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So I had to take a long international flight and thought the first Gaunt's Ghost omnibus would be a good read while waiting at airports for connecting flights. Over all I liked the books and will continue to read them when able/needed.

One bone I have to pick is the ending of Ghostmaker where:



I dont actually play 40k, just a bit of Necromunda, Deathwatch RPG but I love the fluff universe. When the above mentioned thing happened I was totally waiting for Gaunt to pull the Bolt Pistol and double tap the Inquisitor for betraying the human race. This is my read of it:






Am I missing anything here that would justify not letting the Xeno battle the Heretic? Would it harm the IoM if the Chaos succeeded in capturing or destroying Dolthwe?

Aha! A fellow Tanith Reader! To help describe what was going on, SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!, (cause the button wasn't working,)

Inquisitor Lilith was on the planet becuase she was brought there because of young Brin Milo, the short story describes that earlier on in the book, but when the forces of Chaos move in on the Eldar strongpoint to sieze the webway, the eldar farseer creates a storm that blocks all comunication, and totally disorganizes both Guard and Traitors. He loses control over the warp storm though, and as a result, the Tanith that fall into it's "eye" think they are fighting on Tanith instead of being on Monthax. Rawne's squad goes missing in the storm, and with the forces of Chaos still out there, the Tanith move on to keep up the fight. Lilith joins them due to her suspicions still about Milo, and because a warp storm is currently throwing a party on Monthax, and a strong one at that. In the end, the Tanith find the stronghold, think that they are fighting with other guardsmen, but discover theyre allies are eldar, (thanks to Larkins scope), and Guant and Lilith meet the farseer of the eldar craftworld, Dolthwe. The farseer then dies, leaving the webway to Dolthwe wide open, and with chaos forces pushing in even farther, Inquisitor Lilith, who has always been intrested in Eldar thanks to a raid that left her parentless when she was younger, decides that she will help the Eldar close the webway, knowing full well, that she will have to go to the craftworld, and not return. The eldar agree simply because of three main reasons. 1) She has the power to close the webway, 2) She has the same name as one of their goddesses, and 3) that the forces of Chaos are only on Monthax to get enterance into Dolthwe, and attack the craftworld itself. Thats why there was an alliance, and Gaunt understood these things, and thats why he didn't go trigger happy.
Gaunt isn't your basic, imagonashootyou, comissar. He has ideals, believes, faith in his men, and will only carry out his duties as commissar only when absolutely nessecary, and this type of situation appears in later novels, especially in the novel, Traitor General, but all the same. Thats why Lilith wasn't executed. Gaunt ISN'T a normal commissar, he's a colonel as well, and seeing his men are the last of their kind, plus that was how he was taught, he won't go running around shooting Tanith or their allies right, left, and centre.

Sorry, for the EXTREMLY long post, but I don't shut up, Hope that awnsered your question!

Hey there, thanks for the recap for peeps who may not have read it for a while.

I am not yet convinced.

As you say Lilith was an Inquisitor, not even an ally but just someone with the political/inquisitorial power to make Gaunt do what she wanted so there is no case for "protecting your own" there.

And as for the three points you bring up;
"1) She has the power to close the webway, 2) She has the same name as one of their goddesses, and 3) that the forces of Chaos are only on Monthax to get enterance into Dolthwe, and attack the craftworld itself" not one of them shows why a Human (assuming the Scholar Prog still teaches its students to fear/abhor the Witch/Mutant/Heretic/Xeno) would arrange a situation where they help out a xeno, one who only just recently summond a storm that killed your men and forced your men to defend the xeno's base with psyker witchery.

It also makes Gaunt's job harder as the now have to fight the Chaos force all by themselves rather than letting the Chaos force expend itself on the craftworld.

HAHA! You've been paying attention to the books, something that isn't really common, and for that I give you props!

But as you've pointed out, the Commissariat teach their students to hate the xenos, heretic, and pretty much anything that isn't human. They do this so their cadets become commissars with fire in their belly and an all consuming hate towards traitors and anything non-human. Gaunt was taught all of this, but when he was transferred to the Hyrkan regiment and discipled to his mentor, Delane Oktar, Oktar taught him to look after his troops, not be the terror that most commissars are towards guardsmen. This has helped Gaunt establish a connection with his men. (A little off topic, but important nonetheless).

Now, it is true that looking from Gaunts point of view that his men were killed by a warp storm, an out of control warp storm, but nonetheless a warpstorm, he originally believed it to be the forces of Chaos causing it. But when Rawne's platoon, 3rd platoon, lost contact with the bulk of the regiment, Gaunt went to search for him. Lilith was still in orbit, and due to her inquisitorial status, she had overheard and located 3rd platoon's last location, right near the heart of the warpstorm. (Remember, the storm was created to confuse chaos, and manipulate the guardsmen into coming to the 'temple' to help aid the eldar, though the guardsmen would have only seen a mirage, not actual eldar, if they had, the eldar probably would have been executed). Now, Lilith was still suspicous at this time about Milo still, and seeing he was with 3rd platoon, right near the heart of the storm, she was worried, and decided she was going to find out what was going on once and for all. Now while the storm had released daemons and was causing the alliance between the Bluebloods and Ghosts to sway to aggression, the two forces still pressed on, until they found the temple that had been eluding them for days, (which is suprising seeing Mkoll never gets lost), which was under attack from the forces of chaos, who had used the storm to bypass the Imperial forces and lay siege upon the eldar's temple. 3rd platoon was there fighting with the eldar because they originally thought they were fighting for Tanith, on Tanith, but thanks to Larkin and Milo, they had relized theyre allies were actually eldar instead. United against a common foe, the Bluebloods, Tanith, and eldar united to fight against a common enemy. Now, with Farseer Eon Kull dying, the webway that connected Monthax to Dolthwe would remain open, and Dolthwe would die. Seeing that this was the only reason why the enemy was even on Monthax in the first place, Gaunt and Lilith decided that the Eldar had to escape, and the webway sealed. But the only person able to do that was Lilith, seeing she was a psyker. Because she had originally hate, but then curiosity towards the Eldar. (If you have the codex of the Founding, Turn to pg. 481, and read that page onwards, for it describes in more detail, what I am saying here). Lilith was the daughter of a planetary governess who was killed at the hands of the Eldar. Seeing her potential, the Black ships ruled her out for training. She swore to destroy any of the species, but then she decided she just wanted to know about the species. She had suspicons of the Eldar on Monthax, and she came for two reasons, 1) To check out Milo, and 2) To contact her nemisis. Instead of destroying the eldar though, she decided to help them escape. With the webway connecting Monthax to Dolthwe closed, the warpstorm dissapeared, and the Imperial fleet above Monthax bombarded the massed forces of Chaos who were still laying siege to the temple. As a result, all chaos forces on Monthax were wiped out.

So even though Gaunt is a commissar, he knew why Lilith had actually came to Monthax, and that to destroy Chaos, he would have to let the Eldar leave. As the Schola Prognetium would say, the lesser of two evils. He didn't kill the eldar, but was able to wipe out all the Chaos forces on Monthax, because they were ALL around the temple. So, I hped that helped clear things up for you, I should probably go to bed lol. If you got any other questions about any of the other books, let me know, I'll be more then happy to help out

Not to mention guys that allowing the archenemy access to the webway would be incredibly stupid, I think both Gaunt and Lilith realised that although it would destroy the Eldar craftworld in the short term in the long term it could be disastrous for the crusade and the Imperium as a whole.

Ugly Green Trog wrote:Not to mention guys that allowing the archenemy access to the webway would be incredibly stupid, I think both Gaunt and Lilith realised that although it would destroy the Eldar craftworld in the short term in the long term it could be disastrous for the crusade and the Imperium as a whole.

This pretty much.
Although the Imperium is officially at war with all xenos the commander on the ground is allowed some leeway depending on the situation.
It's better for the Imperium to take a relatively small hit and stop chaos from taking the craftworld and having access to the webway rather than saving a few thousand men at the cost of chaos gaining access to the webway.

purplefood wrote:

Ugly Green Trog wrote:Not to mention guys that allowing the archenemy access to the webway would be incredibly stupid, I think both Gaunt and Lilith realised that although it would destroy the Eldar craftworld in the short term in the long term it could be disastrous for the crusade and the Imperium as a whole.

This pretty much.
Although the Imperium is officially at war with all xenos the commander on the ground is allowed some leeway depending on the situation.
It's better for the Imperium to take a relatively small hit and stop chaos from taking the craftworld and having access to the webway rather than saving a few thousand men at the cost of chaos gaining access to the webway.

Lol, yup, thats exactly it. (I just like talking )

There is also the very, very, VERY important fact that Gaunt has ZERO authority over an Inquisitor.

Inquisitors answer to NO ONE other than another Inquisitor, and even then, to bring a charge against another Inquisitor requires the accuser to have *copious* amounts of proof... and if his charge fails? He's dead.

The Inquisition holds two groups as "above the law"... the Adeptus Custodes, and the God-Emperor Himself. Any and all other Imperial citizens, regardless of role, job, planet of origin and anything else, falls under the eye of the Inquisition.

A Commissar who executes an Inquisitor is going to be eliminated by the Inquisition... probably in a manner most horrible, but his death will not be quick, nor painless.