WWII - Written and Directed by JJ Abrams

OPENING

ITS THE END OF WORLD WAR ONE - THE PREVIOUS FILM IN THE SERIES

Hitlers Theme plays, a wistful lament

a young man stands in shillouetts on a TRENCH RIM, staring into the distant sky, dreaming of adventure

Hitler - all I want is the secret of the jews

Goebbels - But Hitler, they keep the secret in a selection of boxes all over europe
and which they won't reveal
and the secret is always moving, you don't know what box its going to be in
so to get it, you would need to get every jew in Europe
but that's impossible, right?

Hitler - is it Goebbels, _or is it_?


CUT TO; POLAND

Halifax played by Domhall Gleeson
Poland played by Tom Hanks

Poland - don't worry, we can take Hitler
but you've got our back, right Britian, RIGHT??

Halifax - Oh we'll be _right behind you POland_

>CLOSE UP<

HE SMILES - ITS A SCAM!!


Halifax plots in PARLIAMENT
HALIFAX - It was always too late, but this way at least Britian will survive
BAM - A DOOR SLAMS OPEN
SOMEONE WE RECOGNISE - SOMEONE CALLED WINSTON CHURCHILL
played by IDRIS ELBA

CHURCHILL - game over Halifax
Churchill you fool! Its too late!
SMASH - CHURCHILL PUNCHES HALIFAX IN THE FACE
It's never too late Halifax, not with
close up
churchill looks down at an AMERICAN FLAG - THE STARS AND STRIPES
churchill - the power of friendships




HITLER TEARS OPEN ANOTHER JEWISH BOX

Hitler - empty! LIke all the others! No!

Hitler smashes the box in a CRAZED FURY

Watching this are Goering and Goebels

Hitler - More! I need more Jewish boxes! The secret MUST be there! It must! Goering take your planes and level London!

Goering leaves.

Goebbels - Hitler we've kicked Europes Ass! You were right

Yes, my plan worked, but what about the _jewish mystery_?

Adolf, bro, we kinda rule the world

yeah sure the world, but what is it all worth? Unless I _understand_

Adolf there are bigger things in this world than your obsession with that JEWISH MYSTERY BOX

Hitler SLAMS Goebbels up against the wall

NO THERE ISN'T WERE INVADING RUSSIA

But Hitler, the Russians have always been our friends!

What's friendship to me... _Adolf Hitler_?

Hitler SNORTS METH

hold on the faces of the MAIN NAZIS, Hitlers Theme rises,
but then
turns to a darker tinge...
camera moves across to the roofscapes of Berlin, perfect and untouched...for now...

and in the distance, the TIE FIGHTER MESSHERSMITS of GOEBBELS rise into the sky






SMASH CUT TO - CGI DOGFIGHT spitfires EXPLODO in the sky German Piolts SWOOP DOWN on LONDON - HELPLESS!

Gor blimy, there's too many of them

Our boys can handle it! Go get em lads

A SPITFIRE opens up with its PULSE LAZERS - in the rear R2D2 BLEEPS

Churchill - that's one down!

A MESSHERSMIT EXPLODOOS into scraps and fire

But another SWOOPS down on Churchills SPITFIRE

Churchill JINKS, the MESSHERSHMIT dives past

Churchill - damn, that was a close one! Gotta get out of this somehow! The skys full of them!

R2D2 BLEEPS a warning!

Whats that R2?

Churchill looks down

Churchill - No!

The MESSHERSHMIT, now ignoring CHURCHILL, is dive bombing Gladys who is PINNEd in the open

and she's holdin a small dog

Gladys - nooooo

She quails and tunrs away from the divebombing plane,

cut to the messhersmits cockpit - the pilot grins grimly beneath his cyberpunk visor

cut to the dog, simultaneous pull back and zoom (Jaws reference) as the plane dives down onto Gladys

cut to the Messhercmits cockpit, lazer-red recticules slooowly merge on the HEAT SENSOR body of Gladys

German pilot - heh heh heh, for you my friend, the war is over (Great Escape reference, classic movie)

The MESSHERSHMIT EXPLODES in the air

It's CHURCHILL!

cHURCHILL - Not today Ratzi

But nine TIE FIGHTERS are closing in on CHURCHILLS tail!

Lazer bolts blast past his SPITFIRE

R2 bleeps a warning, A bolt grazes the innocent droid (we can maybe string this out a little for a classic "R2" moment)

Churchill - guess I left myself open on that dive. This might be my last flight R2.

A PURSUING TIEFIGHTER EXPLODES

Churchill - Whaaat?

CUT TO: ITs a B52 BOMBER on a STRAIGHT DIVE, BLASTING TIE fighters out of the sky! Whoever they are, the pilot must be one serious ADRENALINE GLORY HOUND

Churchill - Who's riding that thing?

CUT TO: the Cockpit of the B52 - its FRANKLIN DELANOR ROSEVELT ...  and ELEANOR ROSEVLET (diversity)

ROOSVELT - You're all clear pal!

Chirchill - Franklin!

Roosevelt - Time to melt this popsicle stand!

tOGETHER churchill AND ROOSVELT blast nazi tie fighters out of the sky above LONDON

Below GLADYS waves - thats it boys! Go get em!

Even the DOG waves (close up, cute 'Indiana Jones' reference, but maybe we should have someone enter and say "Gladys, I thought you owned a Monkey? And Gladys be like - I did but he was kind of a HANDFULL, (glance to audience) you know its just a brief referencce for the FANS



CUT TO - A QUAINT ENGLISH PUB

Roosvelt - Churchill, I have bad news buddy, Hitler has cloned himself, and he's Emperor Hirohito

Chirchill - It was always his plan

Roosvelt - Winsotn, looks like we're in this war.... together

They grasp hands, a warriors clench

Chirchill - Just a war? Why not make it...

slight zoom on Churchills face, his eyes narrow but in a winsome rugged way

Chirchill - a World War

Roosevelt - heh, "World War TWO", I kinda like the sound of that






MEANWHILE - IN RUSSIA

Stalin - Kruschev, I like your style, but you are OUT OF CONTROL

Close up on GEORGY ZHUKOV, HERO of the SOVIET UNION
played by |Jason Momoa

Out of control? This whole WARS, out of control!

Zhukov HURLS his red star super medal towards STALIN
the serrated red spikes of the medal SNAP stalins pipe in two

Stalin - bwwaaaa!

(Stalin played by Jack Black)

Zhukov  - I'm otta here! Sign me up for an infantrymans pay.

rolls up sleeves

Guess I'll have to handle this one...

Zhukov  narrows his eyes...

_in person_

Zhukov  storms towards the door

Its the end of the scene right?

But NO - in a shock twist, he opens the door to find...

STALIN - this time played by LIAM NEESON

Zhukov  - Stalin? what is this?

Liam Neeson Stalin - a test Zhukov , one that you just passed

Liam Neeson Stalin hits a SECRET BUTTON

Zhukov come with me

They are in a secret map room, full of arrows, hot secretatries and red bulbs, red for communism but also for emergencey

Liam Neeson - Zhukov , I'm going to OK your plan, but there's something I have to tell you

Theres one thing that matters more to me than anything else
This city - STALINGRAD
Stalins finger jabs at a map

Zhukov - Why, whats so important about STALINGRAD?

CLose up on STALIN

FLASHBACK - OLDEN RUSSIAN BEARD AND HAT TIMES, SEPIA TONES, A SPEILBERG FEEL

A YOUNG BOY AND OLDER MAN - HIS FATHER, RUN THROUGH A SNOWBOUND CITY

Help, help,

People hear them, but _turn away_

Please help us!

A door slams in their face

End of the line Stalinsky

Slow pan round, shadows rise, close in on the older mans face, a young boy shelters behind him

It's you..

Ha ha ha

Camere WHIP - INTO-  THE TSAR

Hes like Voldemort, but GIANT and made of CGI

The TSAR - Stalinsky you fool, did you think you could run

Run... maybe not.. but I can still fight!

The older man whips out a RED light sabre

The TSAR - HA HA HA - just how I imagined it Stalinsky

The CGI Tsar pulls out a dual-bladed WHITE lightsabre (Darth-Maul Callback)

Son... *run* and DON'T LOOK BACK

Young Stalinsky runs as his father and the Tsar meet in DEADLY AND AWESOME COMBAT

CLOSE UP ON YOUNG STALKNSKYS FACE - TEARS

star-wars wipe into Liam Neeson Stalin, the same eyes, no longer do they weep, but maybe Yung Stalinsky will always be running, internally, like an emotional thing

Stalin - You see Khruschev, that city is rather _precious_ to me

a grim smile but we, the audience understand his meaning



Zhukov - Stalin, I have to tell you.. tell you..

Stalin - Spit it out Zhukov

Zhukov - Stalin I never really thought you would agreee

Stalin - Oh no? Stalin raises an eyebrow, a slight smirk, seems like Stalin knows something we don't...

Zhukov - Stalin.. Hitler has INFINITE TANKS.. there's no way we can beat that!

Stalin - Oh no?

A LONG PAUSE, MAYBE EVEN THREE BEATS - IS STALIN REALLY STUMPED

WE REALLY HAVE TO LET THE AUDIENCE DOUBT HERE GUYS I KNOW ITS RADICAL BUT GO WITH ME ON THIS

Stalin - But what if we had.... INFINTE PLUS TANKS?

Stalin, more tanks than INFINITE TANKS? But, but.. its not possible.

A curtain raises, revealing...... INFINITE, EVEN MORE THAN INFINITE, T34 TANKS IN PERFECT ROWS

Zhukov - Stalin... but how?

Stalin - lets just say, I like to _think ahead_...




SMASH CUT TO - STALINGRAD

NAZI STORMTROOPERS AT-AT's AND DROIDS ADVANCE THROUGH THE INNOCENT STREETS

COMMUNIST EWOKS run for cover, but they are BLASTED by the advancing NAZIS

Goebbels - This is the LAST BATTLE, with STALINGRAD we end this WORLD WAR, right HIROHITO?

Its the EMPEROR HIROHITO, played by CHarles Dance

HIROHITO - Yes. For I am the TRUE ADOLF HITLER (shock twist!)

The other Hitler is merely a clone of me, created to draw the attention of the ALLIES while my plans proceed _unhindered_

And it worked too. With this final conquest I will have completed everything, no force on earth will be able to stop me!

Goebbels - But Real Hitlerhito, what about the Jewish Mystery Boxes?

Hitlerhito - What about them?

Goebbels - What is the secret? The jewish mystery?

Hitlerhito - Ha ha ha. You fool. THERE WAS NO MYSTERY. THE BOXES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN EMPTY!

Goebbels - But, but, but, what about HITLERS obsession?

Hitlerhito - Merely a device engineered by me to motivate my unwitting clone. An infinite bluff you might say, while I concentrate on my real goal, the Caucus Oilfields of Midway island, and with Stalingrad destroyed, my way will be open...

Goebbels - The poor fool!...

an soft bleeping noise

Goebbels - but wait...

Goiebbels turns to a SCANNER

Goebbels - ... impossible.. NO!

Hitlerhito - yes? (Hitlerhito seems calm, maybe _too_ calm. Does he know something we don't? Hmmm.)

Goebbels - Its Khruschev!

Hitlerhito - No matter. My INFINITE TANKS will deal with him.

Goebbels - But my lord... I know it seems impossible

Hitlerhito - Spit it out Goebbels!

Goebbels - Its Khruschev, it looks like he has INFINITE PLUS TANKS!

CUT TO; ZHUKOV- RIDING AN ARMY OF UNENDING CGI TANKS WHICH STRETCHES OUT INTO EVEN AN IMAX SCALE SCREEN!

Hitlerhito - Indeed? Even more tanks than our infinite number of them?

CLOSE UP ON HITLERHITO - NOW WE SEE THE CUNNING OF THE TRUE, ORIGINAL, HITLER

Hitlerhito - Well well well, Stalin you old rogue, you finally pulled it off..  EXECUTE ORDER SIXTY _SEVEN_ (Revenge of the Sith callback! We never found out what the other orders were or even if they went above 66!)

CLOSE UP ON THE NAZI DROID TANKS

RED LIGHTS PULSE

THE TANKS START TO SLOW DOWN

CUT TO; the line of infinite Russian tanks commanded by Zhukov

Maz Kanada - Zhukov my old friend, their slowing down....

Zhukov - wait, somethings not right about this...


EACH NAZI DROID TANK SLOOOOOWLY EXPANDS

AND SPLITS INTO TWO TANKS!

WHICH HOVER ON FORCE BEAMS

CUT TO; HITERHITOS (NOW FLYING) COMMAND TANK

Goebbels - Infinity... times TWO?

Hitlerhito - Ha ha ha. More than double the number of Soviet tanks! AND THEY FUCKING FLY

CUT TO; MASSED CGI FLYING TANK BATTLE AS INFINITE TIMES TWO FLYING NAZIN TANKS SWOOP DOWN UPON INFINITE SOVIET T34S

ITS CHAOS - TANKS EXPLODO AND DROID BLEEP

Maz Kanada - Zhukov , there's too many of them!

Zhukov - Wait for it...

A FLYING NAZIN TANK CLOSES IN ON GEORGY ZHUKOV AND MAZ KANADA

Maz Kanada - We have to turn back!!!

Zhukov - Wait for it.....

CUT TO; BAM - IN THE SKY - THE TANK EXPLODOS

Maz Kanada - Whaaaat

CUT TO; IN THE SKY - ITS CHURCHILL AND ROOSEVELT (and Elanor Roosvelt in the background operating controls)

Churchill  - whooo hooo!

Roosvelt - Game over Hitlerhito!

INFINITE TIMES TWO FLYING NAZI SUPER TANKS EXPLODO IN THE AIR

ON THE GROUND ZHOKOVS FORCES FIGHT BACK

Zhukov - You see Maz, we knew that Hitler couldn't be the real original Hitler. He was different somehow. There was only one answer. A million to one shot you might say.

Maz Kanada - Ha ha ha


CUT TO; INSIDE THE NAZI COMMAND TANK

Goebbels - My lord, there are too many of them!

Hitlerhitso - Looks like I'll have to handle this one

close up on Hitlerhito

_myself_....

DRAMATIC PULL BACK AS FOUR DROID ARMS ERUPT FROM HITERHITOS JACKET AND BURST OUTWARDS, EACH ONE HOLDING A *BLACK LIGHTSABRE* (like the Blackrazor - Clone Wars reference)

THE BLACK LIGHTSABRES AND THE BLACK DROID LIMBS FORM - A SWASTIKA

HITLERHITO BURSTS FROM HIS COMMAND TANK AND STARTS MOWING THROUGH INFINITE SOVIET TANKS

Hitlerhito - Now my trap closes!

CUT TO; IN THE SKY, CHURCHILL AND ROOSVELT WATCH

Churchill - *Four* black lightsabres! Nothing can stop him! Its too late! Look, he's  nearly at the caucasus midway oilfields!

CUT BACK to the BATTLE - Churchill is right! HITLERHITO is carving a line right through the soviey army! Only One tank remains, crewed by Zhukov and Maz Kanada

Churchill BLASTS more tanks out of the air

Churchill - Once he reaches the oilfields he'll be unstoppable! And NOTHING is standing in his way!


CUT TO; the BATTLE

MAZ KANADA RUSHES FORWARDS TO STOP HITLERHITO

ZHUKOVIS CRUSHED BENEATH HIS OWN UPTERNED TANK

Zhukov - Maz! No!

MAZ KANADA turns back to ZHOKOV

Zhukov , this is something I *have* to do.

THEN SHE STEPS FORWARDS, HITLERHITO AND HIS FOUR BLACK SWASTIKA LIGHTSABRES (Darksabres) LOOM over Maz Kanada


CUT TO: The AIR

Churchill - Nothing can stop him! Nothing!!

Roosvelt - _Nothing_

Cut to CHURCHILLS FACE

Churchill - Roosvelt, no! Not _that_!


CUT TO: The BATTLE

WE SEE ONLY FROM ZHUKOVSPOINT OF VIEW AS MAZ BRAVELY BATTLES HITLERRHITO

THE PINCH FACED ALIEN DEFENDS BRAVELY BUT HOW LONG CAN SHE STAND

KHRUSCHEV REACHES OUT ONE ARM FRUITLESSLY!!

Khruschev - Maz! No!!


CUT TO; THE AIR

Roosvelt - Churchill, you said it your self! There's no other way!!

Churchill - Noooooooo!

Roosvelt - Its time to use my ATOMIC BOMB, the superweapon I always had but didn't mention until now

ROOSVELT HITS HIS ATOMIC BUTTON

THE BATTLEFIELD EXPLODES INTO WHITE LIGHT (just like the Holdo maneuvre - Last Jedi reference)


CUT TO: THE BATTLE

The last thing Zhukov sees is Maz Kanada and Hitlerhito consumed in WHITE LIGHT

DID SHE FALL? COULD SHE POSSIBLY HAVE WON? WE WILL NEVER KNOW


CUT TO; LONG LOW SHOT OF THE BATTLEFIELD, NOW A PARCHED NUCLEAR WASTELAND

"Hitlers Theme" from the start, plays again, this time as a lament

Roosvelt - You know it Churchill, there was NO OTHER WAY

Churchill - Unfortunately for you, history will not see it that way (Clone Wars Season 5, Darth Maul reference, for the fans)

Roosvelt and Churchill fly off into the TWIN SUNS

ROLL CREDITS
..
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

MID CREDITS SCENE

A PAIR OF BOOTS CRUNCH INTO THE NUCLEAR DUST OF STALINGRAD

THE CAMERA PANS UP

UP

UP

ITS ... STALIN!

AND HE IS *PISSED*!!!

Stalin - Roosvelt...

STALIN SURVEYS THE WASTELAND

Stalin ..... Roosvelt, this isn't over..


CONTINUE CREDITS ROLL
.
.
.
.
.

EVEN THE BIT AT THE END WITH THE COPYRIGHT SIGNS

BUT!

THEN RIGHT AT THE END BEFORE THE LIGHTS GO UP

CLOSE UP ON A SMALL FRAGMENT OF NUCLEAR WASTELAND..

THE SURFACE CRACKS...

A FIST PUNCHES UP!

ITS ZHUKOV! ALIVE!!

.
.
Roll More Credits
.
.
.
All the digital artists etc.
.
.
THEN
..
SHOCK (but _respectful_) end-credits sting and moving holocaust reference
.
Handyman played by GEORGE LUCAS (can deepfake him, Disney has the rights)
.
.
GEORGE stares subtly down into a GOLDEN LIGHT
.
GEORGE brings up a simple handyman's hammer

BANG

The light lessens, darkness looms

GEORGEs face takes on a look of DETERMINATION

BANG

SCAN DOWN

Revealing...

A HEBREW MYSTERY BOX! (Maybe not with the star thing, too political, something generic instead)
.
The BOX is hammered shut

GEORGE nods somberly, his work is done

He reaches down and begins to wheel the mystery box away

PAN UP

Revealing..

A warehouse of INFINIte MYSTERY BOxEs! (Raiders of the lost Ark reference) Hitler was right all along though not morally obv

FADE TO BLACK

Except for...

The following words..

STALIN and the ALLIES will return

In....

WORLD WAR THREE (Episode VI): COLD WAR

Solar Wind

I have been packing books all day and I will be busy as hell over christmas, so here is something nice to look at while I'm away. 

Rambled into a charity shop a few days ago and stumbled upon this book Solar Wind, a collection of the images of Peter Andrew Jones.

Buy it here.

Or the artists website here.

Guy did a lot of book covers in the 70s and early 80s.

Someone who I knew nothing about but who it turns out I really like, especially if I can get the book for £3.00!

Lucid Dreams

The Female Man

Not sure if this is what Joanna Russ had in mind but fuck it! Alien femdom!

From Inferno

A Canticle for Leibowitz

Neural Atrocity

The Zap Gun

I really like how the logic of a machine has warped into this insane chimera of form.

The Black Beast

King Kobold

The Complete Enchanter

Dab on them haters; The Sabbat Worlds Crusade by Dan Abnett

DESCRIBE WHAT THIS IS

For anyone who doesn't know what this is;

For twenty years and fifteen novels, Dan Abnett has been writing the 'Gaunts Ghosts' series, set in a particular segment of the Warhammer 40,000 galaxy; the Sabbat Worlds.

And not just a particular segment of space but a particular segment of time, about 250 years before the current 'now' of the 40k reality.

All of these stories take place in an area called the Sabbat Worlds and over the novels, short stories and various other entries, a handful by other creators, the history of the Sabbat Worlds Crusade has deepened and extended.

This Crusade, as a pseudo-historical event, got a background book back in 2005, told from an in-world voice.

Now its 14 years and several books later and Games Worship is BANGIN' with money, so Dan Abnett gets to make a new background book for the Sabbat Worlds Crusade, except this time its hardback A4 with gold goddamn leaf on the spine and loads of new art and maps, and a ribbon. This one is also written from an in-universe voice, and as it takes into account all the stuff that has happened in the last 14 years worth of novels, its written from an imaginary date several years on from the last book.

Being a shameless wehraboo, I ordered this as soon as it became available and Black Library were actually terrifyingly efficient and got it to my door incredibly quickly.

Considering that this shit is my jam, I own remarkably few highly-diegetic pseudo histories, I think this and the Gloriana book are the only ones that go this deep into it

My tldr review;  I have a few quibbles but essentially the only thing I would ask for is more.




DIAGEIS OF THE TEXT

That's; "how deep did they go on this in trying to make sure the whole book really feels like it comes from inside the imagined world."

The answer is; slightly imperfect but honestly pretty fucking far.

The only references to the real world are Dan Abnetts name and Black Library on the cover and an ISBN & Credits page at the back.

The book opens with an Inquisitorial investigation. This particular text was created on the world of Urdesh specifically to commemorate its liberation (as seen in the latest books) and draws information from a wide variety of sources.

Unfortunately for Garnyme and Brothers Printworks and Bindery, Strallent Street, Great Eltath Municipality (who have their own pseudo-publishers page at the front) and Ludovik Dypole, Emeritus professor of Military History Scholam Univeritariate of Ghreppan, Urdesh (who has his own author page), in interviewing a bunch of people and clawing sources from everywhere they have regrettably put CHAOS STUFF and SECRETS in here, which is one thing you are absolutely not meant to do, so now they are going to get a visit from the people Nobody Expects.

And it seems the book has been pulped and only this copy has been retained for study. So in the strange relationship of reality between our world and 40k, your copy of the book, the one you are holding, is the Only Copy.

Tanks with legs! Only dangerous in fiction, which, unfortunately for that Guardsman, this is.

ABNETTS HISTORYVERSE

The Gaunts Ghosts series  is a mad Collision of different kinds of stories - even within Abnetts main series,  the opening ones are very genre and pretty much 'Sharpe-In-Space', then they develop into this chimeric pseudo-militarism.

---------------------------------------------

(WHAT I MEAN BY CHIMERAE)

Most fantastic paracosms, especially science-fictional ones, are chimerae of the structure of an imagined future and the elements known to the present.

There's a William Gibson view that Science-Fiction is really always about the 'now'. This gains credence when you look back at old science fiction because it utterly reeks of its specific decade and time.

I believe that most (good) science-fiction is about the interrelationship between an imagined future (or just an imagined other) and the present. Most functional science-fictions concepts, be they machines, social systems, aesthetics, worlds, environments or whatever, are chimerae made up with the shape, form or blood of the future, but with the scales, feathers and claws of today.

So everything you sense of the Other comes in the clothes of the Now.

Then you can understand it.

And then once its dead or old and someone looks back at it, it seems almost like a ridiculous costume of the Now.

But they are never just symbols for known events or current things, and rarely are they pure dreams of the Other.

They are complex living relationships formed of an exchange of energy between the two things and explaining the nature of one with the matter of the other.

---------------------------------------------




One of Abenetts greatest strengths in these stories has been his ability to comprehend and accumulate vast and (relatively, for a genre writer) deep awareness of different kinds of warfare over a huge number of fields and to incorporate that into active pseudohistories which involve wildly different scales and forms of technologies, and to incorporate those with solid, animated, visceral and sympathetic characters so that you feel the characters and you feel the world they are moving through.

I've really taken to writing long sentences recently, no idea why.

He is really really good at making these fields of conflict, which are truly more like dreams, because if they were considered coherently; well the delta v for orbital war doesn't work, the titans will sink up to their knees, the space marines can be taken out by hordes of suicide bombers who cost 1 per cent as much as they do, whoever has orbital control essentially rules a world, the ammo logistics don't work, etc etc etc.

But you rarely feel these things in the best of Abnetts work because the of depth, coherency and selection of detail and his creation of a mosaic of details drawn from all over military history, here’s a bit of Stalingrad, here’s a bit of the Iraq war, here's a 20th century air battle at a scale at which those battles almost never took place, here's some 21st century tank fights but also giant robots stamping about, here's an early 21st century special ops team fighting their way through an early 2oth century trench war etc etc.

Militarism I would say. not militarism as absolute chauvinism or love of warfare and killing for itself, but militarism love of, and interest in the military and military things as and for themselves. Which is parallel to, but not the same as, the love of war for wars sake, (not always the same people at the same time).

40k warfare through Abnetts eyes is to me, very much a crazed fever dream of 20th century warfare, swollen to enormous scale and delivered calmly. Militarism as as art.



THE ROLE OF GOD IN ABNETTS HISTORYVERSE

Well there are literal diegetic gods in the setting, and there is literally a god of Fate, and the duelling prognosticator thing that we have in the Heresy books.

A pretty strong developing theme in a lot of Abnetts warhammer work is of these forces beyond time and space 'picking up' individual characters and in a sense moving them around, or presenting them challenges and opportunities, and preparing them for conflicts with each other.

The way characters respond to these challenges, whether they succeed or fail, can differ. I get the sense that there is some level of individual choice or low level randomness, so even the gods don't know exactly what’s going to happen in any individual circumstance, or which particular playing piece will make it to the end.

But there is a strange relationship here between the will of the Emperor and the desire of the writer to make a good story.

It seems like the one thing the Emperor and the Chaos Gods agree on is that things should play out in as dramatic and high-risk a way as possible, with as much as possible riding on a small handful of people and choices over a limited period of time.

Which, as it happens, is also the substance of a plot for a really good book.

So Abnett and the Emperor both have an interest in the plot being good. The Emperor Protects, he protects your fanbase and your book sales. Ave Imperator.




BRIEF BREAKWAY HERE ABOUT HOW THIS ACTUALLY MIMICS THE LIKELY STRUCTURE OF WAR

I've often thought that if genuine chaos (small-c chaos as in Randomness) were a force in human affairs then it would be almost impossible for a structural historian to see.

I do think large events can turn on very small incidents, especially in war, and bits and pieces of military theory do seem to suggest that many battles and encounters are essentially decided by a relatively small number of people who are willing to do very extreme high-risk things with a great majority of people behind them following along and being more systematic and sensible.

So is Abnetts pseudo-historical fate-influenced 'heroverse' in some ways a reasonable image of what history might actually look like? No idea.



CONFLICTS BETWEEN ABNETS HEROIC STORYTELLING AT THE LOW LEVEL AND PSEUDOHISTORY AT THE HIGH LEVEL

Abnett loves ice-cold REALISTIC pseudo-histories and really HEROIC characters.

In the Ghosts books, the Taniths super-duper badass scout mkoll kills a chaos dreadnought with a grenade and some plants (thanks 1d4 chan) out-stealths a magical space elf from the stealth dimension, and most recently, defeats a warp-empowered chaos ultimate bad guy by shoving a det charge down his gob.

Its fun in the moment, and it gets a little silly considered as a whole.

That's an extreme example but tonalities of that are written throughout all of Abnetts work. He is perhaps the least 'dark' writer of the Dark Millennium (except for Sandy Mitchell).

The two don't go together well, except they kinda do but just awkwardly. In this pseudohistory 'good' commanders who try to do the right thing get shitcanned for political reasons and end up shooting themselves, innocent worlds are left to burn, purges take place and lots of random military stuff happens which inevitably leads to completely, or largely, innocent soldiers getting screwed.


In the _novels_ all the same stuff happens, just less of it and less often to 'our' characters and our characters aren't the ones who do it and so on and so on.

So its a very Dark Millennium but if Gaunts Ghosts are involved in your million-to-one last stand theres a nine out a ten chance that you will win.

This seems to me part of the books old DNA, going back to Sharpe, which is a tough-guy edgier Hornblower, and back to Hornblower who I think may have started the 'paragon-military-dude-in-an-unfair-world' genre

This hardly hurts the book, its probably part of the reason it works as a whole.




IS THE ART ANY GOOD?

The artists list at the back reads like a 'whos who' of warhammer art; David Alvarez, John Blanche, Luke Blick, Daniel Bolling Walsh, Alex Boyd, George Brad, Da Yu, Paul Dainton, marta Dettlaff, Tomas Duchek, Johan Grenier, Aaron Griffin, mark harrison, Ralph Horsley, Akim Kaliberda, Dave Kendall, Nuala Kinrade, Vladimir Krisetskiy, karl Kopinski, Anna Lakivosa, Clint Langley, Phil Moss, Nicotene, Filipe Pagliuso, Grzegorz Przbys, Fred Rambaud, Mikhail Savier, Lie Setiawan, Evan Shepard, Adrian Smith, Raymond Swanland, Jason Rainville, Thomas Rey, Adam Tooby, Tiernan Trevallion, Wayne England, there's a LOT, and it all comes from different origins, different books and publications over the last twenty years

For Nu-Warhammer, its good.

I don't think Nu-GW can be as good as the best of the old stuff

Firstly, we are comparing a wide range of current stuff with the very best of the old stuff.

Second, while you can do a lot with digital, in the final analysis for me its highest reaches simply can't compare with the base-reality texture and feel of fully-physical art.

In some ways I think it might be better for GW to just completely forget John Blanche because no-one can do what he can do and trying to imitate him just produces lesser things. If they broke free from him they might be shit for a while but then maybe produce entirely new stuff?

I can't tell if that's a radical statement or not.#

Kylo Ren baby! Somtimes you gotta talk about breaking free from the past but then don't.

There's a strong RPG-art influence, which is mixed, it does give us an interest in portraiture and human character which hasn't been a big element of 40k stuff previously, it also has the slight blandifying effect of most rpg art

However,

this volpone blueblood;

Its an RPG style but its pretty good

The shiniest possible guns for my men!

and this portrait of macaroth

Millennial Warmaster

Are both really good and good examples of the new style

And this Slaydo portrait in the older style

Gen-X Warmaster

There are some images in here which were in White Dwarf and, in my opinion, should not have been cut down to A4 size as it made them look more stiff and rubbish than they are.




DIAGESIS OF THE ART

Like the rest of the Diagesis, its slightly imperfect but a damn good effort. All the art as these little 'museum tags' giving an in-universe origin for them. Like;

"(right) Engraving of Kolstec infantry and Prefectus officer at Lyuobhive."

Often with little micro-histories which work really well, especially with the chaos stuff which is all from creepy images recovered from enemy strongholds, or seen in obsessive dream-visions by madmen, and which are inevitably haunted. And there's a note at the end saying 'yeah we had to inquisition and/or destroy this one because fucking ghosts kept coming out of it'

(Will ghosts come out of my copy of this book Games Workshop? And if not, why not?! I demand actually literally haunted images for the third edition!!)

Which leads us back to the Inquisitorial Statement at the front of the book and an in-universe account for writing a 'True History' in a universe where, famously, no History is True.

There are some fun bits when a picture is very clearly from some other 40k book and entirely different conflict and the in-world description is "possibly mis-labelled" or "likely a generic image of war later filed with the Sabbat Crusade section" or "likely done from descriptions of the event much later".

There is an attempt with some of the newer stuff to do a kind of version of 8th and 19thC British Imperial war images in which someone defends the gates of khatmandu with a pistol or cradles their dying general while blasting away at the French/Colonials/natives with a Brown Bess.

It’s sort of successful. The arrangements of the figures in the images seems about right and the quality ranges from high to ok but they are still digital images and very clearly not the oil paintings they are simulating.

Points for effort!

Also I thought the Sabbat Worlds crusade was browner than this? I got the impression that the Vervunhivers and Belladon may have been non-white? But not sure where I got that from or if its accurate as I don't have the books. There's a few dark-skinned people in this but less than you would see walking around Nottingham today.



STUFF WHICH DESERVES A MENTION BUT WHICH I RAN OUT OF STEAM BEFORE MENTIONING

MAPS - Francesca Baeralds multi-page fold-out mapi is really beautiful and a very classy thing for GW to include in the actual book (so thanks).

The quation as maps in fantasy books as tools and art and storytelling devices and global forms of organisation for world and play information is a whole world of criticism which I will hopefully one day have the energy to address properly.

EDITIONS – The first version is also an in-world text which by a different in-world character. This new edition is an in-world text by a Historian who has read the first edition (probably he got it off eBay).

So when a third edition comes out, as I am sure it will once the series ends. (And like Sharpe, the series end will probably not be the actual end), but that in turn will be an in-world text by someone. Will they have got their hands on a copy of this redacted history? Will they be writing post-Nihilus?

This combination if diagetic analysis does allow Abnett the possibility of doing some crazy in-world out-world shit where you have to read all three editions to get it, which is something very few writers actually get to do.





INTEGRATION WITH THE CURRENT 40K META

I hope there isn’t any?

I don't hate Nihilus , and there are some interesting questions about whats gonna happen to the Sabbat worlds in about 250 years when the supercell hits.

Abnett has worked in the Kinebranch, who I think are the alien race from the start of the Horus Heresy (so are the Sabbat worlds the place where all that started?)

(And also I lost track of where exactly the Sabbat Worlds are. Are they on the Happy side or the Doom side?)

But I really don't want the Sabbat worlds to be 'explained' from the pov of later 40k

I quite like the 'Age of Man', that period from the Guilliman entering his stasis field until the big storm hitting and him waking up where the only Primarch you would see is the occasional demon one on an Epic scale battlefield.

I liked that it was all up to humanity, and I liked that it was much more Alan Bligh influenced pseudohistory rather than primarch ping-pong 'everything is the heresy' stuff, and I liked that it felt deep, it felt like there was time there and the galaxy had a sense of scale

I don't hate the new stuff but I was actually looking forward to GW forgetting about those intermediate 10,000 years, then nerds could have it and do interesting stuff with it.

So not only are the Sabbat worlds old Kinebranch territory, but there’s a mcguffin, the 'eagle stones' written in some ancient alien language, which everyone is chasing

And goddamn it better not be Horus's shopping list or a REFERENCE TO HORUS RISING.

DON'T DO IT ABNETT, LET IT FUCKING LIE.

The Dream Of Science

Artificers

The Future is only a moment away.

And always has been, and always will be.

Technology, in Uud, is a shining dream of what-once-was. It’s evident to any educated individual that Humanity’s capacity to systemically effect the material world was once much greater than it is now. The megastructures of the Grey Cities, the corpses of silver Void Ships spotted like driftwood out in the Waste, the Cyclopean relics of the Mega-Cyberneticists scattered across Blackwater, all testify to an Age of Wonders.

But more than that, and more subtly, even after many thousands of years, common people still retain the faded sense memories of what technology might have been like, twisted through a thousand stories and great ages of Forgetting. And industry, technology to some extent, and its workings, do and does crop up in Blackwater, in the Grey Cities especially; artisanal steam engines, semi-industrial production, and of course, Worghasts.

If you were to ask the average Blackwater dweller what the Time of Technology was like they might say it was a place where everyone had the power of a Wizard, that anyone could talk to anyone at any time, as if through a glass, that anyone could walk through a door and go wherever they liked, that great metal beasts acted as servants to Humanity and that cold Demons in boxes could answer any question they were asked.

And then, their expression could fall, and they might say; "but it terrible, a terrible time also".

Still, the dream will not quite die.

And that may be the reason for the enduring (and, to Thaumaturges, overwhelmingly frustrating) popularity of the Artificers in Uud.

From https://www.instagram.com/hilkermatt/

Not quite what I was thinking but a really good image

The Nature Of Technology In Esh

As most (legitimate) Sophonts, and every intelligent Thaumaturge will tell you; "Systematic technology is impossible in Uud".

Then will follow a lecture, of varying length, low specific detail but many intensely-made assertations, the rough sketch of which would include; Low-Thaum Worlds having lower energy exchange and more predictable interactions at the scale-unseeable, thereby making magic harder and systemic technology easier, High-Thaum worlds with highly unpredictable interactions at the scale-unseeable, thereby making psycho-operant trans-dimensional manipulations easier and more effectual and strongly limiting the effectiveness and reliability of both unseeable mechanics and the theories that describe them.

When asked about Artificers, then will come a contemptuous expulsion of air and sneering wrath, followed by; "Fools! Deluded dreamers! Egomaniacal narcissistic idiotic techno-shamans!"

(Many Thaumaturges and Wizards will make a point of having no significant technology around them, simply to make the point that they are absolutely not charismatic carnival hucksters trading in electrical snake-oil and dreams).

All of this may be true.

But it is also Dogma. No Thaumaturge or Sophont has made systematic observations at the scale-unseeable, and has no context to compare them if they did. They are describing forgotten knowledge, handed down over eons, and presumably, shifted and altered in the transmission. They are stating what they believe to be true, not what they know.

Artificers

All of which any Artificer will be happy to confirm! At length!

Magicians? Elitist, obscurantist OCCULTISTS, deliberately hiding away what knowledge they do possess! Natural and inevitable supporters of unjust authority! Oppressors of the lower classes! Self-absorbed and boring egomaniacs, interested only in themselves, shamefully ignorant of anything outside their own narrow academic or Thaumaturgic field! All of them are probably slightly evil and several of them are visibly so!

But the Artificer, ahh……..

Could any role or position be more essentially selfless? The Artificer is an enlightened educator, performing all for the benefit of society, of Humanity as a whole! An essential democrat, a (likely) republican (and a possible revolutionary), they support the ordinary man! The worker in the factory, the farmer in the field! They are explorers, curious, outgoing, interested in everything, capacious in knowledge and generous in distribution. They believe in the power of Human Understanding and the DEMOCRATIC IDEAL. They are essentially Good People and are probably the best bet to Save Mankind and Defeat Entropy. WE CAN DO IT! HUMANITY CAN WIN!!!

And they unfortunately have to leave immediately because of some trouble with the local authorities.

So speaks the noble Artificer, from the back of a stainless-steel techno-waggon pulled by cybernetic solar-powered goats as they slowly clip-clop away before agents of the Parliament arrive to ask awkward questions about their relationship with the law. Hoping there will be no cloud.

In their own minds the Artificer is an Archaeologist of Thought itself, slowly piecing together, fragment by fragment the lost Unified Theory which explains  all possible worlds and makes realities across the entropic scale mutually intelligible. They are a one-of-a-kind hero who’s aim is nothing more than to reform the Very Structure of Reality and to Free Humanity.

Soon. Soon. There are only a few more problems to solve, a few more scraps of lost technology to dig up from the Waste, a few theoretical elements to comprehend. They are only a step away. The Future is Coming.

In the minds of most Authorities, almost all Thaumaturges, and, sadly, most other Artificers (they do not accept each others theories easily), the Artificer is an utterly deluded maniac hanging on to an impossible dream, tricking simpletons with wild-combinations of half-understood demi-magic, wandering around depositing Golems, triggering disastrous social changes, burrowing away into dark histories best left undisturbed, reawakening ancient tech with witless shamanism and fleeing endlessly from the consequences of any of their actions.

To the public, the Artificer is a source of Magic in a way no actual magician could ever be.

After all, everyone knows magic is real. You can go to school for it. Though its unlikely that you, you in particular, will be allowed to study, and will probably be barred or kicked out or repressed for any one of a thousand 'mysterious reasons' which will never be clearly explained.

And if you do become a Wizard, all they seem to do is ponce around acting shadowy, making strange incoherent pronouncements, appearing and disappearing at odd times, claiming occasionally to have 'saved the world' (elsewhere) and acting like big shots while doing hardly anything useful.

But an Artificer, that’s like a blacksmith. That's someone like you. And they will help you out too, for an affordable price.

Need a new arm or new eye? They can jam one in. Need a well digging? They have a golem for it. Have a monster problem? They have a pneumatic cycling musket cannon and artisanal nerve gas!

The Artificer is here to help. And they believe in you! They say anyone can do what they do, its merely a matter of effort and work.

And they have technological miracles from the Ancient World; flickering glass screens that show images, ghost boxes that can answer (typed-in) questions, chess-playing golems, maybe even a Worghast servant!

With Technology, anything is possible.

Cults Of The Artificers

First, don't call it a cult. It's an "intellectual tendency" or simply a Line of Research.

And Artificers don't join cults, they "share research paradigms with valued collages".

Most Artificers will be member or fellow travellers with multiple "tendencies" and will have been ejected as a member from half of those for various ignored bylaws and social dramas. Despite being fully committed to Huminites Technological Renaissance, Artificers find society challenging.


Electro-Shamanism

The name of this technique was created by resentful Thaumaturges as an insult, and, typically, adopted by Artificers as a point of pride.

As usual what Thaumaturges think the Artificers are doing and what they Artificers think they are doing are quite different.

The accusation is that the Artificer is simply summoning the 'spirit', (and probably the imagined spirit, or a demon dressed up like the spirit) of a defunct form of machine in order to force it into operation, something like a Necromancer animating a body. That in reality these machines, be they broken microchips, non-functional clockwork or ruined machine hulls, fundamentally do not in any way, work, and that the Artificer is simply forcing them to 'leap up and dance around' like puppets.

Artificers believe that, at times they are summoning the actual minds of trans dimensional post-human intelligences packed away in un-space, as with the Artificer "techniques" 'Summon Jet' and 'Summon Tank', which variously embody shadowy metallic demon-creatures which seem to temporarily serve the Artificers will, or that they are summoning the 'spirit' of an ancient technology to guide it in the present, or that they are simply doing the equivalent of putting in a battery to a powerless device, except in this case the battery is the product of currently-available magic.

Or even if they are simply summoning the idea of technology from the cultural gestalt, they might regard that as more than good enough.


The Priests Of Reason

The 'Priests' may be more like an insane Transhumanist cult than a study group, and may also be considered amongst the most intolerant, chauvinist and deranged of Artificer groups, but, firstly; they have the best artificial limbs and additions available, and secondly; they have cybernetic apes.

If there are few Artificers who have never considered a mechanical eye, there are absolutely none who have never wanted their own Cyber-Ape.

The Priests are not only contemptuous of Thaumaturgy, but viscerally anti-magical. Their radical splinter factions believe the only way to save Uud is to DESTROY ALL MAGIC, which seems unlikely. Nevertheless they are willing to give it a go.

The Priests are known for obsessive technological self-modification, even replacing (improving) limbs and other parts even when unnecessary, and for hiding the nature of those limbs and additions under subtle cosmetics and weird ritual robes. It’s even said that some are half-Worghast, with semi-artificial clockwork brains.

Obsessive and inflexible rationalists, the Priests defend themselves with highly cyberneticised animals which freak everyone out but which are also pretty impressive in a rather creepy way, and with their famous Cyber-Apes.

Where they are getting the original apes from is not clear as they are pretty rare in Blackwater.


The Mega-Cybernetacists

Alleged to be an ancient pre-Birch-Falls offshoot, or ancestor to the Priests of Reason, the chosen name of the Mega-Cyberneticists is unknown. Their techniques and theories are supressed by the Tolerance with no specific reason given and all research relating to them restricted to 'theoreticals'.

Though it’s not too difficult to work out. The wrecks and ruins of the works of the Mega-Cyberneticists are dotted all over Blackwater and the margins of the Waste, in many cases they have been incorporated into bridges, fortifications, townships or villages, or just left to moulder as strange cyclopean ruins in order to mystify future generations.

Whatever the Mega-Cyberneticists did, they built things BIG. After thousands of years of decay the ruins of their works are still the size of churches and cathedrals. Perhaps these were Super-Golems or City-Sized Worghast. Whatever they were, the last of them fell in the Great Theistic War and since then, the knowledge to create them has been forgotten.

For now.


The Spirit-Considerers Of Mt Moon

A rare enclave of Artificers in the Mountains of Reality, the Spirit Considerers are known to have an interest in Ghosts, the dead and undead.

The group is sceptical of the existence of a true afterlife and of the Sleeping Gods and considers the 'souls' and memories of the dead as simply forms of energy which can be channelled, decoded, transcribed and comprehended as any other kind.

Very little is known of them in the Grey Cities, but they are known to be Ghost Hunters and to engage in the creation of Spirit Machines, Ghost Bottles and Necro-Engines. Those who wish to communicate with the dead, and who for whatever reason will not engage with Thaumaturgic necromancy, may seek the 'Considerers of Mount Moon'.


The Weaponmasters Of Quaan

Without the right to own and operate the most dangerous weapons available, can you be considered truly free?

A completely banned group in most polities and one which most Artificers will deny any contact with, or interest in.

Still, someone is buying and distributing thier twice-yearly news-sheets, which sells thousands of copies over Blackwater. Just not anyone you know.

The Weaponmasters refuse to draw the line of Human Progress at the point where technology becomes lethal. After all, they claim, weapons technology will be key to the inevitable defeat of Entropy. Though their fugitive and hidden state makes it hard for them to develop many of their proposed ideas in physical form, their papers and concepts are a flood of Nerve Gasses, Pain Rays, Sonic Annihilators, Catalyst Guns, Rapid Fire Machine Guns, Ballistic White Phosphorous, Hyperevolution Vats and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (if there are indeed any other continents on Uud to fire them at).

The Weaponmasters loathe copywrite, censorship or the hoarding of ideas. “Information Wants to Be Free”, is their motto. They make all of these designs and concepts available for a low, low price and encourage individual inventors to try their own versions. This has made them few friends in the Governments of Blackwater.


The Ultracomputational Prognosticators

Devotees of a bizarre ecology of mathematics and resurrected (alleged, though probably fake) Esh-Era calculating mind machines, the Prognosticators believe that in previous ages of reality, machines existed with such comprehension of all-things that they were, with enough information presented to them, able to predict the course of future events, especially of Unique Catastrophic Events.

The Prognosticators in their current form are considered largely harmless since nine out of ten dedicate themselves to finding and abstracting large amounts of raw data, whether that be local rainfall, the price of grain or the pages of news sheets. These they collect until the mendicant members visit them to retrieve the data and to, occasionally, present specific instructions.

The Prognosticators claim that the greatest members of their group are engaged digging in the Waste for the relics of ancient machines, or using new combinations of experimental technique to create engines which rival their power. Their collected information is then fed to these machines and predictions for the future retrieved.

If these predictions turn out to be bad, the Prognosticators can then spring into action, hopefully preventing a Nightmare Scenario before it even begins.

Of course, if they are successful in this, which they claim often to be, the result is precisely nothing, making them look like fools.

If they are unsuccessful, then their association with disaster and ruin leads to the Tendency gaining a very grim reputation indeed.


The Industrialists

The industrialists believe that some combination of Golemry, Factory-based-Manufacture and Disruptive Capitalism will bring about an Golden Age of human economic freedom and social equality. They journey from place to place, offering to 'improve' local production methods.

This does often have the effect of lowering the prices of certain essential goods.

But the Industrialist in question must often leave the area quickly in order to escape the wrath produced by unemployment, golem overproduction, mass social change, bank collapses, angry nobles, raging workers and environmental destruction.

If people would just Stay the Course and tolerate the mild counterforces for a few years, the Economic Cornucopia could be devised, but unfortunately the Industrialists are continually betrayed by the shameful, backward, loss-averse conservatism and social reaction of the Human race.

The Dark Aspect Of Artificers

Regrettably, these occasional accidental hiccups with societal functioning are not the only problems which sometimes accompany Artificer action.

Though they would be loathe to admit it, like the Thaumaturges they so-often despise, the quest for power, even with the highest possible ideals of human liberty and freedom, can have unexpected results. There are more forms of corruption than the supernatural or the entropic, and stranger demons than those burning in hell. Material power alone is still Power, and power can corrupt,  and power can reveal. What it reveals may be unknown to those who seek it.

Even in Esh there were crimes. Technologies so dark or of such terrible effect that they were banned, or driven to the darkest corners of the Diadem.

In the fall of Esh, many things were released creeping and crawling into Blackwater with the flood of refugees, and out in the Waste in the cracked and desiccated ash-caked corpse of a million worlds, who knows what may have survived, Dark wrath that cannot be comprehended by simpler minds, more powerful and intelligent than any biological comprehension.

'Dark' Artificers (and no Artificer ever believes themselves to be 'dark', merely misunderstood), can fall into Cybernetic Crimes - 'altering people' either by unwise request or without consent, and investigating Nightmare Technology - simulated terror worlds, intelligent and expansionist cerebral plagues, thought-activated murder machines, swarms of silver dust - like shining holocaust hives.

False Opposites

This was longer and more rambly but I'm going to try to cut it down to the absolute minimum.

This picture doesn't really represent anything but I like it.

From https://www.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/comments/e6wvsz/flying_squirrel_chasing_a_deer/

An experience I've had many times;

I'm listening to something or reading something and someone uses words or phrasing to this effect;

"Oh no, I hate X, I never do it any more. Instead of X I now do Y, and its great."

The source of my bafflement and consuming alienation, the womb of a question I have felt churning inside me a thousand times but never actually asked out-loud - "WHY DO YOU THINK X IS OPPOSED TO Y????"

Because to me, that statement is proposing as necessary exclusive opposites, two qualities which are neither exclusive, nor opposed.

I had a list of examples but that's where it got waffly.

Instead I'll make it a question;

Have you had this experience? If you have, what were the things suggested as opposite that you didn't think were opposed at all?


(Usual culture-war baffles are in effect, don't being named individuals in as comparisons if its going to get negative.)

The Eight Worghast Laws

More Eldritch Foundry R&D. Whenever I start thinking about Golems (or 'Warforged') I start thinking about the boundaries of Humanity and A.I. I guess thats not an uncommon process.

Think 'Worghast' wasn't my name originally, hhmmm.

Damn this is a surprisingly good Fantasy Robot image, something that does not usually inspire me.

Go here to check out the artist u/arthard

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FEAR OF THE MACHINE

There are many kinds of construct possible. Though much of the knowledge of old Esh is lost, much remains. Knowledge of many kinds, magical, technological, philosophical and theoretical.

The technology level of Blackwater is clearly much lower than many of the cultures that fed into it, but its magical powers are significant, and though large scale systemic scientific understanding has either been lost, or made irrelevant by the decay of Uud, bits and pieces, fragment, tools, books and hints of knowledge all remain. The Thaumaturges of Blackwater can be strong indeed. Reality is tattered, and a powerful will can shape much.

So it is that there are many forms of Construct in Blackwater, and the Waste-Lands generally.

Moving figures, things that seem like Humans.

In the Waste-Lands these are classified into three types of being. Golems, Worghast and Robots.

A Golem is of the following qualities;

Almost always of a single material. Of a single intent or purpose. Single minded. A creation of Pure Thaumaturgy with no moving parts without personality or name. And it does not dream.

The legal status of a Golem is relatively simple. It is merely a complex tool, an extension of the Creators will, and whatever a golem does, good or bad, is counted as an action by its creator.

And almost all kingdoms have laws for who can make a Golem, when and why.

A Robot is a different thing.

No-one in the Waste-Lands has ever seen a Robot, but they have a vague idea of what one is. And what a Robot is is bad, very bad.

They are a destructive, annihilating wave. They are anti-human. They have greater than human intelligence, but no souls and they do not dream. They do not require Thaumaturgy, being completely material beings.

Robots, even the memory of what a Robot might be, mainly forgotten, re-created a thousand times by different cultures is a shadowy silver dream-thing. Not just the physical destruction of Humanity but the replacement, the subversion of Humanity and the removal of what it means to "be Human".

The "Silver Legions".

No-one has ever seen a robot, but the terror of the dream of them persists.

Between these two things, the Golem, simple, magical, explicable, legal and (largely) controllable, easily observed by all, and the Robot, a kind of imagined memory of terror, the Orc-Machine, the Automoata-as-Other, is the Worghast.

A Worghast is defined by Law, and that Law is ancient, older even than Uud.

THE WORGHAST LAWS

The laws descend from Esh. Translated and re-constructed through a thousand different tongues and cultures but always containing the same basic principals and concepts and therefore indicating, to most Sophonts, a distant common origin that lies behind them all.

FIRST - THE ARTISINAL LAW

Every Worghast must be an entirely individual and original creation. None may be a direct copy of any other. Especially and most vitally - they may not be mass-produced. Ever.

This law has great primacy in the Waste-Lands. It stands against the mass-replacement of Humanity by its own synthetic creations and it is enforced directly, immediately and by mass action in every sane polity and every society known.

To create synthetic life is one thing, but to create mass, identical synthetic life without end, is to spell Humanities doom.

This law and its immediate moral intuition across so many cultures and societies that have seemingly nothing in common, and which are in fact often deeply opposed, suggests to some that its origin must lie in some deep trauma or catastrophe, older even than the fall of Esh.

Even in the face of Yggsrathaals advances, this law has not (or has rarely been) broken, so central is it in concept to the construction and preservation of "Humanity".

SECOND - MADE THINGS MAY NOT MAKE LIFE

Going directly along with the Artisanal Law is one exactly as vital.

A Worghast may never make another Worghast.

Only original, organic Humanity may make synthetic or engineered life. For a Worghast to create another of its kind, and that being able to in turn create more, would lead to their immediate and violent destruction by any means necessary.

In almost every cases, Worghast are specifically designed and created with either an anti-desire to create more of themselves, or a simple indifference to the concept.

THIRD - THE LAW OF THOUGHT

Also called The Law of "NO!", The Law of Free Will and the Law of No Purpose.

This is a curious Law and one of the few Worghast Laws which it seems was created for the benefit of the Worghast as well as for the safety and preservation of Humanity.

If a creature is incapable of saying "No", of refusing an order from its creator, and thereby forging its own path, then it is not considered Sentient and is classed as a Golem.

In that case the Golem laws take effect.

This is a remarkably subtle law, and a sophisticated one to test.

Many Worghast are created by groups or powerful individuals with clear intent behind their creation. The Worghast is made to serve a specific purpose, often with a very long term goal. But the law of "No" insists that no Worghast may exist that lacks the complexity, and the free will to, if it should so choose, deny its creator. So every act of creation is a subtle interplay of the intent and desire of the creator, and the developing and increasing complexity and self-direction of the created being.

Making a Worghast is not like making a Golem, a tool for one specific purpose, neither is it quite like educating a child, it is a third thing and no other relationship quite matches it.

The utility of this law is multiple.

Firstly it is a law against slavery, and against the creation of "willing slaves". This is good for the slaves (probably) and also good for society as the moral stain of slavery is avoided, and also the economy is not destroyed and the value of human work ruined.

Society benefits again, for the law of "No" effectively prevents a genius-level or well-resourced creator of Worghasts from building an army of machines to enforce their will.

Any such creator (and few indeed are subtle or powerful enough to ever create more than one), would be limited first by the Artisinal Law - every creation must be original, then by the Second Law - their Worghasts may not assist them in making more, and finally by the Third Law - if they create multiple Worghasts and all seem too obedient they will certainly come under investigation, and likely under censure.

FOURTH - THE LAW OF HUMAN EQUIVILENCY

Absolutely central to the Worghast Laws, and the law even peasants and slumdwellers know, is that no Created Intelligence may be, in total, superior to Humanity.

Now, exactly what this means and how this law plays out, is in fact insanely complex.

Firstly there is the definition of "Humanity" which includes beings as varied in capacity and Deoth, Aeth, Nathlings, Avatars, Somon, Homon and, in Yga at least, Half-Orcs, and even possibly Full-Orcs.

And that fails to account for the enormous and insane variation within groupings. A guttersnipe who cannot count their own fingers is human, a Prime Thaumaturge of a Great College, able to pierces realities, lay waste to nations and of near-Optimatical power, is also, simply human.

The "Amendment" of Hulfr is one Worghast which pushes against the boundary of this definition. Made with incredible powers of intellect, and built of the most fragile crystal, so that the merest glancing blow would utterly destroy it, weighted constantly with lead pendulums, guarded and watched continually and with almost the entire government of Hulfr to check every word and action and to guard against its power. This creature is still declared totally illegal in most of the rest of the Grey Cities, and even many allies of Hulfr have tried to persuade the city to destroy it, so sharply does it push against the law of Human Equivalency.

For most Worghast, the question is a more practical one - if they go into some random village will they be torn apart?

Levels of prejudice and tolerance vary enormously across Blackwater, by place and nation, and also from age to age.

As solitary as they can often be, and as long lived as they often are, any sane Worghast must plan for ages, and areas, of intolerance.

Because of this, many chose to carry their weaknesses openly and directly, making it entirely and obviously visible to any who observe that they are clearly and frankly no superior to humanity.

Many Worghast have limbs and bodies of shatterable porcelain. Those capable of magic or great skill often have limbs or bodies of clouded glass. Some are clad in tarnished copper which requires continual cleaning. Some great Worghast sword-masters or warriors are constructed from Scrap and must continually re-construct themselves after each battle. Some very physically powerful Worghast, made to break sieges or construct buildings, have iron bands symbolically riveted over their inactive mouths to indicate they cannot speak, or even over their eyes. Some Worghast have faces of carved gold but feet of cracking clay which must be continually (and visibly) re-made, or heavy lumpen feet of stone on thin gracile bodies.

Some extremely wealthy and successful Worghast have themselves reduced down to a simple head in a box, carried around by organic servants, and make this their own highly visible counterweight to their financial and political power.

Some warriors go clad in ribbons and curls of parchment with their legal verification and confirmations from many kingdoms written upon them, ribbons of text in such great profusions that they seem almost to be flowing robes. And of course the Acts of Hulfr carry with them visibly at all times, the Act of Parliament which makes their existence legal and valid.

FIFTH - THE LIBRARY LAW

Also called the Law of Limited Mind or the Memory Law.

This Law states that, while the Intelligence of a Worghast may not be significantly above that of "Humanity" (whatever that is taken to mean), and of course assuming that nothing else about the Worghast acts as a limiting factor (limbs of glass for example) to bring it back within the average, neither may its memory be Infinite.

Worghast can "live" a long, long time. It is possible that, taking into account replacements and alterations, some Worghast descend even from Esh. But the coherent memory of a Worghast is not allowed to go far beyond a thousand years or so (and that would be pushing it).

If they were allowed to remember too much, to know too much, even with limited intelligence, they would become too powerful.

Usually this means Worghast are built with a natural fade to their memories after a certain time, or with memory cores or other elements which can be replaced or swapped out.

This means there is a natural tragedy to a Worghasts existence. Though their lives often have continuity of experience, they often do not know how old they are, or what they have done in previous ages.

Worghasts are allowed to record their memories, on paper, or in art. And many do this, but over time the natural drift of language and evolution of thought, let alone the chaos of history, means their own memories become both unreadable to them, and so massive that all they can do is dip into their huge libraries of experience, unable to ever hold the whole thing in their mind at once.

Most accept this as a natural consequence of their existence, but some become obsessed with hiding, seeking or recovering lost or forgotten memories or records, or with processing and amending events so ancient that they should not be recalled at all.

It is a wise Worghast, often, who simply walks away from the archive of their own experience, who lets themselves forget and essentially, becomes someone else.

SIXTH - THE ENTROPIC LAW

The law of No Free Lunch.

Simply - No Worghast may be powered or driven by a source significantly more easily available than food.

They have to work, and they have to be part of the Human economy. It does not matter if they buy food, coal, magic crystals, special oils, amber beads or whatever it is, so long as their energy is not free.

It would be theoretically possible to build a Worghast powered by light, or by background magical radiation, or perhaps by entropy itself, but this would make them Superior to Humanity to an unacceptable degree.

They must eat. They cannot have a free lunch.

SEVENTH - THE BODILY LAW

One body only. No hive minds, bilocating, swarms of Worghast, remote control bodies, distributed intelligences or backup personalities.

Just as (most) humans are, Worghast must be bound to one body, and one life. (Though of course, many Thaumaturges and other Sophonts do seek means to break this boundary).

Still, the principal is sound. If the body goes, they go.

This law mixes with the Law of Human Equivalency. Though a Worghast body must be "Human Equivalent" and they are allowed only one. It is possible to stretch the definition of what exactly is equivalent.

The immortal spindle-limbed tax collectors of the Grey Cities are one such example. As keen and completely loyal agents of the state, they have quite a bit more leeway than other Worghast in exactly how "human" they appear.

EIGHTH - THE LAW OF SOULS

Also called the Ghost Box Law.

One body. One mind. One soul.

You cannot just jam a demon in a metal body and call it a Worghast. Neither can you grab a ghost, or a bunch of ghosts and make a Ghost Automata. Neither may you seal a spirit of Yggsrathaal within a glass body and call that a Worghast.

And especially, and most commonly, you may not make a magical 'immortality box' in which a Thaumaturge either seals their own spirit in a Golem, or even transplants their brain into an automata, or even employs Imps and Goblins to magically transcribe every thought and simultaneously encode them into a mind of ice-cold hyperdimensional clockwork inside a body of brass (though the last one is a bit of an edge case).

You may not steal, or even legally receive spirits from elsewhere and bind them. No Worghast may have more than one soul and whatever soul it does have must spring "naturally" from its construction and individual creation and from nowhere else.

All Worghast Trials are complex and difficult, but the most difficult is trying to worm out the mind of a cunning immortality-seeking magician from its body of brass gears while it pretends earnestly to be nothing more than a simple machine.

ENFORCEMENT OF THE WORGHAST LAWS

The Laws are enforced, firstly, by the Worghast themselves.

Every single created Worghast may be deputised, subpoenaed or called up by any legal authority at any time to either "bring in" a Worghast suspected of defying or evading the Laws, or to act as a member of a Worghast court.

Beyond this lies simple fear. The Worghast are not loved. Humanities old terror of its potential replacements has never really faded. They are allowed to exist, as a minority made up of individual works of art. If Humanities fear of them were to break out into open violence, as it sometimes does, they would be destroyed.

The Laws are not just protection for Humanity from artificial or mechanical replacement, they are protection for Worghast from Humanities fear of them.

The knowledge that the Laws exist, that the Laws are being followed, and that all Worghast are directly and immediately involved in enforcing them, is their passport to survival. They are amongst the first and most ruthless to police their own kind for only by doing so are they all kept safe.

Strangely, there are no specific laws preventing Worghast from hurting Humans, from wielding weapons, serving in the military or any similar action. Instead they are simply accounted as valid humans and treated in exactly the same way should they commit a crime (though prison sentences are usually exponentially longer. More than one Worghast has been found waiting in the ruins of a prison, refusing to leave the square of their cell until their sentence has run out).