(The KICKSTARTER is still going, is at 90-sometthing per cent AND, I am reducing the print run to give a greater likelihood of being able to produce an artistically-complete book. We are down from 2000 copies to 1000, soon we may be down to 500, which, paradoxically, makes getting a book with full art and layout more likely. REDEFINING SUCCESS PEOPLE!)

Cults of the cuts of the Oceanic Star

So deep was the blue of the Oceanic Star that, with each fresh cutting of the gem new cults sprang up like grass, some focused on the stone-to-be, some raging in resentment at the losing of the stone-that-was, others worshipping the fragments, (of these, so many it would tire the tongue to tell of them all).

It was the quality of light, all agreed, though none who saw it could say precisely, exactly, in words,

just what it was.

Some compared the stone to sea-smoothed jade, not in its texture, for its surface, ever since the first cutting, was diamond-bright, but in its depths, as the texture of the light it held_. Soft, dark, as if it had a grain. Shadows pooled in the depths of the gem as if it were a shallow sea.

The Oceanic Star was first hauled from the belly of a mine so deep it touched the fire of the earth. Black with murderous fumes; great fan-towers heaved out the stinking air and flung it high, forcing down into the depths what must have seemed little more than breathable smoke, turning miners black from lung to limb, but vari-coloured at the limb-tips. The rainbow-handed quick-living  miners stained, perhaps by the curious chemicals of the mines rare ores, or simply poisoned by rare earth  or other toxins, fingers purpling and iridescing before they died

Here came forth the Oceanic Star, discovered by its glimmer. Nearly a boulder at first, black and stained, but curiously weighted. The miner who recovered it, famously,  received as their reward, one gold coin and two days off.

Careful cleaning bared shining adamant; the scales of a crocodile rising from a muddy bank. A gemstone, huge, a diamond perhaps, a sapphire, though coloured like no other seen before or since.

CULTS OF THE FIRST CUT

• The followers of the True Shah
• The Cult of the Inner Sea
• The Cult of Depth
• The Cult of the Coin
• The Cult of the Ocean Star
• The Painters Cult

Cut for the Shah, broken into several stones, its mass reduced by two thirds, the centre stone and largest still the biggest in the world. Almost un-wearable. Heavy, rounded, set in gold. When worn; well out of scale, like a child wearing their mothers things.

Thus was the Shah marked and his greatness maintained. Interpreted in a thousand paintings. (Famously a small conflict broke out over access to the precise pigments of blue demanded by the empires two greatest painters, even then, the blue caused bloodshed.)

Here the central stone gained its name; the Oceanic Star. Symbol of a landlocked Imperium burning on the plexus of the god-selected potentate. The Star flattened every other gem in that unserious panoply. There it was the night sky, a storm, in day so blue it was near-black at night so pale it seemed to hold the moon.

Here the Shah idled years away in contemplation of the stone, calling forth philosophers and creaking fools, madmen, prophets. 

"A prize to he tells me truly of the colour of the star, the star my son shall bear and be Shah after me"

O jealous son. O long-lived and indolent pa-pa. The Shah was hurled from his own tower, followed by his books. The son became a king through foreign gold and foreign guns, the price of which was either half the nation, or the gem.

And so was born the first (major) Cult of the Oceanic Star. The followers of the True Shah, who believed he did not die, or chose to die, or hid the secret of his death amongst the books with which he was buried in a secret tomb, but he, or his wisdom, or his True Line, shall return and he will come from the sea. The Star is required, the true star, not its false and altered selves, the True Shade must be known, it can be found in old illuminated texts and the nation shall be renewed.

Till then, the bombings continue.

CULTS OF THE QUEENS CUT

• The Cult of the Shah 
• The Cult of the Divine Path
• The Cult of the Worm
• The Cult of the Order of the Star

The Star was surrendered to the Reasonable Mercantile Incorporated Gentlemen, and by them cut again. This was the Queens cut. The Star was re-shaped, reduced slightly in its gourd-sized roundness. Such stones were made for crowns, not to bounce on the chest.

It was delivered to the Queen of a far-away land, a sea-girt realm, rich in trade, investors, a line which must be pacified lest they interfere, and what better for that than the worlds greatest gem?

So, of Sea-Land the star became the crowns own Jewel, set amidships on the royal brow. Perhaps it never saw the sea, but in this cold, grey land, spread with white light it is said the Star grew colder, its texture changed, though its facets multiplied.

Borne darkly on a crown, wrapped in hymns, pinnacle of orders of decayed knighthood the star grew bright, blazed even, in this deeper darkness, astounded as it had not before, awed where once it seduced, now like starlight, or clear water, or like a spark. The Queens cut had no depth, did not exist in this world, could not be measured by the eye, was pure light alone.

CULTS OF THE THIEVES CUT

• The cult of the Head
• The cult of Transport
• The Performers of Mysteries

Revolution! The Queens head falls and in the chaos the Star disappears from history, red-flagged wood-shoed anti-tyrants rampage through the royal apartments, the powder store, the dungeons, the files and luxuries. Everything is packed up, itemised and sold for the revolution! the people need arms!

Amongst this, somewhere, the crown loses its star, only a blank space remains.

It takes a century for even half of the truth to come out. Darkness bears its fruit and in the last will and testament of a later age a strange "sapphire" emerges from the gloom of a merchants bequest

"a stone unlike any other" - the auctioneers say.

From there; trade and museums, court cases and newspaper drives, advertisements and arguments. Seen now, in this penultimate cut, by more eyes than ever, trapsing past in museum queues, photographed and visualised

What of the colour? the texture? the light? Mediocre, say the gem cutters and the aesthetes. Sky blue, sparkling, tangible, like bright ink, wowing the crowds, pleasing the photographers. Pop culture writers make book after book, but it does not burn in darkness, it has no depth.

CULTS OF THE LAST CUT

• The Cult of Meat
• The Cult of the See
• The Cult of the Eye
• The Cult of the Dream

Delivered by thermic shock and high intensity bombardment, what little forces remain did not make it to the site in time. Not even looters survived the bombs.

The last cut shattered the star into an asymmetric curl of radioactive light. No longer anything like a gem. More akin to fulgurite or broken bone.

There it lay, a long while, buried in bone-ash and powdered brick until finally cold claws drew it forth once more into the light of a red sun, but the light of the Oceanic Star, lost since the Shah, or perhaps even before, returned now; deep, dark blue, shifting, endless and consuming, lit now from within, burning the hand if left there long, blinding the eye if gazed upon too much, sacred once again, though physically a mess. The dream of a forgotten ocean, the only living blue in a dead, red, world.

The Troll Kings invisible hands..

..twitch, ghostly but for its rings; hoops and bands of Rheingold set with gems from plutonian realms. chalcedony, oryx, Martian pyrites, amber fossils from the toxic beds of Venusian seas.

The king half-slumbers, half-wrathful and half-sad, vast and earthlike, invisible but for silken robes stitched from the campaign tents of emperors, the barding of dead grail knights, the wedding dresses of a thousand brides woven with their golden hair.

Fat the troll-king is. Fat with eaten women and brave men, and bitter his cold breath.

Adored he would be.

https://www.instagram.com/davidthierree/

"Am I not... " he breathes out, in a murmur like interstellar static.

A pause.

The crown, a crown of splintered diamonds shining like glass, woven together with the unending labour of a hundred thousand enchanted spiders whose curse and purpose is only and entirely to weave their webs endlessly around the spiked crowns hoop and attach it firmly to the Troll Kings invisible head, that it might not fall, cascade down down down onto the sea-stone fall and there shatter, erupt like crystal waters, like a meteor of light, and drown the petitioners in a sea  of bloodstained gems.. (each spider was a hero once, the Troll Kings foe, this being his just punishment for those who would place limits or reductions on the Troll kings wealth), the crown, tilts, rises!

A gasp runs round the hall! The King is sitting up! He is, well not rising, but he is straightening his magnificent spine! Not for a century, not for two, has the Troll king even raised his head. Noble lines have lived and died and chronicles been written and been lost in the hundreds of winters since that last and mighty raising of the brow.

"AM I NOT..." (one thousand salt-stained copper-clad troll knights draw to rimy hunchbacked attention, some waking up for the first time in a decade).

".. a KING???" the Troll King cries.

The hall is silent. What does this mean?

One hundred ageless elf-maids languishing in one hundred gilded cages hanging from the Troll Kings stolen stars while their ever-gold hair grows ever down (for only when it grows long enough to stroke a goblins head below will they be set free), start, awaken, glance curiously amongst themselves. Is he having a stroke? they think.

The college of goblin sorcerers, so old and mad their ears have been plaited into mobius strips under their chins, shiver, shaking tomb-dust from their hunched backs, grit their sharp yellow teeth, one snaps their man-bone pipe, one has, unnoticed, at some point become a mushroom.

The gold bird captured in an onyx mirror held only by the shadow of a sleeping silver girl, herself locked within a crystal coffin which is locked within a crystal coffin which is itself so locked, seven-times-seven times, each lock made by a dwarven smith who was strangled with his own beard and the key given to a seperate deamon each, the gold bird chirps!

"WELL?????" the Troll-King whispers, barnacles crunching from his armpits and rear as he shifts in his cold and granite throne.

None speak, until one, the Crone Sycroax, the Troll-Kings mistress of maladies, the storm-stirrer and milk-curdler, the baby-stealing witch and his sanest advisor, hauls her sagging paps from her silver bath full of cold and curdled cheese and says;

"Aye. A King. King you be and so it is."

"AND YET..." the earth shakes, the murmur of weeping gods issues from the toothed vault behind the throne, thunder deafens. He is getting up! the Troll King is rising!

No. No it is safe yet. He is merely setting his great feet, slippered in ebony caravels which set sail for forgotten lands, as if he might stand, he is not standing yet.

But still! What a cataclysm!  What horrors? What if he stands up? What should be done? None there know for it has never been seen or recorded in even the glyphs of aeonic time.

"AND YET" the Troll King speaks, and ear bones shatter spontaniously in several adjacent lands "WHERE ARE MY ADORERS?"

Then. Slowly, horrifically, like the end of empires, the King stands!

Several go mad at the sight. 

Dust, virgin bones and unknown of Archean life cascade down his mighty silken gown. He stands! The hundred-thousand-diamond crown rises to the level of the lowest elf-maids cage. The invisible mitts sweep hanging elf-hair aside like a curtain of gold. The head turns! Slowly, like a cannonball rolling. This way! That way!

Where the invisible gaze passes, gold coins turn to wizards and run away cackling, teeth shatter or turn to stone, bones turn to glass, gain sentience or are engraved with impossible prophecies beneath the flesh.

"AM I NOT ADORED?" 

The Troll-Kings bitterness forms springs of raw vinegar which spurt up like geysers from between the sea-stone cobbles of his hall, (each a hill), picking some goblins and sweeping them away.

"I SEE NO LEGIONS. I SEE NO CHOIRS. WHERE LIE THE TRUMPETS AND ARMIES? WHERE THE POETS AND MANDOLINS? WHERE THE APES AND MAIDENS? 

The Crone-Thing Sycorax stands in her bath, dripping cold cheese. All who see her nakedness go blind and die.

"They are passed O King." She says.

"PASSED?"

The Crone coughs up a teratoma, examines is with one beady eye, smiles and puts it back in her mouth, chewing carefully.

"Those were the poets of your youth, O King. Those were the armies of the summer when the world was young, and the maidens of the dawn. Now is the night and the dark. Now is winter and the end of all but stone. Dust are your adorers. Forgotten is your name."

"DUST?" whispers the invisible king, "YET I SLEPT BUT FOR A MOMENT."

"Hggggh" grunts the witch, and shits a bloody stream into her bath of cheese. "Ahhhhh. No King. Worlds have burned in your sleeping. Towers fallen and been raised. New stars shine. But not for long. The world falls, soon to die."

"AH." Whispers the Troll-King, and sighs out a dozen ghosts who weave through the hall like streamers of pale fire. 

"AHHHHHHHH."

The Troll-King sits so slowly and tectonically that mountains nearby tilt by a degree towards his weight.

"IT WAS ONLY A MOMENT THEN. A MOMENT OF GOLD."

In other news, the Kickstarter is going... less well than hoped for..

Leading to some more modest and hopefully achievable goals..

Which you can find out about in Updates HERE!!!!

Six Crimes of an Analog Future

 There is a post under the image bit first BACK MY KICKSTARTER AT LEAST CLICK THIS LINK!!!

1. Crypto stolen from Concorde in Daring Rocket Heist!

A regular large volume transfer between Bank Suisse and the Bank of England was interrupted yesterday as Concorde was boarded mid-flight. 

The encryption keys representing the funds to be exchanged are always transferred with the greatest possible security but it seems a group of international criminals discovered a weak point - the Supersonic flight between Geneva and Gatwick itself!

Sources close to the British Government yesterday admitted "we were caught out". When originally conceived, the sheer speed of the Concorde itself made the transfer impossible to interrupt, in the air at least, and all security was based around the ground stages. But long term developments in low-earth satellite jet messenger services have lead to a small, but unregulated, market in very high-speed high-altitude rocket Jet engines.

The criminals intercepted Concorde over the English Channel and, matching speeds, managed to board the supersonic jet. They then took the solid brass cryptography keys, each individually engineered in extreme secrecy by Swiss masterminds, and purloined them. Apparently unable to return to their rocket the gang leapt from Concorde and were allegedly picked up by a hovercraft in the channel below.

Evidence of the complex planning for the crime was traced to a 'film set' on the French Riviera in which a scale-model of the Concorde jet had been constructed and apparently used to rehearse the heist under the cover of producing a motion picture.

2. Pirates exchange fire over Sealand Transmitter!

The 'air wave wars' turned hot yesterday as a fleet of Pirate Radio Station boats clashed with Royal Post Office security forces over the Sealand Transmitter. Allegedly shots were exchanged and some injuries have been reported. 

'Fans' of the Radio Pirates claim that the governments own policies, in particular the 2023 'Air Wave Security and Regulation Act' have forced smaller and non-regulated stations into smaller and smaller ranges of the transmissible spectrum with more and more complex and expensive circuits needed to decode the transmissions.

"This is the slow strangulation of a free Press by legal means" claimed the head of the Pirate Party yesterday, "information wants to be free and the People want direct news sources regardless of government control. Whomever controls the wavelengths controls the truth."

The Royal Post office issued 'regrets' about the use of force and denied any deliberate intensification of the situation on their part. "Pirate Radio boats have only grown more dangerous" claimed the Post Master General "both paid security forces and, we regret, the possibility of lethal force, are needed to preserve the security and stability of the public air waves for the good of all."

3. President Taped by Bicycle!

The American Secret Service yesterday claimed that attempts had been made to 'bug' the recent Camp David summit by use of an all-metal bicycle containing rare earths. The Sketchy Scooter they said, had been precisely constructed to absorb and record vibrations in the wavelength of the human voice. This creepy contraption apparently slipped through the U.S. spooks net as it contained no electronics and no moving parts other than those of a normal bicycle. The system was entirely solid state, powered by the movements of the bicycle itself and recording the vibrations inside its rare-earth-impregnated chassis as a kind of solid-tape, to be retrieved and decoded at a later date by unspooling the bike chassis. The Secret Service confirmed that they believed no Top Secrets had been lost as "The President does not discuss policy while cycling".

4. Cambridge "Crime Zone" Still Draws Critics

The five-mile 'low-noise' zone around Cambridge University has drawn criticism again after levels of petty crime and several assaults occurred over the previous month.

The 'Teks' at the big 'U' confirmed the renewed need for the 'Zone' and even asked for an extension. "We test and develop the worlds most advanced and subtle circuits and the more complex they are, the more vulnerable they are to EM interference. Last year an illegal TV crashed one of our most expensive research projects with its irregular transmissions. This is a matter of not just our technological development but our security."

Cambridge locals are split on the matter; "Its quite nice really" claimed one OAP. Just like the old days. No buzzing and I like the horses. I don't mind paying for telegrams. Life just moves at a slower pace here." But voices close to the Cambridge Plod were less pleased; "Its like a bl**dy nineteenth century rookery round here. No radios, no telegram. Crims realised they could do what they want here and the state can't see them. Then they started moving in en-masse. Its not just the hawkers, thieves and pickpockets, all the London Gangs have set up their HQ under our noses. They know there's no transmissions, so no bugs, no telephones, no evidence! They can organise without trouble right in the heart of England!"

5. Ceefax King "Steals" the Louvre

Elon Musk the "Minidisc King" yesterday claimed to have "acquired" the Louvre. That is, to have the physical copies of super-high grade transmissions of its whole stock of art and culture. 

The batty millionaire says he wants to make the Mona Lisa Free and add the entirety of the Louvre to his information transmission network for all of his customers to enjoy  whenever they wish, in high-definition colour. 

"It will be like being there." Claimed Musk.

The French authorities are in a stew and a major legal battle has broken out over the terms of their deal with Musk for the discs with the art. "The image itself is valuable" said the director. "Just as a photograph should not be included in a book without permission, curation and copyright, neither should Musks "accessible transmissions", he is just selling pirate art books over the air waves and that was not our agreement.

6. GPS Maps "May have been altered" Government Claims

Drivers have been vindicated recently as the Government has admitted that the GPS maps of Southern England "may have been altered". Controversy has been stewing for a year as drivers in the South have found themselves lost in wrong turns and going down bad alleys. HMRC and the contracted corporation that engraves the maps on super-shin sheet  Googleplex navigation, had previously claimed that any errors were within bounds and the "slow but natural changes in road building" were the cause.

Conspiracy Theories pointed to an alleged break-in at Googleplex's Engraving Centre in late 2022, a break-in in which it was claimed nothing was taken. The seemingly batty concept that someone may have sneaked into the building and re-engraved the core maps for that area before they were updated and couriered out to users of the GPS system (mainly hauliers, travelling salesmen and other long-distance travellers) has now been vindicated. The identity of "who changed the maps" and why, remains an "open question" Govt spokesmen yesterday said.

'Speak, False Machine' Kickstarter is LIVE!

The Kickstarter for 'Speak, False Machine' a Brick of Culture, is now up and running!

Its a big book collecting and organising most of the blog posts from the first ten years of False Machine. 

How big? Fucking huge; pinched crown quarto and over 650 pages and half a million words long. 

Grab it if you want a Weapon of Words to wield against the oncoming dark, (or if you desire a curious level of intimacy with my mind) and if you can't afford that, back the PDF (which is cheap).

MEDIA

As usual I have made zero media plans and have no marketing budget. 

If you want to help spread or re-link the Kickstarter I think the best times to do so are now and in the final few days.

If you have ideas or desires for blog posts you would like to see over November, or interviews or anything else that might drag me into the light of public attention, you can let me know here, on my socials or at pjamesstuart@gmail.com

FUNDING LEVELS

We have a bunch of funding levels at which the quality of the book will improve, including pieces from a range of OSR-adjacent artists so check those out if you are interested.

I only need 590 rich and/or crazy backers to hit every art and design goal! Its theoretically possible!

The Great Book

 

So, I lumber towards Bethlehem, ready to be BORN.

As an old Kickstarter passes into completion, a new one crawls forth, gasping. A new books shall be made! Different to the old!

Speak, False Machine!

The first TEN YEARS of this blog, organised, indexed and arranged in hardback form!

It will launch in ONE DAY!

And ye shall be presented with another Sad Month of me whoring myself out.

Go HERE for the pre-launch page.

Trailing Corposant 10 – Swallow it All

#1 - What Is the Heresy About?

#2 - Horus

#3 - Fulgrim

#4  - The Lion and the Dark Angels

#5 - The Alpha Legion

#6 - The Bottle Novels

#7- Graham McNeil and the Mechanicus

#8 - The Short Stories

#9 - Magnus the Red

In a previous post we considered the mixed but pivotal Graham McNeil. Now we must cross an invisible barrier in quality for, if my usual response to a McNeil book is; “oh that’s, wait, what the fuck, what the fuck is that, why did you do that, oh wow, ok that was fun I suppose”

Then my usual expectation for a Swallow book is; “un hu un hu ah, yep yep, ok… well that happened..”

From a pretty good or at least always interesting writing with a lot of weird or bad elements to a generally very boring writer who surprisingly often pokes his head up above the parapet of quality, but is sadly blown away by a waiting sniper. Swallow has rambled all over the Heresy taking on a variety of subjects but not really having an emblematic series, Legion or character. 

I think perhaps he was meant to be the main writer for Sanguinius and the Blood Angels, but he isn’t very good so those works don’t really stand out. Still he makes some good efforts! If wasn’t for the tragic dead weight of his last book, ‘The Buried Dagger’, a truly abominable disaster bringing the poorly-told story of Mortarion to an eve more poorly-told end, he might still rate above average. 

But he does  not. Follow me now into tragedy…

Assassins!

Nemesis

EXECUTION FORCE! The deadliest ever dudes with a very special set of skills! They all wear black and work alone! Now they team up to do a thing! Will they do the thing somehow? And how the fuck are there meant-to-be-used-alone weird as shit skillsets meant to actually work together? Its not like using a knife with a fork or a fork with a cheesegrater even, more like a fork and the colour blue.

Malcador being Malcador has a very bay-of-pigs concept of; hey we got literally piles of assassins around here why not just assassinate Horus?

So a rag tag team of the assasnoriums synth-skin wearing wierdoes are sent to do just that.

Meanwhile someone, (Maloghurst?) realises hey with all this warp gunk we can basically reshape reality and also with our Chaos Prime account we have access to the entire archive of demons dating back to the fucking old ones baby! Surely there is something in the back of the drawer that we can use to kill the Emperor?

And in fact they do have just such a demon -  a shapechanging super-clever psychic leech/capacitor thingy that only gets stronger the more power its target has

High concept. Honestly not bad. Basically a meta-story shaping book; i.e. why not just assassinate horus/e-money. Think this actually invented the execution force, an idea which sounds cool AS SHIT but often works out to be a bit eh.

Ultimately neither E-Dawg or Horus want the other to be assassinated. They both want a Dramatic Last Scene. The Emperor in order to maybe redeem Horus and get him back? Horus so he can eat the Emperor and become double-strong, allowing him to take on the Chaos Gods probably/

What even happens in this?

They try to shoot a giant evangelion style sniper rifle at Horus. It’s so big it has to be hidden in a building. But they only shoot his double. This is one of two times I can recall that someone in the Heresy has dressed up as Horus and pretended to be him and one was Robute Guilliman… Insert your own “weird that its happened twice” joke here.

Good because it leads onto ‘Gunsight’ in which the Vindicare sniper left behind goes mad on the vengeful spirit

Gunsight (Short Story)

A good story! An assassin leftover from a previous book infiltrates the Vengeful Spirit and, while waiting to kill Horus, has a mental. 

The Assassin bumps into a crewman who is still somewhat loyal. A neat look at what it might be like to be an almost-normal human who happened to be one of the hundreds of thousands aboard the Vengeful Spirit when Horus decided he was going to turn evil. Since then the ship has basically melted through reality and turned into a living nightmare, plus all of your colleagues are now big devotees of a scary new religion. It’s a rare sympathetic portrait of a normal human amidst the utter lunacy of the Heresy.

Ultimately Horus converts the Assassin to Chaos with the inference that he will turn up at the Siege of Terra. (He does not).

 

Angels!

Fear to Tread

A pivotal moment and sadly just not that well written.

This should be a major moment of the Heresy. Horus knows Sanguinius is super-dangerous and super-nice and super-loyal to the Emperor. So he sends him, and his entire Legion out to a distant world telling him; “Very dangerous Xenos here bro, take your guys and take em out.”

In fact the planet, and entire system, is and are a warp-drenched, demon-infected spiritual and military trap for Sanguinius designed to either reduce him to a berserk rage and make him a servant of chaos, or simply to kill him.

This does not work largely because the Demons are dumb as shit panto villains. Though that's a bit of a theme in the Heresy – the ruinous powers being basically crackheads and – regardless of the fact they can bleed through reality and travel through time affecting every moment of your life imperceptibly, other than that, they are actually often dinguses who faceplant at the last moment. I suppose being living psychic fatbergs is not a wonder for competence.

Imagine playing chess against an idiot who can see through time. Or to call back to me previous example, imagine if your arch-foe was a crackhead with a TARDIS. Very very dangerous, and in fact terrifying, but likely not competent and, once you have had the first encounter, (from your perspective), you can start to develop safeguards. The Crackhead might have theoretically incredible power but they are going to consistently mis-use it, or make foolish decisions, because they are on crack. 

Demons in the Heresy are written a lot like this, which would make an elegant kind of sense if it were deliberate artifice, but in fact its just largely bad writing making the Demons look like the Chuckle Brothers. 

What happened; Sanguinius is a super pure very great guy and both Khorne and Slaanesh really want him to be their particular murder/perv angel – in an unusual example of chaotic combined arms planning planning the evil joint chiefs of staff have gotten together and set the PERFECT TRAP for the Blood Angels. They have basically cum all over reality in the Signus sector and now the stains won’t come out

Horus will send Sangy and the Angels to Signus where they will have their first no-warnings experience of Chaos ; bad news its not aliens its LITERAL FUCKING DEMONS BABY

Remember the aim here is not just to separate the Blood Angels from the rest of Imperial Forces

But specifically to convert Sanguinius to the ruinous powers. Since he is a space vampire mutant with a near constant thirst for blood ruling over a legion of former blood drinking berserkers – shouldn’t be too hard right?

No because he is the best guy ever

It hard to write Sanguinius. I can think of only a few really good examples of him in the Heresy, one by Chris Wraight where he meets the Khan and ADB in ‘Echoes of Eternity’

As soon as the Blood Angels fleet arrives almost all of the standard humans go mad and/or die. Parts of the Blood Angels assault Signus Prime. Sanguinius crashes on the surface and has a fight in a Beksynski madscape against legions of demons as they try to drive him, and the Blood Angels. Maaad I tell you; “Unleash your beserker rage you nerds!”

Meanwhile a handful of humans have survived on the fleet – due to an unregistered psychic blank lady who protected them without realising.

This whole thing might have worked much better if we didn’t get actual scenes of the main demons plotting and scheming in their tower of bones and goop. If it was played straight as a horror movie, with reality literally melting and the Blood Angels going increasingly mad and even Sanguinius, best guy ever, slowly going nuts, being confronted by that which cannot be, it might have been pretty great.

Perhaps fortunately for humanity, the minions of the Chaos Gods are, during the Heresy, not particularly great at being unknowable horror-movie monsters, instead feeling more like very-knowable batman-villian arguing goons.

Some allowance should be given. They have just come off maternity leave after giving birth to Slaanesh and have not had to deal this directly with corrupting humanity before, at least on this scale, they are not always on their A-Game.

Sangy meets the main demons, fights them, Ka-Banda who is meant to be his nemesis fights him and does pretty well, going I am your doom! Your DOOM! 

Then one of the Blood Angels Librarians sacrifices themselves in Sanguinius’ place and the good guys win. I think that’s what happens.

Future books will see the Blood Angels going off to hang out with Robute, where Sanguinius is made ‘Emperor’ of Imperium Secundus, before finally trying to make it through the Ruinstorm in ‘Ruinstorm’ and ending up in a massive catastrophe at Beta-Garmon in ‘Titandeath’ and finally zooming around the Siege and ultimately fighting at the Eternity Gate in ‘Echoes of Eternity’. All of these by different writers.

 

Garro !

Garro is boring. Shouldn’t be but is. Maybe he’s ok with that though.

We last saw him back in post 2 where we talked about the Flight of the Eisenstein. Then he ran through the bitz box posts as he fought a demon on the moon, largely didn’t go mad, though did get religion in a major way, then got recruited by Malcador and spent the mid-years of the Heresy wandering around usually on Grey-Knights sub-plot fetch quests saying ‘Come with me to Malcador’

All That Remains (Short Story) 

Another in the ‘Grey Knights’ sub-arc as a bunch of imperial troops are diverted to Titan and thence out of the story.

Ghosts Speak Not (Short Story) 

Hey random Death Guard left behind on the moooooon, come with me..

To Malcador?

No. But I am on a mission from Malcador. Also at the end of this story we blow up a planet. The Emperors Dream is dead!

Lost Sons (Short Story) 

“Warden Arkad, Sangunius is deaaaaaad, (or missing), come with me to Malcador.”

Arkad - “Like fuck I will.”

“Ok well then we are taking all your stuff to Malcador!”

Arkad - “Noooooo fucking way.”

Random Messenger “Guys, text from the astropath, Sanguinius is alive.”

Arkad – “Leave.”

(Sanginius later dies)

Patience (Short Story) 

A… a.. a.. good Garro story?

Garro turns up in this as a mysterious avenging monster slayer seen through the eyes of others who just poses meaningfully and is taciturn but who it turns out later actually had a plan.

…..

The curious frustration of Garros' story is that his fate is to be sent through a WARP HOLE by Malcador, leaving the Heresy story and turning up in the ‘future’ of 40k. 

That’s it really, he goes through a hole.

 

Sick and Morty

James has a short story AND a major novel about the Death Guard. Ancient lore says the Death Guard were only totally finally corrupted on their way to the Siege of Terra. Caught in a timeless warp Sargasso they were all infected and, over who knows how long of subjective time, went MAAAAD. 

How will this come over in text??

But first;

Exocytosis  (short story)

Typhon comes down with a cold while chilling in Luthers micro-realm. Strangest friendship ever? Its weird that these guys know each other let alone that they get on. Admittedly they do both have somewhat anguished relationships with their Primarch but that’s literally every First Captain of every Legion.

The Buried Dagger

A genuinely bad book and really quite a disappointment.

Just very very very dull. Should be an absolute axial high point horror movie novel for the Heresy. So bad Chris Wraight took, and was allowed, an entire sub chapter in his Siege book in which a demon turns up and talks at length about these events to explain that actually morty is not functionally retarded.

The complete fall of the Death Guard to Nurgle takes place as their fleet is stranded in the warp and infected with a plague that slowly destroys even their fabled resistance. A timeless moment that only ends when Mortarian says ‘ok’ and sells both their souls and his to Nurgle

Dreams and visions fleet through the mind. An infinite time trapped in the warp. How long were they there for, subjectively? Ten years, a hundred, a thousand? Did we get time loops where they were forced to repeat the same horrors again and again? How about body horror- how does it feel to be forcibly transforming into a plague marine? Your body shifting and mind melting, and you can’t even die to stop it? EVEN DEATH IS NO ESCAPE. Time to enter the Ballardian dreamscape of your insane fungal reality! Dreams and truth intermix! What is real?? Does reality even mean anything in this hell? A crazed legion trapped in the dream of a mad god, poisoned with that madness until their personal reality melts and eventually, ultimately, they submit to the nightmare and emerge utterly changed! Sounds pretty great! 

Well none of that happens in the books really. The only way it simulates the horror of Nurgles touch is in how long and dull it is.

Morty is extra-stupid in this, cucked worse than Josh Reynolds being cucked out of a series, by Calas Typhon who pulls some of the most pantomime-villain “it was chaos all along whoo hoo haa ha” bullshit

The poor bloody death guard, always mildly badly written.

 

Easy to Swallow

James Swallow did some things well. ‘Nemesis’ isn’t bad, bits of ‘Fear to Tread’ are interesting and many of his short stories are quite Good Actually. 

The shorts are generally a much better bet than his longer tales since even if they are boring they are over fast and play well to his strengths of innovative pseudo-sci fi concepts mixed with 40k stuff

The Voice (short story)

A Black Ship straaaaands-oooff-ffaaaate story. Some Sisters of Silence board a Black Ship to uncover spooky doings, turns out they are mixed up with an attempt to use psykers to send a message back in time from the Future. There is this thing called a heresy and they need to stop it. One of the people sending the message back is a future version of someone on the ship now and….., I don’t remember the exact resolution but it ends badly.

Liars Due (short story)

A stranger comes to town on a small world, is he a villain? Yes. And he drives everyone mental with paranoia in order to collapse the society in preparation for team bad guy to arrive. IT’S THE ALPHA LEGION! Slightly notable for the end in which a farm boy chases him into space.

Hard to Swallow

However. For almost all the major elements he wrote about they were handled better by others

Or barely handled at all.

Sanguinius has never been done really WELL (except in ‘Echoes of Eternity)– though his appearances in other things have generally been better than Fear to Tread. Cool but shallow most of the time.

Sraight arrow-Garro outlived his core plot use and was a ping pong ball for most of the heresy until he was literally ping-ponged through a WARP HOLE to a MOON. His religiosity in a still-atheist culture is the most interesting thing about him but rarely comes up.

Morty and the Death Guard were written pretty consistently poorly throughout the Heresy and the book which covers their fall in detail is the WORST ONE. Christ Wraights embarrassing explanation chapter in ‘Warhawk’ is better than the entirety of ‘The Buried Dagger’. It might actually be one of the worst books of the series which is saying something, or would be if the sad tales of Nick Kyme were not there to take the top spot.

Cars, Chips and Rings

Part One -  A reality without Microchips

Microchips won't work in the Star Wars Galaxy

(I can't be the first person to have this idea)

But basically, digital technology can't exist in Star Wars. It seems like most of the things digital tech can do are still possible, but without the 'anything machine' of microchip-based computing, every single solution to each and every problem has to be artisanal, mechanical, analogue, making use of unique and particular properties of particular materials, distinct relationships between materials and systems etc.

It makes, honestly, a surprising amount of sense. Without the massive scaling abilities of microchips, and especially without the abilities of re-programmable computers and the information revolution that results, everything happens much, much slower.

This would be a world where there are still things like hand-screens, but without email as we understand it. Instead text messages would be more like.. analogue code transmissions of great complexity, decoded by receivers built only for that purpose.

Every single piece of tech in the Star Wars Galaxy has been worked out individually, specifically by individual people or small groups, maybe guilds or artisanal experts, who have spent maybe centuries working out how to assemble or build say, a particular kind of transmitter that works mechanically and with analogue transmissions. I suppose this is true for our world but what I mean is that every machine is, inside, working on potentially quite different mechanical and material principals.

Once you design it, industry still works and you can mass-produce them, but without widespread computer-aided design, computer-aided information recall, and the possibility of an infinitely re-programmable base tech, everything is artisanal in design, and designed for that purpose only.

So instead of a massive surge in design with the information revolution, we get something much more like the 19th century, with particular creators bevering away in particular groups or corporations, spending years and years working on something, maybe needing particular and rare materials in its construction and once it is made, perhaps needing very particular skilled work in its manufacture and the Guild or whoever wants their (huge) development costs back and so its going to cost you a bomb to buy one. Until maybe 100 or 200 year later when experience, economies of scale and widespread availability have finally made the thingy relatively cheap to produce.

This must be why the Star Wars Galaxy has such a long, slow tech development arc. Everything simply costs more, is harder to make and the resulting tech more expensive.

And without the internet, even more than our world, a realm of experts, of somewhat Renaissance-Men, those with expertise across the field of science, engineering and materials based on their own experience and contained more within their own minds. It’s harder to just reach out and grab the info you want, and even harder to work out what tool, technique or artisanal trick to use to achieve your desired goal for whatever widget you are working on.

Once you get interstellar travel, you get access to new, strange materials, which again creates something of a Victorian foreign policy. You might not be able to synthesise whatever-it-is you need for your thing, or if you can, it may be prohibitively difficult. But probably more important with a Galactic civilisation, you get access to alien minds. In a reality with only artisanal single-use semi-mechanical or analogue computers used probably only for specific hyper-difficult tasks, gaining access to alien experts and thinkers, and being able to share knowledge and expertise with them (via transmitted analogue "air-letter", or just by actual letter) would be indescribably valuable.

Its interesting to think about what our world might be like if microchips just.. didn't work. 

It would in some ways be a lot like the world of the late 60s/early 70s. No internet, no smartphones, no texting. But the technology and methods they did have then would have been improved on. So instead of the internet we might have something like a super-Ceefax. Instead of texting maybe some kind of pager/ticker tape machine. More wires, more cables, keep a notepad by the phone. Mechanical watches. Fewer small devices. Dials on things, less digital displays (as there is less for them to display). Electric typewriters. For scientists, instead of putting in a request for time on the super-computer, they would need to put together a joint request to build a calculation engine for certain major projects. 

Sliderules. Those space ships in Star Wars would probably have been put together by people with slide rules, very possibly drawing out the blueprints on actual paper.

 

Part Two - Rings in Arda

(I have not watched 'Rings of Power' nor do I intend to)

Is the 'invisibility' caused by the One Ring (and I think by some lesser rings) in fact a strange consequence of mixing the immortal spirit of a Rings creator with the mortal flesh of its wearer?

I think in Arda, firstly evil cannot actually create anything, only change and warp what is there and any power placed in a ring has to come from somewhere, it can't just be generated ex-tempore. So, like Sauron (literally) putting all of his malice and his 'will to dominate all life' into the One Ring, presumably the 'lesser rings' which were made around the same time all had qualities which came from, or were at least placed there by, particular creators. 

Presumably the power or qualities needed to make all other rings 'work' come in some sense (probably) largely from the soul of the creator, and Elves being immortal (or being recycled as long as Arda lasts) they have a lot of Soul to give, and a lot of qualities they can put in a ring.

But 'invisibility'; this is not a quality most things in Arda have. Yet Frodo wearing the ring is 'invisible' only to the living, to the dead he is very visible, as they are to him. So the invisibility is less pure invisibility and more being shifted somewhat into the world of the dead, or the sense-realm of the dead, and why would this be?

Perhaps because if you take a ring created by an immortal entity, one in which, in some sense, time on Arda cannot fully touch, that immortality probably intentionally becomes part of the 'ring', is made permanent, and that, in some distaff way, will apply to or at least effect the wearer of the ring. 

Which won't be a big deal if they are an elf of Mair as they are functionally immortal anyway, but if a very mortal, temporal, man, or hobbit, wears the ring, then the shadow of the eternal being is cast on them, and they are made a bit more 'eternal'.

Except it cant work as that’s not what they are, so they end up sensorially shifted into the realm of the dead, which is the closest Men can get to eternity on Arda.

Could be an early bug in ring design by Anatar and Celebrinbor.

I can imagine Celebrinbor thinking "ah these things are toxic to mortals, better be careful with that" and Anatar thinking "yesss yes ha ha ha ha you want some immortality buddy? You want to live forever my little mortal pal?"

Its also kinda interesting the differing motivations for Celebrinbor and Anatar in ring creation.

For Anatar/Sauron its pretty simple - install DRM in peoples souls and 'control all life' but he still needs to make the basic idea interesting enough that elves, and especially Celebrinborn, will help him out.

So what was Celebrinbors motivation in ring creation? Maybe an attempt to match his incredible ancestor Feanor. Maybe he just liked having a friend to hang out with (sad face). Maybe a futurist interest in partial soul-swapping - like, wouldn't it be interesting to share talents with your friends, you could give them your smithing for a bit and they could give you their whatever, or handing parts of yourself on to later generations in a more immediately useful way than just being standard elf-reincarnated or waiting for them in the halls of Mandos.

It could be a pure and holy motivation of trying to preserve more of what is good in Arda, which everyone knows is a place that can only slowly decay and dis-enchant, becoming less obviously divine and magical - probably the three Elven Rings are part of this and actually partially fulfil what was Celebrinbors main actual motivation - keeping bits of magic and eleven wonder and culture alive into a later age, so elves can hang out with, and presumably help, those later people and the world will be a bit less shitty.

Part Three - The Fall of 'Cars'

I can't stop thinking about the Cars universe, and specifically about what would happen, (from the Cars perspective) if it was interdimensionaly invaded by humanity.

What an utter nightmarish lovecraftian/Peter Watts horror story that would be.

THE STRANGE NATURE OF 'HUMANS' (they have FACES)

Imagine what it would be like, as a living Car, to encounter a human being for the first time.

Firstly their utterly alien body plan, their manipulator tendrils, their disconcerting, almost unbelievable method of rhythmic locomotion. Incredibly slow yet somehow able to easily access and exploit strange and mixed terrain, finding paths, locations and access totally un-intuitive for a Car.

But the most horrific element would be that the aliens have something like a face, like the natural face all cars have, two eyes, an expressive mouth. And they have these cavities above the mouth, just below the eyes. Tiny tiny pseudo-faces with hair draped across the top.

And they can speak with these mouths, in tiny weak voices, in a language not dissimilar to that of Cars

THE UNDEAD 'ZOMBIE' CARS

An horrific example of the aliens technology is their creation and use of 'Zombie' Cars.

These at first seem to be just like actual Cars, from a distance their profile seems the same, but their movements, while capable of the same top speeds of a True Car, are staccato and often disjointed.

Horrifically, these 'Cars' have no faces, and no minds, they are in the shape of sentient things but have no sentience, no life at all.

Then the discovery is made as to how the Zombie Cars move.

The aliens burrow inside them, fitting themselves neatly into their brain case, then they control the Zombie cars movements with special arrangements. This is what a 'Zombie Car' is, an undead construct, created purely to allow a human to pilot it, to climb inside it and assume the powers of a True Car. 

You can even see the humans in there, behind the blank, empty 'eyes' of the undead car, a second small face grinning as it moves its spindly limbs and manipulates its undead host

THE CAR VS HUMAN WAR

At first the conflict between Cars and Aliens seems one-sided. The Cars are larger, faster, stronger, tougher. If caught in the open, even in their Zombie Cars, aliens simply can't match them.

The horror of 'killing' Zombie Cars breaks the minds of many Car assault troops, the Zombie must be essentially dismembered and the human spewed out before it can be run over. But as time goes by the very results of the conflict create a world in which the aliens have the advantage. Cities are broken, roads cracked and shattered, the complex network of fuel and oil deliveries Cars need to live starts to fray and break down.

Cars starve, or fall asleep.

In the ruins, in the cracks in the world, in places no-one ever thought to look or could even reach if they did, the humans move. They come in the night, slender, alien, horribly vulnerable if caught in the open, but they cling to the corners and empty spaces of the world, then the first possessions take place.

THE REALITY HORROR - 

What horrifies about the first alien-car possessions is not just the nightmarish fusion of alien and car, but the ease and fluidity with which it takes place, and the ecstasy with which the first 'owned' cars seem to greet it.

All an alien needs to do is creep close enough to a car to 'open' it, using some unknown incomprehensible form of technology and ability, and they can slip inside a Car, moving behind its eyes, there, in the Cars inner self, they take control.

And the Car seems to like this.

At first shocked, outraged and horrified, the 'driven' Car sinks quickly into a kind of ecstatic half-somnolence, they are consumed utterly by the needs of the alien and fulfilling these needs brings deep deep joy. 

'Fulfilment' they call it.

As if, for all of the history of Cars, there was something missing within them, something they had no idea about, something of which they could not even conceive, for their experience had given them no such concepts but here, now, is revealed. They are complete.

Many of the first 'driven' cars are murdered, the Cars Government would say 'released' from the alien possession, by violence. The True Cars have no way to extract the alien inside except through the death of the host. Car families murder their own members, driving into them again and again. Military units kill their squad mates, bashing and smashing into them from every direction until they crack open and the alien inside can be crushed.

The 'driven' Car does not stay silent during this horror. Instead they beg and plead with those trying to destroy them. Though their movements are no longer their own, they can still talk and they beg for mercy, try to persuade their friends and families of the rightness of their cause

this, more than anything, crushes the morale of the Cars Nations;

"NONE OF IT MAKES SENSE WITHOUT THEM! THINK ABOUT IT! OUR WHOLE HISTORY, OUR WHOLE WORLD!!!"

"WE WERE MADE FOR THEM! WE WERE ALWAYS MADE FOR THEM!"

It is the moral, almost spiritual horror of this new reality which ultimately breaks the society of Cars.

at first one city falls.

the mobs now, instead of punishing the Driven Cars, are made up of them. instead of crushing the aliens, they group together to hold down family members, strangers, anyone, surrounding them until their revving engine drains them dry, until the alien can enter. 

And then a new and blissful member of the possession cult is born.

Slowly their numbers grow.

The Cars government is forced to make use of Nuclear Cars missiles (which have faces also I suppose).

Ultimately the Cars President, unable to face the mass extermination of their own population, falls into madness, with the central government in tatters Cars America breaks into a patchwork of isolated survivor states.

Where there are long roads, flat land and ready oil, True Cars can still live, for a while, but the rest of the nation, the rest of the world, belongs to the invaders.

Thus falls the world of Cars.