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So, I'll try to go light on spoilers to begin with, but its a weird book. Its also a Gav Thorpe book, so the fact that its kinda weird may not shock people.
Like the Dark Imperium novel, Indomitus goes to great length to namecheck new units. Assault Intercessors, Bladeguard, Outriders, Skorpekhs, Plasmancer, Plasmacyte, Royal Warden, it slowly ticks them off one by one. Cryptothralls come up the least, and don't get a description. The rest though... they're the Indomitus models. The text describes the skeleton on the captains shield, and the other skeleton on the standard bearer and gets really specific about the oddest things, like the scarab's wound on 6 ability (not by name, but its clear that's what's being referenced)
The novel is essentially the converging stories of three Ultramarines and four necrons, a captain and his two lieutenants, and an Overlord, his Royal Warden, a plasmancer cryptek sent along, and a skorpekh lord who basically interacts with no one.
There is also a Judiciar, a chaplain, and various humans (astropath, some bridge crew, navigators, a governor and his attendant Sister Famulous, miscellaneous others, but they're more plot devices than characters. Pretty much no one not mentioned in this list even gets a name.
As for possible game reveals, there are still anti-grav destroyers swooping around, but there are also skorpekh units with guns. Also some lychguard with guns, which sadly makes it slightly more dubious that the former will see model form, sadly
Intercessors, Outrider bikes and even Aggressors get dropped onto a planet by Drop Pod, so... yeah. Look forward to Primaris Drop Pods (or, less likely, a rule change allowing for Primaris in existing drop pods). Aggressors getting to rid along in almost anything violates the ever-shifting rules of Marine Transport Tetris, so that's a surprise.
----
The book itself is divided into three parts, and chapter numbers are repeated for each part, which I personally find super annoying.
Part 1 gives the intro, where the marines are chasing heretics and the necrons are installing their super-mega-warp suppression pylon according to the Silent Kings will.
Necrons are... well, there isn't any soft way to say it. The necrons in this book are wireless networked jackasses that are functionally indistinguishable from humans. They're not even vaguely alien. They talk about cortical interfaces and resonance a lot (68 times each, including variations). They're not particularly Egyptian, thankfully, except by personal name, a few titles and Gav really likes the word 'mastaba' and grossly misuses it 14 times over the course of the text. I'm not sure if he was going for the Egyptian meaning of 'a sloped underground tomb with a ritual space for offerings,' or the Arabic meaning of 'bench,' but he means 'command dais,' and characters are frequently on top of one. Various titles and names (mostly tossed around by the Overlord), do sound sort of pseudo-Egyptian.
He does superficially use mastaba, personal names and flamboyant titles enough that if someone who knew nothing about Necrons or 40k read this book, I would not be surprised if they thought Necrons were ancient Egyptian robots with human minds. There just isn't anything alien about any of them, even the Skorpekh lord. Cortical interfaces abound, and everyone can interface with anything they aren't locked out of (including each other), so the two drones on the catacomb command barge look even sillier now. They're completely extraneous- none of the necrons really touch anything in their environments. They think at them.
On the Space Marine side, Part 1 sets up a Chekov's Gun that never gets fired, except possibly in a vague metaphorical sense. The Space Marine characters are... somewhat interesting (all primaris, of course, there are zero non-primaris in this book). Mostly because unlike the necrons, two of them actually feel really alien. One of the Lieutenants, Praxamedes , is a veteran who got promoted through sheer attrition. He's introduced as not particularly confident about being a lieutenant. His new captain and the other lieutenant are both recent reinforcements and have their command training by way of hypno-induction. This sets up exactly the sort of conflict you'd expect, except they're ultramarines, so the chain of command is a heavy weight on the whole thing. They are oddly snippy with each other, however. They start of chasing heretics, and events put them on course with what the Necrons are doing.
I'll leave the details as a surprise, however, as well as parts 2 and 3.
The big thing with marines, is the captain and the other lieutenant are weird. They lack Praxamedes' ability to have a functional conversation or rapport with the non-marine crew members, and sometimes seem like they're on the edge of losing it. At one point the captain is caught by an emergency in the middle of the arming ritual (donning his armor), and his thought process is incredibly messed up, to the point that the act of having the armor emplaced on him is also fortifying his mind, to the point that he has a internal monologue about not feeling fully like a person or in full possession of his command faculties when he's not wearing it. To the point that during a warp-jump emergency, he takes the further 12-13 minutes to finish the ritual before finding out what the emergency even is. This seems... non-functional. The armoring process for space marines has been described as involved before, but this is caught-with-your-pants-down-oh-you're-dead territory.
The necron personalities are... less interesting. But very spoilery: Seriously. Spoilers. Warning.
Spoiler:
The overlord, Simut, is an idiot. Pure and simple. Hubris, idiocy, incompetence. As the main 'villain' it makes him about as threatening as a grot. But since he's overlord, he has command protocols that can override any 'cortical interface' of anyone in his fleet at any distance. But he doesn't like to be polluted by 'lower orders' so he often doesn't do that. He also believes himself to be related to the Silent King by blood. Its not clear that this is actually true, and no one else gives a fig about it. He actually has several fantasies about his former life, and is well aware that the SK's plot ultimately involves transferring back to biological bodies (likely human, which again tosses the 'alien' qualities of necrons under the bus)
The royal warden doesn't actually belong to the overlord. He's more the Silent Kings voice in Simut's court, but functions as a Lieutenant and Grand Vizier, and does the things the Overlord doesn't want to. You'd think this would go somewhere, but... no. Because...
the grand vizier qualities of the royal warden are a red herring. The Plasmancer is the sinister one with nefarious schemes, because of course she is. Ah-hotep is her name, and like all plasmancers, she's apparently addicted to sucking energy out of things, both traits acquired from the c'tan fragments. She also has connections to the mysterious order of technomandrites, who don't like the Silent King very much. Or his goals. The other dynasties don't seem to know what the Silent King is doing with the warp, but the general consensus is they wouldn't like it. She is set up as an interesting character, intelligent, curious, and completely indifferent to her former fleshy existence.
The final character is the Skorpekh lord, Zozar. He's crazy. He also helped build the original biotransference devices, and was one of the first in them along with his wife and daughters (his recollection of them, other than referencing a lot of surface tumors, cancers and lesions, is infuriatingly human). Anyway, things obviously went badly for his family, and in his grief and guilt he picked up the 'destroyer curse.' Which... is basically a computer virus that can spread, and the infected want to wipe all sentient life and yadda yadda. If this seems incompatible with the Silent King's desire to biotransfer the necrons back to human bodies... well, you're right. Yep. And I just gave that more thought than the book did.
In addition to destroyers and skorpekhs, he also has warriors enslaved to his command protocols. Not sure what, if anything, that will mean in game terms. But in book terms, they want to kill everything sentient. Everywhere. And their 'virus' can spread to other necrons.
Characters aside, the necrons feel like cheat mode. Hardier, better weapons, omnivision (leaders can see out of the eyes of underlings while doing other things), teleportation, reconstitution, self repair, consciousness transfer, takeover of Imperial systems, etc. Except Necron Player One is a blithering idiot, so it all means nothing.
The premise of this book, the necron's anti-warp network is... really odd. The book does spend some time exploring it, and it makes humans not want to live, makes warp travel impossible, strengthens Imperial shields (yep) and is held off by psykers, preachers and marines. Literally, their mere presence makes normal humans more functional, because reasons. Possibly faith.
It also doesn't deal well with how this benefits the necrons. Yes, it renders warp things still, and necrons don't like warp things. But the Silent King wants to reverse biotransference, which means it would then affect the necrons, making them listless and nonfunctional. Also, nothing suggests that would even work, since the whole thing seems to be separating humans from their warp presence?/souls in the warp? Whatever, and necrons don't even have those. So.. it seems kind of pointless. And going from immortal robot bodies to dying biological shells doesn't seem like a win anyway, assuming they can come up with some sort of soul replacement in the first place.
Very briefly the book brings up the idea that the necrons are merely copies (of their original memories) and their translocation tech actually makes this worse, but it gets dropped really fast. So fast I have no idea why it was brought up.
Ultimately, the book sets up a premise about the state of the galaxy and says 'Sequel!'
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/07/26 03:14:59
I know the novels, etc. are basically just long form ads, but your description makes it sound like its completely devoid of any artistic integrity and was written purely to check off the boxes on a checklist handed to the author by the marketing department.
CoALabaer wrote: Wargamers hate two things: the state of the game and change.
It also doesn't deal well with how this benefits the necrons. Yes, it renders warp things still, and necrons don't like warp things. But the Silent King wants to reverse biotransference, which means it would then affect the necrons, making them listless and nonfunctional. Also, nothing suggests that would even work, since the whole thing seems to be separating humans from their warp presence?/souls in the warp? Whatever, and necrons don't even have those. So.. it seems kind of pointless. And going from immortal robot bodies to dying biological shells doesn't seem like a win anyway, assuming they can come up with some sort of soul replacement in the first place.
There isn't a requirement per se that a link to the warp is necessary for intelligent life. A human pariah has a negative warp presence yet they seem to be functional and intelligent. It is just the vast majority of humanity seems to have a slightly positive warp presence and seem to need it. That does not mean all other races necessarily need to be the same.
The Necrons as far as I see it, want to create a realm in which the warp cannot interfere with the realspace universe so there would be no issues with daemons or pesky psykers ever again. Then ideally their plan would be to find a way to engineer or hijack bodies and become a lifeform that does not require any link to the warp at all, like a race of all pariahs with at least zero warp presence. We don't know but maybe the original Necrontyr were like that? However in the past it suggests that the Necrontyr did have a warp presence, because they find their current existence unsatisfying, which might be the effect of their Necron minds or engrams missing the soul or warp presence of the original Necrontyr.
Now if this network of warp suppressing structures starts to significantly impact other warp dependent races like the Tyranids, it could be an explanation for more Tyranid vs Necron conflict and why the Imperium can still hang on despite more and more threats popping up. The threats end up having to fight each other more because they start treading on each other's toes. Even though the Tyranids might not want to attack Necrons due to limited gain vs high cost, they might be forced to in order to destroy the Necron structures and preserve the command and control psychic network that is the Hive Mind (of their individual fleet at least).
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/26 04:25:36
There isn't a requirement per se that a link to the warp is necessary for intelligent life. A human pariah has a negative warp presence yet they seem to be functional and intelligent. It is just the vast majority of humanity seems to have a slightly positive warp presence and seem to need it. That does not mean all other races necessarily need to be the same.
The novel doesn't give that impression. Its quite possible Tau don't, but everyone involved is human and the general effect is a sort of 'lay down and wait for death' response. It clearly isn't healthy, and the necrons initial desire is to keep humans alive for later biotransference experiments. So humans do, and necrons would be inhabiting those bodies...
Eldar would certainly be affected by it- there is some indication that it was initially made with them in mind.
I'm not particularly convinced pariahs have a 'negative' warp presence- or at least that its the same thing that this network is doing. Pariahs seem to repel warp activity, setting up counter currents in the warp that pushes away daemons and psychic abilities. This doesn't do that. It forces everything to stillness. Simply nothing warp-related _works_. They can't even translate to or from normal space while under the full effect of the network, and all the currents and eddies are gone, they ship just ends up moving in a metaphysically 'frictionless' environment that they can't affect at all. The navigators in particular don't cope well with the situation.
I do think its going to be the provocation of a necron vs tyranid conflict (at least from the tyranid side, the silent king already hates them). The problem is, it seems too 'big.' Epic scale- mega-galactic threat, the kind that almost everyone else would turn and kick the crap out of the necrons (including some of the other necrons), putting everything else on hold, and maybe even then it wouldn't be enough to stop them. I hate those kind of plots.
@chaosomega- that's overstating it by a lot. I intentionally didn't really touch on a lot of the story, and while there is a fair bit I don't like about it, I very much doubt a trio of passive-aggressive, snippy ultramarines are part of marketing department checklists.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/07/26 04:47:12
There isn't a requirement per se that a link to the warp is necessary for intelligent life. A human pariah has a negative warp presence yet they seem to be functional and intelligent. It is just the vast majority of humanity seems to have a slightly positive warp presence and seem to need it. That does not mean all other races necessarily need to be the same.
The novel doesn't give that impression. Its quite possible Tau don't, but everyone involved is human and the general effect is a sort of 'lay down and wait for death' response. It clearly isn't healthy, and the necrons initial desire is to keep humans alive for later biotransference experiments. So humans do, and necrons would be inhabiting those bodies...
Eldar would certainly be affected by it- there is some indication that it was initially made with them in mind.
I'm not particularly convinced pariahs have a 'negative' warp presence- or at least that its the same thing that this network is doing. Pariahs seem to repel warp activity, setting up counter currents in the warp that pushes away daemons and psychic abilities. This doesn't do that. It forces everything to stillness. Simply nothing warp-related _works_. They can't even translate to or from normal space while under the full effect of the network, and all the currents and eddies are gone, they ship just ends up moving in a metaphysically 'frictionless' environment that they can't affect at all. The navigators in particular don't cope well with the situation.
I do think its going to be the provocation of a necron vs tyranid conflict (at least from the tyranid side, the silent king already hates them). The problem is, it seems too 'big.' Epic scale- mega-galactic threat, the kind that almost everyone else would turn and kick the crap out of the necrons (including some of the other necrons), putting everything else on hold, and maybe even then it wouldn't be enough to stop them. I hate those kind of plots.
The Tau have a very weak warp presence as daemons still see them but find them incredibly bland and unsatisfying. However we don't know for sure whether it is possible for organic life to have no warp presence on a species wide level. Unless this novel has changed how human pariahs work, past fiction has depicted them as negative warp presences in comparison to psykers who are strong positive presences.
The Eldar would definitely be affected but they are already long term enemies of the Necrons so I didn't bring them into the picture. The Dark Eldar reside within the Webway and the Craftworlds are usually in deep space far from any star system, so they are less likely to be affected by this pylon network.
The becalming of the warp is actually the first reference to the pylon network in the first Necron Codex. The warp was so calm that the human ship was forced to exist further out from a star system than ships normally would and then had to crawl in-system on normal drives. Warp travel is supposed to use eddies or currents of the warp to take a ship towards where it is going. A totally calm warp means the ship cannot go anywhere. Navigators are still effectively psykers, in that their abilities are based on perception of the warp, and their special death gaze is a warp based power.
Epic scale threat is exactly how the Necrons and the Tyranids were portrayed in previous editions. Necrons were portrayed as having super-tech, tough durability, and massive numbers. Tyranids had massive numbers, unity, warp based Hive Mind, and adaptability. The Imperium was depicted as struggling against the numbers of Hive Fleet Leviathan, forcing Kryptmann to do his gambit since the Imperium couldn't win a straight out slugging match. Pitting the two neatly solves the problem of how the other races still exist against these seemingly unstoppable threats.
The other races turning against these epic threats and them fighting each other is a perfect way to maintain a sort of equilibrium in the game universe. Humans (Chaos included), Eldar, and all the other races become the spoilers as the two juggernauts of the Necrons and Tyranids fight it out. The Necron pylons become the explanation for why Tyranids, Chaos and the warp doesn't overrun the galaxy, while the pylon network is kept in check by the efforts of the Tyranids and all the other races so warp travel and psykers are still a thing.
The Imperium would also have to actually be a little bit more subtle than just bludgeoning everything with human wave numbers since the Necrons and Tyranids can both match or beat the Imperium in straight attrition. I think it makes for a more Lovecraftian universe if the Imperium isn't the big kid on the block anymore and humanity has to gingerly navigate a balance between two alien behemoths.
- Lord is an arrogant and/or insane idiot
- Cryptek and/or second in command are scheming
- Failure to capitalise on/use technological advantages
- Necrons are just robo-humans.
Do we get...
- Necrons are incapable of defending their tomb complex from a small group of infiltrators
- Necron tomb has a big self destruct button
- C'tan ex machina?
...too?
Lord Damocles wrote: Gotta hit those Necron writing tropes.
- Cryptek and/or second in command are scheming
Be fair, Damocles, that's not really Necron-only...
Terry Pratchett wrote:Once you were in the hands of a Grand Vizier, you were dead. Grand Viziers were always scheming megalomaniacs. It was probably in the job description: "Are you a devious, plotting, unreliable madman? Ah, good, then you can be my most trusted minister.
Lord Damocles wrote: Gotta hit those Necron writing tropes.
- Cryptek and/or second in command are scheming
Be fair, Damocles, that's not really Necron-only...
Terry Pratchett wrote:Once you were in the hands of a Grand Vizier, you were dead. Grand Viziers were always scheming megalomaniacs. It was probably in the job description: "Are you a devious, plotting, unreliable madman? Ah, good, then you can be my most trusted minister.
There is also an entire school of Chinese philosophy (Legalism) devoted to reigning in scheming ministers. Consider the wisdom of master Han Fei:
"The Yellow Emperor said: 'A hundred battles a day are fought between the superior and his underlings.' The underlings conceal their private [interests], trying to test their superior; the superior employs norms and measures to restrict the underlings. Hence when norms and measures are established, they are the sovereign’s treasure; when the cliques and cabals are formed, they are the minister’s treasure. If the minister does not murder his ruler, it is because the cliques and cabals are not formed."
- Lord is an arrogant and/or insane idiot
- Cryptek and/or second in command are scheming
- Failure to capitalise on/use technological advantages
- Necrons are just robo-humans.
Do we get...
- Necrons are incapable of defending their tomb complex from a small group of infiltrators
- Necron tomb has a big self destruct button
- C'tan ex machina?
...too?
In order:
yes. Oh, very much yes. Confusingly it was a cross between Starfleet investigating a borg ship (the constructs ignore the intruders while working on repairs), and then a bug stomp that was bizarrely reminiscent of the standard 'marines infiltrate a tyranid hive ship,' mostly fighting an array of canoptek critters.
Except easier, because Incursor sensor gear is freaking magic. They get ignored initially because 'obviously the primitives can't do anything to our technological might' trope (plus a touch of 'I'm too busy/important to remember I need to personally reset protocols from repair to defend, because I'm a blithering egomaniac'). And then, surprise, the mega super extra-melta bombs! ... that for some reason the necrons didn't notice or disarm.
... no. But the 'cortical interface' means they could have done.
No C'tan at all. But very much Plasmancer ex machina using powers their caste learned from C'tan.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/07/26 16:13:27
Thanks for the writeup. Sounds awful. I'll stick to my 3rd edition era Necron lore in the face of this stupidity because I'm yet to see anybody write the "robots with personalities" angle well.
Marshal Loss wrote: Thanks for the writeup. Sounds awful. I'll stick to my 3rd edition era Necron lore in the face of this stupidity because I'm yet to see anybody write the "robots with personalities" angle well.
I take some comfort in the fact that it has nothing really to do with necrons. Its just Gav chose the most terrible villain cliches to stand in opposition to his 'heroes'- Incompetent buffoon, generic minion, kill-everything-guy and nefarious schemer.
The interesting plot developments for the latter two just get tossed out the window at the end, with no explanation. The plasmancer in particular had a lot of plot hooks and ideas attached to her, but it honestly looks like he got to page XX and said, well, that's my page count. A few pages of loose ends later and its over.
Spoiler:
Rocks fall, everyone (bar one marine) dies. The plasmancer suddenly stops scheming and goes for a frontal attack on the Overlord right after she maneuevered herself into a winning position, but for some reason, completely misread the fact that she'd won.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/07/26 21:21:30
