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Vengeful Spirit OOC

Started by Inquisitor Sargoth, January 13, 2012, 05:48:53 PM

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Inquisitor Sargoth

There are some aspects and parts of the 40k universe that don't make sense to me, something I'm sure we can all agree with, and my tactic to such things has always been to try and make myself understand them. Not as a shameless apologist for a determinedly dark universe based on a tabletop game – I twist things until they make sense for me.

And I have a lot of questions for the Emperor of Mankind. He made a lot of mistakes, some of them astonishingly short-sighted, over the course of the Great Crusade, culminating in the Heresy. The novelisations have (wisely) avoided trying to get into the head of a creature that truly could be mistaken for a god, but this does mean lots of these mistakes, these questions, go unexplained and unanswered. After all, who would dare to question the Emperor? Who would call the old man out?

Only one name truly springs to mind. Perhaps his closest advisors, Malcador, might have had some input, but there was only moment I think when the Emperor could have been questioned by a man who knew precisely what his mistakes had been, what they had cost and had the chutzpah and, indeed, malice to say so. The man is, of course, Horus. Horus, who lost his own sense of purpose as chaos overtook him, his rebellion turning into a darker battle, not for the mere mantle of Emperor, but for the fate of Imperium and even the galaxy itself. He's pretty interesting too, considering just how far he fell from grace.

In writing this I felt I was committing a taboo act; I've never seen or read any takes on the battle of Horus' flagship so it feels rather wrong of me to do so.  I suppose, in time, we'll see it when the novels reach Terra for the final battle, but this is about my twist of events. They work for me, my take on things. I don't care for long descriptions of a fight that is, probably, beyond mortal description. I only care, really about what a father says to his prodigal son. What one tyrant says to another. So... This is a stripped-down, mostly dialogue, version of those final moments for you all to tear to pieces.
One More Hit - A tale of addiction.

Wulf

Hello. Been some time. Anyways...

I enjoyed this. The decision to focus on dialogue over combat was absolutely the right thing to do and I must say you write dialogue very well. Horus, Sanguinius and the Emperor all sounded as I would have expected them to.

Horus and Sanguinius were very much how I've imagined them. One problem with Horus is that while he calls his father into question for his choices, he never presents much alternatives, other than letting the Primarchs do as they would like. Kind of reminds me of opposition party rhetoric, eh?

The problem with writing the Emperor is obviously that he's supposedly a superhuman genius, far beyond mortal limits, so he presents somewhat of a challenge to depict. Still, I felt you did a good job with him.

The difficulty with this kind of story is that the enjoyment of the reader depends very much on whether he shares the ideas put forth. I find myself disagreeing here and there, but that doesn't make the story any less well written or interesting. Once I asked myself whether I'm actually disagreeing with you, or your characters and their opinions, it actually made the story even better. I found myself being somewhat of an apologist for the Emperor, so it was quite natural that I did not agree with everything Horus said.

Another problem is that many of the issues are such that you could write a whole debate about them, an entire story instead of a paragraph. So I found myself wanting more once again. One thing in particular that I've always wondered is what if Horus had won? What the heck would have happened? As far as I've read, he's never been shown as having had a plan for after defeating the Emperor. Of course he could have just winged it, but...

I'll throw some ideas at you about the Primarchs, if you're interested, but I must say that they're not all that groundbreaking or well thought out.

I trust that you're familiar with NoPoet´s The Last Day, but in case you aren't check it out on ImpLit. It's a great read about the same scene.

Finally, to sum it all up, very good work, as always. Keep it up.

Inquisitor Sargoth

#2
Cheers for the feedback, Wulf. Thought this one had gone unnoticed!

I think my own motivations on this was a portrayal of Horus as being sane and rational, making cogent argument, though in many ways I was too kind to him in terms of caring about how the Emperor mistreated his brothers - Horus was the favoured child. I doubt he cared much, truly. Pretty much everything he says is to hurt the Emperor - mentioning the sons he failed to save, blaming him for every traitor... The party rhetoric line was something I was consciously channeling - their conversation is a battle of ideology, after all. I also liked that for a moment he seemed almost tempted by the Emperor's offer of redemption, and yet his final action (when no longer filled with the power of chaos) was to spit on the Emperor, to show that the hatred was at least in part his own rather than all just being chaotic taint. I dislike the way chaos is sometimes portrayed as being an external source of taint - I prefer to see it exaggerating what is already there.

With the Emperor I was an apologist too, I felt the need to defend his numerous, numerous mistakes because some of them seemed a little too dumb for a near-God (not warning people about chaos, telling some of his sons - Curze, Magnus, Lorgar- their entire lives were devoted to a lie) and this did involve my own pet theory - that he wanted mankind to evolve, that utopia was never the real aim, as well. That's an idea that many would likely not agree with me on, aye, but utopia is too naive a goal, IMO, for a being of the Emperor's intellect. Mankind isn't ready for it.

With all three of them I wanted to show mercy, something far too lacking in the 40k lore but it felt so crucial, what with the father/son/brother thing. Horus was prepared to spare Sanguinius and both the Angel and Emperor were prepared to spare Horus if he repented. In hindsight, I think I made all three of them too nice, far nicer than they'll likely end up when this thing is officially written. And, of course, I didn't focus on the combat which I imagine is what most people will want - an epic duel.

I'm perfectly happy for you to throw theories at this OOC thread.

Never heard of the Last Day. Or ImpLit, actually...
One More Hit - A tale of addiction.

Wulf

I'll comment more later, once I have the time. But for now, The Last Day...

http://imperial-literature.net/?p=70

Wulf

A funny thing happened. As I was unable to gather my thoughts into coherent arguments, they turned out into an IC story. One I'm not really happy with, mind you. Much of its potential went wasted, but hey, that's what you get when you have limited time and ability to write. It also turned out clichéd and unoriginal as [censored by the order of the Most Holy Ordo Profanious].

Please bear in mind that I haven't read the Horus Heresy in its entirety. I'm about halfway through Fulgrim at the moment, so please forgive any conflicts with the later books.

The text will bear many similarities to yours, mainly because I agree with many of your ideas. Although I must say that I envy your ability to write dialogue. Proofreading mine made me cringe at times.

I'll write more again when I have the time, but now I have to go...

Linky link: http://www.the-conclave.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=1924.0

Feel free to comment and critique, of course.