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I'm really starting to dislike references to the cabal, can't we just leave it at a bunch of stupid aliens tried to trick humanity into killing itself off, it backfired, and the cabal leader got throw out an airlock. Besides their obvious lameness I also hate them because their trying to kill humanity off, not through war but by trying to trick us into killing each other off over ideology. I hope they either get fed to the golden throne or spend an eternity with Nurgle or Slaanesh.

I thought the writers at games workshop realized just how lame they were but apparently we keep hearing references to them, if something really, really, bad doesn't happen to them its going to be a major downer for me.

Whoa whoa, calm down.

I like the plot.
Also, they don't have any leader and the operative John Grammaticus threw himself out of an airlock.

Well that's just like, your opinion, man.

I quite liked the idea of the Cabal and I thought John Gramatticus was one of the few genuinely interesting characters in the HH series.

I've always wondered if the Tau were the Cabal's Plan B.

Why the dislike for the Cabal? You they said that they tried to trick humanity into killing itself. Horus was doing a pretty good Job before they got involved.
The options presented was chaos burns out at humanities expense if Horus wins. But presumably undiscovered human colonies would have survived, so chaos burns out at the 'imperiums expense' or the galaxy is plunged into a 10000 year long decline before eventually succumbing to chaos and the galaxy with it.

Alpharius puts it quite neatly when he says 'war is simply the galaxies hygiene' and that their is no such thing as a utopian society, that all Empires crumble. That it's just a matter of time.

That is essentially Alpharius's reasoning. The Imperium although a lofty goal is idealistic and will ultimately fail. The Alpha Legion simply do what they can to avoid mass human extinction.

The cabals Warning was simply dont. Let chaos destroy the galaxy. A noble warning.

The fact that you feel so strongly over the alien race making a tough decision for the greater good of the universe, at the expense of humanity, that seems to suggest Black Library did their job well

Anything in the fluff that has to do with the Alpha Legion these days is almost awful by default.

Sad but true.

That's mostly because Abnett wasn't left in charge of them, and Thrope and Sanders picked up the ball and ran with it.

I like the closet loyalist alpha legion.

Abnett did a wonderful job with them. And setting up the Cabal.

 Alpharius wrote:
Sad but true.

That's mostly because Abnett wasn't left in charge of them, and Thrope and Sanders picked up the ball and ran with it.

I won't lie, Abnett got the ball rolling on the suck, but he picked it up from the poorly written IA article from way back in the day.

I had and Alpha Legion army in 2nd Edition, and that was the last time they were cool in the fluff. The sneaky Mission Impossible Marines with master plan overlapping master plan thing is dumb. Space Marines are Space Marines. The original Alpha Legion were arrogant jerks who were always trying to find new and inventive ways to fight battles. Not new and stupid ways to not be Space Marines. The original Alpha Legion fought guerrilla war against the Imperium for 10K years because they were adapatable, but mostly because they had to. They were a small, decentralized force against a much larger army, so they turned to irregular warfare. Because they had to.

At some point, one of the military geniuses at Games Workshop (lol) said "Herp derp! So the Alpha Legion, they're all sneaky and like Special Forces guys being all infiltratey and sponsoring and training cults. How would they look in the Heresy?" "Well, Derp herp, obviously they'd have been the same way, right? But, like +10. You know, because it totally makes sense that an organization (Spess Mahreens) designed for large scale campaigns would instead specialize in not doing that at all. And the Emprah was always a big fan of Legions that took their time and were inefficient about the way they do things. I mean, he never punished any of the other primarchs for that." "Sounds good. Let's roll with it."

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Sad but true.

That's mostly because Abnett wasn't left in charge of them, and Thrope and Sanders picked up the ball and ran with it.

I won't lie, Abnett got the ball rolling on the suck, but he picked it up from the poorly written IA article from way back in the day.

I had and Alpha Legion army in 2nd Edition, and that was the last time they were cool in the fluff. The sneaky Mission Impossible Marines with master plan overlapping master plan thing is dumb. Space Marines are Space Marines. The original Alpha Legion were arrogant jerks who were always trying to find new and inventive ways to fight battles. Not new and stupid ways to not be Space Marines. The original Alpha Legion fought guerrilla war against the Imperium for 10K years because they were adapatable, but mostly because they had to. They were a small, decentralized force against a much larger army, so they turned to irregular warfare. Because they had to.

At some point, one of the military geniuses at Games Workshop (lol) said "Herp derp! So the Alpha Legion, they're all sneaky and like Special Forces guys being all infiltratey and sponsoring and training cults. How would they look in the Heresy?" "Well, Derp herp, obviously they'd have been the same way, right? But, like +10. You know, because it totally makes sense that an organization (Spess Mahreens) designed for large scale campaigns would instead specialize in not doing that at all. And the Emprah was always a big fan of Legions that took their time and were inefficient about the way they do things. I mean, he never punished any of the other primarchs for that." "Sounds good. Let's roll with it."

LOL. I have to say the only big novels I liked in the HH series where the Alpha legion were involved were Legion and Fear to tread. They were so boss in Fear to tread.

Well that's not really changed since the IA. Smaller forces spread over a larger area.

Each world takes longer to fall, but they will be attacking 30 instead of 3.

Even in Legion it mentions the way 'the dancers were used as bait for the AL to exploit' in the early stages of the book.
That is the way the AL fight.
But this novel centres around the imperial army and not the AL. These micro skirmishes would likely continue, chipping away at the nurthene. But Legion isn't about them though. It's about Bronzi and Soneka.

I didnt fancy it either

I do not like the Cabal subplot. I dont think it fits in with the heresy and I dont find it believable that Alpharius/Omegon would believe the Cabal and its prophecy. They went along with things too easily. The ultra-suspicious and sneaky alpha legion are the last legion I would expect to believe and go along with the Cabal.

Whenever a "super powerful" entity or group enters the picture it causes a lot of problems and inconsistencies in the over all story. I think the series would have been much better off without the Cabal


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 thenoobbomb wrote:
Whoa whoa, calm down.

I like the plot.
Also, they don't have any leader and the operative John Grammaticus threw himself out of an airlock.

In one of the stories Omegon tossed a cabal member out an airlock, I think he is refering to that.

I like the concept of the Cabal, but I don't like how it fits in the story. It just seems a bit hamfisted.
I remember thinking "really? this is a bit odd" when I first read about them.

The whole concept of the cabal doesn't make any sense in the HH series. Are they for or against the heresy? It depends on which novel you read. Legion says one thing whilst KNF implies another. Personally, I would have preferred it if the Alpha legion had made the choice to infiltrate Horus' forces without the need for a hamfisted 'mysterious aliens' subplot.

Fireytas wrote:
The whole concept of the cabal doesn't make any sense in the HH series. Are they for or against the heresy? It depends on which novel you read.

The problem is you think they care about the Heresy, or even Humanity.

They care about surviving. And to survive, they need Chaos gone. They see the heresy as a tool to do this.

 -Loki- wrote:

Fireytas wrote:
The whole concept of the cabal doesn't make any sense in the HH series. Are they for or against the heresy? It depends on which novel you read.

The problem is you think they care about the Heresy, or even Humanity.

They care about surviving. And to survive, they need Chaos gone. They see the heresy as a tool to do this.

If they need Chaos gone,

Whoa whoa, calm down.

I am calm. i'm matter a factly saying I don't like the plot or the writing about the Cabal or their mission. I don't tell you guys to calm down when you call my favorite faction "murderous emo freaks".

In one of the stories Omegon tossed a cabal member out an airlock, I think he is refering to that.

I was.

. And to survive, they need Chaos gone.

They need humanity gone, in reality their actions probably steered humanity closer to embracing chaos.

Honestly, at this moment of time, I don't know why Horus started the Heresy... as far as I can tell it's because he didn't have a statue on some planet and he got angry, nothing to do with saving humanity from the Emperor.

The Cabal, meh, they're kinda cool ,but kinda pointless and their involvement with the Alpha Legion and that story seems kinda unnecessary to me, think they should just have left it as it was but actually have given us more insight as to how Alpharius used the Legion and how he won wars and how he and Guilliman never saw eye to eye and how he was closer to Horus.

Omegon is cool and I sort of like his introduction, but I think Alpharius with a fleshed out back story would have been more than enough.

The BL are missing opportunities by introducing new stuff, that in the majority of cases have left me underwhelmed, when they could have used what we had but really given us something more. Perhaps though that would have been a lot less of the heresy and more reflections of before, but then again we already have a fair bit of before.

Relax; and besides, its clear the Cabal has so obviously failed. Take a look; the 13th Black Crusade has hammered open the Cadian Gate, the Imperium burns worlds and replaces them on a regular basis, the Orks and the Tyranids are overrunning entire sectors, the Eldar and the Necrons are preparing to carry on where the War in Heaven left off, the Dark Eldar are reveling, and the Tau, well, the Tau are wallowing in blissful ignorance (for now). Its a glorious galaxy of war...and it will never end.

ZSO, SAHAAL wrote:

They need humanity gone, in reality their actions probably steered humanity closer to embracing chaos.

I believe this is the Cabal's intent. In Aurelian, Lorgar explains the difference between existing in harmony with chaos, like the Gal Vorbak do, compared to being dominated by chaos, such as what Fulgrim was confronted with. If Horus wins and Lorgar gets his way, all of humanity would be bound to chaos like the Gal Vorbak. Humanity and chaos would grow so close that, the Cabal believes, chaos will become reliant on humanity to exist. Then when Horus goes mad and wipes out humanity, chaos will be trapped and will perish along with their hosts. Thus, for the cabal's plan to work, humanity has to become entangled with chaos completely and absolutely.

I still think the Cabal's plans were really far fetched. If, hypothetically speaking, Horus won and Lorgor managed to successfully arrange humanity's unity with Chaos, does the Cabal really think the chaos gods are so incompetent that they'd just let Horus tear it all down? He'd have to counter-scheme against Tzeentch, for one thing. Unless Malal suddenly gets a ridiculously orgasmic explosion of power from Horus' change of heart or something, but even that sounds ridiculous.

The Closet Loyalist thing makes the Alpha Legion look really stupid today. The Cabal's plan to have Horus win clearly failed, because Horus lost. So, if hypothetically, the Alpha Legion are closet loyalists, WHY ARE THE ALPHA LEGION STILL FIGHTING AGAINST THE IMPERIUM? Horus is DEAD. He's deader than dead. His soul was anhilated! Yet the Alpha Legion, IF they are closet loyalists, are still fighting to take the Imperium down long after the whole "Horus destroys all of humanity" thing is a lost cause!

Thus, the Alpha Loyalists are either actually traitors now, or they're closet loyalists but REALLY REALLY STUPID.

Know what's stupider? We don't know which! Let's say you're an Alpha Legion fan playing an Alpha Legion army. What's your hook? Are you a (stupid) closet loyalist? Or an honest Chaos fighter? YOU DON'T KNOW WHICH IS CANON. I suppose you could choose which one is canon for your headcanon and your army, but you'll always be left with the doubt that, maybe canonically speaking (and people DO care about canon when designing their armies), YOU MIGHT BE WRONG. And that's gotta suck for lots of people trying to play an Alpha Legion army. The only alternative is to declare that your own Alpha Legion army might not be following the true objectives of the rest of the Alpha Legion army. Congrats, now you're just playing some random warband with ties to a legion that's supposed to still allegedly be following its primarch. ...or a Legion that has no coherent or unified goal whatsoever, which, again, YOU DON'T KNOW is the case or not.

It's not even a case of the missing legions. There, you're allowed to make up your own background for the missing legions because Games Workshop specifically stated that's the whole point of them (thus, you can't be wrong about their canon because it's officially announced that you're supposed to make up your own canon with them). You don't get that with the Alpha Legion.

There is no canon. It's left vague on purpose, so that you can play either angle. People who care about canon are caring about their own interpretation of the background data to the setting we get.

If you were to list what is truly "canon" to the 40K setting, it could be done in... 50 pages. Maybe less. And this is including in-depth descriptions of who the Emperor was, who Horus was, the Primarchs and their legions, the Inquisition, the AdMech, and all the other institutions.

Everything else is up for grabs and open to interpretation.

Why don't you get that with the AL. There is no definitive answer.
Nothing about their background is certain.

Personally I think they are trying to engineer option 3, neither of the options the acuity presented. If both results have negative effects by siding with either side, then screw up both sides.

I dont think the Alpha legion are closet loyalists, that is too simplistic of an interpretation of the storyline in the HH books.

I think the Alpha Legion are in it for the win, I think the story plot is about them helping Horus win, while plotting against him and then going for the big win after the civil war when Horus is weakened.

Anyway, that is my interpretation of the story so far and why they appear to be working against Horus and are not following the directives of the cabal.

They ruined what could have been a great chapter in the HH as well as spit in the faces of Alpha Legion players.

JWhex wrote:
I dont think the Alpha legion are closet loyalists, that is too simplistic of an interpretation of the storyline in the HH books.

I think the Alpha Legion are in it for the win, I think the story plot is about them helping Horus win, while plotting against him and then going for the big win after the civil war when Horus is weakened.

Anyway, that is my interpretation of the story so far and why they appear to be working against Horus and are not following the directives of the cabal.

/tg/'s interpretation seems to be closet loyalists, but dakkadakka as a whole thinks little of /tg/'s opinions.