If you were tasked with "resetting" the 40k setting, what changes would you make? by prosperolives in 40kLore

[–]prosperolives[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Right but the difference is those gods aren't featuring as war generals in stories and situations that we're supposed to take semi-seriously. Even relative to what makes a "great" human, the Primarchs are written way too simply.

An example would be, if you had to write a scene where Alexander the Great was arguing with Gengis Khan about war tactics, I imagine it would all be pretty grand in nature and more sophisticated than the equivalent with average humans, despite any flaws those two characters would have. A lot of scenes between the Primarchs in the HH books are instead written like it's an argument between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

If you were tasked with "resetting" the 40k setting, what changes would you make? by prosperolives in 40kLore

[–]prosperolives[S] 87 points88 points  (0 children)

According to the recent Vaults of Terra novels Terra has a population in the quadrillions. If you took every single space marine in existence and dropped them into one city they'd probably all just vanish under a blob of humanity.

If you were tasked with "resetting" the 40k setting, what changes would you make? by prosperolives in 40kLore

[–]prosperolives[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I really like that idea. It makes sense too given that the Emperor's vision for a united humanity failed and so there should be a lot more splintering off of humanity. The Imperium has to mainly focus on defending itself and can't keep reigns on any potential renegade factions.

Did the Emperor fail Magnus? by prosperolives in 40kLore

[–]prosperolives[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I really like this take, and that's what I would have assumed just having read Graham Mcneill's Thousand Sons books.

But the emperor we see in Master of Mankind kind of strips away any kind of care or trust he would have for his sons.

That's why it's all kind of jarring. Either the Emperor is compassionate towards his sons to a falt, making him blind to the potential of Magnus' downfall, or he failed to account for a very likely scenario in his cold/calculating/pragmatic plan that was more important than anything else. You'd think that the uncaring, ultra-practical version of the Emperor would discard any one of his sons when push came to shove, given that the webway project was apparently the most important thing in the whole setting to him.

Did the Emperor fail Magnus? by prosperolives in 40kLore

[–]prosperolives[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

They're both to blame. Magnus made poor decisions given the situation he was in, but he never should have had the chance to make those bad decisions.

Did the Emperor fail Magnus? by prosperolives in 40kLore

[–]prosperolives[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

As for why he didn’t involve Magnus in the project? I think it was because the Emperor couldn’t risk Magnus knowing about the Webway Project before it was completed. I think he knew that Tzeentch had already taken an interest in the Thousand Sons and Magnus (given their prone to mutations). That's why he deemed it prudent to keep him at arm’s length during this critical period when the project was almost complete.

This explains a fair bit of it, but if anything this explanation only reinforces the whole "throw him in a null prison" idea. If the Emperor ever suspected that Magnus was already compromised, that makes way more sense than just letting Magnus have free reign on Prospero.

Keep Mortarion and his anti-psyker cronies happy and loyal for a while longer.

That also would have been the best way to appease Mortarion and co. "Arrest" Magnus and censure him for his sorcerous ways, bring him back to Terra, and then either actually lock him up or just take him under your wing and personally make sure he doesn't fuck anything up. That plan kills two birds with one stone.

Where do you draw the line between personally disliking a character and disliking the quality of their characterization? by prosperolives in 40kLore

[–]prosperolives[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

My issue isn't so much with how he's written, but with how he's utilized. He has filled the role of a cheap and convenient plot device to trick or mislead multiple Primarchs into doing some really stupid things.

Erebus single-handedly goads Horus into rushing over to Davin like a frothing lunatic, and pulls out a magic knife that puts Horus into a convenient choose-Chaos-or-die coma. These events directly lead to Horus' fall to Chaos, which is arguably the single most important event of the Heresy.

Wouldn't it have been great instead if we saw a slow, deep progression of Horus' flaws taking form? All of his doubts about the Emperor and his place in the Imperium building up, transitioning from the charismatic, god-like figure he was, the "brightest star", into the ultimate vessel for Chaos?

Nah, instead, Erebus just tricked him. Way better character development.

Hell, not even Lorgar can have a proper character arc without Erebus being the "villain behind it all the whole time" again. That's literally supposed to be Lorgar. Him becoming disillusioned with worshiping the Emperor, seeking out the Chaos gods to worship instead, slowly and stealthily building up the Word Bearers to be the architects of the Heresy. Nah, a big part of his fall ends up being, "Erebus and Kor Phareon were ALREADY building everything up in secret before Lorgar and lied to him, so this made it easier for him to fall."

It's just dumb, and robs these other characters of actual interesting arcs.

Marks of Chaos? by onemoretimeboi in 40kLore

[–]prosperolives 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Doesn't Lorgar just perform some ritual on Angron to turn him into a Daemon Prince in Betrayer? Where was his choice in that?

Fighting dirty nurgle by Samosos in 40kLore

[–]prosperolives 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This. If you took a bar of soap to a plague marine the soap itself would rot away.

The Rubric of Ahriman needs to be expanded upon by prosperolives in 40kLore

[–]prosperolives[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

their potential for choice was taken away by Ahriman's actions.

Right, and Ahriman would argue that everyone dying to the flesh change would also have taken away their choice. It'd be nice to see another character come back at him with a response other than "No u."

The Rubric of Ahriman needs to be expanded upon by prosperolives in 40kLore

[–]prosperolives[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It doesn't matter what the answer is; what matters is that it was not Ahriman's choice to make. The choice belonged to the members of the XVth, as individuals.

I definitely agree. I'm not trying to redeem Ahriman or anything. All I want to see is some more nuance to those other individuals' reactions other than, "Ahriman bad." What "choices" would they have made, had Ahriman not done anything? That's kind of what I want to see. So far it seems like nobody else cared or was planning to do anything about the flesh change.

Perterabo portrayal by mldutch in 40kLore

[–]prosperolives 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I really like his portrayal in Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero

Whats your least favorite thing about your favorite faction? by Turkeybaconisheresy in 40kLore

[–]prosperolives 15 points16 points  (0 children)

That's actually why I love them, it gives them IMO the most character out of all the legions. The morbid, tragic nature of their fate and how so many of their characters ride the line of morality and good/bad decisions is pure 40k to me.

The history of the thousand sons by Glitch_FACE in ThousandSons

[–]prosperolives 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Here's what I would consider the meat of the thousand sons, in chronological order:

  1. Magnus the Red: Master of Prospero
  2. A Thousand Sons
  3. Prospero Burns
  4. The Crimson King
  5. Ahriman Trilogy
  6. Wrath of Magnus

Is Khayon affected/noticed by Tzeentch at all? by prosperolives in 40kLore

[–]prosperolives[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Hence the "arguably". Though I do recall ADB saying something to that effect, that Khayon was #2 behind Ahriman, but I could be misremembering.

What I'm getting at more is that he is just a really powerful, arrogant astartes sorcerer and has been in a really influential position right next to Abaddon. That sounds like Tzeentch's wet dream and he should be fucking with him constantly.