There Is No Bus - Peter Fehervari's Dark Coil

A long time ago, in school I had a teacher in Russian History and was trying to explain the slavic temperament.

They talked about being in Russia; they went to the bus stop and found an old lady waiting for the same bus.

they wait

they wait more

This teacher turns to the old lady and says;

"Looks like the bus is late."

The lady stares back and says;

"Perhaps there is no bus."

This is likely why Peter Fehervari is big in Russia. Because for him, there is no bus.

Stolen from this reddit thread;

https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/cg38re/impressions_of_peter_fehervaris_visit_to_russia/

With Apologies

THE DARK COIL

Peter Fehervari's 'Dark Coil' books are a strange little corner of the Warhammer 40k Universe made up of three books, which I have read, and a handful of short stories, which I have not. For some reason (perhaps interdimensional meddling) the first two were given rather odd names.

Fire Caste - still has its primary name, which has little to do with its contents. (Although A Fehervari book having a curiously misleading name become strangely appropriate as the series goes on). Here the Imperial Guard fight the Tau on the planet of Phaedra which is essentially Jeff Vandermeers or JG Ballards 'Apocalypse Now; Fungal jungles, coiling rivers and spiritual decay.

Cult of the Spiral Dawn - used to be called 'Genestealer Cults'? Here the Imperial Guard fight the eponymous cult on the Koronus Ring, a black megastructure on the world of Redemption, which is mainly fire, doom  and spiritual decay.

Requiem Infernal - The Adeptus Sororitas and Imperial Guard fight, well mainly themselves, which is a main theme in every Fehervari book, but also Chaos, on the Koronus Ring, which here is on the world of Vytarn, a planet made of water, religion and spiritual decay.

Is Vytarn Redemption? If so, how? Well read to find out I guess.

All the books are quixotically interconnected, not in a direct sequential way, but through a kind of web-work of timelost wanderers, strange chains of cause and effect, dream-visions etc. They all interrelate but you can read each individually and there is no real beginning, and no end - JUST THE CREEPY SPIRAL.

AND YES YOU CAN LITERALLY BUILD AN ACTUAL WALL OF MADNESS FROM THE CONNECTIONS!

Reading a Fehervari book is like walking into a cinema in the middle of a horror movie, and then the cast and story of a different horror movie cross over with it, or the events of a whole new horror movie, with a different monster and cause, start up in the second act. And the film just keeps-going, so at some point, you leave.

As if the protagonist of Rosemaries Baby ends up in a lift with someone who is being pursued through dreams by Freddie from Nightmare On Elm Street and they meet Ellen Ripley, either traumatised after the first film or actively living through the second.

This, and the relentless interconnections between stories, create the really strong illusion that there is this warp and weft of just really terrible stuff happening to almost everyone most of the time. occasionally they meet and interconnect and we only view one particular section of these connections. Like looking at a map through a toilet roll.

CHAOS LIKE GRAVITY

The actually-scary (or at least, perturbing) elements of a Fehervari book are rarely at the end, when the actual monsters show up, the horror-movie 'scenes', stuff pulled from cinema (there are actual 'jump scares' in Reqiuiem infernal, which is, its wierd seeing people in a textual medium describe things as they would be seen in a film on the screen, with all the assumed camera movements and furniture but I suppose its as valid as any other aesthetic choice from other generations), and usually by the time of the big fights at the end, the full war-scenes.

When things become explicit in his books, and the horror is actually manifest, that a relief, even if people are dying, because there it is, you can see it

The actually-worrying things;

- Dark Imperial Culture, just pushed a little further into horror than it already was. The Imperiums already fucking dark, but now its a little worse. Like the fanatical teen commissars wearing barbed wire on their hats, with rotten teeth, reading intel from a stained page, the dirty and self-blinded monks with lips sewn shut, the Inquisitors who will literally watch a world die to measure exactly how it happens.

To some extent this is the stuff that would be happening in the Imperium anyway, but we don't see it through the eyes of other writers, but its also just Fehervari.


- The Interpersonal Perturbation - the not knowing.

The small personal resentments echoing through peoples webs of relationship, the micro power structures of small units, the desire for recognition, justification, power, submission, escape, violence.

Because Feheravis stuff is so morally multipolar, and because the cast changes each time, (there are no long-running, marketable 'soap opera' characters who's death is a 'big moment'), it means everyone can die - which matters less for itself than for what it signifies. Everyone can be wrong, and everyone IS wrong, probably, or deluded in some way.

The complexity, disposability and variety of the cast allows him to create situations which are a hair more like real life, in which many people are operating on subtly different perceptions and different assumptions and in which no-one is absolutely wrong in a highly dramatic way.

In a shorter more intense story, people will by necessity operate across a simpler moral axis, it'll be based around a single decision.

"Do we kill fluffy in the plane crash?"

And the argument, whether its verbal or physical, will play out more like a debate than an actual real life disagreement. Its either good or bad to kill fluffy, or  its necessary, but then at the end you say "yes we killed fluffy, but *at what cost*. So the axis is mainly good, but a bit bad

Or "yes we were terrible in killing fluffy, but wasn't it in a way understandable?", so mainly bad but a bit good.

But the same axis. And this is really largely a necessity in many kinds of story

Here you have something more like a weird soap opera where everyone is slightly mental because of slightly different things, and where everyone is super intense, but about different stuff, and deluded or mistaken, often for quite reasonable reasons, but about different things.

Everything is a lie in the Dark Coil, but its not one large central lie, like a schizo fantasy where you pull back the curtain and behind the lie is a TERRIBLE TRUTH. Its ALL a lie. Even the demons, when they turn up, are deluded, and even they don't really know how things are going to go, even though they live outside time.

But to bring it back to my main point, the complex texture of slightly dark and partially deluded interpersonal relationships, and Fehervari hopping around from head to head, means its like being at a party where you know half the people and it feels like they are talking about you behind your back. Not just for the characters, but for the reader as well. Uncertainly. Fear.


- The Time Loops

God fucking damn it did I become the demonic monster which I was chasing- AGAIN??

Like the baddy I met at the beginning of the book was actually me at the end of of the book, just really fucked up from all the shit I did during the book, which was all motivated by my encounter with the main baddy at the beginning? who was actually me? aaahh fuckin' chaos! >shakes fist at sky<

If you are in a Feheravi book and you have what feels like an 'inciting incident' with something alien, demonic, dreamlike or strange, very quickly ask them to take off the mask, or have a walk around or good look at them because there's a 1 in 4 chance its you from the future, shadow-you, you from a forgotten past or some other version of you.

time loooooops!!



- the Reality Shifts/Memory Shifts

This is some Descartes nightmare fuel.

Did your memory just change, like when you remember your mother was that really your mother? Do you feel like something shifted inside your head but can't recall what it was, and now even the recollection of the change itself is fading, leaving only a sense of wrongness like a bruise you got while blacked out drunk?

Did you just change your mind about an important topic? Like maybe you like ketchup now when you didn't before? Was it you - OR DID YOU GET ABSORBED BY AN ALIEN HIVE MIND?

hey if Weird Forces can just change reality like that why don't they just change it so they already won?

> powers strong but not infinite?
> feeding off the moral decay better than winning?
> not really interested in you specifically
> just kinda dinguses
> they already did and this is that reality you are living through
> complex time reasons
> they themselves are deluded and wrong, even though they have terrifying power over *you* <<<<<<<[its this one]

The horror of the reality shifts reminds me a lot of waking up hungover after being really drunk and/or really high. this feeling of formless shame, as if I did something terrible, or failed morally in some way but can't remember it, that there is something terribly wrong somewhere, and I don't want to think about it and my thoughts shrink from it as if from a blow, but even if I do think about it - only darkness responds.

Memory! Its just clay really isn't it?



- The *relatively* subtle psychology of chaos corruption

Its not always this basic but a pretty common bit in a warhammer book is someone either going TOO FAR

as in;

Do we need to explode that planet of puppies?

YES because CHAOS!

You fought CHAOS but in doing so you went TOO FAR, which means you get corrupted by CHAOS

Or them just being a flake who probably would have bought weed from the guys in the bike sheds at school anyway.

Anyway,

One or both of those is true and then at some point a demon literally physically turns up and just pulls a straight up Faust;

"hey hey hey mortal, you seem pretty corrupt, how do you feel about Hentai/ RAAAAGE/ Antidepressants/ NoClipMode?"

Then the mortal is either "no" - in which the demon goes "ha ha ha, we'll getcha next time!!"

or "yea", in which case here are your spikes and gothic tailoring

Corruption in Fehvari is not totally different, but much better done. Its really impossible to seperate actual Kaos from just the slow mental collapse that everyone is already dealing with. Everyone is just quietly falling apart, deluded, and deluding, facing impossible pressures and dark choices.

In large or small, minor or major ways, their enemy is themselves and the texture of reality. It is chaos not like a lure, except at the end but like a kind of gravity, as if reality is on a moral tilt and all any of it can do, human, transhuman, alien or even demon, is just sloooowly tumble.

In Requiem Infernal one character defies the shit out of Nurgle even to the point of death (though the Chaos gods themselves are never named), and they do die, still defying chaos, and then dead, chaos still has their soul, and still tortures and torments them because even death was not an escape, the suffering truly was infinite. And then they break.

There really is no bus is what I'm saying.

FEHERVARIS WEIRD TOYETIC ELEMENTS

Toyetic is the wrong word, because it already has a precise meaning, but also the RIGHT word, because....

Main thing here is the really strange contrast between;

- scenes from sci fi/horror/war movies
- exacting descriptions of toy lines
- TOTAL SPIRITUAL RUIN

This stuff isn't *bad* but its an interesting dissonance.

So there's a bunch of different warhammer books; Listening to Guy Haley Pharos right now on audible. this is a relatively 'light' fun read with some strong and lively character work good situation building and where the somewhat gauche elements are balanced by the good parts, and here (which also has a standard 40k 'faust' scene) the bits that are a bit like movies or which have detailed descriptions of the toy line or 'references' to pop culture (actually I always think the references are bad in any 40k book Graham mcNeill I'm looking at you), but these things don't really stand out as different or odd as they match the tone of the story being told

And there's your 'gourmet burger' 40k authors, where, yes we are doing proper drama now *actually,* where if there are references in a Dan Abnett book they are probably to specific sit rep reports he read about a battle, and with Aron Demski Bowden its probably to some social justice thing. But if you asked ADB to put in a reference to, say, a marvel movie, in his books, all you would see was the whoosh of his cape as he exited the audience room in High Disdain. (the correct response).

But in Feheravris work, well, 'Fire Caste' is a LOT like Apocalypse Now, and also a lot like Aguirre-wrath of god by Herzog, and I think has references to both of those

Spiral Dawn is a LOT like Aliens.

And in all of his books, the toy line, which in this imagined world is actually the military equipment and uniforms etc, is exquisitely detailed, often down to the exact model he's picking out. So the Genestealer Cult General in Spiral Dawn is armed exactly as the model is, and the cult wear exactly the same clothes as the models do.

Its not bad, its just very strange, because in the main thing he's interested in, and the thing he's really good at; the spiritual, entropic and nightmarish structure of reality itself, Ferhravi is top-tier, really unique and really expressive in how that comes together. And then here's your exact toy line. So its a bit like watching a Herzog film in which the characters are replaced by the Cartoons from Masters of the Universe but they are still doing all the same Herzogian stuff.

ENDING THIS

I guess the only correct way to end a review of a Fehervai book is with a link to a continuation, which is also a review of this review, which is itself different, yet somehow the same, and which links you to another review of that review, which links you back here, so there is NO ESCAPE FROM THE DARK REVIEW COIL

So if anyone actually want to do that, let me know and I will link it in.


Stuff I didn't cover is the visceral, grimy upsettingness of the world-texture, BIG SCENES at the end with SUPER BATTLES, and who knows what else?

I Am The Lore

Good news; of the 200 or so people who both backed the Gawain Kickstarter and filled in the Backer survey, my records say only 22 have yet to order their copy of the book.

If you are one of those 22 people - CHECK YOUR EMAIL.

Bad News - Christmas kicked the shit out of me and has apparently completely destroyed my ability to write coherently, form an argument, or even really form a question.

This is a conversation I had with Scrap some time around Christmas and which she was too cool to make a blog post about, even though most of the cogent points are hers;

....................................................................

"SP - Did you watch adventure time to the end?

PS - no I think I gave up a few years out, maybe when Ward left? Not sure. Felt like quality was dropping and also pirating became more difficult

 

SP - i down loaded the last 2 seasons to try and finish it and just..couldn't care

SP - not sure what it was

PS - yyyep

 

SP - like..the random wackiness and escalating world building felt off

they kept building on what I didn't care about

PS - it was Ward leaving, like when that one guy left the Simpsons who didn't seem to do much but after he was gone it slowly, then quickly started to spiral

 

SP - and adding wacky poor designed characters at the wrong times

PS - Ithink it was James L Brooks who insisted the simpsons be related to as human and all the edgy clever men in their 20s and 30s gave hims shit because he got in the way of their invention and galaxy brains

then he left and all you had was clever men

and so the spiral begins

ideas that impress rooms of clever men

 

SP - fucks me up seeing the simpsons using smart phones

PS - you need at least one Full Human in the room

 

SP - maybe it was less Ward being there than having one person being the direction everyone had to work around

like a lodestone

you don't have to always go that direction but it's good to know where it is

PS - magic

 

SP - without him maybe it just would dive too deeply into extended plots or building on boring characters

like Magic Man and Simon aka Ice King

they were good as wacky dudes

and then a little depth to them

but 10+ episodes building on them and connecting them to the fundamentals of the world

naaaaah

PS - oh no, did they do a deep lore dive?

because that's what stories need

 

SP - oh yeah so much so

PS - more lore

oh fuck

dum fucking nerd men

 

SP - i feel like there's lore and there's world building

world building means you have a text that one can get into at any part of it

PS - yes

 

SP - while lore means you need to be following a time line or narrative to make sense of it

obvious fuzzy borders

because so world building :

" what is that thing , oh it's a wuzzy tree. Munky squirrels eat their screaming nuts. What's a Munky Squirrel? Oh it's .."

while lore:

"why are they fighting? Oh because he turned his sister into a fountain . Why did he do that? Because their dad  gave the ebon throne to him instead of him. What's that ..etc"

Like .. world building invites further questions but more or less can have the questions wait

While lore has its parts feel hollow without further context which requires further context

But also that depends on how its presented

like the first star wars has stuff that became lore but at the time it honestly didn't explaining

sorry didn't need explaining

because it was framed so you had all the essential bits right there

while the prequel star wars often have scenes that require outside context to give a shit about it"

................................................................

ANALOGIES

A key thing here seems to be the difference between linear justification or fulfilment and a more global or networked thing where each individual fragment can in a sense stand alone, either in relation to each other or as a seed for an entirely new imagined reality.

I'm imagining the difference here between adventure paths and Josph Manolas exploded pathfinder adventures where the sequence of events has been transformed into geography.

Perhaps that’s a poor analogy.

Maybe more like the difference between learning maths and learning History. As with History, and all of the Humanities to some extent, even if you miss a lesson you can always find a way into a subject, because everything relates to the Human Lifeworld, but with maths, if you miss a lesson, or don't really understand a concept then you are fffffucked, because you will absolutely need a precise and accurate understanding of exactly that concept to progress, so if you were fudging it, or not really getting it, then way down the line you are screwed.

...........................................................................................

MY OWN RELATIONSHIP WITH LOOOOOORE

For a man with multiple pseudohistories about imaginary places and events on his shelves, and who's entire career and leisure time in some way revolves around the creation of imaginary worlds, I am surprisingly ambivalent about Lore.

The Word is Death, in many cases.

This causes me to investigate myself; am I the Horseman of my own apocalypse? Not in like a cool edgy way but just in a crap grey way? 

A thing that's come up in Discord conversations is how something that’s a crutch at one point can become fulfilling at another point. Sometimes an obsessional interest is something you need to get you through a bad and lonely time, sometimes the same interest can be like a lead weight, not protecting you but dragging you down and preventing you from interacting with others in a fulfilling way.

That same interest can be a form of connection which helps you reach out to and interact with others.

But it’s the same thing, the same obsession, just cast differently in different roles.

People want depth and they feel like they want answers, but what they end up getting, when they demand these things, is information. And often its dead information.

I'm looking for a world of the imagination where the images or fragment burn like they do in dreams and where it feels like there is a world of possibility. And I do find fragments of it, but not in the overculture, which seems to me like a graveyard of images.

Is this an experience that other people have?

As usual when I pretend to myself that I'm doing analysis, in reality I'm just listing things I don't like, then hopefully trying to understand the difference between what I do like and what I don't.

A few things that stick about Lore

- splatbooks

- 'filling in'

- arguments over uninteresting ephemera

- psuedo-clever conspiratal bad takes

- the tendency of nerd-culture imagined paracosms to annihilate themselves through detail

- the willingness of the market to buy stuff because it has *details*

- "we killed a character"

- "everything will change" (nothing will change)

- "writers room" writing, like when in Battlestar Galactica, characters started referring to the missing Cylons as "the final five" which, as well as being average mystery box stuff extended waay too far seemed also to me like an artefact from the writers room which characters in the drama suddenly started speaking.

But even so;

- The Star Wars expanded universe had a whole book called 'Tales from Jabbas Palace' in which a bunch of comedy and fantasy writers wrote the backstories to each individual alien wierdo in those scenes. And I liked it.

- Even with conspiratal lore bad-takes, I'm often half-interested.

- I'm only half a shade outside that culture, which of course, means I react even more strongly against it.

- Wilrow Hood.

An idea that I had when I was creating the Eldritch Foundry stuff (I know no-one is interested in this = shut up), was to make Lore like islands, a little like Scrap describes above.

The idea was to give people 'intellectual Lego', concepts and tools they could, in fact that they would *have to* put together themselves, and that every world they created would be built from the same original pieces but that each one would be unique and valid within itself.

A kind of multiverse.

And that there would be little absolute history or imperishable central text to which people could appeal to make the products of their imagination valid.

This is a tendency in people of which I despair. The idea that something outside your own experience, that some agency or structure or guru or system can give your imagination validity, to make it 'canon' or 'real'.

I'm exactly as vulnerable to this thinking as everyone else. Which, typically for me, has not restricted me in judging others for it.

We want to be recognised, more than anything. And I think that’s what people are really selling on Kickstarter or Patron or through Parasocial Youtube relationships, more than any particular product and more than any particular ideology, its recognition. The sense that you have been seen. That you are valid.

My idea was that if you created a system that encouraged people to play games with each other, rather than to collect Lore, that was both a strong prompt *to* play, and also was almost incomplete without the action of play. A system where you complete it yourself by playing with others.

I'm pretty sure I haven't actually done that. It would be an intellectual and creative challenge too great for me. Instead I simply went about things in my usual way. But that was the idea at least.

Here endeth the post.

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.)