Incline Warhammer 40,000 Lore Thread

[Caim]

Dude, go look through GW's litigation history.

Yep, still nowhere near as evil as Amazon. This is the company that allowed The Rings of Power to exist. That alone, without even the worker abuse, is already worse than a company merely being greedy. That's passe compared to "trying to turn the most beloved work of modern English literature into a propaganda platform".

Consider that GW has not made miniatures for their LotR war game that are based on Rings of Power.

 

[Mangoose]

Dude, go look through GW's litigation history.

Yep, still nowhere near as evil as Amazon. This is the company that allowed The Rings of Power to exist. That alone, without even the worker abuse, is already worse than a company merely being greedy.

Amazon is evil because Rings of Power? Mere worker abuse?

Amazon cloud hosts the government, specifically intelligence. It has sold facial recognition software to police departments. Its founder owns the Washington Post. Literally owns it. No need to fuck around with litigation.

Edit: I just find GW to be the of their "niche." Not as unsavory as Amazon but unsavory of their enterprise for sure.

 

[Mangoose]

I don't have a lot of hope, because Amazon is an evil business

Dude, go look through GW's litigation history.

You know why "Astra Militarum" and "Aeldari" exist?

So they can copyright more things to sue.

The worst of all is the T'au, because Games Workshop could not copyright a Greek letter.

I don't have a lot of hope, because Amazon is an evil business

Dude, go look through GW's litigation history.

You know why "Astra Militarum" and "Aeldari" exist?

So they can copyright more things to sue.

 

[NecroLord]

In the grim grimdarkness of the grimdark future there will be only grim grimdarkness.
Thanks a lot GeeDubs!!!

 

[Hag]

"It is the end of a war, yet the death of peace. From here, the long slide begins, the terminal plunge into a grim darkness where the only constant will be war, and the only truth will be pain, and the only living will be suffering, and the only end of suffering will be death itself."

Sometimes I wish phrases were physical objects so the people writing this kind of horror could put it up their arse and go fuck themselves.

 

[Caim]

In the book the actual clash between the Emperor and Horus starts as a physical fight, but then it escalates into some weirdly esoteric shit. It's also written in the second person from Horus' point of view. And then, well...

Something even dumber than making Grim Darkness canon

There is no time to prepare. He’s almost on you. You know another arcana, and it’s one that will distract Him, because it has always obsessed Him. As He bursts in on you, a brutal iron fist with overwhelming strength, you draw your hand up to meet Him.

Your opening hand. Just three cards in a classically simple Trionti spread.

The High Priest, still zealous despite his long exile, to curse your father’s blood. Then The Crone, gibbering and milk-eyed, to entangle your father’s mind with rancid, meaningless prophecies. Then The Silver Door, to shut Him out. You have never set much store by cartomancy, but you are quite familiar with the tarot’s symbols and their significances. The cards always seemed to you an imprecise method, the mummery of Sigillites and warlocks, sometimes effective in divination, but always so vague in their elastic meanings, and thus largely unreliable.

Now you have ascended as a psychic initiate, you have a new and ardent appreciation of their empyric function. They are sigils of imagination. Binding intuitive, non-verbal definitions to archetypes of the cosmos, the cards are a high and arcane art, capable of subtle interaction and piercing precognitive effect.

But here in your realm, awash with the warp, their symbology goes beyond mere precognition. Rather than interpreting outcomes, they can set them. They can determine the user’s desired effect, and then manifest the cause to produce it. They are spurs to impel destiny to obey your will. Your father has always been preoccupied with the cartomantic art. He constructed His own deck. You wonder if He has ever tried a reading in the warp.

You play Him at His own game.

This motherfucker Dan Abnett made the children's card game episodes from the TTS series canon.

 

[Rahdulan]

Problem is there's no way anyone could've written that final confrontation satisfactorily.

 

[NecroLord]

Problem is there's no way anyone could've written that final confrontation satisfactorily.

Should've left it a mythical clash known only by high level Ecclesiarchy/Inquisition/Space Marine Chaplains, a final confrontation between the Master of Mankind and God of Order and Structure against his once most favored Son, now agent of Chaos and Abomination empowered by the Ruinous Powers.
GeeDubs just wanted more money from milking the Horus Heresy era...

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I'm sick of GW's antics too. I wish I there were alternatives, but everything else even remotely similar is either dead or sucks. Starcraft is bug girl waifu garbage, Starship Troopers (under Sony, not the original book) is leftist fascist garbage, Halo is garbage...

40,000 avoids a lot of problems afflicting those franchises by giving elaborate details to its various civilizations that don't revolve around the antics of a few mary sues... but the Horus Heresy is the opposite. It's a pretentious soap opera revolving around the 40k equivalent of House Sparklypoo.

I'm trying to cleanse my palette by reading scifi horror novels on Kindle. Unfortunately, that genre is pretty saturated and homogenous now. It's mostly clones of Alien, The Thing, or Dead Space now. Nothing wrong with that, but the stories blur together in my mind after a while. Even my own ideas for writing one are derivative of these influences and it's all I can do to think of new and fresh ideas.

 

[Caim]

Problem is there's no way anyone could've written that final confrontation satisfactorily.

There's a wide gap between falling short on decades of buildup and interdimensional yugioh.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

GeeDubs

GeeDubs
GrimDarkness

 

[lightbane]

So, fanfiction is now canon. And suddenly YugiOh, just like that. Terrible, terrible, execution.

 

[Pika-Cthulhu]

If the troons get their way, will we see new armies?
Imperial Fistulas?
Iron Dilators?
Woundbearers?

 

[Mangoose]

In the book the actual clash between the Emperor and Horus starts as a physical fight, but then it escalates into some weirdly esoteric shit. It's also written in the second person from Horus' point of view. And then, well...

Something even dumber than making Grim Darkness canon

There is no time to prepare. He’s almost on you. You know another arcana, and it’s one that will distract Him, because it has always obsessed Him. As He bursts in on you, a brutal iron fist with overwhelming strength, you draw your hand up to meet Him.

Your opening hand. Just three cards in a classically simple Trionti spread.

The High Priest, still zealous despite his long exile, to curse your father’s blood. Then The Crone, gibbering and milk-eyed, to entangle your father’s mind with rancid, meaningless prophecies. Then The Silver Door, to shut Him out. You have never set much store by cartomancy, but you are quite familiar with the tarot’s symbols and their significances. The cards always seemed to you an imprecise method, the mummery of Sigillites and warlocks, sometimes effective in divination, but always so vague in their elastic meanings, and thus largely unreliable.

Now you have ascended as a psychic initiate, you have a new and ardent appreciation of their empyric function. They are sigils of imagination. Binding intuitive, non-verbal definitions to archetypes of the cosmos, the cards are a high and arcane art, capable of subtle interaction and piercing precognitive effect.

But here in your realm, awash with the warp, their symbology goes beyond mere precognition. Rather than interpreting outcomes, they can set them. They can determine the user’s desired effect, and then manifest the cause to produce it. They are spurs to impel destiny to obey your will. Your father has always been preoccupied with the cartomantic art. He constructed His own deck. You wonder if He has ever tried a reading in the warp.

You play Him at His own game.

This motherfucker Dan Abnett made the children's card game episodes from the TTS series canon.

It's written in the second person perspective because you're supposed to question who is talking to Horus. (cough Chaos vs Horus being insane cough)

 

[Mangoose]

Wait, you think tarot cards have to do with TTS?

The Emprah is constantly doing that shit - see the short story "The Board is Set." What they do in that short story - chess to predict possible timelines - is even more retarded than having a pack of tarot cards. Unless all of those things actually work, despite being considered New Age bullshit in real life.

 

[lightbane]

Tarot being used for divination is a thing in WH40k, yes. But that's completely different from suddenly going into a Yugioh battle in the middle of a swordfight. Also, Horus WAS possessed by the Chaos Gods. Whether he was hearing them or "just" his own insanity, there's no difference. unless the HH novels are now messing with this too.

 

[Caim]

Wait, you think tarot cards have to do with TTS?

I know what fucking tarot is. The "Trionti" spread mentioned is a bastardization of "Trionfi", the original name for tarot. The Emperor's Tarot as a future telling tool has been in 40k for decades.

It's just that there's a difference between using it to predict the future and using it to stop a dude from jumping your ass like it's fucking yugioh. And when you combine it with the fact that such a thing is a joke from one of 40k's biggest fan projects, it kinda puts the thing in a new light.

 

[Mangoose]

Wait, you think tarot cards have to do with TTS?

It's just that there's a difference between using it to predict the future and using it to stop a dude from jumping your ass like it's fucking yugioh. And when you combine it with the fact that such a thing is a joke from one of 40k's biggest fan projects, it kinda puts the thing in a new light.

Not really. Just because something is dumb doesn't make anything in any light. It's dumb. Who knows why? Does Abnett tend to do that? Does it even matter? If he made up the joke himself is that bad thing?

Either it's dumb or it's not. Dragging other stuff that everybody knows about into it is playing echo chamber posturing the obvious as if you're the only one who thinks that and are special and more unique. Keep that virtue signaling going brah.

 

[Mangoose]

Also, Horus WAS possessed by the Chaos Gods. Whether he was hearing them or "just" his own insanity, there's no difference.

That's exactly what I was saying. Thank you for agreeing.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

One of Warhammer 40K's contradictions: Chaos is organised. The bodies of it's followers are organised into cells, organs, systems. The demons are themselves organised into species and clades. Nurgle has to invent plagues, test them, see if they work, according to the natural physical laws of reality. The Chaos Space Marine warbands are organised into ranks, structures and regimented armies. The engine of a Chaos Space Marine "Rhino" is organised to perform internal combustion, with systematic chemistry and physics underpinning it. The bolter rounds in their guns are an ordered shell of metal, surrounding explosive materials, kept separate and deliniated until impact. Demons are not 'random', or else nothing would spill out of warp portals, except arbitrary goo.

Would it perhaps be more to say that Chaos Gods represents the forces that 'lead to entropy', but are not Chaos itself?

 

[RaggleFraggle]

One of Warhammer 40K's contradictions: Chaos is organised. The bodies of it's followers are organised into cells, organs, systems. The demons are themselves organised into species and clades. Nurgle has to invent plagues, test them, see if they work, according to the natural physical laws of reality. The Chaos Space Marine warbands are organised into ranks, structures and regimented armies. The engine of a Chaos Space Marine "Rhino" is organised to perform internal combustion, with systematic chemistry and physics underpinning it. The bolter rounds in their guns are an ordered shell of metal, surrounding explosive materials, kept separate and deliniated until impact. Demons are not 'random', or else nothing would spill out of warp portals, except arbitrary goo.

Would it perhaps be more to say that Chaos Gods represents the forces that 'lead to entropy', but are not Chaos itself?

I once pointed this exact thing out a long time ago and got flamed for it. This old post criticizes the movie Event Horizon for the same issue. Chaos behaves in an utterly predictable manner, not chaotically. Why does Chaos look like Order?

The original Moorcock novels that inspired Chaos actually address this: there isn't really much of a functional difference between Chaos and Order. They're equally hellish in cosmetically different ways, especially without their opposite to keep them balanced. According to a wiki page without any sourcing, apparently the series ends with the Old Gods destroying Chaos and Order so that humanity is finally free to make their own decisions... or something.

But from real world perspective, Chaos being so orderly has a marketing purpose. It is simply more interesting than random blobs. Look at Dungeons & Dragons for comparison: the demons and devils were designed using the same random generation table and as a result have no cohesive motifs or visual identity. Artwork of battles in the Blood War look like a chaotic mess of random designs and it's impossible to determine which side is which without memorizing the individual designs beforehand.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

I once pointed this exact thing out a long time ago and got flamed for it. This old post criticizes the movie Event Horizon for the same issue. Chaos behaves in an utterly predictable manner, not chaotically. Why does Chaos look like Order?

The way of explaining it best, in-universe, would be, that Chaos is simply not really about Chaos.

It seems that Chaos is a lie. False marketing. They are not even really Chaos-like in themselves.

This guy has a throne, implying rank and order. It would be more accurate to characterise them as four very powerful Christian-style demons, who have a coherent personal agenda, are constantly trying to trick people into bargains and pacts, or possess them like in 'The Exorcist' franchise. They don't really represent anti-life at all, just their own ideological agenda, for imposing upon life. It makes them more coherent and graspable. I'm not a fan of incoherent ideas. Chaos makes no sense to me when it goes on about incomprehensible motives. However, as soon as they are grounded in reality, even if 'Infernal' in scope like Sauron, they suddenly make sense, their followers make sense, etc. They become a Dark Lord. I find this with multiple franchises. Suddenly becoming coherent, when you throw out fan-held notions, and just use reason. When they are not 'infinite' or 'unknowable', or any other vague adjective, suddenly they are more interesting.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

So basically they want to impose their own insane private universe on everyone else, and it will be totally awesome unless you’re weaklings?

 

[lightbane]

The Four Chaos Gods are evil gods, that's all. They cooperate because otherwise, they wouldn't be a real threat. There were talks that they weren't truly entities but a bunch of wapr energies that became sapient or some shit, but the result is the same.

 

[Keshik]

The ending was kind of abrupt, I found. But I guess there's going to be a Scouring series as well.