Macharius Trilogy - Plight of A Guardsman

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**Commissar Benny**

I'm in the 3rd book of the Macharius trilogy & all I can say is I've reached a point in the trilogy where I can barely continue reading. Not because it isn't well written, quite the opposite. The hardships & burdens guardsmen must endure is not only a nightmare but just plain unfair. For those that are just beginning to read the trilogy or plan on reading it in the future you may want to not read below. I need to vent. Spoilers.

Spoiler:

**Wyzilla**

Commissar Benny wrote:
I'm in the 3rd book of the Macharius trilogy & all I can say is I've reached a point in the trilogy where I can barely continue reading. Not because it isn't well written, quite the opposite. The hardships & burdens guardsmen must endure is not only a nightmare but just plain unfair. For those that are just beginning to read the trilogy or plan on reading it in the future you may want to not read below. I need to vent. Spoilers.

Spoiler:

I'm currently in the 3rd book, but still cannot get over what transpired at the end of the 2nd book. The main character Lemuel, is forced to enter the warp or some other dimension, saves the life of some notable spacewolf (Grimnar something), saves the life of Lord Solar Macharius, saves the lives of an entire company of Macharius personal lionguard, has a near miss of death by examining something on the ground at the moment he was fired at while in the lead, gets stabbed in the abdomen by a Dark Eldar ARCHON & somehow manages to survive & what does he get for his herioc deeds? Promoted to sergeant & sent to a damn Nurgle infested world where you cannot even survive without a rebreather & if you get as much as a scratch you die & you fight an enemy without limit. What the hell kind of promotion is that? Saving the life of a space marine & the most successful imperial leader since the emperor doesn't warrant some sort of special privileges? That is some serious BS. Just makes me angry.

Meanwhile on a thousands of other planets, there are millions of snooty ass nobles who sit around & do nothing but squabble over petty politics & monetary gain. How the hell does the imperium even function with this kind of system?

Well for one, besides the guardsmen surviving bs, that's just run of the mill 40k for you, it's the life of the average human being in the Imperium without connections to money or power.

Also, it's not too surprising, albeit while not as dramatic, the same gak happens in real life. Just look at WWI or WWII and the average life of the grunt on the frontlines.

**morganfreeman**

This may not be the answer you want, but that sounds like a credit to the writer. Doing justice to the whole "grim dark" thing. The good guys win, the hero pulls it off against all the odds and doesn't die in the process?

Congratulations, he's still a grunt and he's still not rich. He gets a minor promotion and shipped off to some other place where he's just as likely to die if not more. Life goes on, the Imperium does not care, he is not special in the eyes of the gigantic machine which he serves.

Granted, it kind of depends on -how- it's done. It could be simply grime dork depending on how it's executed / written.

**Animus**

He had already been promoted from regular Guardsman to Macharius' bodyguard, so really he was just doing his job of tagging along with Macharius and protecting him.