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Johnnyboy955 wrote:" However, another given reason is that, a scant two years before the Horus Heresy began, Alpharius Omegon was contacted by a Xenos organisation known as the Cabal, which presented the primarch with visions of the Heresy to come and other predictions of the future as well as knowledge about the nature of Chaos. They were shown that the only outcomes of the Heresy were that, if the Emperor won, humanity's existence would be ensured for ten or twenty thousand years of decay before they and the galaxy were consumed by Chaos and that, if Horus won, humanity would perish inside two generations, taking the Chaos powers into oblivion with them, thus saving the rest of the galaxy. The Alpha Legion was asked to take on their greatest challenge; to defect to the side of Horus and ensure the final destruction of Chaos. Alpharius Omegon appeared to accept to this request."

That was when Alpharius screwed up. I kept wanting to tell him, They're aliens don't listen to them It's sad when primarchs forget their basic training. Rule 1: Know the alien. Kill the Alien.

Angron might as well be a Blood Thirster at this point (and indeed, take a look at his model in Epic) and the World Eaters could be entirely well-served as an entry in Codex: Chaos Daemons.

I'm for it.
The apoc rules were a little underwhelming. But then, it's not so much angron you have to be afraid of, as the twelve blood thirsters he brings with them... that formation is so mighty

GreatGunz wrote:it's not so much angron you have to be afraid of

I think i'd beg to differ.
Angron who takes 100 Grey Knight Terminators to Banish him. Not utterly destroy, just banish for a few centuries if even that.

I'm sure Typhus does his own thing now. He has the Terminus Est and is the Herald of Nurgle, Host of the Destroyer Hive, what does Mortarion have going for him?
A really nice carving of his name, on his heart.

That's hilarious, M_of_D!

Also, wasn't it Typhus who made the Death Guard plague marines in the first place?

Medium of Death wrote:

GreatGunz wrote:it's not so much angron you have to be afraid of

Spoiler:

I think i'd beg to differ.
Angron who takes 100 Grey Knight Terminators to Banish him. Not utterly destroy, just banish for a few centuries if even that.

I'm sure Typhus does his own thing now. He has the Terminus Est and is the Herald of Nurgle, Host of the Destroyer Hive, what does Mortarion have going for him?
A really nice carving of his name, on his heart.

It wasn't just Angron who killed all those GK though. It was Angron and his bodyguard.
The thing about Mortarion never happened. It was written by Matt Ward, and is therefor invalid.

Typhus stranded the Death Guard in the warp in order to allow Nurgle to force them to submit. So yes, he's a bit of a bugger.

The Traitor Primarchs really are terrible (apart from Angron), their old Captains/Advisors from their former legion turn out to be so much better.

I wonder if Erebus, which apparently means child of chaos, will ever be explained. Why did he choose to bring down the fledgling Imperium for chaos?

Edit: On second thoughts I don't want to possibly de-rail the thread.

Because it was written by matt ward, that's why.

Medium of Death wrote:
I wonder if Erebus, which apparently means child of chaos, will ever be explained. Why did he choose to bring down the fledgling Imperium for chaos?

Greed. It's stated flat out.

Arturius wrote:So that he could rule the universe and make everyone do what he said.

Chaos Marines can't really have a unified endgame. Every Champion wants to be the #1 guy, and Abaddon keeps them something like "in line" through a combination of bribery and fear.

If the Black Crusade succeeded, Terra fell, and the Emperor was torn from the Golden Throne, the Chaos Legions would probably splinter more than ever (lacking a unified goal). The various warbands would go off doing their thing, spreading destruction and death as they went. They're quite as happy to fight each other for power as they are to fight the Imperium, so the Chaos Legions would probably disintegrate into hundreds or thousands of mini-empires, with populations split between killing themselves in the name of the dark gods and going to war against a rival warband's empire.

Then they would get curb stomped. The entire concept of the Legions as anything more than a minor threat is misplaced.
The chaos forces that survive Terra (all three of them) would then be obliterated by Imperial forces. Destroying the throne turns off the beacon, but warp travel existed before the beacon existed.

Indeed, it may be the unintentional kick start that allows humanity to throw off the shackles of the Imperium and begin to prosper again. Dark Age II - This Time Its Permanent

I think that's a pretty good analysis: the CSM didn't have what it took to conquer Terra in M31 -- what makes anyone think they could do it in M42? Even with Goge Vandire fething up the whole Imperium for nearly a century in M36, the CSM apparently couldn't make a significant dent.

But there would be real trouble if they managed to extinguish the Astronomicon. Remember that the Emperor was working out a webway for humanity, before being rudely interrupted by Magnus, so as to escape dependence on the Warp for travel. The Golden Throne was Plan B. But in 10,000 years, there's no evidence that anyone else made headway on Plan A. So barring some real breakthroughs on Mars regarding Necrontyr technology, loosing the Astronomicon would do some serious damage. I don't know if CSM steer by it -- I can't remember if this is brought up in Soul Hunter. Anyone else want to chime in on that score?

Manchu wrote:So barring some real breakthroughs on Mars regarding Necrontyr technology, losing the Astronomicon would do some serious damage. I don't know if CSM steer by it -- I can't remember if this is brought up in Soul Hunter. Anyone else want to chime in on that score?

Yes, it's mentioned in Soul Hunter. When it's explicitly mentioned, the Navigator is distraught because she can't see the Astronomican from where they are in the warp. I took this to mean they avoid the clear shipping lanes and risk stormy passages to avoid detection. They seem to spend much of their travel time in storms that threaten to break up the ship (partly due to severity but mostly due to her inexperience and inability to control their ancient cruiser).

Other than that, I don't see why Chaos Navigators wouldn't use the Astronomican whenever they could. It's just a giant beacon saying "this way to Terra".

As I understand it, warp travel means leaving realspace for the immaterium. While in the warp, one cannot "see" anything of realspace, making it impossible to know what part of the warp corresponds to what part of realspace. The Astronomicon, however, can be "seen" in the warp because it is psychic energy. It's beam extends fifty thousand light years, establishing the rough borders of the IoM. It's hard to accept that one could navigate at all without it but presumably the navigator's own psychic powers substitute in, which I'd guess would translate into very slow going indeed. Does A D-B explain this?

Whether or not he does, the CSM would appear to rely on the Astronomicon as much as the IoM. So switching off the Golden Throne would be supremely dumb.

The whole purpose of worshipping Chaos is to achieve daemonhood and immortality. By fighting the IoM they try to prove their worthiness to the gods so they are "gifted" immortality. This is the only goal of every CSM; killing loyalists is just a means to an end.

Manchu wrote:As I understand it, warp travel means leaving realspace for the immaterium. While in the warp, one cannot "see" anything of realspace, making it impossible to know what part of the warp corresponds to what part of realspace. The Astronomicon, however, can be "seen" in the warp because it is psychic energy. It's beam extends fifty thousand light years, establishing the rough borders of the IoM. It's hard to accept that one could navigate at all without it but presumably the navigator's own psychic powers substitute in, which I'd guess would translate into very slow going indeed. Does A D-B explain this?

Whether or not he does, the CSM would appear to rely on the Astronomicon as much as the IoM. So switching off the Golden Throne would be supremely dumb.

Navigation in the warp existed before the Astronomican (although a similar system might have existed before the Age of Strife for all we know). Navigators are able to see the currents and eddies of the warp and presumably have some ability to translate that into motion relative to real space and time. They would have to, because if you think about it, the Astronomican only gives you one fixed reference point ("here's Terra") so you don't get completely turned around. It's like the North Star. You always know which way's north, but you still need a map, sextant, etc to get somewhere with any accuracy.

The Navigator's abilities are necessary with or without the Astronomican. It just makes it easier and safer.

I don't think ADB addresses it directly, but it seems like you can infer that in the passages describing her difficulties navigating, the Night Lords are either 1) way the heck outside the Imperium, or 2) are plowing straight through warp storms to get where they're going and ignoring safe passages.

Spending most of their time travelling where the Astronomican is either out of range or hard to see would explain why Talos and his companions have only experienced about 100 years of time, while 10,000 years have gone by to the rest of the galaxy.

@DeadlySquirrel:

I've been thinking about that over the course of this convo, especially in light of Durza's point on the last page about the Black Legion fighting for redemption in the eyes of the Ruinous Powers. It seems plausible to me that, at the ultimate level of analysis, CSM don't actually give a gak about the IoM itself. The IoM is just a target. Yes, they'd definitely nail an Ecclesiarchy cardinal to an Aquila if given half the chance but the rank-and-file CSM would be just as content to torture and mutilate an Eldar Farseer. The point is desecration and any race that holds something sacred is a worthy target, as far as pleasing the gods are concerned. The particular antipathy CSM have for the "corpse god" and the IoM is therefore just a historical factoid. If a CSM had to choose between obliterating a craftworld or a shrine world, he'd probably choose the shrine world -- all other things being equal. (OTOH, there are ostensibly fewer craftworlds than shrine worlds so maybe furthering the extinction of the Eldar is more heinous.) But the underlying attitude of the CSM is utter contempt for everything in realspace, including themselves insomuch as they are not warp-changed, and they are just trying to transcend into daemons.

Although otherwise tidy, the explanation does want for a further explanation of why more CSM haven't made it to daemonhood and why at least some (Talos, for example*) utterly abhor the notion. As to the former issue, maybe the Ruinous Powers just have exceedingly high standards? Then again, even Abaddon hasn't managed to become a Daemon Prince and he's arguably accomplished more than even the Daemon Primarchs (they're all miserable failures but at least Abaddon has given it more than a single try). So maybe the gods are just stringing the CSM along, granting just enough mutations/princedoms to make the carrot look tasty but using the stick a lot more often, in terms of the spawn-to-prince ratio. Tragic stuff, which kind of explains the second issue, about some CSM wanting to avoid the gods' attentions. And that's where the whole thing really falls apart and the reason why I started this thread. The CSM are motivated by the desire to transcend realspace -- except that, no, they don't want that, either, because it doesn't actually work out well almost all of the time.

* This is my critique of Soul Hunter -- at times, I find it hard to believe I'm reading about CSM rather than loyalists dressed up as traitors, e.g., Dark Angels. And like Dark Angels, some of Dembski-Bowden's Night Lords seem to indulge in "emo is the new black" style of anti-heroism. The vilest of them, the Exalted, is unsurprisingly undergoing possession.

Well as they ran away to warpspace to hide from total oblivion, maybe its as simple as "don't want to be hunted down any more," up to "want to be in charge now." Its a simple motivation for most other dictators, Spazz Emprah included, why not them?

CalgarsPimpHand wrote:Navigation in the warp existed before the Astronomican ...

Like what? The Old Ones used the Webway and the Eldar still do. The Orks ... well, there's no real evidence that the Orks actually navigate. (As usual, the Ork experience is a tautology: of course they meant to get to Armageddon -- why else would they be there?) The Necrontyr sure didn't employ the Warp to travel and the Necrons still don't. That leaves pre-Golden Throne humanity -- but I guess the Emperor could project the Astronomicon even before his enthronement? There's a lot of blinding psychic light on Nikaea, for example, when the Emperor is present there.

Navigators are able to see the currents and eddies of the warp and presumably have some ability to translate that into motion relative to real space and time.

Yeah, as I said -- and yet this doesn't make much sense, either. How do the currents of the Warp correspond to real space? The answer seems to be "not very much at all."

They would have to, because if you think about it, the Astronomican only gives you one fixed reference point ("here's Terra") so you don't get completely turned around. It's like the North Star. You always know which way's north, but you still need a map, sextant, etc to get somewhere with any accuracy.

No, the Astronomicon is more like a beam reaching out across the galaxy or a light bulb illuminating a certain amount of space in a warehouese. No Materium-based metaphor does it complete justice but it's more than just as single point. As I mentioned, the scope of the Astronomicon defines the boundary of the IoM.

The Navigator's abilities are necessary with or without the Astronomican. It just makes it easier and safer.

Given what we know about the importance of the Astronomicon, I think that's a massive understatement. It makes warp travel easier and safer over extremely short distances. It makes warp travel possible over significant ones.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Frazzled wrote:Its a simple motivation for most other dictators, Spazz Emprah included, why not them?

The Emperor had/has much bigger plans than simply being in charge. Without those plans, I doubt he'd even want to be in charge.

Thats new fluff.

Old fluff
- Travel existed before the beacon. It still does actually-else you couldn't explain the 1mm worlds fluff.

-Prior to the BL Horus Heresy books, no one said the Spazz Emprah had any plans for humanity other than reconquering it. Reconquista is an old, old mantra.

Thank goodness for new fluff.

Chaos says kill I'm all the gods well sort it out...

Fury_00011 wrote:Chaos says kill I'm all the gods well sort it out...

No it doesn't. Chaos says 'force them into a state of constant suffering so the gods will get more power'.

I think if the beacon was snuffed out the CSM would still be able to travel from point to point by the will of the dark gods.

Perhaps even a Daemonic Astronomicon?

There doesn't seem to be any such thing. Although I guess the Eye of Terror could serve that purpose, in a limited fashion. Navigators will do almost anything to avoid the Eye. I don't know if that's true of the Navigators working on CSM ships.

It's never really stated how exactly Chaos do it. It probably will be the Astronomicon, but I think they're should definitely be another option. Although that would kind of downplay the importance of the Emperor.

There is still the Astropathic Choir relays. While they enhance the signal, i'm sure by themselves they would generate enough psychic presence for a Navigator to detect.

If not, Daemonic/Possessed Navigators?

Medium of Death wrote:There is still the Astropathic Choir relays. While they enhance the signal, i'm sure by themselves they would generate enough psychic presence for a Navigator to detect.

If one was close enough. Also the Astropathic Choir is the Interstellar mail service and has nothing to do with navigation. Navigators don't seem to be able to double as astropaths.

If not, Daemonic/Possessed Navigators?

Somehow, daemons find their way into realspace at particular places and times. I think this may be a matter of unhappy coincidence, however, rather than something that could be used by CSM to steer their vessels by.

Ok I'm pretty sure one of the books had a sorrcer acting as the navigator for a chaos ship using his abilities to transverse and navigate the ship.

Okay but which book?

I guess weak Psychic beacons could be created by a gathering of Psykers or something. Each system would probably need to have one though, and the logistics of that would be mental.

I was thinking more along the lines of Daemonhost. They possess the Navigator before they leave.

For example,
Eisenhorn spolier... kinda, not really

Octavia, Soul Hunter's navigator, seems to have no ability to sense the psychic presence of others. She just knows how to steer space boats through the warp.