this for millennia and Horus was only created centuries ago.

Good catch.

But I certainly can believe the Emperor wanted his Primarchs scattered. What better way to conquer the galaxy than to have your most powerful troops already all over the place?

How about tube number XI?

Yeah, that was odd.  Does Horus have a number?  No, his Legion does. So who's Legion XI?

Er... let's come back to that.


What Is


What do you think of the Emperor after your first encounter with him? Impressive? A disappointment? Is he the villain of the peace?

We didn't really get to see much, did we?  Just a golden figure doing weird things.

You're saying he's a disappointment?

I'm saying he wasn't around long enough to have time to disappoint.  And it's not like he was well-described, is it.

That's deliberate, surely.

Because he's Jasmine?

From Aladdin?

From Angel, you berk.

I think it has more to do with the idea that any attempt to pin down the Emperor through rigid description would lessen his impact upon our imaginations.

That's silly.

It is not silly. Merely pretentious.


Also; I didn't understand the last two pages.  It seemed like a big chunk was missing.

Did you pick up on him being able to freeze time.

No, but that's not my only problem. Who was he talking to? Why did he turn his back?

Opinions differ.  The kindest options are that he wouldn't risk killing his Primarchs in a battle to save them, and/or that by seeing Horus he realised the kidnap attempt couldn't be stopped.  The less kind option is that Erebus is pretty much right.  So maybe he is the villain.

Yeah, but Erebus saying that makes me doubt it, for obvious reasons.

Maybe they're both villains.

Maybe everyone's a villain.

Is that a reference to the book, or are you making some bleak philosophical point?

Which would be funnier?


Were Horus and "Sejanus" really in that chamber beneath the Himalayas hundreds of years earlier?  Will the Custodian remember what happened? Will the Emperor?

Well if they do, they'll know Horus killed all those chappies.

I don't think the Custodians would be happy to be labelled "chappies". Though since they're dead, I guess it doesn't matter.

I don't think anyone will remember. They didn't get anything from those guys in the future.  Though this seemed like they could interact far more.

That's probably a comment on how much more awesome the Emperor is than your average menial.

Which also makes me think this isn't real.  If the Emperor can freeze time Erebus would have to be mad to take Horus to see him.  What if the Emperor freezes him and has a nice long chat with Horus about what's really going on?


Is Petronella any more appealing to you now she's a drunken mess?  And is Karkasy any better? 

No. Are you hoping I'm attracted to drunken messes?

There is certainly plenty of accumulated circumstantial evidence.

She's still a bitch, it's just now she's drunk.  She isn't even a funny drunk. Karkasy's nowhere near as bad.  They're blatantly going to have sex, though.

You think?

Karkasy will sleep with anyone.

He didn't sleep with that hot redhead, for reasons utterly beyond explanation.

He's in love with Euphrati.

Oh yeah, that.

But if Petronella avoids mentioning her, she should be alright.

Will it lower your opinion of him?

You mean if he immediately kills her.

Or just tells people how crap in bed she is.  Though that would be quite caddish, I think.

Yeah, best to just smother her with a pillow like a gentleman.


Do bars really look worse with the lights on? Or is that just North-East nightclubs?

North-East nightclubs certainly look hideous under decent lighting.

This cannot be denied.

It's usually the toilets that look the worst.

Yeah, you don't want to end up switching the lights on in there.  You might find mice scurrying around your feet.

Screwing?

Scurrying.  If mice start screwing around my feet I'm going to leave them to it.  I don't want to cock-block my rodent amigos.


What Will Be

What does Sindermann want with Euphrati Keeler, and will her absence bring an end to the army's happy-slapping antics planetside?

I assume it Loken rather than Sindermann.

Why would Torgaddon lie about that? Or why would Loken lie to Torgaddon?

Maybe he's just spinning it, figuring Euphrati will be less nervous being summoned by Sindermann.  I don't think it's a chat about the Emperor cult, otherwise why bother saving them?

Depends if it was meant to be a chat ending in a gunshot.

I think they want to discuss the pictures she shot of that guy.

Jubal?

Yeah.  Maybe they want to sneak the pictures in to Horus to give him some idea of what he's up against.

A Vision Of The Future

False Gods: The House Of False Gods (II)

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

"Prophecies are tricky creatures. They don't tell you everything." - Joffa Wotan, Merican poet, C4M.

It is a strange feeling, reading documents from so far in the past that capture your present and their future so perfectly. Knowing that the daemon lords of Chaos could view so perfectly the wheezing industrial rabid horrors of the Imperium long after the Emperor's fall. That when they chose Horus as their instrument of destruction, that they could see with perfect clarity what was to come.

In many ways, in fact, of all the consequences of this vision of the future, the effect it has on Horus might be among the very least important. Having been ignored by the architects of the Imperium, and by the people who surround him whilst he is raging about that first ignoring, let's ignore him ourselves for a while as well. If nothing else, we are strong proponents of the idea of petty revenge.  It has been said that such urges are best quashed through living well, but it has been quite some time since that was really an option.  We take comfort where we can.

Besides, so many new avenues of thought opened up in those moments on Davin - or in the Warp - that just capturing them in their crudest forms would stretch the limits of an Eldar Farseer. Fortunately for our mortal minds, much of what is brought to the surface from Erebus' link to the future can be summed up in a simple question: if the gods of Chaos knew the Heresy would fail, why put so much effort into starting it at all.

Immediately our language trips us up.  Firstly, what does it mean to say they "knew" what was coming? Is not the very nature of Chaos endless, random flux?  Why call the most devious of Chaos daemons "Lords of Change" if the future is proof from all alteration?

There are several responses to this, of course. If indeed the swirling, cackling mass of Tzeentch can study the future with perfect clarity, this need not be true of his children; any more than Horus could be said to be the equal of his father. Further, we know from our own lives that a change need not be a surprise to bring pleasure.  Perhaps Tzeentch does indeed know all that will transpire, and yet takes pleasure in shifting the pictures he knows he will see into as many shapes as possible.  Perhaps he takes no pleasure from this at all, and is simply compelled to the task for lack of alternative.

Whatever the truth, there is an undeniable poetry to the idea of Chaos using the horrifying consequences of a coming war to trick Horus into starting that war.  The advantage of knowing the full story is that you can dole out facts just so, twisting the truth in the process until it folds back in on itself. Just as with Magnus the Red - forced by the visions drip-fed to him by Chaos to commit the very crimes that would force him to join the very forces he wished to defeat - Chaos has ever relied upon us to be our own worst enemies. It is one more way in which the strange symbiotic relationship between mankind and the Warp takes shape.

This brings us to the second problem lurking in our phrasing, which is whether the Heresy actually was a failure for Chaos. Even approaching an answer to this is actually profoundly difficult, because it raises strategic concerns about an enemy we cannot even conceive of having a strategy. We see Khorne, Slaanesh and Nurgle as having nothing more than base, urgent desires. Tzeentch we credit with a somewhat greater capacity for long-term thinking, but even here it's need for constant betrayal and inversions make it hard to find any evidence of a coherent plan. Combine this with the fact that Chaos tactics are so horrifying and murderous as to command all our attention, and it is perhaps forgivable to fall into the trap of assuming any end to the wholesale destruction of the galaxy must represent a failure for our foes.

But might not a grox think the same thing, when we arrive in its enclosure to slaughter and devour its fellows? We allow no other fate to the brutes, after all; make no attempt at communication or mediation. We kill, and kill, and kill.

The analogy is an obvious one, of course - if Chaos exterminates all life in the galaxy, it will find itself without its favourite playthings. But there's a second level working here as well. We're not just the favourite toy, we're the favourite food (with the possible exception of the Eldar, but there are no longer enough of them to provide sufficent meals). As we've said, our relationship with Chaos is peveresly symbiotic. Our moods feed and even birth the creatures of the Empyrean. We provide the skulls for Khorne and the nervous systems for Nurgle.  In many ways we provide the only mechanism for truwe change in the Warp, rather than endless permutations of the same conflicts (perhaps Chaos actually wants to avoid new additions to their and alterations, but if that is true, they should call themselves something else). There could be no greater disaster for Chaos than for mankind to disappear overnight - one of the reasons the forces of the Warp despise the Tyranids as much as they do.

Like any symbiote, Chaos cannot survive the death of its host, at least not in any form it would consider acceptable.  Perhaps one day a species will rise to replace us as we have the Eldar, but so far the only plausible candidates are the brutish, unsubtle Orks and the psi-blind Tau, neither of which Chaos would accept as worthy alternatives (the return to dominance of the Necrons would be still worse). We are, for the forseeable future, the only game in town.

All of this makes it hard to believe that Chaos could ever be prepared to destroy us in one fell swoop.  Despite appearances, Chaos most certainly has a long-term goal: survival. Why gorge themselves on the death of a galaxy over a few decades, when they could spend millennia watching us spawn across half a galaxy whilst tearing at the other half?  If every inch of ground Chaos gains is flooded with human blood, what does it matter how quickly those inches are gained? Better to devour us slowly, bite by bite, putting off the end of the feast for as long as possible. Why else, indeed, did Chaos wait so long to strike against the newborn Imperium?  Why did the Warp become becalmed following the birth of Slaanesh, if not to restock the pens to compensate for all those new fang-filled mouths?

And one day, who knows, perhaps one day the Resurrectionists will be proved correct. and the Emperor will somehow be returned to us, to forge a new Imperium that can once more be gradually torn to pieces and devoured by Chaos. Thus can the cycle of destruction begin anew.

Because ultimately, what is a cycle but an orbit? And what is an orbit but the act of falling forever?

------


What Is

The Emperor's shrine world is a very different place to anywhere we've been so far in the 31st Millennium. How are you enjoying your jaunt into the future?

Is it the future?

The hypothetical future, then.

But given we're in the future already...

But this is the future of the future you fool! Though I guess it's all relative.  This is the past to me. The past of the future.

What, the house?

No, the 31st Millennium. Where did the house come in?

You said "this".

I see. Maybe I should be using flashcards.

The thing is there's nothing here particularly impressive in terms of tech.  Nothing we haven't seen before. Robot men? Pssh. Been there.

What about tiny giggling angels? They can't be easy to slap together.

Yeah, but when you've got the Primarchs...

Maybe, but I think it's the oppressive Gothic gloom that pervades the world that we're supposed to be keying in on.

I don't think that really clicked.  It was more how busy and confusing it all was.

You're not concerned by an entire planet dedicated to the Emperor?

We already know these weird sects spring up all over the place.

Well, yes, but there's a hell of a gap between a cult and planetary coverage.  You wouldn't say the destruction of Earth was unsurprising because we know there's some pretty fucking crazy terrorists out there.

Assuming it is an entire planet.

Well, yes, this is all hypothetical, based on "Sejanus" telling the truth.

Even if he is, maybe this isn't the future.  Now we know that the Word Bearers used to set up huge religious organisations to the Emperor, maybe "Sejanus" has just taken him to one of those.  Something the Emperor and the other Astartes haven't found yet.  Maybe someplace like Davin, where Horus did the conquering and the Word Bearers showed up later.  Maybe that's why Horus isn't on the pedestals; no-one wanted to be reminded of him coming down and killing thousands of people.


Ah, but that brings me on to my next question: did you notice who else was missing?

Yes.  The Word Bearers guy isn't there.  Neither is Red Malcolm.

Anyone else?

The Primarch of the Emperor's Children? Regimus, I think.

Not even close. Anyone else?

I can't think of anyone.  Who'm I missing?

I don't blame you for forgetting, but Angron and Night Haunter at the very least have been mentioned pretty recently.

Isn't Night Haunter the one you don't want to be face to face with? Maybe he's just too damn ugly to be made into a statue.  No-one wants to worship an ugly god.

That's not even remotely true. Look at Ganesha.  Dudes a massive four-armed dude with an elephant for a head.

That doesn't make him ugly.  Just... differently bodied.

I don't want to offend anyone; I'm sure Ganesha is an awesome deity with many funky special powers, but the dude clearly isn't a looker. There's a reason why the Elephant Man didn't take his nickname as a compliment. But we're drifting off the point.

What is the point?

Whether you can think of any reason these Primarchs are missing.

Night Haunter is ugly. Malcolm has presumably been fired over his wizardy hobby. Fulgrim... maybe he's out of favour because his men slaughtered all those spiders and started off all those problems with the Interex.

Maybe.

Can I just point out how irritating Horus is being here. (Adopts whiniest voice) "Why, Father, why! Why have you forsaken me? WHY?" 

Yeah, it's pretty selfish of him to almost completely bypass the other missing Primarchs.

Not just that; he's spent like half a book talking about how he's messed everything up and he doesn't deserve to be Warmaster, and now he won't shut up about how he's not getting his due.


How close to the truth do you think  is"Sejanus'"  tale of the Emperor seeking godhood? And why is he showing all this to Horus?

I can imagine that a lot of it is true.  Look at Keeler and the other Emperor worshippers. I'm not sure it's all true. I still don't know if this is actually the future. Or, if it is, I wonder if "Sejanus" has swapped things around, and this is what will happen if Horus does act.

It would help if I could work out what action Horus is supposed to take. I don't get yet why "Sejanus" is so insistent on Horus being the crux point.  

He's the second most powerful person in the galaxy.

Is he?

Well, he's got the largest army.

For how long? What happens if the Emperor orders everyone back home?

Ask Abaddon.

Fine.  But what about everyone else? Horus has been making too many mistakes.

You might not find that opinion as widespread as you think.


You're on record as despising snakes and all snake-related issues.  How does Sindermann's dissection of their role in human cultures strike you?

The "Seytan" idea amused me.  Not the most imaginative of alterations. I accept they have a large role in plenty of religions - that can't really be denied.  At least they're usually evil though.

Assuming it's true, I thought it was interesting that "drakon" originally meant serpent. This book is educational as well as entertaining.

I guess some dragons can be quite serpentine. Personally I prefer the Welsh variety to those wyrm things.

Makes sense.

So does that mean St Patrick really drove out dragons.

No.  No he did not. No-one gets to horn in on our patron saint's dragon-killing antics. The Irish will have to content themselves with no snakes and plenty of booze.


What Will Be

Is there any way of avoiding the horrible vision of the future "Sejanus" has shown us?  Or is it even a genuine possibility?

Don't do whatever "Sejanus" says.

Good advice. Anything else?

Don't kill the Emperor.  That will just turn him into a martyr, which is just a stone's throw from godhood anyway.

So what should he do?

Wake up, and go talk to Loken. Unless... can he actually go back to the ship? Will the sword not come to life and start chasing him. Fwisshissshissh!

And that is..?

I'm trying to do the sound effects. It's not really working.

In your defence, recreating the sound of a flying alien deathblade is probably beyond the abilities of most people.

I can do it! FWISSHISSH!

That's just a louder version of the same sound.

(Whistles down an octave and pretends to explode).

Sure, let's go with that.

The Spectre Of The Past

False Gods: The House Of False Gods (I)

This green and pleasant land (copyright Oludi on Reddit)

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

Dozens of millennia ago, it comforted humanity to imagine our own struggle against the dark corners of our minds was some kind of considered debate, a demon on one shoulder and an angel on the other, pulling our hearts between them. Superstitious nonsense, without doubt, but in Horus' case, the metaphor is somewhat less stretched, at least.   Magnus is perhaps a strange candidate for an angel when recruiting from a pool of people that includes Sanguinius, but Erebus is perfectly cast. Presumably the only reason he isn't a daemon already is a delay in the paperwork.

'Who are you?' is actually a terrible question, if you're expecting an answer. A cruel trick, really. It is easy to ask and almost impossible to answer, leaving the subject squirming to reply whilst their interrogator smiles unpleasantly, as though they could deal any better with the query were positions reversed.  The human mind simply does is not aware of itself in linguistic terms.  Our self-image is bound up in layers of emotion and fragments of ethereal awareness. Asking us to translate that into anything so fixed and limiting as High Gothic is profoundly ridiculous.

As a rhetorical device, though, it serves an obvious purpose. We need not name ourselves to reflect upon who we are.  And who we are, by and large, is obvious. We are the lies and mistakes of our own past jumbled together and poured into a glass we do our best not to peer into too closely.

Whatever ways Horus differs from mere humans like us, the manner by which his past shapes him follows essentially the same lines as for anyone else. This would seem to be what Magnus is counting on.  He travelled all this way through terrain that would happily swallow him so he could dress himself as a piece of Horus' past and beg him to remember who he was.

But it is also what Erebus is relying upon as well. He too has cloaked himself in a slice of Horus' past, indeed has spun entire false world into being aimed at reminding Horus of his heritage as a scion of Terra. It seems Horus' would-be saviour and would-be corrupter both see this is a battle which is to be begun upon the fields of the Warmaster's past. Fields that are rather more burned than those Erebus has surrounded Horus with, of course, and which are not really places for self-reflection, but never mind. The war for Horus' soul is about to begin, and the strangeness of the battlefield is the least of our concerns.

On one level this line of thought is rather imperceptive - of course Magnus and Erebus want to fight amongst the landmarks of Horus' past, how can you direct a man to where he should be going before you've discussed where he's been.  But that generalisation rather obscures the particulars here.  Magnus has to pitch his tent here. He has to base his arguments on Horus' history, because the future is looking so unappealing. The crusade stuttering to a stop; the sudden influx of bean-counters and filing clerks. The role Horus was created for is about to become irrelevant, and Magnus is desperate that Horus consider that inevitability as far away from Erebus' input as possible.

This brings home just how expertly timed the Word Bearers' schemes truly are.  They had to strike when the Great Crusade was close enough to its conclusion that Horus could see the finish line in sight, but not so close that a firm plan could be put in place for what was coming next.  By walking that tightrope, Erebus and Lorgar probably doomed Magnus' efforts from the very start. The playing field was simply too uneven. Magnus has to cherry-pick his way through his friend's past.  Erebus can do the same, but can claim the high ground offered by the present and the future, too.  Erebus is, alas, quite correct. Magnus is too late, because Erebus himself was so studiously on time.

In short, we could have called the result of this battle before it was ever fought.  But fought it was, and that's not something we intend to overlook.  Horus has been reminded of the iconography and sacrifices of his past, and of all our pasts.  It is time to cast his gaze to the future.


------


What Was

Nothing on this front once again, I'm afraid.  Obviously we're close to talking about the creation and scattering of the Primarchs, so that will be worth discussing in detail.  After that, though, it might be time to retire this section and just drag it out on rare occasions.


What Is

Is that the last we'll see of Erebus the Naughty?

Well, surely 'Erebus the Naughty', as he's now been named, is Sejanus?

No comment.  But will we see him outside that green and pleasant land?

Maybe this is what happens when the Warp takes you over.  You end up having your mind sent to this place.  Though that seems like an awful lot of effort, actually.  It depends on whether the priest thing revives him. I know he's had his throat slit, but he's an Astartes, he can walk it off. And why doesn't he have the wound anymore?

Magic Warpiness is probably the answer.

Are you doing wibbly wobbly timey-wimey shit?

McNeill is doing it, I'm simply reporting.

You hate that kind of thing normally.

It's different with the Warp.  It's been set up ahead of time as being a kind of magical realm.  Or somewhere your mind gets to hang out and have weird shit happen to it.

You mean being on drugs?

Possibly, though that's not the ending to the trilogy I'd have chosen.


What is the strange vision of industrial death that lingers beneath the green and pleasant land Horus has found himself in?

I assume it's Davin.

Except that Davin is described as being fairly backward tech-wise.  I'll have to nix that idea.

Maybe it's the Emperor's house?

What makes you say that?

Well we know he's busy messing around with the Warp. Maybe he's already been taken over by it.

Interesting, but it's not clear why that would lead to Horus seeing it.

Maybe One-Eyed Malcolm is trying to show it to him.  Lift the veil, sort of thing.


Why is Magnus here pretending to be a wolf?  Wasn't he supposed to be trying to reach the Emperor?

I think this is maybe him dropping in on his way to talk to the Emperor.  What better way to demonstrate how awesome his magic powers are than to save the Emperor's favourite son? So here he is, trying to get Horus to remember who he is with a bit of subtle nudging.

You mean by being a wolf near a moon? Yes, very abstract.  Is that necessarily a good idea, though?

How d'you mean?

If Horus remembers who he is fully, then Erebus gets to play on all the stuff that's been pissing him off lately.

True, but without the full deck Horus might be in even more trouble. He still remembered his name, maybe he'd still remember Hastur in some way, and without remembering he was dead he might have been totally trusting, rather than at least a little suspicious.


How much of what "Hastur" is telling Horus should we be buying? 

I suppose the Warp has to have some weaknesses.  Otherwise why did it take them two thousand years to sort all this out?

Well, I have my own theories on that score.  But leaving that aside, are you saying there might be some truth to this "we live in the Warp and you're killing us" idea?

Maybe. Though if it is they might have messed up.  Horus is so proud and mighty he's likely to run straight in and start trying to kill these things now they've been weakened by the real universe.

Relying on Horus to lend a hand is certainly playing on long odds, it's true.

Maybe there's a war on in the Warp, and this is one side trying to recruit him?


How exactly does a woman couple with a diseased swine? You may provide diagrams as appropriate.

Is that how the zombie plague spread?

I don't think we can entirely put it down to pig fucking.

Well, that's how these things usually go.

Usually go?  How many stories are you aware of in which copulation with diseased farmyard animals brings about a deadly plague.

There was that episode of Angel where Cordelia was impregnated by a spider.

That doesn't mean pigs must have been involved elsewhere. There are so many animals in the world that not a single character in Angel slept with. Giraffes, ocelots, conger eels.

What about swine flu?

I give up. And you haven't answered the question.

Google it.

Under no circumstances am I Googling it.

Didn't they make women copulate with horses in the American West?

Um...

Anyway, aren't pigs supposed to enjoy sex?

With other pigs!  Even my most sex-obsessed friends would think twice about jumping the species barrier.

Perhaps they smeared her in pig-related sex-juices.

Nice. I was going to go with some kind of hyper-futuristic strap-on, but your idea is so much worse.


What Will Be

Where does the gateway lead?

Hell.

Cheerful.

Or into the Warp.

Which might not be much better.

Presumably Erebus is taking Horus to where he can get tempted.

What kind of tempting do you think he's got coming?

Maybe the Emperor?

What?

Maybe the Emperor is a Warp creature.  That's why Malcom has come here on his way to see him.

It's probably a good job we remembered to buy tinfoil on Saturday.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

False Gods: Plague Moon (VII)

Davinite Priests. Would you trust them to heal your sick?
(Copyright Games Workshop)

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

Loken's sudden realisation of how far the Davinites have strayed from humanity's flock presents us with a difficult problem.  How are we to maintain vigilance against the encroachment of Chaos without giving ourselves over to the most vile forms of guilt by association?

The hard realisation here is that Loken is can be completely correct about the dangers of the Davinites and completely wrong about the reasons he has reached that conclusion. All you need do to ensure you never fail to spot an enemy is to assume all are working against you. The problem is that this level of paranoia will make enemies everywhere anyway. The mathematical terms of relevance are sensitivity; the chance an actual enemy will be noticed by you, and specificity; the chance you will recognise a friend when you see one.  The kind of barefaced racism practised by Loken and his comrades ramps up the sensitivity, but as a result the specificity nosedives, with potential catastrophic results.  Just consider the calamities that followed Fulgrim's refusal to heed the dire warnings of the Eldar for a concrete example of the dangers of this narrow thinking.

That's an argument of pragmatism, of course. One even the legendarily blinkered Legions of the Astartes might be able to grasp.  For the rest of us, there are other considerations.  We can roughly divide them into two criteria - the problems with assuming a race that is too different from us is automatically hostile, and the problems with assuming that because the leaders of a race are hostile, the same must be true of all their people.

The first of these is so obvious a problem as to not require further comment, it is simply one more example of the Astartes belief that any problem brought about by their violence can be solved by more violence, and we have dissected that foolishness before.  The second is a little more seductive on the surface, but all the same, it cannot withstand our scrutiny.

We do, after all, have no problem recognising this when the Eldar offer comment on our own species with their characteristic arrogance.  It is not that brutal mendacity and a lust for violence are unheard of in mankind (nor even, if we're entirely honest, particularly uncommon). It is that the Eldar have consciously chosen the worst features of the worst of our race and applied them to us as a whole. If we can see the ridiculous and self-serving nature of that, how can we think it any different when we apply the same rhetorical trick?

We are not suggesting blind trust. If an Ork lumbers up to you and promises eternal friendship, healthy scepticism is obviously necessary.  But that is not the same as profound and automatic hostility. If humanity can birth The Emperor and Lord Solar Macharius and Lorgar and Torris Vaun, is it really impossible to imagine a cordial Ork or a humble Eldar?  Are we unique in our variance? Or - to fall into maths terms once more - is it simply that alien races have a mean so far from our own that the variance around that mean gets lost unless we consider it carefully enough?

It is hardly difficult to see that our position on this subject is somewhat rare in the 41st Millennium. Much of this is for the same reasons men have always believed those that differ from them are worthy of nothing but suspicion and dislike and - if at all possible - persecution, all that has changed being the definition of what it means to "differ" (once upon a time humans would separate themselves by the colour of their skin, if you can believe that, back before "different" came to mean eight foot tall or possessing horns). But in contemporary society it has grown new teeth in the name of keeping humanity free of the taint of Chaos.

Above and beyond the obvious, there are two aspects to Chaos that makes it so hideous a force.  First, it promotes the idea that failure is easy and redemption is impossible.  As with so many other issues that we have discussed before, this is a theory that benefits the most wealthy. If people cannot be redeemed, then justice needs no rehabilitation aspect; we can simply execute anyone guilty of the mildest transgressions and head out for our next banquet.  Second, it reinforces the suggestion that there is some link between physical dysmorphism and sinister intent.  Not only is this wretched and lazy thinking - only a psyker can tell whether someone is bad just by looking at them, and we're busy burning most of them in any case - but it's horribly hypocritical as well.  Kill the mutant; kill the mutant; kill the - actually these ones are quite useful, given them some fancy clothes; kill the mutant.

These are not trains of thought any one of us should be proud to entertain. Chaos has made us all worse people. But then every threat does, if we let it.  There is ultimately nothing mankind likes more than making itself miserable to make sure no-one else get the chance to do it.

Some of us end up more miserable than others, of course.  Maybe we should think about that a little more.


------


What Was

There's not much here to talk about in the past tense, other than the non-extermination of the Davinites, which mainly raises questions about delegation of responsibilities between the Luna Wolves and the Word Bearers.


What Is

That's the second part of False Gods finished.  How did it comport itself compared both to "The Betrayer" and to "Brotherhood in Spiderland"?

It's certainly a lot faster than the first part of the book, though that isn't saying much. It follows on a lot more easily than did "...Spiderland", too. In fairness, though, I have an issue with authors who have gaps between chapters or books, so I'm probably the wrong person to ask.  

Now you've read the second part, does the first part come across any better? Does it feel more like a ramp-up than just messing around.

Maybe, but what happened could have been done in a much shorter space of time.  The first part here felt a lot like Feast For Crows. There were advantages to the quiet, though.  Particularly with the remembrancers; I appreciate having a human viewpoint in there, though I think it could have been taken further.

Which are cooler: giant spider deathbeasts or rotting Cyclopean gibbermonsters?

The former.  They're more original than the zombies, which kind of overshadowed the swamp monster things.  I'm a bit over-zombied right now.

Zombie fatigue. Got it.  I shouldn't have asked this after this week's Walking Dead, really.


How wise do you think Garviel's strategy regarding Erebus is?  Is he right to not rush in and gather more intel instead?  Or might he be leaving things too late?

I think he's right to do it.  If he tries to cast shit about now, people will never believe him.  They'll just accuse him of jealousy, because how everyone loves Erebus in the lodge. They exploded just because Tarik doesn't think Horus should have been taken to a fane.

Mind you, Loken isn't really thinking diplomatically.  He should at least have filled in his own men.  Maybe think about organising an arrest?  Do Astartes do arrests?

Well, that's an interesting question, but I don't think it matters.  Loken has Torgaddon and one squad, against, what, five captains? Maybe four - I can't remember what Kibre is.

So they call down Sindermann.  He's an expert in explaining what the Emperor's intentions are.

In quiet rooms.  Down here, you're just asking for a dead Sindermann.

Then get ahold of the Titans.  Or maybe try to get through to Aximand. He seems the least convinced by all this.  He had to have Abaddon respond for him when Loken challenged him.

Might work. He seems the least convinced, though apparently he's coming around.

He might feel he's come too far to turn back, though.  Also, it's interesting Abaddon has so completely gone for this fane idea when he was so hostile to the Interex. I think he knows how hypocritical he's being as well, which is why he's trying to put the blame on Loken. I mean, at this point he's basically saying he doesn't think they can rely on the Emperor to save his son.

I'd note that the current law on this is pretty clear.  If a patient doesn't want a treatment, you can't give it to them just because they've passed out and can't object any more. Though of course it's complicated here because Horus hasn't specifically refused this procedure, we're just extrapolating, however sensibly.

You'd have to consult the family or his priest, I guess. Abaddon would claim to be the first.  The second might be Sindermann, but again I can't see that ending in much but the old man's death.


Compared to the rest of this chapter, Karkasy's new-found muse seems kind of incongruous.  But is there a link to what's going on elsewhere?

I think with Loken as Karkasy's sponsor, Karkasy's plan is liable to get him into trouble. 

My thing was that you've got a new organisation starting up, the artists are joining in; it's a pretty classical picture of a revolution.

Karkasy isn't joining in; he just wants a printing press.

I'm not saying he's sympathetic to the Lectitio Divinatus, I'm just saying he's signing up for similar levels of disobedience.

I think he's underestimating Loken, actually.  I think he'd be more open to radical ideas than Karkasy is giving him credit for. To say nothing of how Loken's going to need allies pretty badly very soon. It's hide to follow this train of thought too far until we know what he's written. It depends whether his friendship with Loken has worked against his horror over what the Mournival did.


What Will Be

What exactly is going to go on inside the Serpent Lodge?  Will we ever see Horus again, and if so, how will his experience have changed him?

Well, we know the Warp considers Horus to be their largest enemy. And it seemed to me that they wanted to get his approval before he could join them.

You mean when he confronted Temba.

Yes.  You have to volunteer yourself.  So I guess it comes down to whether his fear of death will overcome his belief in the Emperor.

You think Horus fears death?

Maybe. Who knows? He's probably never thought about it before. Though plenty of immortals wish for death, I suppose.

That's just literary convention, though. What with their being no actual immortals (except Christopher Lee, perhaps).

That's my point, though. There's no way to figure out which way it's going to go in there, because we have to base our thinking on the reactions of a type of person that doesn't actually exist.

But you're sticking with the idea Erebus has put Horus in there so as to get a job interview from the Warp?

Definitely.


Any ideas on the likely fallout over the Mournival effectively splitting in two? If Horus does manage to make it through the next nine days, will he even have a Legion to come back to?

I assume Loken is going to try to force the gate open. Horus can probably be easily persuaded that what the others have done is unacceptable. And I think Loken is in the stronger position even if he refuses to act - even if Vipus is a Lodge member. 

As is Torgaddon.

But he's already committed himself against them.  Actually, that's a good point.  Now it's clear Tarik isn't on board, does that mean they have to go get him back.

But how can they - or Loken - if the gates only open from the inside?

Do they? Do they really?

You think they should just give it a go?

Well he's not gonna be happy sitting around doing nothing.  Though he might get pulled up short by Abaddon calling him a traitor.  That just came out of nowhere.

Both Alike In Dignity

False Gods: Plague Moon (VI)

The Either and the Or, in happier times (copyright terraluna5)

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

Poor old Tybalt Marr.

Bereavement is, of course, never easy or pleasant, and rarely quiet. When deaths occur within a military unit, we presume fury and noise is a particular feature.  Even so, there is perhaps something more at work behind Marr's desolate rage, something that certainly cannot be explained away by Marr and Moy resembling each other so closely.  Yes, the tales of heresy make it clear that the two were as inseparable as brothers.  But why?

Well, one option presents itself rather readily, doesn't it?

Homosexuality within military units is scarcely an uncommon phenomenon. The bonds of camaraderie and shared peril can generate potent emotional bonds.  That doesn't have to include lust, of course, but assuming every battle-forged chain between brothers in arms remains entirely chaste is an act of almost pitiable naivete.

The most obvious objection to the idea that Marr and Moy were lovers is the implication that Astartes have no sex drive to speak of in any case; that it was excised by the Emperor when he fashioned them to be his soldiers.  Loken's inability to appreciate beauty in women notwithstanding, there are two reasons to find this suggestion unconvincing.  The first is practical: can even the Emperor remove the concept of physical lust from a mind whilst leaving platonic devotion and lust for glory and battle (and ale, in the case of Leman Russ and his sons) still intact?  But even if such a thing were possible, where would be the benefit?

What little impossible scraps and contradictory images remain to us from the ancient days before the Long Night tell tales of sexual relationships within a unit being not only not unheard of, but actively useful.  After all, all else being equal, the chance each man in a unit will turn in flee in battle is inversely proportional to how much he cares about the fate of those he leaves behind. It is easier to leave a stranger to die than a friend, and both are easier than abandoning your lover.  The oft-suggested notion that a unit will become a less effective fighting unit if it is bursting at the seams with horizontal love affairs (as oppose to vertical ones, which genuinely can cause problems) seems to be not only incorrect, but precisely the opposite of the truth.

So if the Emperor wanted to manipulate his creation's sexual dispositions, removing them totally would, if anything, be counter-productive. If forging the strongest, most tightly interwoven army in the known galaxy were his aim, it would be senseless to throw away the capacity for forming the strongest bond a person can make with another outside their family. Indeed, efforts on this score should have been bent towards making the Astartes hypersexual, not asexual.

And really, in the final analysis, what evidence do we have against the idea? Only that the long-scattered and painstakingly reassembled historical accounts of the Horus Heresy tell us that the Astartes could not appreciate the beauty of the female form.  When we look at the relationship between Tybalt Marr and Verulam Moy, what response could there be to that fact than "well, obviously"?

------


What Was

Nothing to talk about this week on the dogmas of the quiet past.  This chapter is all about setting up what's coming...


What Is

It's not often we see Abaddon and Aximand on opposite sides of anything.  Who has the right of it here?

Has anyone actually bothered to fill the Emperor in on what's been going on?

Not as far as I know.

So what is Abaddon claiming about?  Is he just expecting the Emperor to be... omnipscient?  Is that the word?

It is not. I think Abaddon would argue that if the Emperor hadn't abandoned them, he wouldn't need to be told about what's going on.

Please.  This is clearly about the Emperor giving more freedom to the Astartes.  They've proven themselves enough for some autonomy.  That frees up the Emperor for getting on with more important stuff.

But Abaddon doesn't know what that stuff is.

Because there are some things the Astartes aren't ready for yet.

So he's simultaneously bitching about having too much and too little responsibility?

Exactly.  Stop whining, Abaddon.


Whilst we're on the subject of Little Horus, do you think he's regretting signing up for the Warrior Lodge right about now?

No. Little Horus is a follower rather than a thinker.

Really?  I wonder how much of that him being taciturn and not saying what he thinks. He certainly seems pissed off about being railroaded here.

Not for long.  He soon decides that he's made the right choice.  Though of course if Aximand wasn't in the Lodge, Abaddon would have been the only memeber of the Mournival there, which probably wouldn't have been enough for the vote.  It was too much of a concern with just Torgaddon missing.

I thought that was about him being a Lodge Member in general, rather than the Mournival.

But there must be other Lodge members that have headed to the moon with Loken?

No. Yes! Nero Vipus. Good point.  Do you think all this justifies Loken's nervousness about the Lodge?

I don't think so.  They'd have found a way to get Horus to the locals one way or another.

I suppose. In fact, thinking about it, if Loken had been in the Lodge it would actually have made Erebus' job harder.

Meh. Erebus would have dealt with him one way or another.

Perhaps. It's an interesting "what if", though.

I don't see it ever happening. Loken just doesn't need the Lodge; he already instills in his subordinates the attitude the Lodge offers - frank discussions and sharing of opinions.


Continuing with my awesome segues, why has Maloghurst suddenly surfaced at the Warrior Lodge after all this time? Why involve them at all?

The only logical option is that they're doing this to cut Loken out.  Otherwise, surely Maloghurst would go the Mournival, wouldn't he?

He could have gone to the Mournival anyway, with Loken off-planet.

Speaking of which, couldn't they have just radioed Torgaddon to get his input?

I think if someone had suggested that Erebus or Maloghurst would argue Lodge business is not to be broadcast over comms, but yeah; that'd be a crappy excuse.  The truth is probably that they don't want to give Torgaddon the chance to talk it over with Loken.

I suppose if Maloghurst went to the Mournival Erebus wouldn't have got a vote.

Except the Lodge rules require unanimity.  Though I think you're close; I'd say it's that if Maloghurst had discussed this just with Abaddon and Aximand they wouldn't have been able to browbeat Little Horus the way they clearly needed to.

Though he could have used the fact Aximand feels beholden to him, which I don't understand.

I think he's feeling beholden by proxy over Abaddon's careless whispers. Well, careless bellows.

How long has it been since the last chapter ended, anyway.  Horus must have taken a hell of nose-dive after telling his life story.  Or is this another lie?

You think Maloghurst is exaggerating the severity of Horus' condition?

Or Erebus has, and Maloghurst believe him. It's certainly suspicious that this decision is suddenly incredibly urgent the moment Torgaddon and Loken are off the ship. I think Erebus is panicking.  He knows the sword is about to be discovered.

But surely he knew that was coming? He didn't seem to have any kind of plan to recover the weapon.

Maybe he expected it to all be over by this point. Either Horus joins up with the Warp, or the sword kills him.


What Will Be

Will Loken be able to reveal the truth before Horus is given over to the Serpent Lodge? And will anyone believe him if he does?

Well, what is the truth?  I mean, he can reveal the weapon, but that's all.  This is why the timing of this chapter is a problem.  I don't know when Loken's found the sword compared to Horus being transported.  Or how long it will take Loken to get back to the fleet.  I mean, for dramatic effect I imagine he'll be just in time or just too late.  

I guess now that the other Astartes have embraced taking Horus to a place of sorcery they'll be more willing to believe this was done by a magic sword.

I meant whether they'll believe Erebus is behind this.

He hasn't got enough evidence to go against Erebus. The best he can do is argue there's clearly a traitor and suggest they contact the Emperor so he can get to the bottom of what's going on.

That's a good idea. I was thinking that if Loken just shows up with the sword no-one will care - they'll still want to get Horus to the Serpent Lodge -

Hate that name, by the way.

- I'd assumed, but -

Is it a Biblical reference?

- Probably, but my point is that the Lodge will want to heal Horus through the laying on of hands whether he was done in by a magic sword or a fairy bite.  Getting in the biggest guns available might be the only option available.


Where is Torgaddon likely to stand in all this? Right now he seems to be deferring to Loken, but the Lodge seemed pretty convinced he'd agree with Erebus' plan.

I'm not sure.  I mean, it could go either way.  I can see the logical arguments Loken would want to use, but I can't tell whether that would overwhelm Tarik's need to see the Warmaster healed.

What Would Have Come After

False Gods: Plague Moon (V)

A narthecium. Not, for those wondering, a flower
(copyright unknown)

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

It is perhaps fitting - one might almost say cliche - for Horus to finally gain clarity on what all believed was his deathbed.  With time to reflect, and with his impending death a clear and horrible underlining of  the downward spiral his career as the Warmaster had become, it seems for him that the pieces of the puzzle have finally fallen into place.

Which is no guarantee, alas, that he could see the picture clearly.

This is not to say that Horus was completely wrong in his summation of the Imperium's rotten heart - where better to diagnose an empire than from within the Apothecarion, after all.  It is not hard to argue that the sudden arrival of the Emperor's exaectors was a needless insult to the Legions, and the failure to recognise this was a serious mis-step.

That is an argument of presentation rather than timing, of course, but in considering the best moment to unleash the tax collectors, other concerns are shaken loose.  The most obvious alternative would have been for the Emperor to wait until the Crusade was finally over, when their rapacious demands for tribute could have been folded into the more general changing of the times; when a Primarch's anger would no longer have a war effort to hinder.

Whether or not that would be a wiser plan is debatable, but the answer to that question is of less interest than the fact that the discussion is based on a false premise.  Because would the end of the Crusade really mean the end of the Astartes' usefulness? Truly?  The Orks had been dealt many blows since the rise of the Emperor, but they had hardly been humbled.  No less so had the Eldar.  Innumerable alien species still stained the stars.

No.  The final forging of the Imperium could not possibly have meant the end of war.  What it might have meant was the end of glory.

This was Horus' mistake, to confuse a lack of duty he considered fit for himself for a lack of duty entirely. In his defence, though, it was not his fault alone.  The concept of the Crusade's end representing something utterly final was common amongst the Astartes - witness Loken's discussion of the matter with Sigismund - and the idea that defending an Empire rather than forging it was somehow unworthy of the Astartes no less common. It is no coincidence that Dorn, the Primarch who had most embraced the importance of the defensive position, felt no desire to abandon his Emperor, whilst Peturabo, who had endlessly chafed at his unwanted role as builder of fortifications, joined Horus' rebellion so eagerly.

Which is just another way of saying that, as always, the Primarchs are the problem.

It is fitting, and in no way surprising, that Horus recognises this in part, but is struck horribly blind right at the point where his insight would help him understand his own weaknesses.

He understands the central paradox of the Primarchs far better than does the Emperor, certainly.  We have discussed before Torgaddon's argument regarding the Emperor's outlawing of the Warrior Lodges (the only obvious point of contention between the Astartes and their creator up until Ullanor), that the Emperor had erred in this one thing because he could not conceive of having a brother. But if he cannot conceive of brotherhood, he can no less conceive of the idea of superiority. He bred the Primarchs to share his ambition - Horus most of all - but he simply could not conceive of how that ambition might chafe under the orders of another.  Frankly, it is a miracle any Primarch took so long to rebel openly.

Some of which the Warmaster recognised, of course. As has been the case so often in the past, however, he saw only how it related to others, and how it represented the failings of the Emperor, and not what it reflected about himself.  He recognised the curse of ambition in his fellows, and how it had made so many of them truculent and unreliable.  But it never occurred to him that he might suffer from the same affliction, directing unwarranted blame towards his father in the same way many of his brothers directed it towards him. He insisted upon seeing the differences between himself and his father and brothers, and not the similarities.  Somehow he could simultaneously curse Guilliman for his petulance and splutter with rage over his "abandonment" by his father.

In the end, ambition overtook everything.  Nothing was more important to Horus at the last than that he received sufficient glory, and that the glory received sufficient comment from his peers. The second most powerful being in the galaxy went to what all thought would be his grave cursing the fact he did not receive more.  In that moment of unbearable solipsism, a monster was born.

All that was left was to nurse it to health.


------


What Was

There's a lot of Primarch lore alluded to in this chapter.  Another brother of Horus' gets name-checked - hello, Night Haunter! - and the squabbling between them returns to the fore.  Probably the biggest revelation, though, is that the Primarchs were scattered through the galaxy as children and only later recovered by the Emperor. Does that help explain/clarify anything?  Does it provide any clues as to where things are going?

I suppose a lot of men like to spread their wild oats.

True. That's more commonly in the pursuit in varied screwing than it is maintaining sufficient geographical distance amongst one's children, of course.

Maybe he was worried if the Primarchs met as kids they'd kill each other.

Makes sense, I suppose.

I didn't entirely understand all of this, just so you know. If Horus is the first Primarch the Emperor found, why doesn't he have the First Legion?

A fair question.

And who is this Night Haunter? Why is he so scary.

I shouldn't really say, I don't think.

Then I shall assume he's a vampire.

A vampire who's also Astartes? Are you mad?

They already have a magician.

Good point.


What Is

We get ourselves a small slice of Astartes medical drama here.  You've watched E.R., and you work in a hospital.  How do Apothecary Vaddon's efforts measure up?

I've never actually seen emergency surgery, I should mention.  Just the blood on the surgeons afterwards.

That's still more than me.  They keep me hidden away from anything that could exacerbate my extreme cowardice.

The Astartes doctor seemed oddly flustered, but given the importance of his patient, that's hardly surprising. I did wonder; if this organism is spread throughout his body, how come he's managed to heal the wound in his chest?

That was healing before he was hit with the anathame.

Yeah, but it's still healing. Should that be happening?

I dunno. Can you heal when suffering from hypoxia?  Do platelets need oxygen? I'm rapidly running out of medical knowledge. I should have paid more attention to that show when we were kids with those dudes in spaceships flying through the body. Like Innerspace, only it wasn't funny, and it tried to teach me stuff. And not stuff useful stuff, like never trust Robert Picardo in a wig.

I noticed there were no nurses in there.  They ran that damn hospital in E.R.

Maybe if they'd had nurses, Horus would be healed by now.  And possibly found love.  Or is that sexist?

You didn't say they were female nurses.

Good point.  Let's assume that Horus is gay, if only because of how many people that will annoy.

Also; what the hell is a narthecium?  Isn't that a type of flower?

Yes; the Imperium's technological breakthroughs in horticulture are truly a sight to behold. There is no malady that can withstand a few good sniffs of a 31st Millennium chrysanthemum.


It seems the forces left on Davin's moon are starting to turn towards worshipping the Emperor, and the fleet is busy tearing itself to pieces as people try to out-doom each other.  Assuming Horus doesn't recover soon, which side is going to win, or are they all part and parcel of the same impulse?

It seems odd that the people on the planet are the ones to go religion crazy.

Because Keeler isn't there? Maybe. On the other hand, they're also the least likely to know there are two dozen people in the fleet who have boot-shaped holes in their faces, now.

I'm not sure which way it's going to go.  Ordinarily I'd assume the fleet will wipe out the new cult, but Maloghurst has to walk softly after the massacre, so maybe he'll let them get out of hand.


Let's talk about Horus' confessions. It's been implied before, but I don't think it's ever been so clearly laid out just how bickering and power-hungry some of the other Primarchs are.  What's going to happen when word gets out regarding Horus' condition?

That depends on Sanguinius.

How so?

I imagine he might not be thrilled to learn Horus is dishing the dirt on the Primarchs.

Really? He seems to be pretty much the only one to come out of this exclusive Hello interview looking good.

Yeah, but family loyalty, and so forth.  Besides, if the other Primarchs all decide this is the perfect time to grab the top spot, he might feel compelled to join in.

Why?

It might be the only way to keep Horus alive.

Right; lead the rebellion so you can dictate what happens to the losers. And what will the Emperor be doing whilst his children are doing their super-punching?

Will he even find out? He doesn't seem to give much of a damn about anything right now.

I think his forces tearing each other apart would probably pique his interest.

Assuming anyone can get a message to him. We already know how hard that is.

True. I doubt Magnus would be tempted to try his lunatic magic spell if he could just pick up the space-phone.


How close does Horus get with his diagnosis of what is going on with the Imperium, and how much sympathy do you have for him?

I can see where he's coming from, I guess.  But then surely this was the final goal all along?

I think the implication is that no-one really gave any thought to what came next.

Loken did.

And it really bothered everyone when he mentioned it.  Am I to take it then that your sympathy levels for Horus are low?

It's not like I don't get it.  Though wouldn't this be a problem for all the Primarchs, and not just him?

You think he's being a selfish, spoiled prick?  Or am I just inferring that because I think he's being a selfish, spoiled prick?  But yes, it's a problem for them all.  Except for Magnus, I suppose, he's got his top-secret sorceriness to be getting on with.

Is that why all the other Primarchs are starting to get rowdy?  Because they all know things are about to stop being so much fun?

It's possible. I think Horus' assumption a lot of them hate him because he's Warmaster and they're not is entirely plausible, but that might be bubbling away in there as well.

Part of what makes it hard to really get onboard with Horus is that I can't understand why he thinks there's nothing left to do.

Well, not nothing.  But maybe there's no glory in putting out brush-fires and patrolling the borders.

No, I mean; how can they possibly know that they've found all the human worlds?  There could be more all over the place, on the other side of alien empires and what-not. 

I guess they figure they've followed up on all the leads they've got.

But that's obviously not good enough, is it? If it was, they'd never have been surprised to meet the Interex.  Suck it up, Horus; get back to work.

Well, let's just see if he makes it through the night first, shall we?


What Will Be

Loken and Torgaddon have been given their Epic Quest.  Will they succeed?  What will happen if they don't?  And what is Erebus going to be getting up to in the meantime?

Does Vaddon actually think it'll help, or is it just something for the Mournival to do to keep them busy?

That's a good question.

Is it really an epic quest, anyway? They just have to pick something up from somewhere where they've already killed everyone.

I accept that, but in form it seems like an epic quest.

How can that be epic?

Well, you know.  It's very "find the wand of Feljimji or the ruler of Gabooboo will not last the night!". 

We haven't heard anything from Erebus for ages.  Or is he on the planet destroying the sword?

Makes sense.  If they find it he could be in trouble.

Only if they work out what it is. And then they still have to prove who took it. Unless Vivar saw something as she was headed down to the planet, and that's why her obviously stupid trip to the surface was put in the book.

And if they can't find it? Or it does no good?

Will it matter? Horus must be getting better. Otherwise how come he's well enough to talk?

Dramatic necessity, I guess.

Enough to get him through his entire bloody life story?

This is how drama works, Fliss! Well, melodrama.  Well, mediocre melodrama.