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 milkboy wrote:
Which book is that? I've only been playing SoB for a year or so. Have only read Red and Black and Hammer and Anvil. Are there other books with SoB in them?

The Death of Antagonis. A Sister is quite a prominent character in it.

As for other books, ones I can think of that include Sisters and portray them pretty well are Daemonifuge (a comic book) and the first Grey Knights novel by Ben Counter. Daemonblood is also a good one, but is just a short story. I also notice that your list didn't include Faith and Fire, which is another good SoB story by James Swallow. Though I guess you already knew that.

 Troike wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
I'd also point out as well that the faith of the SoB's is so strong that they're immune to the taint of Doubtworm, just like Astartes. Whereas Guardsmen and all normal humans are susceptible to doubtworm and it's lightning fast spread.

That was an good book. Setheno especially was pretty great, and a complete surprise. Only bought that book for the zombies, wasn't expecting an awesome SoB character in there too.

 Furyou Miko wrote:
Is Doubtworm the brain-zombie-daemon thing from Death of Antagonis? Because I thought a couple of Marines were affected in that.

Yep. And nah, I don't think that any Marines were affected. What the Doubtworm was doing was telling people that the Emperor didn't exist via telepathy. And if a person doubted even a little, they were zombified. The Marines were easily able to resist that, since they know for sure that the Emperor exists due to him being their genetic forefather (the Marine protagonist even laughs in response to the Doubtworm screaming at him about the Emperor not being real).


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 Wyzilla wrote:
Just some utter BS with the Inquisitor asking one question with the newly appointed captain just going 'OK, I'm going to betray my chapter now!'.

Wasn't this after that evil priest guy had started messing with his mind, or was it before then? Regardless, I'm pretty sure that it only became outright betrayal when the Captain and Inquisitor fell under evil priest man's influence.

Yeah, Death of Antagonis was a great book, did a lot of awesome developing of the Black Dragons as well.

The only problem I had with it was the author being bad at math. So unless they're not Codex size, the Black Dragons should have lost a full company and a quarter (IIRC, something like a 124 Black Dragons died in the course of it, yet somehow it was a victory and most survived). I also think it was probably the priest and the Astartes in question being weak-willed and alienated from his Chapter by being normal in appearance. Mainly because he didn't turn into a daemon and thus couldn't have been infected with Doubtworm.

 SisterSydney wrote:
Hmmm. Certainly, Sisters are a tiny and highly selected subset of the population. Certainly, innate ability -- even genetic "purity" -- is a big factor in that selection. But I wouldn't consider faith an innate ability, certainly not a binary either-or "you have it or you don't." To the contrary, Sororitas-level faith is not something the human brain just manifests on its own in the course of normal development, no matter how extraordinary the individual: It's something you have to be taught.

Spoiler:

You've got to be taught
To hate and fear,
You've got to be taught
From year to year,
It's got to be drummed
In your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

I'm actually currently taking a graduate course in military decisionmaking and psychological resilience under stress, and I'm astounded by how much of what we tend of think of as "just the way I am" turns out to be the simple result of repeated experience (especially in childhood) that hardens into habit -- habits that are wired in our neural pathways but which we can actually change. Repeated experiences can even turn on and off parts of our DNA ("epigenetics"), causing genes to express themselves or go dormant.

PS: I also have a fondness for Sisters with human doubts and weaknesses in my own fanfiction.

Given that this is a setting with an entire dimension of reality based on emotions and beliefs, I am hesitant to say that you can "teach" someone to be faithful to the extent that Sisters are. You can certainly train someone to mouth platitudes and perform all sorts of daily practices that bear the outward signs of piety... but someone either believes wholly in the God-Emperor in the way the Sisters do, or they do not. There's simply not a way to "force" someone to truly and honestly believe in the ultimate power of the God-Emperor as a divine being. You cannot "force" someone to completely, totally, unreservedly accept the belief in a divine force like the God-Emperor of Mankind. You can certainly train someone to behave in a certain way with religious trappings and all that sort of thing... but I think it is the "human doubts and weaknesses" that they are specifically looking to mitigate, and someone who just simply does not have the initial heartfelt faith will never overcome that seed of doubt.

So I think that there's a.... "You must be THIS faithful to ride this ride" sort of requirement for entrance to the Sisterhood. A foundation of pure, personal faith that the Sororitas will then shape and mold into a Battle Sister (or whatever Order she's going to go to, based on her other talents and inclinations). You could not, I think, take a child that, for whatever reason, just doesn't buy it and shape them into a Sister. They just don't have the "spark" that makes them a candidate. She might be a great Commissar or Inquisitor or Administratum Supervisor or, you know, whatever... just not a Sister of Battle.

I, too, like Sisters that have human doubts and weaknesses... I just don't think that their doubts and weaknesses will be based on matters of faith. For all its rigid military lifestyle, the Convents are still miniature societies that will have the various stresses of social life and social order, and the social graces and all that sort of thing, that can be a source of issues for Novices and the newly-Vowed (and not-so, as the Sisters moving from, say, the Orders Hospitaler to the Orders Militant might be in for a bit of culture shock), and while it's one thing to be willing to martyr yourself for a cause... there comes that moment when you're really about to do it. Letting go of these mortal attachments, to the Order, the Imperium, her fellow Sisters... that can be a difficult choice to make, especially if it seems there might be a way to accomplish the mission goals (perhaps in a slightly reduced manner) without getting oneself killed... or a chance of success without dying, where dying would all but (but not quite) guarantee victory.