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I finally finished 'Descent of Angels' and there has been something really bugging me about the continuity of the story of the Horus Heresy series especially in relation to the existing background of the conflict.

Before the HH series began it was always implied that humanity happen a sudden increase in their psyker population and that when the 'age of strife' hit (where every planet was cut off from each other due to massive warp disturbance) many planets devolved into barbarisim or outright Chaos. In many cases psykers were driven mad by the warp storms or possessed outright by Daemons.

What irks me is that in the HH novels when the 'age of strife' ends and the great crusade begins, why is it that none of the legions seem to find planets that are wholly dedicated to Chaos? Why is it that they all seem to come upon their first encounter with Chaos at roughly the same time? And where are all the Librarians amongst the legions that turn to Chaos?

IIRC, the first use of a Librarian character is in Descent of Angels with the Dark Angels. It is like the Sons of Horus, Deathguard and Emeperor's Children all have no psykers in their ranks before the Heresy.

Again, back to the old fluff the Great Crusade was often explained that humanity was tearing itself apart with its newly awakened psychic presence and that Emperor was coming to each planet to show humanity that unchecked rampant psykers were not allowed and that their abilities had to be carefully trained or the psyker had to be put to death (or carted away on a black ship).

But all of that seems to be deleted in the current series and it just doesn't make any sense in the context of the universe they had previously created. Any marine Librarian would have had some sense about the dark powers in the warp, at least in the general. I think the series would have been so much better if the Emperor had acknowledged the existance of the malignant powers of Chaos but had just greatly underestimated the powers' deviousness and over-estimated the ability of the Primarchs and their legions to be seduced.

Instead it is almost as if the legions encounter Chaos for the first time, witness its potential power and quickly become seduced and decide to rebel. It just doesn't fit as the great crusade should have already encountered dozens if not hundreds of examples of planets that had some sort of Chaos worship, and not always the 'secretive' version.


I really think that the authors' should have played up the fact that the legions who eventually turned to Chaos naturally had the inclination to rebel in them and that while Chaos certainly told them what they wanted to hear (that they would be powerful and rule the galaxy) that they ultimately *chose* to seek out and follow Chaos rather than stumbling upon it and then becoming enraptured by it.


For example, I hated how in the Emperor's Children book they stumble upon the Laern Slaanesh temple and everyone, Primarch and marines are essentially instantly converted to Slaneesh. The fact is, it was shown that Fabius and other ECs were already commited to experimenting with their Geneseed in order to improve their perfection so I think the argument could be made that the EC would end up 'worshiping' Slaanesh whether they encountered the Laern temple or not, it was only a matter of time.

I think it would have been so much more appropriate if there had been a comment about how they had encountered other examples of Chaos worship on other planets but the Laern version was so 'perfect' that they were drawn to study and emulate it.


And then with 'Descent of Angels' all of a sudden you have them fighting a Chaos Daemon and the Terran Librarian says: "oh yeah, we've fought these 'Xenos' from the Warp before! I've got this super prototype bomb that can kill 'em."

What??? I know these books are written by different authors but they need to stay consistent on the level of imperial Warp knowledge, IMHO.



Has this issue bugged anyone else reading the series?

Yeah, but to be honest, I have not read enough of 40k Stories, so it rocks, IMO.

I thought they converted really quickly as well, but with the 'Temple' semi-ressurecting Horus, it was 'sort of' understandable. I think the Primarchs need to be involved more. I also see that the Titan that was mentioned consistently has been kind of forgotten.

Isn't there like 6 more books to go? After that Reporter chick starts displaying psyker tendencies, was probably the pre-curser to the 'Psyker-Explosion'.

Dunno. I guess because I cannot get enough, even DRECK seems appealing.

Well, Horus's corruption was definitely the most plausible because he was felled by a Daemon weapon and then placed into a Chaos temple by his supposed "supporters".

But it still irked me that the whole issue of warp possession (that happens to Loken's squad-mate in the first book) is completely foreign to them.

Even if they are taught that there are no 'gods' in the warp by the Emperor, they still should have encountered Chaos worship and Warp entities several times at that point in the crusade.

And technically, the Emperor isn't wrong. . .the Chaos "gods" aren't really gods but rather warp entities fueled by emotion. I don't think the Emperor was lying when he taught everyone that gods are false and science is pure. . .it's just that Chaos exists in realm where material science doesn't provide insight.


I just think the series would have had better continuity if the flaw with the marines was not that they weren't told about Chaos and then blindsided by the ruinious powers, but rather if the Emperor's faith in his Primarchs' (and their marines) ability to resist the lure of power was misplaced.

In other words, the failure should have been the marines' desire to rebel and Chaos should have only been the fuel for that rebellion but the choice really should have happened whether they encountered Chaos or not.


And as for the reporter lady becoming the first 'saint' that shouldn't be the first incidence of psychic potential in humanity. . .that wouldn't fit with the existing 40K fluff at all. I hope that's not what they're trying to say, and if they are then the Librarian references in 'Descent of Angels' are really off base!

I'm not really commenting on the continuity issues, just the problem with the Primarchs' sudden acceptance of chaos you brought up in the last comment.
This sudden change is a problem George Lucas seemed to run into while scripting the awful Star Wars prequels; how to show a gradual descent into evil and madness in a believable yet rapid manner.
Obviously no one just becomes "evil" overnight, but how does a writer show this shift towards the chaotic elements of the universe in a short novel or series of novels?
It's a hard transition to sell- most classic literature deals with these themes- and (lets be honest here) GW is not hiring literati. I'm not downplaying your criticism (it seems valid to me) but it takes a dang good writer to pull off this kind of character development.

I definitely think you are right that it can be hard to write the fall of a morally strong person, but the thing is, especially with the first book I really think they got it right unlike Lucas in Star Wars.

Lucas seemed too afraid to actually have his character turn based on plausible natural feelings and instead had to concoct some stupid. . ."I've had visions padme is going to die and only palpatine has the power to save her" malarky.


The sad thing is, he had already built plenty of motivation into the story so that Anakin could have easily switched voluntarily.

How about the Jedi order not letting him go save his mother when he had visions about her getting killed? How about the Jedi order not letting him be with the woman he loves? How about the Jedi order telling him he's the "chosen one" and then not letting him advance as quickly through the ranks as he should?

All these things are natural motivators which Lucas could have used to have Anakin willingly choose to betray the Jedi council. But Lucas likes (nowadays) likes to have very black-and-white decisions.


But I digress, back to the HH series!


I think they set up the marine's potential "fall" rather well by giving them reason to hate the beurocracy emergving to control the imperium and blaming the Emperor for abandoning them to do his dirty work.

It makes sense that some marines would feel the urge to rebel. I just wish for plausibility's sake instead of one guy (Erebus) secretly discovering the power of Chaos and then spreading it around to everyone else that they had made mention of Chaos as an idea that everyone knew about but dismissed as impure.

In other words, Erebus should have been the one telling everyone:

"Hey, we should USE Chaos because it will give us the real power we need to unit the galaxy and the Emperor knew how powerful it really is and didn't want us to use it"

instead of (essentially):

"Hey there's this secret thing called Chaos that none of the hundreds of planets we've conqured worshipped, but that power is totally out there and nobody else knows about it."


I guess that the EC book really irked me because EVERYONE who went to the Laern temple turned into a raving Slaanesh lunatic, which is NOT how Chaos works. People who are inclined to worship a Chaos god are going to start following and worshiping that god whether they even know they are or not.

Sure, a particularly potent temple could sway those who wouldn't normally be swayed but there should still be individuals who are pure of heart who aren't affected by it.

The book should have included some characters who visited the temple and were not affected to illustrate that it was the people who were interested in perfection/pleasure above all other things that became enraptured by the Laern temple.

The Decline and Fall of the 40K background began with Alan Merrett's vision of the Horus Heresy.

I'm not sure why they are making these wholesale changes other than to be able to say that they "put their stamp" on the background.

Even at the cost of jettisoning the best parts of the story, and worse, making the whole thing into a jumbled mess.

Of course, the old fallback of "it is all true, as it was all from so long ago no one can be sure what is right and waht isn't!" is out there... And it is canon!

Alpharius wrote:Of course, the old fallback of "it is all true, as it was all from so long ago no one can be sure what is right and waht isn't!" is out there... And it is canon!

Quoted for truth, yo.

I haven't read the HH series, but I've read enough 40k novels by enough different authors to have observed that even though each author is obviously writing about the same universe using roughly the same terminology, each other has their own very unique take on the universe. Take for example Dan Abnett (Gaunt's Ghosts) vs. Mitchel Scanlon (Fifteen Hours). In Abnett's IG universe, while heroes die - sometimes ignominious deaths - their purpose in a war is never senseless. Scanlon takes a very Catch-22/All Quiet on the Western Front view of the Guard where purpose is infrequent and random and senselessness is the status quo. I'm just picking these two examples out to show the inconsistency on how similar experiences are described. That being said, you could make similar points about real life historical accounts...but that's neither here nor there.

It seems to me that if GW was really concerned about detailed consistency among their writers that they could have their BL editors edit for consistency like that. But frankly, just from the number of typos I find in each BL book, it seems like quality control among BL editors is somewhat lacking.

You will enjoy Legion yakface, as it is set at the time of Ullanor and plugs a few of the complaints in your first post. I wont go into details/spoilers but will recommend it

Yak,

IIRC, this is all taking place while terra has a ban on all non essential psykers. Legions are not permitted to practice or use these arts yet, hence the down fall of Magnus and Prospero.

In that theory, the itorators are used to teach blind faith in the Emporers wisdom, combined with warp shields, that would be why you see very little knowledge or corruption.

I agree, I think seeing some worlds with at least cults, and maybe some beasts would have made much more sense; even if they were simply classified as Xenos.

I particularly did not like the whole Erubus (sp), it seemed silly to me that someone as talented as Horus in the art of discussion and persuasion would have picked up on the Word Bearer right away. I would of been more inclined to believe his downfall from diplomatic meetings with corrupt//chaos leaders (unknowingly to Horus), a fight going bad, wounding, and then being taken to Davin.

World Eators - no need to explain. Everyone sees that coming.

EC's - Fell a bit too quickly, should have played on the eccentric aspects of Fulgrim more. For someone who has such a tough psycic ward, he fell instantly to the spell being cast at the temple.

Death Gaurd - a good read, but I felt I was reading about the imperial gaurd falling, not the DG. Not much that really shows Moratorians decision to join Horus. I have to assume it was total loyalty. I know that Typhus brings them down to Nurgle later on.

Vero has it. I just happened to finish reading Galaxy in Flames not a week ago (catching up on the HH series). In there Horus mentions that Magnus is sulking after being told to not pursue the dark arts.

Further, don't forget that "Descent of Angels" takes place around the time the Lion was found. There were a few hundred years in between the time those events took place and when the Heresy occured.

I agree with the "suddenly we found chaos and it all fell apart" line of thinking. It's kinda like they're smacking you over the head with the "and then they fell" meme.

Also, IIRC, when the traitor legions turned... those that were not sent to Isstvan V were just flat out murdered on the ships.