#Nebusemekh

[macgyvertape]

my attempt at "Wow Cool Robot" meme as an attempt to get people to read Kasrkin Minor Spoilers below:

I really enjoyed the book, I think the Imperial Guard and Kroot parts are interesting even if you aren't super interested in their faction. It has good plotline of pulp action where enemies team up against a common foe, which in this case are the Flayed Ones necrons. What surprised me is one of the characters' speech about how the Imperium runs on fear, since so few characters express sentiments like this in universe, and though he has ulterior motives for saying this the text doesn't imply he's wrong:

‘You do not need me to tell you that the Imperium is brutal, unjust, frequently corrupt and that it gives no more thought to expending the lives of its people than a tyranid swarm seeks to preserve its warriors. But all of that is accepted because the alternative is worse. Fear is what binds the Imperium together. Without fear, everything – everything – would fall apart. The worlds that pay, in men and money and material, to keep the Imperium functioning, would decide to keep their children and their goods for themselves. The blood of empire is money and trade – Holy Terra is one vast city that depends on how many thousands of ships arriving each day from all over the Imperium to keep its people fed. The same is true of all the key worlds in every sector – they suck other worlds dry to feed themselves. ‘All of this is made possible by fear. Even now, with the galaxy split, most worlds do not even know it has happened. It will be thousands of years before the light of the Rift reaches them. But the High Lords of Terra will use this, as they use everything else, to feed the fear and cement their control.’ This time the general’s laugh was bitter. ‘And you know what is worse? It is men like you and I, honest men trying to do our duty, who are the best tools in their hands. For we do see the real terrors that exist, and we justify their rule wherever we go, and ensure that the fear spreads ever wider and their control becomes ever deeper. ‘We live in a galaxy where all we hear our leaders speak of is war and yet where most people live in peace. We live in a galaxy where fear is the only reality that confronts us, and yet most people will live their days and never see one of the Adeptus Astartes."

My favorite parts and the reason I read the book were for the necron characters; Nebusemekh and the World Mind who are literary foils to Zahndrekh and Obyron.

Nebusemekh suffers from what can easily be read as dementia; not remembering conversations, living in a past happy memory, not able to accurately perceive the world around him. As author Nate Crowley described Zhandrekh "Zahndrekh comes and goes, too. Yes, there is the moment at the end where he reveals that his condition may not be entirely what it seems - but I think that for long stretches of time, it truly is what it appears to be". What Nebusemekh does is similar complete with a few moments of lucidity where he misses his past self, but unlike Zahndrekh he is not able to focus on military tactics. I think there's a lot to unpack about how much he uses his sand castle in the sky project as a way to avoid facing reality but that is for a different post.

Where the World Mind contrasts Obyron is that Obyron obeys orders, while the World Mind sees itself as something akin to a medical conservatorship. It grieves for Nebusemekh's current state but will make decisions that go against Nebusemekh's wishes out of a desire to both protect Nebusemekh from his own memories and to carry out his past military plans to from when he was in sound mind. It's some of the boldest defiance I've seen from a Necron to their lord, he will mislead and unsubtlelly redirect the conversation to progress his goals of awakening the tomb but when pressed he brazenly admits to disabling Nebusemekh's personal weapons.