Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I know a few GW employees who were very excited for the fact that they seemed to think 9th was going to "Massively push the lore forward" where it had been stagnant for most of if not all of 8th.

Having not bought or read through the BRB in 9th, can anyone confirm or deny if the claim was true? Are there any major lore updates for the universe of 40k in the BRB?

Thanks for the replies.

They've actually taken a step backwards, theyre now filling in stuff that happened in the indomitus era. It might end up moving forwards again but currently I think vigilus is the most up to date fluff in the time line.

Not advancing the timeline is a step forwards compared to 8th.

Now, if they can stop this idea of 40k being a story, and put it back to being merely a setting, we'll be cooking with gas!

 Dysartes wrote:
Not advancing the timeline is a step forwards compared to 8th.

Now, if they can stop this idea of 40k being a story, and put it back to being merely a setting, we'll be cooking with gas!

Yeah, you lose the grandeur of the setting when everything has to revolve around a handful of characters. Suddenly Ghazghkull has to be everywhere, or Cawl was responsible for it.

The setting needs to be event driven, the inertia of a multitude of actions, not the machinations of individual characters or prevented by the heroics of one person.

It also makes the history of 40k seem weird - like was no other Ultramarine chapter master as indispensible as calgar? Did no one before him do similar things? So much of the modern story is 'saved by hero X', and it uses classic narrative tropes to make these people seem absolutely essential to the plot.

But the imperium has had thse types of people for 10,000 years doing these things.

They really need to get back to the tag line 'but the universe is a big place and whatever happens you will not be missed'.

 Hellebore wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Not advancing the timeline is a step forwards compared to 8th.

Now, if they can stop this idea of 40k being a story, and put it back to being merely a setting, we'll be cooking with gas!

Yeah, you lose the grandeur of the setting when everything has to revolve around a handful of characters. Suddenly Ghazghkull has to be everywhere, or Cawl was responsible for it.

The setting needs to be event driven, the inertia of a multitude of actions, not the machinations of individual characters or prevented by the heroics of one person.

It also makes the history of 40k seem weird - like was no other Ultramarine chapter master as indispensible as calgar? Did no one before him do similar things? So much of the modern story is 'saved by hero X', and it uses classic narrative tropes to make these people seem absolutely essential to the plot.

But the imperium has had thse types of people for 10,000 years doing these things.

They really need to get back to the tag line 'but the universe is a big place and whatever happens you will not be missed'.

Totally agree, the development of a plot is one of the most jarring things about returning to the hobby. I mean they had occasional promotional campaigns that kind of nudged the story a little bit but it seems really hard to push against that now.

 Hellebore wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:
Not advancing the timeline is a step forwards compared to 8th.

Now, if they can stop this idea of 40k being a story, and put it back to being merely a setting, we'll be cooking with gas!

Yeah, you lose the grandeur of the setting when everything has to revolve around a handful of characters. Suddenly Ghazghkull has to be everywhere, or Cawl was responsible for it.

The setting needs to be event driven, the inertia of a multitude of actions, not the machinations of individual characters or prevented by the heroics of one person.

It also makes the history of 40k seem weird - like was no other Ultramarine chapter master as indispensible as calgar? Did no one before him do similar things? So much of the modern story is 'saved by hero X', and it uses classic narrative tropes to make these people seem absolutely essential to the plot.

But the imperium has had thse types of people for 10,000 years doing these things.

They really need to get back to the tag line 'but the universe is a big place and whatever happens you will not be missed'.

I both agree and disagree. Yes, there needs to be more focus on other Ork characters. Yes, not everything needed to be made by Cawl (a massive AdMech backlog of found STCs that Guilliman forced through the techno-religious bottleneck would've worked just fine). And I feel the Indomitus Crusade is a good era to be pushing those events. But what makes characters like Calgar and Dante standout is that they are the leaders during what is actually supposed to be the worst century the Imperium has ever gone through. Worse than the War of the Beast, worse than the Reign of Blood, worse than the Nova Terra Interregnum, on par with the Horus Heresy, if not surpassing it. The 5th and 6th edition core rulebook timelines were so chock full of galaxy-ending events, all taking place in this final century. They're trying to portray that no other Ultramarine or Blood Angel chapter master has ever had to handle the number of problems Calgar or Dante has.

@Jarreddm Are you talking about the Hive fleets and the Necrons? Or the fall of Cadia and the 13th crusade/assault on Terra? I mean, I'll take a failed crusade over the physical death of the Emperor and the loss of over half the Imperium's physical forces to Chaos plus the loss of several primarchs, chapter worlds, and a most of the Pre-heresy STC's for building tools of war.

I think it's less failed crusade and more: the Empire has been physically ripped in half by a massive Warpstorm (well who am I kidding, it's actually the Grin of Mork) and there are precious few connection points between the 2. So yes arguably it is worse than losing half their military, since they just lost half their planets instead. On top of the things you mention, more active Xenos, more Chaos activity.

The issue is twofold.

I actually support a gradually advancing timeline. Timeline advancement does not necessarily mean upsetting the entire setting, and the timeline advanced steadily during the 1990's at the rate of roughly 1 real life year to 1 in game year. Advancement in timeline allows for stories to be told and reach some resolution, and for individual characters to have development. By that I mean things like how Tycho went from a nameless faceless captain that got taken out by a Weirdboy in a battle report to a character with a Phantom of the Opera mask, to eventually having a heroic death in battle against the Orks.

The issue is when special characters dominate their faction so that the only thing of note that ever happens involves them. What happens then is a frankly ridiculous picture of the special characters zipping around from one warzone to another, hardly spending any time in any one, before zipping off again. Also if this action invariably degenerates into one special character of one faction clashing against that of another, we end up with the result of most superhero vs superhero movies (since the company does not want to offend either side by actually killing one off): stalemate At best you get maybe a Saturday morning cartoon episode with the villain getting a meaningless defeat that does not truly diminish them and swearing revenge against the hero. The status quo remains.

All the factions have to be less focused on their special characters. Not every Marine story has to be focused around Calgar (or any other existing SM character). Not every Eldar story has to name drop Eldrad or have him make a cameo. Etc...