#guilliposting

[quietbluejay]

Someone found this post the other day, so I started pulling out the idea of planet-swapping Perturabo and Guilliman again (I didn't really go too far with the idea originally) (well context was also group complaining about people getting Guilliman's characterization wrong, lol)

the most wild part was ending up with a perfectly logical way of having Revolutionary Guilliman (which is still breaking my brain a bit)

okay, explanations under the cut

Perturabo: Perturabo with Guilliman's upbringing I think would be a bit more stable, but he'd still have a lot of his OG issues they just wouldn't be expressed to such an extreme extent He's still got his mental encyclopedia, he's still got the Eye of Terror watching him, and he's still got his inherent traits I think Konor's death would cause Perty to turn inwards a lot and kinda give up on any proactiveness he might have learned I think he'd be way more brutal on Illyria than Guilliman was

part of the problem with Olympia is that Perturabo had all these expectations/needs from a familial relationship that were at odds with the culture he found himself in also he had no one when he was at his youngest which is pretty critical I got into this when I was doing his primarch novel, but part of the biggest problem with Perturabo's canonical family was that it started as a transactional relationship I do think he'd have turned out slightly more functional if he'd grown up from the beginning with Dammekos there'd still be issues there because, a) it's Perturabo and b) I think a lot of his inherent personality is at odds with the social/familial expectations of a role as the son of an Olympian tyrant, but I think Perturabo would have a better mental framework in place to handle it so it would be a normal dysfunctional relationship, so to speak

I think the biggest difference in Perturabo post-joining the Imperium is he's got a less dysfunctional relationship with his legion

Guilliman: Guilliman would have a very different early history than Perturabo, I don't know if he'd do the monster slayer thing The thing about Guilliman is that his natural skills are best expressed if he's already in authority, it's not making stuff, it's organizing things no one wants an annoying random giant child telling them how to plant their crops more efficiently Perturabo makes things, there's accepted societal roles for that someone who organizes your people and changes the way you do things is a threat Checkerheart: Baby Guil gathering the peasantry to rebel against the local Tyrant

my thoughts on the matter: Guilliman is very much the "change and improve the system but don't break it" guy but i can see Olympia leading to him being pushed into that kind of role because there isn't really any other good way of making structural change if you're starting out at the bottom unless you get adopted by someone in power (which is still possible! but I think it's less likely for Guilliman than Perturabo)

Guilliman doesn't have revolutionary principles, he's only doing this so he can fix things/get into power so that thought leads into Guilliman and Corvus interacting I don't think he'd be disgusted by Corvus' hypocrisy, I think he'd be disgusted by the fact that he left Deliverance to the Mechanicum

I think that Olympian!Guilliman would actually be more proactive w.r.t. the Imperium than he was in canon as in being an iconoclast and being willing to try and break/fix things he thought were bad ...like the Mechanicum ironic given Corvus, but I can see Olympian!Guilliman ending up in severe conflict with them and accidentally a civil war

ultimately it doesn't matter how well he does power games and tries to resolve things diplomatically, he could do everything right and find a perfect solution and then Emps is going to come down like NO I think this Guilliman is a bit more, hm, open-eyed about people in power rather than having a giant blind spot what he would do is rules lawyer around and try to find a solution within the system and then emps would smack that down but i don't think to the extent of Monarchia as fun as the idea is

I think his natural instinct though is still to try and fix something that exists already but it'd be tempered by his experiences in this AU

I do think he'd be actively looking here in a way he wasn't in canon, rather than just assuming "oh of course the Emperor knows what he's doing, obviously we're built for more than war" and Not Thinking about the things that contradicted that, so there's a better chance he'd pick up on it though...going back to the origins of this au...how does having no parents affect Guilliman? and how would the culture of Olympia affect him?...less of a sense of noblesse oblige and more about quid pro quo I think he'd absorb the culture a lot more thoroughly than Perturabo did

other notes: this Guilliman doesn't have all of Ultramar to draw recruits from, the alt-Ultramarines are going to be smaller Olympia also isn't as fertile as Maccrage and it started at a lower tech level, so there isn't going to be as high of a population anyways the alt-Ultramarines are going to be doing well, b/c Guilliman's geneseed is still very stable here, but he's not going to have the mass numbers he did in canon

(theoretical idea for spreading beyond Olympia is stealing the spaceships of the Black Judges, lol) (Guilliman is gonna spread peace, order and good government to the area around Olympia! and if you get that reference you get a cookie)

...the Emps does a Monarchia on him AU of this AU would be crunchy though obviously Lorgar would be best for maximum irony points but Emps wouldn't trust Lorgar to do it/see it as a good way to test his loyalty, I think

[quietbluejay]

#gman i love u but ngl this is a popcorn moment for me #[to the cadence of Randy Ur Sticks] #‘hey guys i’m gonna go fight my brother but someone will need to go back and run the imperium eventually. make sure i get back in time ok?’ #hey gman it’s been a while #’ZZZZZZ’ #GMAN UR IMPERIUM

I know my sons have warned me about attacking my fallen brother on his flagship but watch me put an end to his treachery

[quietbluejay]

Dark Imperium #1

guess who's back back again

so okay i really liked this trilogy first time i read it, you know, chewing on the furniture in a good way type of deal so i'm hoping it'll hold up

okay so let's start out with DEATH OF A PRIMARCH so the whole thing starts by going on about how human minds just can't grasp the size of space and reality, especially if you add in the warp etc etc I'm pondering, whither this somewhat-flowery prologue why did Haley choose this way to introduce his book? honestly, I got nothing right now

this is what it segues into btw yeah i'm remembering how i didn't like this opening blah blah two fleets are fighting hey wait okay let's look at this

right from the beginning, we're doing this, huh right from the beginning, Haley is drawing an equivalence between them

anyways the narration goes on to talk about the space marines

yeah this is continuing to not pull punches again i am wondering why people say Haley unironically thinks the Imperium is the good guys etc etc even a giant void battle that seems all consuming is nothing compared to the death of stars, etc etc

"care how they are spent" nugatory that's a new one

dangit, haley, why'd you make me eat my words and now it's time for our narrator to judge Fulgrim's decoration abilities

narrator: even though Guilliman's ship had more gold on it, it was still in better taste than Fulgrim's "an affront to decency"

Fulgrim and the EC managed to outmaneuvre Guilliman and turn a rout into a trap [4:40 PM] I feel like when your whole thing is being plan guy, and the guy who just wants to go back to Margaritaville and who has quit fights before because they're boring regardless of the strategic consequences outmaneuvres you, that you should take a good hard look at yourself and also not compound the mistake by being a leeroy narration: Once, Guilliman wouldn't have made such an error

narration: he's at his freakin limit

i thought that was the funniest way to phrase that sentiment, in case you are wondering

I'm not really a fan of the style of the beginning, tbh i don't think haley can really pull off this style it just feels kind of obnoxious ah! it's like what thorpe did except thorpe did it for the entire book it's basically writing prose as if it was game fluff like if this was game fluff i'd say it was great

THIEL THIEL BBY ITS BEEN SO LONG Guilliman is going out in the armour of reason, which sounds like something a redditor from 2011 would make up and with Captain Andos and Thiel who is a captain now i do especially remember this section and how Guilliman and Thiel are written felt pretty jarring after Know No Fear and I was complaining about ooc thiel he's got more sass than this but you know what i'm gonna let it go as a different writers thing ok back to the story as per usual when a primarch shows up, there's the obligatory simping annnd also im just gonna let it go as a "this is guilliman's pov of thiel"

guilliman sadly thinks about how the new kids look so reverently at him and like dude thiel isn't one of those but like "thiel" and "modest" don't really go together anyways, i'm letting it go, i say

Andos is concerned-

yeah cmon man

andos: this is a bad idea guilliman: have you considered that IM BITING FULGRIM BITING HIM BITING HIM BITING HIM

oh, so he did actually put a little thought into it she said, throwing aside a large rock

okay but like the defenders have the advantage guilliman, bro

etc etc "he would not let his sons pay the price for his mistakes" well well well let's see what happens next like yeah okay guilliman is being stupid here but once again fulgrim is proving that he got smarter after he went full chaos

guilliman has weird experiences when being teleported

they're back to reality though it's not a very pleasant reality lol, there's a brief summary of the weird and horrifying places and things Guilliman fought in the heresy oh huh i thought it was going to say Fulgrim's ship was worse but it just says it's "of a similar ilk"

as we all know guilliman's special talent is microsoft excel yes that's relevant here it gets a brief mention

symbolism it's also lmao Haley took the whole thing about painting with bodily fluids and ran with it and was like "yeah everything is covered in mold" oh, hey, it's Corvo, I remember that name Novamarine dude (all the chapter masters are checking in with guilliman as they're fighting) Guilliman remember the last time he was on this ship and feels sad okay time to for real go into the main room everyone: it's a trap! guilliman: exactly! thiel: he could kill you guilliman: yeah i know thiel: dude i'm worried that the reason you want to do this is not entirely practical guilliman: what do you mean? thiel: pride goes before a fall guilliman: pshaw don't worry about it guilliman: anyways if i can't kill fulgrim in single combat i'll call you guys all in

and the chapter ends on guilliman walking into the room and yes this prologue has at least 3 chapters

Guilliman enters the Heliopolis which is full of bones and smells like "smoke and stale musk" grudgingly, i have to admit that at least some of Haley's style here is doing it for me even if i know he can do better

it's once again creepily silent and empty meanwhile he's getting the updates on his helmet

also we get informed that Fulgrim always kinda sounded needy but now it's the main tone of his voice "a poison masquerading as confidence" Fulgrim twits Guilliman about breaking up the legions which is an interesting first choice

Guilliman: I got honoured Fulgrim: nah, that was me Guilliman: anyways I'm a winner because I was slow and steady whereas you raced ahead into damnation Fulgrim: yeah actually I'm saved Guilliman: for fuck's sake and he gets a good look at Fulgrim

Fulgrim: yeah look what MY god did for me, a much better god than Emps Guilliman: the Emperor isn't a god yeah we really are getting a chunk of the high points of the trilogy established here

Fulgrim gets up in Guilliman's space enough for "his hot perfumed breath to caress guilliman's face" and either he's got really strong breath or - actually wait how does this work isn't he a giant snake is he leaning down to talk to guilliman like a child Fulgrim: join me Fulgrim: waggles eyebrows Fulgrim: aren't you tired of being nice Fulgrim: don't you just want to go ape shit Guilliman: nope, you got tricked Fulgrim: no, it's YOU who were tricked Guilliman: no YOU you can tell they're siblings Fulgrim twits him about loyalty and being more loyal to his little domain than anything else Fulgrim: oh yeah and how much of that is left after Angron and Lorgar? lmao Guilliman: bite bite kill kill kill Fulgrim: well that's convenient because i'm here to kill you as well

oh yeah Fulgrim revealed that the whole thing was a giant trap not just this but them showing up in the first place

as usual i'm not going to cover the fight scene Guilliman almost immediately calls in Thiel and Andos and then Fulgrim one-ups him by having a whole bunch of Emperor's Children hanging out silently in the room Fulgrim's evil sword cuts into Guilliman's armour and Guilliman somehow feels it "a spicy agony" ah, so, allergic reaction Guilliman manages to break the sword, which gets Fulgrim mad

meanwhile there's a ferocious battle going on between Guilliman's troops and the EC, and his side is rather outnumbered

Fulgrim is by this point pissed off with Guilliman he comes over and yanks off his helmet Guilliman gets a whiff and gags Fulgrim: pathetic is this foreshadowing for the mortarion confrontation yes, not even i am immune to making mortarion stinky jokes

Fulgrim aimed for where Kor Phaeron got Guilliman with the athame

guilliman collapses meanwhile the Ultramarines rush in to save him

:D Andos is panicking and uhhh i thought the whole point of making Space Marines not feel fear was to avoid this kind of thing??

that's a great bit "his armour caught on the corpses of his sons" he hears a voice and can't place if it's Thiel or not, and once again thinks about how many Ultramarines died to save him they teleport him out

and realizes he's dying for real and that Andos was right and he starts to panic about what's going to happen to the Imperium without him

and that ends the prologue!

[quietbluejay]

I do love when I pick up on something the writer is putting down, absolutely confirmed that the reason Guilliman has gotten so autocratic/micromanaging is because this is essentially a trauma response from his first experiences waking up in 40k (plus also the Fulgrim thing) and especially his encounter with the 40k Emperor

it's very, you know, trying to assert control over situations because he he feels like control over his life was taken away from him and um tbh I get the feeling that something was going on with his mind while he was in stasis as well though I might be completely off, this is just wild spitballing here

also, I really get the feeling that his thoughts/feelings on Yvraine are very much tied up into this and I can't believe it but this might be the trigger that might make me see a way I could ship it (in a messed up toxic way) because for all that it looks like from the outside that the Ynnari are running around doing whatever for Guilliman, I feel like he actually sees her as being the one in their relationship with the power, and that he's got this huge debt hanging over his head, and that she makes him deeply uncomfortable, not just in reminding him of the whole circumstances of his coma and awakening, but just as a matter of who she is and what she represents.

[quietbluejay]

me rereading Dark Imperium: why did I like this book again me rereading the final chapter:

yeah. I remember now

[quietbluejay]

Dark Imperium #7

Some fun stuff in this one (fungus zoom call and guilliman's fancy dinner)!

oh! is it???

is it??????

it is!!! hi mort!!!!!! okay happiness over let's look at what's going on

LOOK AT THIS AAAUGGGGHHH

how can you hurt me in this way, haley, ow ow ow (for those who are wondering what's up with me lmao well think about Barbarus) the organic parts of the Endurance (of which there are many) are full of disease however

also it rains acid

FEEL THE RAIN ON YOUR SKIN NO ONE ELSE CAN FEEL IT FOR YOU ONLY YOU CAN LET IT IN the linkin park version of "unwritten" mortarion is as happy as he ever is, and he stretches out his moth wings and takes off sorry "giant fly wings" i think moth is cooler

why is this so funny to me you hear VRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR and then 20 foot tall dude t-posing just floats past you in the air

it's time for mortarion to go to his room which has KEEP OUT on the door (it doesn't, it's just for practical purposes that way) hey let's hear about morty's hobby some people collect minis, morty collects…

clocks and also

iiit's Necare! mortarion spent like a millennium hunting him down milennium millenium i sweare not one of these looks right and spell check is suspiciously silent ON ALL OF THEM and now it's time for the fungus zoom call i love fungus zoom call

on the one hand, i don't want to touch this with a 10ft pole on the other hand, it would make zoom calls more interesting so we got Typhus and Ku'Gath on the call Mortarion: muahaha the time is at hand, now that Guilliman is coming back Typhus: you're a dumbass. you should have finished this before he got back Mortarion: no you don't get it Typhus I have to kill Guilliman!!!! what's a kingdom without a king? Typhus: rolling his eyes Typhus: you need to move on, man Mortarion: I have! Look at me now! Typhus: lol. lmao. You're a trophy for Nurgle. You didn't pay for your power. Also, oh yeah, you owe everything you have today to me, I'm the one who actually put in effort, you just sat there like a typical primarch Mortarion: curb your insolence Typhus: or what? again typhus has really grown on me one might say like a fungus Typhus: Neener neener neener, Grandpa likes me better than you also i said this the first time I read this, but I also felt like the Nurglites had their own twisted version of Christianity to match the Imperium's

Mortarion: don't try to tell me what to do. You're working with me on this Typhus: the hell I am. You don't have any power over me any more. If you managed to get that fact through your thick skull then maybe we'd be able to reconcile

im barely adding stuff to my paraphrases, as you can see Typhus: okay it's nice that you're turning to the warp more, but your numerology is wrong. I'm not coming Mortarion: are you also against me, Ku'Gath Ku'Gath: no, I actually think this will work. Let's do this for Nurgle!

Mortarion vibes with Ku'Gath because they're both miserable Ku'Gath gets excited as he talks about the disease he is going to create but Morty needs to buy him time to make it and zoom call over

i can't make this stuff up this scene was gold

"you're the only one who understands me, Silence" Mortarion has a heart to heart with dear old dad

there's a lot to unpack here but i want to throw away most of the suitcase, it's got black mold spores in it "with guilliman gone, the imperium will be doomed" just keep telling yourself that

Sky: This scene is fun, but I have to be honest, I don't know why Morty is fixated on Guilliman like this. I mean, strategically, I get it, but this seems strangely personal

I don't think they ever fought during the Heresy? Have they ever even had an on-page conversation before this series?

Bluejay: they haven't, lol I think Guilliman is basically just representing all the loyalists to Morty here i don't think Morty even thinks about Guilliman, ever

Lore: Except he secretly was thinking of him all this time, because… Drum roll please The Ultramarines are THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL

Sky: Of course they are, their Spiritual Liege is The Greatest Primarch

we're back to Guilliman POV he's thinking about the changes to the Fortress of Hera since his time it's all built up now also the scars of war are on maccrage okay so big event, the works, to welcome guilliman back, on a dark and stormy night fireworks etc

five custodes, four s o s, three victrix, two named captains, and a partridge in a pear tree

everyone waits Guilliman: I have returned that's all he says lmao calgar and guilliman talk yes in the rain sisters of silence get some named, i can't remember which of these two is Voi …or maybe Voi isn't one of them Bellas and Aphone (notes)

lol this is also hilarious to me after reading the Ventris books well okay im still in the middle of the third one lol agemmann (sp?) has a heart to heart with ventris during his trial about breaking the codex and talks him into not even trying to defend himself and just going to be executed because one person breaking the codex means the next thing you know the ultramarines are going to become roving pirates for real, it would have been great to have some ultramarine POVs on obeying the codex vs what guilliman says and conflict because of that

time for big meeting now guilliman says he doesn't want any food rip for any of the people travelling with him if they're normal humans and hungry so, they brought one of guilliman's old chairs out of storage for him to sit on they treated all his stuff as holy relics meanwhile guilliman just sees it as…a chair which feels so weird to Calgar oh!!! mortifactors are here! you know, come to think of it, Haley does a lot of these bait and switches in this series i don't mean that in a negative way, it's a device he's using i'm going to provide the whole passage to demonstrate what I'm talking about

so, sounds like Calgar is disappointed that Guilliman is acting like an autocrat, right?

that was the bait now it's time for the switch

yes, his issue was that people didn't just all automatically perfectly obey guilliman, so he had to make them

Lore:

This feels a bit like copium, and rationalizing everything Guilliman does as good so Calgar can keep on believing in the Primarch. It also justifies everything bad Calgar has done in the past (since even Guilliman would have done the same thing), which is the part giving me the copium feeling. I kinda wish and also dread that they put up an opposing voice to this mind-set. Uwoma Kandawire in "Valdor : Birth of the Imperium" sort of did this with her belief in civilian oversight of the government as opposed to military rule. However, I'm guessing that the editors or GW or BL would force the narrative to either trample all over the opposing voice or have the voice corrupted by Chaos because the Imperium has to be the way it is and no other way is viable.

okay guilliman is going to give a speech for all the military dudes and delegates

oh the next bit is pffff pfffffffffffff

im cackling loudly in my room rn im trying to think of ONE other that qualifies besides Ultramar uhhh Inwit?? maybe???

can anyone think of another one? and also ultramar was not really lauded most people just didn't care

Sky: If nothing else, I'm glad for more proof that the GC was run as a bunch of a feudal fiefdoms divided among the Primarchs

Lore: I'm just chuckling that they literally called themselves "the very best". Granted, Matt Ward's Ultramarine books had themselves calling the "the greatest of them all" as well, so it's not really knew but to see it in canon writing brings it home that these boys are insufferably Roman.

i mean we got Nostramo, which was Nostramo, Nuceria, which EVERYONE for some reason completely forgot to actually make part of the imperium and no im still not over that feudal fenris, strip mining all over caliban and it being completely ignored by lion, olympia being treated as human resource factory by perturabo…. etc etc etc

we're going to save Making Ultramar Great Again for the next post!

[quietbluejay]

Dark Imperium #3

creak bang the sound of my arms

as I promised last time, we're taking a look at Guillimans nerd lair

it's full of books and related items

he's still trying to catch up on 10k years of history so Cawl filled him in on a bit but Cawl is…Cawl and also Cawl's records were lacking, lol he's also severely annoyed by the state of the discipline of history in the Imperium

guilliman also has problems dealing with the inquisition he made his own group of historitors and this reminds me of that one xkcd about standards problem: there are 11 competing groups in the imperium solution: make historitors who will be above the competition and backstabbing etc result: there are now 12 competing groups in the imperium

one of the things that makes guilliman sad is how cheap life is in the imperium so he tries to set up something so that the failures of the historitors still have support jobs well he started with a few people now there's a few thousand in his historitor corp, some of whom are doing indiana jones things would trazyn like a word his current free time problem: trying to figure out wtf the year is given there are apparently a ridiculous number of debates because ofc the year has theological implications and hey! an actual piece of satire! satire? in my 40k novel? for real this time??? well the book isn't a satire but, i finally found an element!

okay, that's enough of that for now guilliman is going to take a moment of real rest he looks out at the Rift and it feels like it's looking at him which he would have thought was his imagination but he's learned the universe is more bizarre than either of his fathers ever told him whiiiich makes him flashback to seeing the 40K Emperor Guilliman: nope! not thinking about that! Guilliman: I'm throwing that thought into a chest and locking it and throwing away the key he wishes he could talk to one of his brothers but they're all gone yeah he's feeling very alone rn

owo (he's looking at the rift again) so, who told him Eldrad? I'm guessing Eldrad

THATS WHAT I LIKE TO SEE IN 40K NOVELS THATS THE BIG 40K THEME I LOVE Guilliman is feeling the weight of billions of eyes staring at him, begging him to save them depressing deep breaths, guilliman no literally, he's taking deep breaths here and now his solitude gets interrupted by an accursed cherub lol as we all know, he's not a fan

he has a lengthy internal monologue on everything that's wrong with cherubs lmao anyways "the priest is here"

yes he went on even more about the cherubs also, that last bit thinking about the cherub brings back more unwanted creepy flashbacks of meeting the Emperor nope! still not gonna unpack that one

Guilliman read another book and meanwhile starts making internal bets as to what the new priest will be like and now time to meet a man who will cause many problems on purpose Frater Mathieu! who is not at all what Guilliman was expecting

he's also got his own servo skull with him spoilers but later we're gonna find out it's from the teacher he had a crush on by that i mean, it's literally her skull Guilliman: so tell me why you think you're here the tldr is, guilliman needs a new militant-apostolic, whatever that is it seems to mean priestly attache Guilliman actually likes him let's see how long that last lmao

Mathieu makes a comment about him speaking plainly guilliman ends up kinda biting his head off a little, then apologizes he blames his stress lol there's some other stuff in this scene I elided over that might be relevant later

also unrelated note but Haley has a bit of a pacing problem

guilliman thinks about the book about imperium secundus but you know what genuinely WHY would it be a problem "oh no the son of the emperor thought the emperor had perished" "and LOYALLY SERVED BELOVED SANGUINIUS" it's not even like he declared himself Emperor!

Sky: Even aside from that, it's been 10K years and nobody figured out the Imperium Secundus while Guilliman was asleep Why would they find out now

anyways blah blah guilliman lies some more about symbolism and leaving the past in the past which is hilarious given we know what he was up to right before Mathieu showed up also he rewrote the Codex and now he's writing a law Codex for the Imperium Mathieu: you're doing this while conducting a military campaign? Guilliman: I don't have all the powers you guys think but I do in fact have multitasking superpower Mathieu: the Emperor made a lot of good decisions in designing you guys, huh Guilliman:

Guilliman tries to provoke Mathieu by saying the Emperor isn't infallible, but Mathieu is too distracted by "what?? there were twenty primarchs???" Mathieu: so uh anyways, heard when you woke up you were talking about this Imperial Truth thing? Guilliman internally: awkward

guilliman thinks obliquely about the tyranids and wonders if the emperor knew about them as well also the necrons and he has another flashback to seeing the emperor and gee, scooby, i think guilliman might have some Problems

you know, i don't like to talk about "deserving" but you have to admit it's ironic in an appropriate way

Sky:

Guilliman's hypocrisy is very funny here NGL Like yeah, the Imperial Faith is full of fanatics. Even people like Mathieu are still indoctrinated into the cult. But was Guilliman really expecting him to shrug off a lifetime of indoctrination and conditioning after three sentences

the next bit adds to that lol even though Mathieu seems like a rare example of a non-fanatic, guilliman internally is just like "give it time" "the more mild they seem on the surface, the bigger fires of fanaticism are underneath" and like reading this i kinda wish the narrative hadn't proven him right about Mathieu? like yeah yeah 40k priests and all that but i think it'd have fit better

Sky:

In fairness, I don't blame him for being cynical. Not all religions are like that, but the whole point of the Imperial Cult is to instill and stoke zealotry. You literally get censored if you're not zealous enough. But Guilliman has absolutely encountered equally unreasonable Imperial Truthers before (he was literally just complaining about Emps, if for a different aspect of the Truth) so his judgement is hilariously hypocritical

and also a big part of the series is guilliman grappling with the idea that maybe the emperor is a god, but not a kind one? anyways Mathieu is like "why do you even deal with us" Guilliman: because you guys are the ones with the power

there's a few things going on here and most of them are funny to me "i am no tyrant" wait til we get to the Make Ultramar Great Again scene he's not a tyrant he just needs everyone to do what he says and will ignore/crush any opposition! that's totally different from being a tyrant because he's benevolent!

the other funny thing is the usurper bit Mathieu has one last question why him?

wait if he's heard his sermons, why is he so surprised by Mathieu? anyways, Mathieu is going to go away and study and come back in 1 week with an answer chapter end

next chapter:

Guilliman is observing the prep for the big victory shindig hey remember how they turned an entire planet into a thing for Ullanor? it's like that except not as good because they don't have the skills or machines any more

RIP Guilliman, the architects are terrified of him and the guy presenting stutters his way through the whole thing Guilliman makes a graceful exit Guilliman: while you wait, Captain Felix will provide refreshments Felix: screaming internally

lmao poor guy guilliman internally: felix needs to learn to trust in his own abilities he's meeting someone OH Hi Ventris!! just like in my other warhammer novels… (context: i'm currently reading the Ventris novels on and off) guilliman tells ventris to stop kneeling but it kinda sounds like he's physically unable to

guilliman is kind of irritated and helps him up (he's not physically unable to stand, just psychologically) (guilliman is also touched but mostly irritated) Guilliman: your reputation precedes you Ventris: welp Ventris' message from Ultramar is that Morty's leading a fleet towards them he showed up, caused a lot of death, and then disappeared the death guard are spreading all sorts of psychic illnesses

there's a bit about espandor guilliman takes ventris to talk and walk with him typhus is also lurking around also ku'gath my beloved showed up ultramar is in peril! guilliman: mortarion's trying to make me come back so another question "how is the consolidation of Greater Ultramar going"

etc etc Guilliman, however, drew a map and gave it to Agemman so he's not sure what the problem is here?

Guilliman earlier: I'm not a tyrant also Guilliman: wasting time and effort doing what is essentially a vanity project like okay is Ultramar better governed, managed etc than most of the imperium? absolutely but for crying out loud he complains about all the constant infighting and then jumps right into doing the exact same type of thing like it was clear before that Haley was trying to make a point about Guilliman's efforts being in vain because the Imperium isn't actually different in ideology from him, it's just his pushed to its most grotesque extent but this is really showing it in every way sorry not sure that made sense Guilliman: I should never have set the Five Hundred free (actual text) Ventris: ???

because also despite him saying all that stuff, he really did just pay lip service to the bits of the imperial truth and the designs of the 30k imperium that he didn't care for and you know what i bet that's part of why the emperor was always suspicious of guilliman i mean that's something i've talked about before lol about how it's funny how suspicious the emperor was of him meanwhile guilliman had all those mental blocks around the emperor

lmao

i will try to be more cogent at another time when we have added more examples to the stew, but for now all i can say is, lmao this whole section really typifies why i like guilliman, and also why i want to beat him on the head with a 2x4

and going to split this conversation (and chapter) in two

[quietbluejay]

Dark Imperium #8

it's the Make Ultramar Great Again bit PLUS the beginning of Guilliman vs Divinity

okay he says a bunch of nice things about ultramar and then it's on to his current pet cause "i made a mistake by reducing ultramar" yes here we are it's the make ultramar great again speech

Lore: Like father like son. He chooses 4 Space Marines instead of 4 High Lords Civilian though. If that sub-plot of Guilliman becoming a god gets followed through with, maybe he gets to be god of all Space Marines while the Emperor is the god of humanity.

Bluejay: guilliman: since you people didn't do what i asked you to, i'm no longer giving you an option, you're now getting ruled by space marines and you will like it

Lore: Y'know this is completely in character when you think about how the Codex Astartes was put into place. Nobody would reject it because of the IMPLICATION. It's always "I'm giving you a choice, but the other choice will force me to put my boot on your throat."

Bluejay: yeah haley can do some good character work when he wants to unfortunately he did NOT want to with The Lost and the Damned

blah blah blah he's appointing the tetrarchs

hee hee hee hee

hehehehehehe

good for her!!! woman: you deal with semantics good for her!!!

guilliman then talks about how he's very disappointed in everyone for getting hung up on the point that he's breaking one of his own most major rules, come on guys, make me stop being disappointed in humanity

Lore: It's good to see some consistency in the way he refutes or rebuts arguments, especially when he is wrong/hypocritical.

Bluejay: again i can really see how if you go into this book with certain preconceptions, it could have you nodding along with guilliman (especially because most of these people do legitimately suck, lol) people ask what happens to the governors

yeah that's a lot! Guilliman: this is an offer you should not refuse and then Calgar thinks, without a trace of irony…

Guilliman: hey calm down! this is going to make your lives better!

also, Calgar is determined to read everything Guilliman says to him as telling him off

Sky: Honestly not too broken up about this Yeah, Guilliman is being a hypocrite, but the Imperial Governors are all unelected oligarchs so Guilliman is just replacing them with other unelected oligarchs

Bluejay: it really is an ESH situation lol and the depressing thing is, it probably will make a lot of people's lives better

man this really was setting up for that one scene in…i forget which of the next two books it's in the bait and switch scene that slapped me the one that makes it absolutely clear that guilliman is unable to fix the imperium because ultimately, he shares the same mindset

though also sometimes with this book especially, sometimes i wonder if im reading too much my own ideology into it maybe haley isn't doing this on purpose and i should take things at face value

Lore: I dunno. I mean, it feels pretty out-there already in terms of blatant autocracy and the Imperium being a failed state. I at least read it as such, and BL authors and editors have voiced the same sentiment so that reading is probably the more literal one.

The fanciful one would probably be to ardently believe that this is a story about hard men making hard choices, and that brings the greatest amount of good for everyone. (Ignore the billions of sacrifices. Look at my chiseled jaw line and gold trimmings!)

ok back on topic and guilliman also returns to the topic (of the war) his strategy

blah blah Mortarion has The Heart of Darkness that he got from Abaddon and that's how he's doing this so how did guilliman get this info

ynnari mention for once lol

Lore: "do not take their words at face value" proceeds to go with what they said literately without pointing out which parts he thinks are false. tbh, this is just a hail mary attack. Like, this is literally Soviet WW2 style, attack on all fronts and keep attacking until the enemy dies. Divide and Conquer would require baits, feints, delaying tactics, or something. This ain't anything like this.

anyways the device has several sub devices that they have to hunt down and destroy and he's going to go to Espandor first chapter ends there

it's the battle for Espandoria Tertio and it's full of mud and also Primaris they're going after the last of Morty's devices and they have no clue what's ahead of them more of Guilliman politicking, heh some people wanted an orbital bombardment but he said no because hdu kill the imperial citizens that might be alive he later tells felix he doubts anyone will be alive and a big reason for doing it on foot is to make sure the device is actually destroyed

but back on the ground, things aren't going well "unspeakable slurry" Felix steps into quicksand, whoops this is mostly bolter porn tbh, but Felix is once again leeroying it up, if to a milder extent than he did before oh, lmao Haley: slaps book Haley: to go with my Tolkien references, I'm going to have some WWI references

anyways, it's complete chaos oh i remember this bit Felix is vs two Plague Marines

i remember it because i was wondering how tentacle finger man was gripping his weapon

how is he even holding the gun with his writhing, vermicular fingers such are the blessings of nurgle i guess

perhaps a hot take, but if a Plague Marine called me a "pretty little" something I simply would not get within stabbing range

who could have guessed this would happen Felix survives this somehow despite getting strangled and nearly stabbed with a morghul blade lol because a bunch of centurions (?) show up to save him they're from a different chapter but they're all buddies today anyways the Imperium won this one, quelle surprise they came with overwhelming firepower but they still lost a lot of people the centurions adopt him as their new commander and felix keeps picking people up lol there's still fighting going on inside the city

you know, given the nature of the imperial truth, "troubled" is a very mild reaction they head for the central cathedral, there's bodies everywhere etc a solitary bird flies overhead and someone is like "wholesomeness returns" felix: the primarch is gonna fix everything!

Lore: He likes seeing the Emperor everywhere, so it probably balances out. Religion was seen as bad, but obedience to the Emperor is good so Felix is probably put-off by the way the Emperor is glorified as opposed to whether he is glorified or not.

A mob comes out of the cathedral, Felix and co kill them all in 10s flat felix feels no emotions about this Guilliman shows up not long after with his entourage and then goes into the cathedral alone Felix feels like he should go in there to protect him, which he knows is a ridiculous sentiment lol wait he didn't go in alone, the victrix guard and the Sisters went in with him

next up is guilliman grappling with the emperor's divinity

mwah mwah haley's at it "if only they knew," guilliman thinks anyways, the cathedral has been desecrated in a spiritual as well as physical way Guilliman considers the worship of the Emperor to be as pernicious as the efforts of Chaos and…I might be off but I'm kind of getting a feeling that in this series Haley is drawing a comparison between the warping effects that Chaos has and the warping effects that Emperor worship has there have been a load of "not so different" moments so Guilliman is once again doubting his conviction that the Emperor isn't a god, lol

Lore: not sure if Lorgar would be laughing or fuming at this

this is very funny to me right now because the next bit?

librarians: ??? u ok there? guilliman: guilliman: yes where's mortarion's device also Guilliman knows the Sisters' sign language, natch and the device is of course on the altar once again looking like something straight out of steampunk and man me saying Morty had steampunk vibes was here all along, wasn't it

there's a note about Guilliman re-establishing the Sisters of Silence because there weren't many of them before he came back and that he's weirded out by how they worship the Emperor now "Not for the first time, he thought of his brother Lorgar" Lorgar is living in Guilliman's brain rent-free, lol

mwah mwah

the clock is still exterting a mental effect on Guilliman and only the Sisters standing around him are saving him from it, essentially, but it's still breaking through Morty knows what he's doing, huh Guilliman: so this is what Mortarion is up to these days huh Guilliman: does anyone else remember his speech at Nikaea? because I sure do they all figure at this point that Mortarion isn't here which disappoints Guilliman because he wants to fight him

Sky: …does Guilliman actually understand that he's the admin-specced Primarch, not one of the combat-specced ones?

Because I'm starting to think he doesn't actually realise this Like you'd think he'd have figured it out after Fulgrim crippled him

Bluejay: I think he knows but also: 1. he's really stressed 2. he's really stressed and depressed 3. see above, and violence is an outlet for him 4. he's the only primarch walking around and he's been doing pretty well in fights recently

Guilliman gets ready to destroy the device with the Emperor's sword when there's an interruption Mathieu is at the door and wants to come in Guilliman: sure, let him in, this is his church

Mathieu isn't wearing any protective gear Guilliman internally: whoops Guilliman: it's not safe here for you Mathieu: well you're not afraid so why should i be Guilliman: Guilliman: I'm a primarch, Mathieu

this reads like trying to convince your youngest kid to put on a snowsuit because look, sunny, your older sisters have one on Mathieu: eh i'll be fine, i haven't worn one all day and nothing has happened~ he is, indeed, fine Mathieu prays for a bit and then asks "where do they find such hate? how could they want to become this? they have made themselves monsters" mathieu have u forgotten the teachings of your own church on hate

maybe i'm reading too much into this, but is it possible he's also speaking about himself, at least partially? (re the last bit) I think Guilliman feels pretty conflicted about Monarchia Mathieu is kind of weirded out he's speaking so mercifully about them Guilliman: don't get me wrong i'm going to kill them

you know reading this scene, it makes a lot of what happened in the throne room pretty clear even before we finally get to see the flashback though i'm reading with hindsight so maybe that's why it feels like it should have been obvious to me before Mathieu: did He really lie? Guilliman: yeppp. He lied about the nature of the warp "I deduce he wanted to keep my brothers and I from temptation, but instead ignorance left us vulnerable to it" you know, I'm thinking now, if the Emperor had told the primarchs about Chaos (and not just cryptically, lol)…I'm not actually sure it would have stopped most of the traitors, lol the ones it would have helped the most were the loyalists who were way out of their depth like the main one I can think of is Fulgrim, but he could have quite easily been like "yeah i can handle this" I think Lorgar getting drawn into the Chaos gods' orbits was relatively inevitable as long as the Emperor was the Emperor, like, as long as he worshipped the Emperor, Monarchia or something like it was going to to happen Magnus is honestly also arrogant enough to think he could handle it, Morty's daemonic research…I'm not sure. I think it depends on if you're going with Swallow!Mortarion or Wraight!Mortarion Horus also didn't really have much of a choice Angron didn't have a real choice either and probably wouldn't have cared that much if he had well he'd have cared if he had basically full knowledge of what would have happened to him but he's not gonna have that in this scenario

next time we'll continue with the meat of the scene! man this is the best bit of the book

[quietbluejay]

what I meant to say: I should throw Guilliman into a John French novel

what came out: I should throw him into horse jail

and now I have the image of Guilliman in a jail cell. Inside the jail cell with him are like 5 horses. He looks vaguely harassed.

[quietbluejay]

Dark Imperium #9

it's too bad this wasn't #7 so I could make a Nurgle joke. I completely forgot to do that lol it's the last post for this book! anyways I love this bit so much

okay back on topic (Guilliman being salty about the Emperor)

:D :D :D "he lied just like the Emperor had"

the part Mathieu focuses on is "wow sometimes I forget you actually walked around with the Emperor"

image of Guilliman crossing his eyes and sticking his tongue out

guilliman: i'm not normal, no, but i'm still human mathieu: if he has the power of a god, doesn't that make him a god whether he thought he was or not? checkmate, atheists, we know the Emperor protects us because we got the saints, the legion of the damned, and even the emperor's tarot!

wait that makes me seem like im excited for Guilliman to suffer sdjfhskdhflsdhf THATS NOT WHAT I MEANT TO CONVEY

huh possibly some of his actions of seeking greater control might be motivated by this like i don't think it's the only reason or possibly even the main reason but I definitely think it's an influence Guilliman thinks about how he approached the throne room feeling like he had at Konor's funeral "willing it to be all right, drowning in certain grief"

"what hurt most deeply was what was left unsaid" i.e. he was greeted like a guy finding his favourite hammer, and not even like a person who brought him the hammer

Guilliman had the Emperor up on an enormous pedestal before, and wasn't even aware of some of it I'm trying to reconcile abnett!guilliman and haley!guilliman and think of a throughline here because guilliman at least consciously never really thought of the emperor as a father, at least iirc from unremembered empire but he did hold him in a semi-divine kind of awe in the same way you view your parents when you're a child

so this is like realizing your parents make mistakes except it's more like realizing your parents were scientists and you were a test subject the whole time i guess??

Sky: I honestly don't love Guilliman think of the Emperor as his father yeah Idolizing him, admiring him, even worshipping him in his own way, sure. But I don't think Guilliman should ever consider the Emperor his father in anything but the biological sense.

"the Emperor's humanity was all but gone. He could no longer mask his thoughts with a human face" some of the sad thing here is that…Guilliman thinks he's seeing the real Emperor, that this is all the truth

Sky: Honestly, he probably is, if we go by The End and the Death

I don't think it fits with everything else I've seen, tbh, but also I haven't read TEATD my thoughts on the Emperor's relation/opinion of the primarchs is unchanged from when I read Horus Rising which is that he did genuinely care about them but in a very screwed up way as can be seen from his relationship with Horus but also going back to Guilliman, it is also possible he's shading things to Mathieu re thinking of the Emperor as a father it's been repeatedly mentioned in the book that he does that Guilliman thinks about how he's finally seen the truth that the Emperor only saw Guilliman and the others as means to an end and honestly part of me is like "it took THIS for you to figure that out??" which is unfair I know lol but like, it was pretty explicit that he created them to be his generals this is not some secret he kept from them i know he's got that super aura so that plays a role but, lmao tbh though Guilliman's biases played a huge role, probably, we know he's got an empathy problem with the other primarchs

Sky: I guess maybe Guilliman used to see it through the the lens of like…aristocracy? A lord's sons are meant to be his soldiers, his generals, his lieutenants, to serve and obey without question until its time to take over. But they're still his sons Except Guilliman now has concluded that Emps didn't even extend them that much grace, they were always just living weapons

Bluejay: I think that makes sense

like what the Emperor wanted from Guilliman, to Guilliman seemed natural and correct and Guilliman extrapolated a lot of stuff that simply wasn't there (re the "after" of the Crusade) which was one of his more…how to put it…positive traits? I don't know if it's positive exactly…sympathetic? that belief that they were meant for more and were trying to build something better, and some of that he actually did put into practice and then he had that meeting with the Emperor and it completely knocked the last of his idealism out of him Mathieu decides to push a bit more and be like "didn't the Emperor enlighten you as to his divinity when you guys talked" Guilliman: what happened in the throne room is off limits guilliman: anyways enough theology, time for destruction Guilliman takes the sword out again and thinks about it, mainly how tf does it work it's super not natural he thinks about how the Emperor was a giant hypocrite wrt Magnus only a human could make so many mistakes on a sidenote, it's fascinating to me how Guilliman has a picture in his head of what a god should be that's a very different definition from how 40k uses it and that's where a lot of this conflict is coming from

Guilliman uses the sword to turn the device into pieces except…suddenly, a daemon!

Qaramar is fun

so it's everyone vs Qaramar, he takes out some of the victrix guard and the sisters and a Custodian Guilliman: This is a foe beyond any of you. I must hold the narrow way! Fly, you fools! (he doesn't say that im quoting lotr) also I feel like Haley may have had some fun with this fight because stylistically it feels different from the rest

etc etc

he gets Qaramar with a wound that won't heal "Impossible!!!" the fight lasts several more pages after every "final" sounding line lol Guilliman eventually wins and pushes Qaramar back into the warp ohhhhh this bit one of my favourite lines is coming up

Guilliman's currently having a post-fight crash

Guilliman wants to talk to his real dad again he thinks "if you hadn't died before the Emperor had shown up, would I have abandoned you like the other primarchs did their adoptive families" he's not a fan of his answer, lol

Mathieu asks if the Emperor loves them "please tell me"

he steps outside and there's a nice evocative line about letting the sun dry the sweat on his skin next steps: finding Mortarion Guilliman is convinced he's on Parmenio

and that's that for the book! weak beginning but a strong ending

[quietbluejay]

Dark Imperium #4

it remains incredibly funny to me that Ventris spent time in Deathwatch

continuing right from where we left off!

guilliman: anyways. i screwed up guilliman: yeah primarchs can screw up, are you surprised ventris: well ventris: not really tbh ventris: space marines are still humans, so it makes sense guilliman: i'm not really sure I am ventris: i don't think you'd care about other humans if you werent guilliman: i mean. some of my brothers sure didn't. maybe i'm just weird. ah yes ventris the space marine idealist strikes again

did someone come out of Deathwatch going "maybe...WE'RE the baddies here?" wild

ventris: anyways we do learn stuff to not just be warriors guilliman talks gloomily about how his sons are never going to be able to put their weapons down meanwhile the terraforming is ongoing anyways they change subject (kinda) to talk about how the triumph here is part of guilliman's propaganda to make it seem like it was a major victory, to try and avoid things falling apart into (more) disunity before he gets back guilliman: i know you came to get me to come back to Ultramar, but I can't yet

so ventris is going to send his message back, but they're interrupted because there's a priority message from…Cawl end chapter guilliman's biggest issue, the one that hamstrings him the most…is that he's a control freak

he just, quite simply, cannot trust that someone else will make the right decisions (the ones he would have made) and the problem is that a lot of the time the universe goes out of his way to prove him right that everyone else in power but him is an incompetent jackass, so it completely makes sense that he'd become that way but also, RIP

this chapter, we're back to the guys on Iax Varens is having dreams about being back in the trenches and the whole flashback really reads like Haley read a bunch of WWI fiction lol the only thing is that all the flies and sicknesses are supernatural and now, once more over the top! make sure you got your gas masks on ooo they're fighting zombies their own dead, raised

there are supposedly space marines somewhere on espandor, but varens hasn't seen them i mean makes sense, it's an entire planet it's a good scene, tbh very nice at giving a ground level view of fighting lesser nurglite forces and i gotta amend that statement because some Death Guard are here

and they're chanting "all is ash" and then at the end of the flashback, Varens wakes up (i skipped a lot of it here but it gets fairly visceral as to what this kind of war is like) Varens wakes up screaming, much to the annoyance of everyone else in his ward he walks out and goes to see Bolus, they don't want to at first but then they let him Bolus is sedated and shouldn't be able to talk but he can he's chanting "49"

next chapter: CawlAI time

Guilliman has, let's just say, some extensive security procedures

so he goes through all of it and he's got a poor astropath stuck living in there all alone

and now time for…THE MACHINE this is a fun little sequence a tank full of severed heads… Guilliman thinks about Cawl and how he has no choice but to trust him CawlAI IS ALIIIIVE IT WAKES and the first thing it does it get on Guilliman's case for his "illogical" title Guilliman: we have this conversation every time, do we have to? CawlAI:

lmao Guilliman: just shut up and give me your report CawlAI: it's not my report, it's Cawl's Guilliman: frysquint

guilliman: it's impressive i guess cawlai: ok so then make cawl fabricator-general narrator note: they've had this conversation many times before as well

this scene is pretty funny

guilliman: for the LAST TIME, i'm not going to do that (for real, he says "for the hundredth time") guilliman: cawl has a lot of enemies he made with his weird experiments cawlAI: im totally not an AI, if that's what you're obliquely referring to narrator note: guilliman had considered making him fabricator general, but it would cause (another) civil war cawlAI: also YOUUUU asked him to do all sorts of stuff so you're also culpable guilliman: i don't care about what the machine cult thinks

there's a sidenote about Maccrage having its own version of the Mechanical Turk, back when Konor Guilliman was alive okay, on with the report!

before you continue, you must construct additional pylons!

he's got some smaller experimental devices though im kind of like, not really sure why we need this bit to be in the book but maybe i'm being too critical but we're already at the half way point of the book, and not much has actually happened once again the theory that BL writers are paid by the word has merit… so Cawl is trying to seal the Great Rift

they have a couple more exchanges about how CawlAI is totally not an AI now, Guilliman wants to know about the Primaris everything is going fine oooo spicy

guilliman says no again, rather forcefully cawlAI: ok! fine! guilliman: frysquint now it's time to send his message back to Cawl

okay this is a little spooky

the chapter ends on Guilliman thinking that Cawl is probably going to be a Problem someday

the next chapter opens with a long description of the big triumph guilliman is running at raukos

oh, it's Mathieu POV Mathieu is watching lot of fancy people here

etc etc etc Mathieu thinks about how not so long ago this gathering would have represented the apex of Imperial power but not now that Guilliman was walking around

anyways he thinks about how if it would help guilliman he'd take a machine gun and shoot the entire crowd well specifically if it would give guilliman "a freer hand"

also lmao this was fast re Guilliman getting proven right about Mathieu being a fanatic

Sky: Don't worry Mathieu, if killing them all would help Guilliman, he'd already have done it

Sky: I'm still mad that the whole Primarch's Scourge thing got justified as 'Guilliman got rid of Chaos spies and genestealers' Let my boy be a Space Roman and do his brutal military coups Bluejay: you can always take it as propaganda Space Romans start wilting if they don't get in enough brutal military coups

Mathieu thinks about how he can never tell Guilliman about his feelings that's barely a paraphrase but it's allll part of the Emperor's plannn

yet he still hopes and he wants to bring "the mercy of hope" to guilliman as well you know it's really fun because this all sounds really nice but let's not forget the pov bit started with him thinking about gunning down all those people i'd definitely call this one subtle honestly i completely missed it first time i read it it's only having finished the series and knowing exactly what mathieu got up to that makes the warning bells start ringing also once again i get the vibe that Haley is Catholic. or Anglican so Mathieu suggested this whole priestly procession, and Guilliman comes out and you can't even tell he's aggravated at all! …Mathieu's plan in suggesting all the religious stuff was to frogboil Guilliman

he's got faith that one day Guilliman will accept his own divinity

:) oh yeah mathieu thinks a bit too hard about how totally cool it would be if he can be the one to convince guilliman mathieu: oops that's enough pride for me! time for the electro-flail! anyways Guilliman gives a speech about how it was all the humans here today who accomplished the Indomitus Crusade, not him i did Haley have him do the Roman salute?

no, I think I'm reading too much into it it doesn't specify how he held the hand up but the whole triumph here is peak fascist…what's the term they put all this effort into making it look nice and having all these people to pretend a minor victory was major and make everyone believe that the state is doing great! and onwards to Maccrage! chapter ends there

[quietbluejay]

peeling this off from the Dark Imperium commentary:

actually, huh, both Guilliman and Perturabo share a major character flaw but they express it in completely opposite ways perturabo goes: so im not going to do anything ever because it'll get ruined, guilliman goes: it'll work if i manage everything and people do what i say forever Guilliman was not this bad in the Heresy era and i'm honestly unsure how much of this is Haley making organic connections vs the different writer thing of course now i'm thinking about swapping their personalities, but not skillsets im going to come back and chew on this a bit

[quietbluejay]

Dark Imperium #2

the chapter starts with a TLDR of the relevant parts of The Gathering Storm wait was it called that or am I mixing it up with a Wheel of Time book you know, the event where Guilliman got resurrected in summary: -Guilliman's awake -the galaxy is torn in two -and his state of mind, well

no one knows if he's just somehow changed to not need sleep or if it's the trauma Guilliman is well aware of where he screwed up with Fulgrim or at least so he thinks he thinks the problem was majorly underestimating him which, okay, you know what, that's not the worst lesson he's also :( that no one knows what happened to Thiel

so we're getting a flashback to his awakening

so, he got to Terra, talked with his dad, he's got primaris space marines etc etc

anyways, they're out on his flagship which has been returned from storage lol

…to be clear, they did this while he was still in stasis okay description! the stress is aging guilliman but there's basically no one still alive who would even notice "his was an eroded handsomeness" man that is such a Haley line also, the wound constantly pains him he's got permanent dark circles he's just like me fr fr

lol lmao

dumbass anyways, he's getting armed now while this complex process happens, he gets a report from Cato Sicarius who now has the Ultradepression though it's only obliquely referenced at this point

there's a bunch of Chaos forces nearby, including Word Bearers Guilliman orders the Mechanicus and SM to work together without all this petty rivalry stuff time to finalize the armour RIP rob

can you imagine the singing next up: resolving arguments about how to do water conservation such is the life of a guilliman chapter ends there

next chapter we're over to Iax which is currently a hospital planet it used to be really pretty oh, it actually got a mention during the heresy, iirc

well awkward, lol it goes on for a while about how the whole thing is set up, how some of it is more for propaganda, etc everything is super organized, or so the description goes

yeah the setup started back here, huh so then we get a boots on the ground POV of one of the injured soldiers coming here one guy is severely shell shocked

the actual process is a bit less organized and nice than the many pages of description would have you think

anyways, I remember now, first time I read this I really got some WWI vibes still true to an extent

dun dun dunnn

and now time for the battle of Raukos we've got every imperial faction - no, no we don't have every single space marine army okay we have the REST of the imperial factions it's time for a very big meeting as they observe the great rift which looks like an eye don't stare into the abyss, etc etc oh we even got the custodes oh yeah i forgot this guy shows up a bunch in this series

i note that it doesn't specify if they went around in loincloths or not

tldr, word bearers are building a temple, they gotta stop it oh yeah Cawl did a refit of Maccrage's Honour (against the objections of the mechanicus) guilliman figures it's 10% more effective though it's still got those ugly 41st millenium design sensibilities Guilliman and Colquan don't get along but it's more on the level of just moderate to mild dislike

guilliman's gotten a lot more bombastic in the 41st millenium anyways, they win the void battle, now it's time for the surface and i think it's time for Justinian to show up next chapter this chapter was basically just space battle related things which as you all know I find the least interesting part of these novels to be honest i'm not entirely sure how this novel gripped me, back when i was a lot more particular about my choice of books given I didn't like the style of the prologue, and then it almost immediately jumps into space battle though I did and do like that bit from the regular soldier's POV okay primaris shilling time yeah it's time for Justinian and you know I don't think I'm ever going to forget that gut-punch at the end of his subplot so Justinian is an Ultramarine primaris primaris ultramarine? however you say it his little squad is made up of dudes from various geneseed origins

okay there's some genuinely fun banter

okay did we really need most of a page talking about the history of the ship they're on? yeah lol reading in detail makes me notice all the stuff I don't care for that I can just kinda skim when I'm reading like a normal person oh!! yeah!! i remember this bit justinian is an artist

getting a little purple there but i mean, it's a Dark Angel

also i'd like us to keep in mind his POV of noticing beauty in stuff like this, and how things are described from his POV and how it'll change as we go through the trilogy again there's some nice bits of description from his pov so it's the guard supported by the mechanicus that's fighting on the planet oh it's vs the Iron Warriors I forgot they were around in this book

Haley is doing this a lot at least early in the book (the not so different comparisons to CSM)

blah blah "no one could stand before the Primaris Space Marines, the new sons of the Emperor"

there's a note about there not being a lot of CSM there, it's mostly thralls and dudes who quickly switched sides this is apparently a pattern Justinian is of the opinion that this means Chaos is "losing their best to Guilliman's relentless crusading" who knows if that's true or not lmao oh there's a Creature

so they all shoot at it, and it screams extremely loudly they do successfully kill it though oh, Silver Skulls (after achieving their objective, the Primaris go to help them out) then more reinforcements show up Justinian: it's over now Narration: it took another five hours and chapter ends on that

next chapter: back to Iax

on iax, it's nice, there's a healthy wetland ecosystem near the hospital

it's cold but he doesn't want to go in because he feels more like a number than a man inside the hospital he meets a new dude who has some agoraphobia because he grew up in "the arcologies" so he's not a fan of the view lol they talk a bit about the rift, new guy doesn't want Varens to look at it new guy: it'll give you nightmares varens: i have nightmares either way lol

garstand talks about how he fought the death guard varens: yeah i did that too

Garstand knows a guy named Rusen with a theory he really, really wants Varens to meet him Varens shakes him off and goes back inside thus ends our iax interlude

next chapter: we're over to Guilliman's nerd lair

[quietbluejay]

I think this is something that pre-nap Guilliman puts in the "not thinking about it" box like a lot of stuff lol which is what he has to do in order to go about his day...though also I think he never really processed it tbh, it's not really a deliberate "not thinking about it", I think he does take some pride in his identity as the genefather of the Ultramarines, like what he feels isn't exactly normal fatherhood towards them lmao, there's a term I'm groping for here that's not an English term, but he just doesn't think about it in terms of "you were specifically created to produce soldiers", I think he thinks about it in terms of "the primarchs are to space marines as the emperor is to the primarchs, and he projects his idea of what that relationship is upwards at the Emperor.

post-nap Guilliman I think also isn't thinking about it for the sake of his sanity, lol, but I genuinely get the impression he still didn't really think about it that much even when he's repressing his meeting with 40k Emps. And the reason for that is that it's one of the things like the imperialism that he's still taking for granted, it's just...a fact of how he thinks the world should work, perhaps because he has a positive view of the Ultramarines and maybe it's because he sees them as extensions of himself that he doesn't micromanage them nearly as much as he could be doing.

realized something about bad dad Emps discussion when I was talking with someone about a fun AU and I don't think I've really seen people talk about it (and I didn't either, tbf) (though maybe it's been talked about on tumblr and I just haven't seen it)

it's about the geneseed thing, homeboy really custom built the primarchs to be his soldier factories, in terms of "Emps seeing the primarchs as tools" I think this element is far, far worse than him building them to be his generals?

it's a far more dehumanizing role to have as a purpose