Primal Scream

Galaxy In Flames: Long Knives (V)

What the Astartes saw:
the Eye of Terror (copyright Games Workshop)

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

The visions of Chaos are a strange phenomenon. It always seems odd (and more than a little ironic) that a force so dedicated to overturning order should spend so much time offering visions of the future. Everything that Horus was shown in the Serpent Lodge on Davin has come to pass.  So too has much of what Loken glimpsed inside the fane of his Primarch, and we should not ignore the fact that there is still time for what remains unconfirmed to ultimately come to pass.

But if Chaos is so dedicated to heedless hedonism, violent overthrow, and the very concept of change itself (depending on which pantheon you're standing closest to), how can it comprehend the future with such accuracy? The most simple answer is that the time-dilation effects of the Empyrean makes watching the future no harder than observing the past. Which we don't doubt represents at least part of the answer.  Fundamentally, though, I think we have to look to ourselves.  How can it possibly be difficult to predict the future of mankind when we simply repeat the same actions, over and over?

If we are in the business of dissecting visions of the future, the barrage of imagery that hit Loken isn't actually any more  of what is to come than the spectacle of Lord Commander Eidolon and the rebel Warsinger atop the temple on Istvaan Extremis, screaming into each other's faces. That sad, violent spectacle illustrates the entire span of human history: two people rage at each other until one of them dies.

Throughout our time in the galaxy mankind's cardinal rule has always been that might makes right.  Oh, oftentimes we have pretended otherwise (and for all our lamentations for ages long past, we can at least give our current era this much: we don't put effort into hiding our credo of violence anymore) , but our protestations boil down to a simple sleight of hand; we tell ourselves that right makes might, and resolve to think no more on the subject, as though there were never any chance of the arrow pointing in the other direction.  Even the Great Crusade, the fastest explosion of human dominance ever known, and a campaign completely committed to reason and wisdom, boils down to one group of humans deciding all other humans must live like them, and shouting this revelation at full volume to every forgotten colony they stumble upon. And all of it justified, naturally, through the obvious sophistry that the Emperor's vision must be right, or else how has it become more successful. As though one disease is less unpleasant to suffer through than another simply because it spreads more effectively.

The point here isn't simply that mankind is a vicious and violent species.  It is that we defend our violence by screaming our rage at our enemies, so as to block out their own noise.  Their stories.  Their speech. We scream not just to give voice to the hate we need to build in ourselves to pick up our weapons, but to ensure we hear nothing from the enemy. In this way we can construct in our minds and in our culture an image of who and what our enemy is, without inconvenient facts breaking through and colouring the black and white images we prefer when shooting to kill.

Some wars are worth the fighting, obviously.  We don't even need to consider the Orks or the more rapacious iterations of Eldar to know that sometimes tyrants and oppressors need to be bled. The Age of Apostasy. The Reign of Blood. Man's bottomless reserves of inhumanity to man. But just as all wars are not created equal, nor are all war-cries. In those circumstances, a scream is not weaponised in the service of prolonging war, but as a rallying cry against oppression. Indeed, the difference between the two is simple to determine; we need think only whether the scream is needed because their voice had been smothered?

If this is so, all well and good. We will not set ourselves against you. Otherwise, we respectfully offer this suggestion. Just stop screaming, once in a while.  You might hear something you don't expect in the quiet.  Maybe that will be some revelation about those you assumed deserved to die. Or if that fails to move you, consider that it could be something else. It might just be the sound of Chaos creeping up on you, preparing to strike.


------


What Is

This is the first chapter of the book with some extended action scenes to keep adrenaholics happy.  How do Counter's descriptions of carnage strike you?

Well it was nice and gory, so it had that going for it. And there was a lot more about what the individual warriors were getting up to; a literal blow-by-blow.  That's been missing a bit in the other books.  But my problem here was that there just wasn't any description of the enemy before we got to the Warsinger.

Their armour got a mention.

Once. Just.  The rest of the time they could have been absolutely anybody.  Just faceless goons to be slaughtered to up the page count. There's no sense of challenge.

Fair enough. I confess I'm uneasy about battle scenes where no-one but the leaders actually matter in any sense. So how does Counter measure up against Abnett and McNeill?

If he'd included more about the people the Astartes were fighting, it would have been my favourite so far.  But it didn't, so it isn't.  The best fight so far is still against the Arachnids.

That's the benchmark, huh?

You disagree?

Not really. I still think the Megarachnids are a bit too reminiscent of Tyranids, but that's nothing you need to worry about. If my favourite isn't Murder, it's Xenobia. Those are the only two occasions so far that the Astartes don't seem to have just run over everything without feeling it.


Did any part of Loken's vision interest you? Were you able to make any sense out of it?

It mainly felt like a replay of the one Horus had.  Though I don't understand why it happened.  He didn't sacrifice anyone.

Maybe it's like the Playboy Channel. You have to pay for the movie but you get the trailers for free.

Playboy Channel?

I hear stories. Let's stay focused. There were a lot fewer gibbering daemons when we were in Horus' head.  Though that might be deliberate.

You mean someone's deliberately added them to Loken's vision?

Actually it's more likely someone edited them from Horus.

I guess.  Though Loken's already worried about daemons, so...

You think it's his subconscious?

Maybe. In part at least.

Actually, that would explain why Loken thought he saw Torgaddon. Maybe he was feeling guilty about forming this secret club with him then blowing him off to snoop around.

He might be worried about him.  Torgaddon's the only person in the Mournival and almost the only person full stop who hasn't already betrayed him.  Maybe he's worried the whole thing is a set-up.

That would be really interesting, actually.  It'd be nice for someone to not be what they seem; that hasn't really happened since Erebus. Torgaddon being rotten would be a great twist.

It wouldn't be a great twist. OK, I'll give you. A great twist would be Abaddon turning out to be the Emperor.

That would... what? How... what?

Yeah.  Didn't see it coming, did you?

No, for like seventeen different reasons. The Torgaddon twist at least has some non-zero chance of actually happening. I was actually disappointed when he turned out to not be real here.  How about you?

I've had too many cool twist ideas that haven't come to anything already. I don't have the energy for disappointment today.


What's up with Eidolon and all that screaming?

Doesn't he just have a microphone?

Tarvitz doesn't think so. He'd probably not be too shocked if the Emperor's Children tended to use sonic weapons. I mean, not that they ever would. Clearly.

Well we did learn Eidolon has been getting good at... that... thing. The talking thing. To people. What's the word.

You mean diplomacy. We shall pass without comment over your inability to remember the term.

So maybe when he learned that he also learned how to deal with loud people.

Right, but plenty of people learn that in this world, but they don't tend to approach it by screaming people's faces off.

Where's Eidolon been?

Who can say. Other than me, of course, and I won't.

Then he could have been at a secret voice school. Or he could be like Felix Castor (from the Mike Carey books everyone should read) and can upset supernatural things with music. Or even it might just be physics; using his voice perfectly to cancel out the Warsinger's.

All good theories. Well, all theories anyway.  Which reminds me:


Where do you stand on the Warsinger? Creepy and effective or rather silly?

I don't understand her tactics.

Which part?

Why did she let Eidolon get so close to her?  Why did she go all the way down to the ground?

She didn't.

Yes she did. After she knocked down the pyramid.

She didn't knock down the pyramid. She just picked up bits of it and chucked it around.

Well that wasn't very clear.

Actually, destroying the temple is probably a good idea. You could just float above everything peeling Astartes to your heart's content.

They still have guns though.

For all the good they did. Though I'm not clear why a sword would work any better.

I think you have to distract her. Which makes the temple collapse an even better plan. Stay up there where no-one can bother you, and you can rip apart Astartes to your heart's content. Or drop huge pieces of masonry on them, just to switch things up.

Wouldn't it be easier just to make everyone so depressed they just kill themselves.

She's not Leonard Cohen.

Or so angry they kill each other.

She's not ...er... Anti Nowhere League.

Who?

Not sure. They seemed awfully angry in that So What? song. Under no circumstances Google that. Anyway, we seem to have gotten entirely off the subject.  Did you like her, was the question.

She's... an interesting concept.

That all?

I'm trying not be negative. I get told off when I'm too negative.


What Will Be
  
What's going to go down when Horus learns his latest reading material has been swiped?

He will sing to it and it will fly back to him.

Because what? How? What?

Singing is very much the theme of this chapter.

Actually it's the ridiculous volume of making war and how you can weaponise that, but your idea is profoundly silly either way.

Charming. Maybe Horus unleashes his daemon thingies on Loken.

You think he'll know who did it?

He might have an intuitive connection with it.

That's possible.

Will Horus really mind all that much?  Does he still need the book.

Presumably.  It's a pretty incriminating thing to leave lying around if you don't need to.

But he has Erebus.

Erebus doesn't have the whole book on him.  You can't fit a whole book on your head.

He's got the whole of the rest of his body.  It's always saying how big Astartes bodies are.

I don't care if every square centimetre of his body is covered in text with his cock reserved for a bookmark, you can't fit an entire grimoire of unspeakable evil onto one slightly gigantic man.

So maybe Horus will think Erebus has stolen it to make himself indispensable.

Now there's a theory I can get behind.

Best Case Scenario

Galaxy In Flames: Long Knives (IV)

Horus in his new togs (copyright Games Workshop)

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

With Angron placated and recruited, and the attack on Istvaan III just days away, Horus could now confidently rely on the Primarchs of four Legions other than his own. With Magnus neutralised, Russ and Sanginius distracted, Guilliman about to be humbled at Calth, and Ferrus Manus soon to join his cause, the Warmaster could count on six full Legions against an absolute maximum of nine in any position to stand against him, with the Mechanicum of Mars also on his side.  It was time for Erebus to make good on his word.  It was time to parlay with the Warp.

It would be almost entirely redundant to point out how Horus once more demonstrates his contempt for the idea of actually safeguarding the people he claims he wishes to liberate.  Not just in the callous murder of Ing Mae Sing which underlines the point - apparently he's decided humans are better off with him in charge unless they happen to work for him in any capacity - it's his total failure to react to the fact that Erebus and Lorgar have employed this murderous form of communication before. Who can say how many people thought themselves safe under the watchful gaze of the Word Bearers Primarch before they were put to death to fuel a coup d'état?

As we've said, though, this is a song we have sung before. Let's talk about the other facet of Horus his diplomatic overtures with Chaos highlights: his desperate need to believe everything is going to work out exactly as planned.

It is with no exaggeration that we can state that until we before we began the exacting and horribly dangerous task of piecing together just what took place in the earliest days of the Horus Heresy, it would never have occurred to us that any man would trust a disembodied voice that proclaimed itself "Lord of Shadows". An intelligence that proudly proclaims allegiance to gods that fight their wars wielding decay and rot.  A force whose very term for itself and its fellows is one denoting an inability to be brought under control, and which reveals in its very first negotiation to have blinded Horus' own forces for their own purposes.

The idea that such a force can be considered a steadfast ally would be laughable if that mistake had not cost so many lives over the last ten thousand years. And whilst Horus surely saw not a long-lasting friendship but rather a temporary arrangement to be nullified as soon as was expedient, the underlying assumptions remain a problem. Chaos might be able to deliver what it promises.  It might choose to dedicate enough of its resources to fulfil its side of the bargain.  It might be possible for Horus to disentangle himself from his new allies easily and bloodlessly. But there's plenty of reasons both general and particular to consider those dubious propositions, and no particular reason to believe them other than the word of a known liar.

But then lies have never needed to be particularly believable when it comes to war.  They need only be useful.  They need only be tempting. They need do no more than confirm the warmonger was right all along; that their victory is inevitable, and will be quick, and will be total.  It's not just the forging of ties with Chaos that betrays Horus here.  Look at the list of assumptions with which we started this broadcast.  What if Sanguinius isn't delayed for as long as Horus thinks?  What if the surprise attack against Ultramar goes wrong? What if Russ and Magnus avoid all-out war, or are sufficiently unbloodied when word of Horus' treachery reaches them that they can reach accord?  What if Mortarion has second thoughts? What if Fulgrim cannot persuade Ferrus Manus and he alerts the Emperor? Can Night Haunter and Peturabo be relied upon to join the rebellion? Can anyone ever say with certainty which way Alpharius will jump?

None of this should be taken as an argument for inaction. Some wars need to be fought, and those conflicts cannot wait for a guarantee of victory.  We are not suggesting hyperbolic prudence. We are however pointing out the horrors that can result when a prideful lack of prudence combines with a willingness to see war as a process that almost exclusively requires the sacrifice of others (and with beings as godlike as the Primarchs, it is almost axiomatic that such is the way they must view warfare, at least if they are being honest). The end result is inevitably to throw other people and other people's children into the meat-grinder on the off chance that everything will work out the way you are hoping. The theoretical possibility of a path to victory is recast as a wide, straight road terminating just over the next hill.

The road is never wide.  It is never straight.  And from the very beginning, it can be paved only with skulls and ribcages. Knowing Khorne always wins is just another way of saying everyone else always loses. Only the degrees differ. The best case scenario is that not all that many of your own people die in agony in the pursuit of a goal from which they will gain little benefit. A Warmaster should understand that.  If their responsibilities are to mean anything, they must include knowing which wars can be won, and which wars are worth the fighting. Worth the sacrifice of others. Worth the death of others.

Here, at long last, we learn that Horus was right all along. He was never worthy to be who he became.

------


What Is

Is Horus making a terrible mistake here?  How much trust can you put in something that refers to itself as "Lord of Shadows"?

Indeed. How can you generate shadows if you've brought darkness?

What?

He said they'd brought darkness to the Warp.

But they're not in the Warp right now.

But he's from the Warp.  You can't have shadows in darkness; that's basic physics.

You might be taking his title a tad literally.

It's clear Horus is hedging his bets here, waiting to see how well things go on the planet before he commits.  Actually, given his comments on forging his men into a sword, I wonder whether he has some plan for turning the regular folks into Legions and Primarchs.

So who got the better of the deal?

Well, I'm assuming Horus has a plan that Erebus isn't aware of.  That whole section came across as a trap for Erebus and Lorgar, right up until Horus killed Ing Mae Sing.

And now she is dead?

I don't know.  It's a hell of a thing to ask your astropath. Do I mean astropath?

Yes.

Good. I couldn't remember if it was that or astrolabe.

Well first of all, that's a completely different thing, and second of all, I'm somewhat dubious about your use of the word "ask".

Well, if this is a trap, Horus might have discussed it ahead of time.

Assuming it isn't, though, is Horus using Chaos, or is Chaos using him?

Well, Chaos is turning the Emperor's own son against him.  Talk about getting your revenge.  The only question is: is it sufficiently cold?


Poor old Ing Mae Sing.  Did her death get to you?  Can  you remember who she was?

I definitely remember her, but yeah, if you want someone's death to have meaning you've got to build them up more than she was. Has she even done anything since that fight with the demon?

That preempts my next question, actually, which is whether you can remember anything she's actually done.

There was the fight.

Yes...

And she warned Sindermann.

That was this chapter; I can't accept that as an answer.

Then... no, I got nothing. I note though that she's the second female character to die, out of four. And one of those was a bitch.

Is the gender balance bothering you?

Only because I'm speaking to you.

'Tis true, my ultra-progressive politics are infecting this entire blog. These "where are all the women at" comments might end up pissing off even more people than that time I suggested Moy and Marr were busy boning each other in-between planet-strikes.


A lot was made in the last book about how Horus does have some fairly solid reasons for wanting to strike out against the Emperor.  At what point do you think Horus' approach clearly crossed the line into actively evil?  Or do you not think that's actually happened?

Well he's killing people. How much more evil can you get?

It depends on his reasons.

I suppose you could say that Sing woman was a dissenter, and even a traitor, for sending out that message. So maybe executing her would be justifiable.  Varvaras was kind of a dissenter in wartime too, and Karkasy. I don't see how you can apply that to Petronella, though.

Yeah, that was just expediency. Horus went proper Littlefinger there.  So is that when he crossed the line.

I think it was before that.  Remember that bloke who came up to the spaceship and Horus shot him for no reason?

Yeah.

That. Or even earlier, when he sent someone to attack Magnus Magnusson.

That's interesting, when you think that was all of a chapter or two after he first chose to be humanity's brand new super-shiny saviour.  Is it surprising how quickly  he went from wanting to save humanity from the Emperor to having dissenters shot to working up some hoodoo in his flagship?

I don't know.  Is there a great divide between a Warmaster and a war mongerer? Or a great general?

Probably not, but does that get us anywhere with Horus?

Maybe. If you combine that sort of mentality with a traumatic event like Horus suffered, isn't this exactly what you'd expect?

What, creeping around like a drunk student in the first act of a horror movie?

Maybe. All we've ever known about Horus' position on the subject was that the Emperor was against it, therefore he was.  Who knows what he'd decide was a good idea once he rebelled?


Any thoughts on the Second Miracle of Saint Euphrati?  Was Aruken right that they weren't really needed in the first place?

Are we sure it's Euphrati?  She never does anything without Sindermann being there, and it was him who brought that demon in to the ship in the first place. Maybe he got rid of it too.  All those months of reading up on magic might have given him some innate ability.

That's a nice theory, but what about the burning eagle?

Does anyone other than Sindermann ever see that?

Erm... I'm not sure, actually.

Well there you go.

You think he's using it as a focus rather than her?

Either that or he's seeing things to help him rationalise his abilities. Plus how come she only wakes up when he arrives?

So Aruken was wrong about not being needed because Sindermann is the saint all along? I kind of like that as a narrative twist.  I'm less keen about the gender issues in having one of the only two female characters still alive seem to have psychic powers but them belonging to an old white guy all along.


We're four chapters into Galaxy in Flames now. How is this measuring up to Horus Rising and False Gods? Is there any obvious difference in prose or approach?

There's not as much character development here as before, though I said that about the last book too. 

I suppose though that there's no new characters added so far this time around.

Yeah, but we've learned nothing new about the characters we did have.  And we got to meet a new Primarch, and nothing really stood out about him. It does feel a bit quicker, though, I'll give it that.  The last book took forever to build, and I'm not even sure if it ever really got there at all.

Lords Of War

Galaxy In Flames: Long Knives (III)

Mortarion, copyright Gang Zang

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

Three Primarchs in one room. Representatives from almost a quarter of the Emperor's Legions. As a metaphor for the expanding reach of the Warmaster and the accelerating threat of the Heresy, it is pretty much perfect, if simplistic. It also demonstrates the fact that we are reaching the point where even the most precise deconstruction of the events from which the Heresy emerged will come up short in trying to track each contribution to the building storm. The earliest beats in our story are easy to identify: Lorgar's treachery, Erebus' theft, Fulgrim's temptation in the Laer temple. By the time our subjects have gathered in the Istvaan system, there are simply too many moving parts to identify and follow.  What started as discrete pebbles set tumbling down a mountainside has become a roaring avalanche, a single mass of infinite complexity and danger.

This is made harder by our lack of knowledge.  We know when Fulgrim first signed up to Horus' cause, but Angron is harder to place.  Was it before the assault on the Iron Citadel, or after? Did he give the order to execute Varvaras, or did Horus? Is Horus in fact headed for the Conqueror to win Angron to his cause?

But the mystery of Angron is nothing compared to that of Mortarion.  For the Primarch of the World Eaters, only the precise timing is unclear. The reasoning behind his decision could not be more obvious, to the point where we have questioned the Emperor's supposed ignorance on the issue. A obsessive commitment to butchery under all circumstances? It's faintly surprising the last scion of Nuceria didn't defect to the Orks. With Mortarion, though, we know almost nothing. When did he first chafe against the Emperor's will? When did he make his feelings known to Horus? At what point was the fatal decision made?

Mortarion remains one of the last true mysteries of the Horus Heresy. Eight other Primarchs turned to Chaos before or during the Heresy, and we know the motivations behind all of them. Horus and Fulgrim fill victim to pride, and Peturabo and Night Haunter to bitterness. Lorgar sought the love of the Chaos Gods, and Magnus their protection. Angron needed more leeway in who and what he could hack to pieces. Even the ever-mysterious Alpharius acted from identifiable motives, choosing a temporary ascendancy of evil over the agonising slow death the Imperium promised.

But Mortarion? Who can say. Scattered suggestions exist that he might have acted from a fear the Emperor had grown too powerful and tyrannical, but these second-hand reports strike us as more justifications after the fact than they do genuine explanation. We may well never know what precisely went on inside that pale, pocked head. And whilst some might argue that Mortarion's betrayal was inevitable from his form and temperament, we should avoid such lazy thinking. Whatever else Mortarion was, he spent centuries fighting for us. We are the poorer for his loss to Chaos, and we are the more endangered for being unable to see what flaw in ourselves Horus used to bring him to this pass.

Perhaps further clues might be found in a more detailed consideration of the Death Guard's final days as a unified loyalist force. Certainly that will be our focus once we finish charting the final moments of Captains Loken and Torgaddon on Istvaan III. For now, though, Mortarion must remain a mystery, his soul as hidden as his face.  We must move on to other enigmas.  The Chaos Gods themselves are about to speak.


------


What Is

Mortarion has arrived.  That's our seventh Primarch, for those counting.  How does he rank up amongst the ones you've seen so far?

He didn't seem to make the same impression as other Primarchs. On other people, I mean.

You mean Loken?

Yeah.  This didn't have the "oooh" moment you got with all the others, the sense that this is someone special.  Really the only thing you learned here is that he has huge things stuck in is head.

No he doesn't; that's Angron.

Oh.  In that case, all we learn is that he's not Angron.

Mortarion is the one with the breathing mask.

(Fliss looks confused and reaches for the book).

Yes, see? Only one paragraph on him. Seven lines.  He's bald, got a breathing thing, and bare armour. I'm sure the other Primarchs got much more on them than Montarion.

Mortarion. You can't even remember him when you're reading his first appearance.

And who's fault is that? Is he the first Primarch we meet in this book.

Yes.

Then I think we all know what's happened.

I guess playing Devil's advocate I could argue that the whole point of the Death Guard is that they're not at all interested in adornments or gilding. They don't even go in for painting armour.  Just a brass skull and the job's a good 'un.  So maybe Counter is describing them in spare tones because that's how they think of themselves.

Maybe. But you've got to give us something. I didn't pick up on the idea at all that they're anti-bling.

That's the problem with that approach, I guess.  If you're too minimalist about the minimalism people might miss the minimalism of the minimalists.


The use of scary recordings to build tension is a well-established horror trope. Are you intrigued by what's going on down on Isstvan III?

Yes.  Mainly because I'm wondering what the hell Horus is up to now.

How do you mean?

Well, is the recording even real? Is it really two years old?  Maybe Horus set this whole thing up as an excuse to go down there and kill this guy (Praal).  Could Mersadie Oliton have been helping him fake pictures. She probably knows how, and she was missing for an awful lot of the end of the last book.

But it wasn't Horus who found this recording; it was Mortarion.

It could still have been planted.

He says its two years old.

He guestimated that. It could all be faked.

Mortarion said it was just coincidence that his ship happened to drop out of the Warp and pick up the transmission.

And how suspicious is that?

It seems quite hard to arrange, though, doesn't it?

Why? They had to leave the Warp because they were in trouble. And Horus is bestest friends with the things in the Warp these days.

So you don't think what we saw was real.

Well, maybe. It did look like an attack by the things in the Warp.

So if it was, did it work in terms of creepiness? I know you weren't impressed by the last attack.

I think you need to work harder to freak me out. I've become quite immune to horror these days. Though reading this on a packed commuter train to Birmingham New Street probably didn't help.

No indeed. Not with that amount of true horror surrounding you.

(I shall by the way be testing Fliss' apparent resistance to horror come this year's Halloweenapalooza. Ten quid says she spends so much of the triple bill with her face in her panda pillow she'll taste the bamboo.)


Whilst we're on the subject of Horus' deceptions, what do you think Horus' plan here is?  

I can believe there's actually a Warp attack going on down there.  Is Horus hoping to grab some of the Warp energy? Is that something that can happen?  Is that how it works?

Maybe, though it's not clear to me how he would manage that without anyone noticing.

Who does he need to hide it from?

Loken and Torgaddon.

Two people.

Er, Vipus?

Who's been given the death signal.

What?

Torgaddon said Vipus was the only person other than Loken that Torgaddon can trust.  That means he'll be dead by the end of next chapter.  Or turn out to be a traitor.

I can't deny that the basic rules of drama require something to go wrong after such a statement.

Horus might be looking to get rid of Vipus. And Loken and Torgaddon too.  I'm just not sure how he's going to do it.


How come Abaddon and Eidolon have started getting on so well?

I don't know.  Who's been teaching Eidolon diplomacy?  Maybe Horus and/or Fulgrim beat it into him after Murder.  And Abaddon got into trouble over his lack of diplomacy with the interex.  Maybe they've bonded over that.  

Ah, the Brotherhood of Butthurt.  A powerful organisation, if a little paranoid.

Plus of course they need to start getting people onside. And Abaddon is probably treading carefully. He knows that he'd be in real trouble if word gets out that he let Horus be healed in the Serpent Lodge. I assume the other Primarchs would be interested in that little tit-bit?

Depends on the Primarch. Dorn would be pretty furious at least, I'd imagine. Any other thoughts on why the two of them are being so kissy-kissy?

I don't think they're having an affair, if that's what you're implying.

Too bad.  That's just the kind of twist this story needs to pep it up.

I wonder if Abaddon has suggested Eidolon murder Torgaddon? That way Eidolon gets revenge, and Abaddon gets plausible deniability.

How fiendish!

I'm accidentally improving the story again, aren't I?

I can say no more. My tears must speak for me.


What Will Be

Who's going to win the race, Sindermann or Maggard? Or are they going to show up together for maximum hi-jinks?

I figure Maggard the Haggard* will get there first, and the others will catch him in the act.  Then he'll try to kill him.

Who will try to kill whom?

The Titan guy. Guys. They'll try to shoot Maggard.

That doesn't sound like it will end well.

For whom?

For anyone not named Maggard.

Except the saint will wake up and save them. Obviously.

* I was going to cut this nickname out since Fliss literally uses it every time now.  But I figured I'd let one through. After all, so much hurried genetic manipulation to bulk him out to Astartes-esque levels is probably leaving him more than a little tired and scruffy.

Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

Galaxy In Flames: Long Knives (II)

Saul Tarvitz is not pleased (copyright unknown)

Poor Kyril Sindermann.

It is easy, I think, to hold to the maxims of secular rationalism when all about you are doing the same. In that situation, a thoughtful scepticism and a dogmatic refusal to challenge your peers must look much the same. Like friends who each have everything they could want, there is no cause for conflict, and so there is no way to tell whether the friendship is strong, or simply untested.

Sindermann's friendship with the scientific method, alas, did not survive much testing.

Already we have discussed the foolishness - and indeed the danger - in casting the Lectitio Divininatus and the cultists of Chaos as opposite forces, simply because they strive for mutually exclusive goals and worship antagonistic figureheads. Our objections to Sindermann's position might be more theological than we've previously explored, but the results are no less concerning for all that.

With all due respect to a man who brought enlightenment to so many, and who refused to be cowed as his reality and reality in general began to unwind during the final days of the Great Crusade, Kyril Sindermann's conversion to the Imperial Cult represents a travesty of thought that calls into question every seemingly wise decision he ever made.  It is simply ludicrous to conclude that the existance of creatures as malevolent and violent as the Gods of the Warp implies there must exist some divine being at the opposite end of the scale to provide balance. To put it in the terms of our ancient forefathers, the existence of Hell does not imply there must be a Heaven. The universe does not exist according to the balancing of thematic opposites.  The universe simply is.

To believe otherwise, to extrapolate the existence of the holy from the abundance of horror that surrounds us, is comforting, but the comforting thought is always the one we should subject to the closest scrutiny. Whatever Titus Cassar might claim in his ponderous sermons, labelling the Emperor as a God is the easy path, not the hard one. Once a being becomes divine, their actions require no further explanation. Contradictions can be explained as our inability to understand. Failures to protect can be blamed on our inability to pray hard enough or in the right way. It becomes a closed system immune to analysis, a fact which is somehow actually considered a positive.

For most of these recent converts to the Lectitio Divininatus, the motivation for joining has been an increasing sense of unease regarding the direction of events, culminating in the massacre in the docking bay. Only Sindermann and the catatonic Euphrati Keeler can claim specific knowledge of the nightmares of the Immaterium. Indeed, alone of those still standing aboard the Vengeful Spirit, Sindermann can claim to have watched what might be called a miracle. It might seem reasonable to forgive the iterator his lapse in light of his experiences under the Whisperheads or the assault in the library.

Obviously we have nothing but sympathy for a man subjected to such literal horrors, but Sindermann's experiences cut both ways. Knowing that the growing discontent in the 63rd Fleet is connected to the creatures of the Warp might make reaching for a god of one's own more tempting, but it also makes reaching for the Emperor as that god harder to understand.  As an opposite to the myriad failures of the human spirit, the fearless, self-sacrificing Emperor and his vision of universal brotherhood has at least some rhetorical weight as a godhead. As some kind of cosmic balance to what dwells within the Empyrean, the Emperor cannot function at all.

Understanding this is the work of moments.  Consider who and what the Emperor is. A psyker. A psyker who uses other psykers to perform the tasks he lacks time for.  An almost impenetrable mutant brain inside an almost unstoppable mutant body.  A man who conquered the galaxy by tearing open the Warp and feeding troops into it until every human star system was flooded.  This is the being to be considered anathema to the Gods of Chaos?  The Emperor's goal from the very first moments was to subjugate Chaos using it's own weapons and strengths against it.  If you craft a power sword which I then steal and run you through with, I have become your enemy, but I am in no setting myself up in contrast to those who use weapons, particularly if I drove to your forge in a Leman Russ tank.

Even if the existence of Chaos required the presence of an opposing force - which it doesn't, any more than the Orks suggest the existence of the Eldar - the true opposite of Chaos is no more plausibly the Emperor than it is the Necrons, which is a thought that should give us pause. At least they neither utilise the Warp nor register in it.

All of which is to say that Sindermann's conversion is a comfort in an era in which comfort must have been particularly desirable. That does not change the fact that comfort is at best orthogonal to the truth, and more often works directly against it. 

But then, doesn't almost everything?


------


What Is

Who's sending these warning messages to Kyril Sindermann? Has deciding the Emperor is a god simply driven him mad?

Why would that drive him mad?

It's hard having your fundamentals challenged, innit? Or maybe he's just lost it over the burning of all those books.

I can see that.

I'm sure you can. I was terrified you'd get palpitations reading that bit. Imagine being stuck for months with only the books in our bedroom. You'd be horrified.

Well considering I still haven't forgiven the Christians for Alexandria.

Very true. You can hold a grudge. Book burning is instant disqualification from Fliss' good, er, books. Unless they were Horus Heresy novels, I guess.

Yes, I believe I could live with that.

"There's a fire in Waterstones!" "NOOO!" "It's in that bit of the sci-fi section where they keep all the Black Library stuff!" "Phew."

Could he be becoming telepathic? Just picking up what's going on around him?  No need for anyone else to be involved.

Maybe. Who knows when the power manifests.

Or someone could be messing with him; his vision could just be a holographic projector hidden in his room.

As always, I approve of your paranoia, but what about the message he wrote himself?

Oh yeah. Well, that could just be his own subconscious.

I've heard of that. Auto-something. Not auto-erotic.

Not automatic.

Not automobile.

This could take a while. Wait, is the pen Petronella's?

Not that I know of.  Why?

Because maybe the pen is haunted. 

*She breaks into a terrible impression of a terribly stereotypical ghost. Seriously, it's like undead racism*

Very scary.

The horror of living death?  

The horror of anti-ghost bigotry.


In this chapter we get some more details on Loken and Torgaddon's plan of inaction. Are they being prudent? Or are they wasting limited time?

They have a plan?

My point.

But they can't go round around demanding answers from people. Not whilst their persona non gratas. 

Wouldn't it be personae non grata? But the point is taken.

They were in the middle of a fight; who's going to be able to work out what happened?

Couldn't they try getting to someone who's in the Lodge?

Why?

As a plant.  There must be someone in there who might be inclined to help Torgaddon out. Less so Loken; all those years of telling his underlings to stay out of the Lodge might finally have bitten him on his super-developed arse.

Which leaves Torgaddon, who they're probably expecting to fall back in line eventually.

That's what I mean. Couldn't he sidle up to someone from the Lodge and suggest he's thinking of coming back, and that he'd just like to know what's going on these days because he's feeling left out?

This is Torgaddon, you realise. The man doesn't have an ounce of duplicity.  

I suppose. If you have to start putting together plans requiring Tarik to be sneaky and devious, you've already lost.

Even basic logic seems beyond him. Somehow he seems surprised about the idea the remembrancers are being killed despite the Lodge openly discussing the need to get rid of Karkasy when he was here. And he still doesn't seem to have told Loken that they're gunning for him.


Kharn is the first World Eater we get to talk to, as oppose to see charging up a hill shouting.  Any first impressions on him or the XII Legion in general?

It makes sense; Astartes without ambition. They don't seem to care who they're killing as long as they're killing somebody. I can't say he made all that much of an impression.

What about him seeming to be pleased about the change in the Crusade?  Do you think he's in on the whole Horus deal?

Maybe. Or maybe he's just figuring they'll be let off the leash more often.

Against whom?

That is the question.

Yes, that is the format of these blog posts. Usually I ask questions hoping for an answer.

I've no idea.

Then choose someone at random.

No. That is not how I conduct my business.

Spoilsport.


What Will Be

One of the reasons I started this blog was because I wondered how obvious it was which characters would side with the Emperor and which with Horus. So in that spirit, I'm going to list some Astartes, and I want you to tell me whether you think they'll sign up with the Warmaster.
Saul Tarvitz

He thinks like Loken. He'll do whatever Loken and Torgaddon do.

Which is?

I don't know. I can't imagine they'll end up siding with Horus. I'm not sure if they'll join up with the Emperor, though.

You think they might form their own faction?

Possibly.

Aren't you worried Torgaddon is going to find he misses the Lodge too much?

What, and betray Loken?

He might not see it as betrayal, but yeah, inadvertently sell him up the river.

No. Whatever Loken decides, Torgaddon will be with him. Which is weird, actually. I wasn't sure how much Torgaddon liked Loken to begin with.

I'm not sure if it was dislike, or just not having much in common at first.

Anyway, final answer; those three stick together. Unless Torgaddon is a spy.

You like to keep your bases covered, huh?

Lucius

He'll go with whichever side offers him the most. If Horus promotes him, that's him on board.

The pragmatic approach?

Exactly.

No chance Saul could persuade him to take the other side? Or would trying just wind Lucius up even more.

I don't think he'd care either way. It's not like there's much left of their friendship.

Because Lucius is too ambitious.  It all fits.

Eidolon
 
He'll do what Fulgrim tells him to. Especially if there's a promotion in it for him.  Can you get promoted from Lord Commander.

Supreme Lord Commander, I guess? It's the Emperor's Children, they'll be able to come up with some fancy new title and extra snazzy robes.

It might not matter anyway. Fulgrim's probably handed him over to the bunch going to meet with Horus just to be rid of him.

Wee Horus

I think he'll go with the majority.

Of the Lodge?

Just in general.  Just for the sake of an easier life.

 Vipus

Where is Vipus? We've not seen him in ages.  And Loken keeps getting described as always on his own now. That's damn suspicious.

Iacton Qruze
 
I'm trying to remember what he said about life before Horus.

Don't bother. No-one can remember a word he says; that's canon.

I wonder if it'll hurt whichever way he goes.

You mean both sides will be desperate to not take him?

Crazy old Cruze, with his stories and his garden these kids are on.  I think he spent too long fighting without Horus in the "good old days" for him to be sold on this rebellion idea.

Kharn

Who?

Fine.

Was he the guy in the sword hall?

Sword hole? What in Mork's green flanges in a sword hole?

Sword hall.

Oh. Actually that's disappointing, I like mine more. I assume you're referring to the Luna Wolves Official Museum of Stuff.

Yes.

Then yes, that's who I mean.

He'll go with whomever offers greater bloodshed. He might just swing both ways, actaully.

Excellent. Another Space Marine we can imply enjoys alternative lifestyle choices.  We must be irritating all the right people with this blog.

And how any of the wrong people?

Shut up.

More That Unites Us Than Divides Us

Galaxy In Flames: Long Knives (I)

Karkasy, Oliton, Keeler, Vivar, Maggard and Sindermann
(copyright Nuditon at DeviantArt)

Welcome, citizens, to the Truth.

We return to our unfolding tale of the fall of Horus at a critical juncture.  At first glance, though, it might not seem that way at all. Whilst the Warmaster waits for the pieces of his plan to fall into place, and Loken waits for... well, it has never been clear what Loken was waiting for, the Sixty-Third Fleet has entered a lull between the grand clashes of Aureus and Istvaan III.

But whilst the business of actual shooting has dropped away for the moment, war is being conducted all the same. Horus is busy recruiting, and he isn't the only one.  The gods of Chaos are gathering the banners and forging new alliances, partially but by no means entirely through Horus himself.  But whilst the Warmaster and the Warp are preparing to act in the name of bloodshed and destruction, the Lectitio Divininatus is building its support so as to move in the name of... well, that's not entirely clear either.

On the face of it, this is a ridiculous thing to say.  It's in the Emperor's name, scrivener, how could that possibly be more obvious?  Except that it can't be as simple as that, can it?  Not when the first tenet of their entire existence (de facto, at least) is that the Emperor's law should be thoroughly disregarded.

There is a natural tendency towards imparting a kind of symmetry between the Chaos cult brought forth by Erebus and Horus, and the persecuted iconoclasts (if indeed one can be an iconoclast in an era which forbids icons) of the Lectitio Divininatus.  After all, whilst one group rejected and betrayed the Emperor, the other essentially embraced him more fully than had any other, including the Emperor himself.  We also could consider the idea that submitting to the seductions of Chaos is easy, whereas Titus Cassar tells us adhering to the Divininatus is hard. Loyalty and self-control versus a lust for power heedless of consequence. It's not difficult to see how the their comparison s could be framed as an antithesis.

Understandable or not, however, this approach is a mistake, and potentially a dangerous one, because it bypasses entirely the fundamentally destructive nature of the Imperial Cult. Whilst it is technically true that Lorgar and Horus betraying their father ironically accelerated the Divininatus' ascent, there was every chance it would have continued to grow independently of the Primarchs' actions.  That means we can at least argue plausibly that the Lectitio Divininatus could well have ultimately proved as grave a threat to the fledgling Imperium as that of the Heresy itself.

Instead of focussing on the differences between Titus Cassar and Horus Lupercal, consider what united them.  Both of them believed, down to the bone, that the Emperor's stated vision for the galaxy should be dismissed.  Indeed, in their own ways, both actually desire the Emperor to be removed.  For Horus, the exchange is simple, he just wants to swap out the Emperor for himself.  Cassar, in contrast, wants to replace the actual Emperor with what his mind tells him the Emperor clearly should be. To overwrite messy, contradictory reality with simple, sleek rhetoric.

This has always been mankind's greatest weakness, and its most powerful weapon against itself.  Why waste time and risk confusion and misery by shaping your mind around the facts, when you can hold you mind as infallible and dismiss all contradictory evidence as mistakes, lies, or tests of faith?  Cassar might insist that route to accepting the Emperor's divinity is the harder path to follow, but it is a strange definition of a hard truth that means an idea that can  never actually be proved wrong.

But it isn't the unassailable circular logic of the Imperial Cult that is most concerning, and most potentially destructive. It's not even its desire to reforge Imperial thought from secular coolness into unquestioning worship.  It's how quickly it labels those who disagree with them as taking the easy way out.  Whilst Horus labels those whose view of the galaxy is at odds with is as naive and in need of "illumination", the Lectitio Divininatus does the same thing. Yes, at the time of the 63rd Fleet's approach to Istvaan, Horus was planning genocide, and Cassar was planning how he could print his next chapbook without getting shot, but ten millennia later, and the ultimate results of Cassar's efforts have cost us dozens of times over the loss of life the Warmaster ever achieved.

The story of the Horus Heresy is not simply one about how Chaos almost destroyed us. It is about how Chaos unwittingly unlocked the method by which we decided to destroy ourselves.


------


(Only four questions this week, folks. It's a bit of a slow-burn opening. Though it may be that Galaxy in Flames requires a rather more light-touch approach in general. Battle For the Abyss is almost certainly going to, as well, and Descent of Angels will presumably mostly involve me faithfully transcribing the sounds of Fliss vomiting in disgust.)


What Is

Did you spot the importance of the book's opening line?

It was the same as the first book opened with.

Well, similar, anyway. The second book had another variant on the first page.

So is this supposed to mean Horus turning against the Emperor is no more real than Loken's joke about Horus killing the Emperor? Or could Counter just not think of anything else to write?

I don't think the link is as deep as you're giving it credit for. I think it's just a rhetorical flourish.  What I don't get is how this guy knows about it in the first place.  You'd have thought Horus' naughtiness was being kept pretty quiet at this point.

Maybe he's referring to Horus' total failure to punish his men for taking him to the Serpent place.  He should have been all smashing things and yelling "WHY HAVE YOU BROUGHT ME TO THIS DEN OF INIQUITY!?!"

Fair point.

He might even have been there when Horus gave the order to kill Varvaras.

You'd think Horus would have noticed. An unvetted Titan crewmember hanging around?  Though I grant he's less conspicuous than his war machine.

Maybe he's undercover.

Someone whose loyalties are not immediately apparent upon meeting them?  I like your thinking.

(I don't think this book is going to go well for Fliss.)


Why is Horus apparently so afraid of the remembrancers?

They might spend too much time snooping around.

They're not going to find anything, though, surely? Horus isn't going to be leaving anything incriminating around. And even if he did, Astartes like Loken are the ones that would find it.

But the remembrancers are more likely to pick up things, like Karkasy did. And if Loken did find anything, they can probably be persuaded to keep their mouth shut, for the good of the Legion or whatever.

So the remembrancers are more dangerous because Loken is unquestioning and an idiot?

I wouldn't say idiot.

Yeah, but I'm definitely going to say it and I wanted some back-up. Oh, speaking of which...


Right now it doesn't seem Loken has gotten around to doing anything about the problems in his Legion.  Is this a) wise, or b) spectacularly, head-breakingly stupid?

To be fair, what can he do?

Well... erm... actually, you have me there. He could stop sounding so utterly clueless when Sindermann and Oliton talk to him.

How helpful.

Shut up. Or... or he could form alliances! Yes!  Do that Loken, why don't you?

With whom?  He never spent any time going to all the get togethers.

 I assume you mean the Warrior Lodge, rather than local keggers.

He didn't go to the bar where all the humans get drunk either. So who can he ally himself with?

So he just has to sit there and wait for something to happen?

Maybe he has a plan bubbling away under the surface.

... Yes, I suppose he might do.

(Yep.  This book is definitely not going to go well.)


It looks like Maloghurst has been promoted backwards to primary school teacher; making sure children don't wander off on field trips.

His arrival was quite fortuitously timed, though.  Why isn't everyone under guard?

Lack of resources, I guess.  So you tell everyone to stay put for their own safety, and then you only have to put guards on the ones who prove a bit too adventurous.

So what's happening with all the iterating... iterationing... iteratory that needs doing through all this?

Cancelled until "the danger is passed", I suppose.

And no-one's suspicious of this?

I guess if everyone's confined to quarters, there's no chance for them to chat to each other about any suspicions they have. At most, you'll have two or three iterators sharing a berth. No-one is going to take on the Astartes or even the Imperial army, on those odds.

Couldn't they communicate via the ships comms?

I assume those are down too. "Compromised by the enemy", or some such.

So offer to help out by flooding the channels with civilian chatter.

I dunno, Fliss; this all seems a bit back-seat rebelling. Best to just stay in your room 'til it's over, I think. Well, that or join a clearly crazy cult who are all under the threat of execution.  One or the other.

False Gods: The Gallery

Fabricator Consul Emory Salignac

Courtesy once more of my sister (not, alas, known as SpaceSquidette), a sketch of the Auretian Technarcy's ambassador to the 63rd Expeditionary Fleet. Not pictured; the dirty great hole in his bonce.

The doubtless unbearable wait is almost over.  Starting next Wednesday, Fliss and I begin studying Galaxy in Flames.

The Betrayal Pathogen (Last Words On False Gods)

Before we consider anything else, we should state the obvious: this was always the nightmare brief. Dan Abnett's job was to take the noble and certain Horus and take him places where his self-doubt would blossom to the point where it was a real problem.  Ben Counter got to pick up a Warmaster already fully devoted to overthrowing his father and explore the Faustian deal Horus makes as part of his upcoming campaign of destruction.  Graham McNeill, on the other hand, had to start off with a shaken and uncertain but still resolutely loyal Horus, and conclude with a Primarch not only committed to betraying every principle he once held dear, but willing to kill his own men and his own brothers to do it.

That is not an easy ask, especially in the frame of four hundred or so pages which are also supposed to contain a healthy dollop of the military action expected of the Black Library.  It was always pretty much inevitable that McNeill would fail, which makes picking at the reasons why the book did indeed fail to deliver feel a little unfair. The chasm between Abnett-Horus and Counter-Horus was always going to be simply too wide to jump in a single book.

Nevertheless, it's worth sifting through the rubble here, if only to determine which strands of the story brought the book closest to succeeding. There is certainly at least a partial defence that can be mounted. One of the major criticisms of Horus in the book is just how stupidly he seems to be acting.  He falls completely for Erebus' routine on Davin, despite it being so transparent that even a man more interested in ogling women and dreaming of fermented yak's milk can work out something is amiss.  He charges into the ruin of Temba's flagship despite it being an obvious act of tactical idiocy. He completely swallows Erebus' claims of the Emperor's desire for godhood based on two visions granted to him by "Sejanus", even after it's revealed that his dead friend is really Erebus, a man who goaded Horus into the duel that almost killed him, that has now been revealed as a sorcerer in direct defiance of Imperial Law, and who most pertinently has demonstrated he can make Horus see things which are not real.

Given all this is is tempting to write the story off as being of the kind where the protagonists are required to be utterly stupid at key moments so that the plot can unfold with less effort from the writer.  And whilst it's true that this is not a curse the book escapes entirely - not just regarding Horus; Loken and Torgaddon begin here their campaign of ridiculous passive idiocy which will grow to unbearable levels as Galaxy in Flames progresses - there is an underlying logic to Horus' foolishness.  Loken views it as a desperate fury borne of the insult Temba has laid against him, but as an explanation this starts off unconvincing, and collapses into complete irrelevance by the time Temba is killed. Far more likely than this being a case of wounded pride is that the problem stems from Horus trying to outrun the avalanche of doubts set in motion by his failure with the interex. The Warmaster comes across as a man desperately afraid of reflection (it's surely a coincidence that the repeated theme of reflections from the previous book has completely disappeared here, but it's a happy one), barrelling through life specifically to stop himself pondering just how badly things seem to have ended up. And of course when you treat life that way, you end up making new and greater mistakes, which means you have to run even harder to leave them behind.

Viewed this way, we see Horus not as a petulant man taking any opportunity to lash out at those he deems to have wronged him - or at least, we see him as not entirely that. From this angle, the decision to believe Erebus' ridiculous claims makes a certain kind of sense; if the Emperor's goals were always vainglorious and self-centered, there is no reason for Horus to feel bad about anything he has done wrong. This possibility offers him the opportunity to short-circuit the building crisis that has been pressing at his back for months now; of course he takes it. The shouting match between Magnus and Erebus over Horus' responsibilities is therefore spectacularly beside the point. The true choice for the guy actually caught in the middle isn't about his loyalties, it's whether he can admit he's allowed himself to fail so completely at living up to the standards he set himself.

And as it turns out, he isn't. He transfers wholesale the blame for his catastrophes (as he sees them) to the Emperor, and history is written.  But if that sounds like a way to offer False Gods a blanket pardon for its problems, then believe me it isn't.  Because the real flaw in the book was never the logic that led to Horus turning from the Emperor.  It was the secondary decision to enact that turn through sorcery, assassination and planning massacres of his former friends. There's just no way to square that circle, not inside four chapters.

Which means that the final section of False Gods is a difficult to swallow.  Add in a first section that's rather understated, and the novel demonstrates deep structural problems. We can, as seen above, construct a redemptionist reading of part three, but said reading requires a pushing of a subtext that at least partially reduces the rest of the section essentially meaningless; three men discussing a decision already made for reasons none of them have grasped.  Really, if anything can be said to be the book's saving grace, it's its second section, "Plague Moon". Here, at least, McNeill brings his A-game.  The problem of the headstrong Horus is still evident, but with his ardour up and battle at hand we need no potentially tendentious reading to understand his carelessness.  Moreover, the actual battle of the swamp is well-realised; the stinking, foetid waters of Davin's moon and the horrors that dwell within being both nicely described and contrasting well with the freshly-painted austerity of the Sons of Horus and the crumbling majesty of the Glory of Terra.

But it's not just the crafting of these scenes of struggle that make the section relevant.  The choice of Nurgle as the corrupter of Temba is clever one.  It links together the image of the rusting hull of Temba's flagship, the pathogen that begins to eat Horus from the inside once unleashed by the anathame, but more importantly it reminds us of the metaphor of heresy and betrayal as diseases spreading from mind to mind.  This is a metaphor used frequently both in general and by Games Workshop specifically, so the association here makes complete sense.  It also provides us with what it possibly the only way to view the events of the novel's final chapters as a logical development from earlier chapters.  If heresy really is a sickness, then is it at all a wonder that the virus Horus has contracted has damaged his mind somehow, causing him to see horrifically violent solutions as obvious approaches, where once he saw them only as admissions of failure.

Well, maybe.  But such a solution does far more harm than good.  On the sheer level of plot mechanics the idea that Horus becomes the crazed dictator shown in Galaxy in Flames because he's been infected is rather narratively uninteresting; once we remove Horus free will in such a way we reduce the flawed but noble warrior of Horus Rising into little more than sneering MacGuffin. Writing off "Crusade's End" as a brief but significant misstep might actually be preferable in terms of salvaging the trilogy as a whole.  More importantly, though, the disease metaphor carries with it some exceptionally unpleasant connotations.  It simultaneously robs Horus of moral responsibility for the decion on which the entire series is based, and equates disagreement with authority with a form of sickness. There's nothing wrong with presenting the Imperium as viewing heresy that way (so long as it doesn't appear the author is buying into that idea), but as far as actual real-life people are concerned, this idea should be rejected with all possible force. New ideas and principles can spread like a disease, but there we must abandon the metaphor, or else commit ourselves to a form of authoritarianism no less unpleasant than that of the Imperium.

What all this amounts to is simple; we can all choose for ourselves how close McNeill's novel comes to performing it's nigh-impossible task.  But in doing so we should be aware that a balance is in play.  The closer we come to signing off on Horus' betrayal as plausibly tumbling from the seismic shifts of earlier events, the harder we have to push theories that either lessen the impact of those events, or which come altogether too close to embracing the kind of thinking which makes the background of this fictional world as dark and oppressive as it is.

So a strong effort doomed to failure? Or a coherent tale of treachery underpinned by worryingly retrograde politics?  Either way, False Gods gets the same score.

6/10