One of the most consistently pleasing responses to “After Desh’ea” has been reader comments along the lines of “I’d never really thought of Angron as a big dumb berserker, but now…” or “I never thought I’d actually like Angron, but…” And the reason those responses in particular are satisfying is that they retrace my own thought processes when I was getting ready to write the story, and mean that “After Desh’ea” not only seemed to work as a story but worked in a particular way.
When I was approached to contribute a story for Tales of Heresy I had already been playing with a couple of ideas. Not to pitch as stories, necessarily, since the Horus Heresy is a strictly-by-invitation affair and I hadn’t been invited, but just as thought exercises. If I were going to tackle a Heresy topic, how would I do it? Which events would be interesting to write about, and what angle on them would be the most interesting to use?
Now, as a general digression, I’m a big believer in stepping off tracks and out of comfort zones. A class I was in got taken to one of the Canberra Word Festivals when I was a kid and remember one thing that stuck with me from then to now (which is more than the speaker’s name did, sorry): the worm’s eye view. That was this poet’s pet expression for what writers should be striving for. It’s common to talk about a bird’s-eye view when you’re talking about wanting a different perspective on something, but what about when you want to reverse even that second perspective and come up with a different way of looking at things again? Look for the place to stand that no-one’s ever stood before, and find the angle from which the familiar feels… not.
I also firmly believe that no subject in fiction is unwritable, impossible or played-out. In writerly circles you do hear the occasional remark about how a certain subject, genre, or plot is overused, outdated, discredited or whatever and “you just can’t write that story any more”. To which my response is always “no, you can, if you’re good enough”. I’ll grant you that outdatedness, flogged-to-deathness or whatever may make a story harder to do, might in fact move it beyond some or most writers’ reach, but all that means is that it’s more of a challenge.
So that’s some of what was at work when I started thinking about an Angron story. Because I remember a definite moment when I was reeling off some Heresy places and names to myself, thought of Angron’s name, and shrugged him off with a little half-smirk thinking “heh, yeah, one-note screaming psycho-zerker, nothing there”. And then I caught myself, and made myself go back and take another look at him, because as I’ve just been saying, that’s not true, is it? It’s never true. And in fact the second thought that I had was that the very fact of my initial reacion mean that bringing Angron to life was going to be that much more intriguing a challenge, and that much more of a satisfying achievement.
There were two thoughts that became focal points for my picture of Angron. One was the idea of heroism The idea of the “hero” as someone not only mighty but virtuous, a good person and role model, is actually a relatively modern way of thinking. People with more literary history than I can tell you when exactly the idea of virtue started being explicitly added in, but the point is that originally heroes were people who simply did mighty deeds, not necessarily good ones. A lot of modern tellings of Hercules talk about his fighting monsters and going on quests, but those tellings seem a little lighter on the bit where a lot of that monster-fighting was in penance for him massacring his wife and children in a drunken rage. I’ve always thought the best approach for chronicling the Emperor and his Primarchs was to make them heroic in that old, darker sense: these were beings of statures far beyond your or I, capable of world-building or world-shattering feats, beings whose virtues carried them to pinnacles far above normal humanity… and whose flaws ran devastatingly, inhumanly deep. When I was thinking about how he was going to react to being taken away from his army of escapees just before their last stand, the thought crystallised that Angron’s rage at this would be monstrous, but so would his grief, and recasting that whole story with Angron in mourning rather than in fury immediately opened up whole new ways for him to behave. Graham McNeill is a surveyor, he’ll tell you: when you’ve got that second observation point, that’s when you can start triangulating, get a proper fix on what you want to map.
It was actually correspondence with Graham that brought the second idea properly into focus, and that was the effect that the implants must have had on him. (Angron, not Graham.) This was something I’d initially speculated on on the Black Library forums, and I think it’s where Angron’s true tragedy lies. Angron had his brain re-engineered to both streamline his mind and soul into the same sorts of killing machines that his body already was; I suspect it was also to try and make him controllable, since even a young Primarch must have been a frightening prospect to try and keep prisoner by conventional means. The fact that his captors could construct such things in the first place points to a highly sophisticated techological base – this clearly wasn’t a world that reverted to utter savagery during the long galactic strife. But that machinery, sophisticated as it was, had been put not into a human but into a Primarch. Think of that for a minute: a Primarch. A creation so powerful and complex, drawing so deeply on so many strands of human knowledge, so intertwined with the Emperor’s own intellectual brilliance and creative drives, that probably only He Himself fully understood how they had been made and how they worked. Think of Rogal Dorn confessing that thinking on his own nature even frightens him, since he knows there is simply no precedent in human history for what he is. Think of the Luna Wolves’ apothecaries treating the wounded Horus and saying that even with all their experience with the augmented physiology of the Astartes, they’re still in the dark when they work on a Primarch, since he’s been built at a level so far above them.
Now think about how Angron’s neural implants, designed to fit a normal human brain by a world that had never heard of Astartes or Primarchs, must have fitted him. I don’t care how good they were at psychosurgery (and I think they were pretty damned good), those implants are still going to work about as well as bodging a couple of old pram wheels onto a Formula 1 racer. Gone is any chance of a clean cut to take away the higher brain functions not devoted to combat: that Primarch-mind is going to want to grow and push outward, attain mastery, break out of its chains. To switch metaphors, it’s like trying to cram a lion into a cat-carrier: it’s not just not going to fit, it’s going to fight.
It’s a tribute to the psychosurgeons’ skill that they got as good a result as they did: implants that did more or less what they were supposed to and a Primarch who could still function. But long before the Emperor got anywhere near him those surgeons tore away any chance of Angron had of becoming what his brothers became. Let’s say it again, he was a Primarch. He had a mind built to be a peerless warrior, a brilliant commander, a consummate diplomat, a great lawmaker, a wise scholar, a magnificent artist, a magnificant scientist. Pick the Primarch whom you most admire in the sense of the noble hero, someone to admire and follow: the steadfast and princely Dorn, bold and fiery Russ, thoughtful Guilliman, patient and methodical Perturabo, glorious Fulgrim, mighty Horus. This is the company Angron was built to keep, and if those surgeons had never entered his skull that’s the manner of being that he would have been.
That must have been hell. To live with this constant, nagging knowledge of your own ripped-away potential, to feel this great intellect of yours ready to seize on new knowledge and experience, to feel your own abilities grow by leaps and bounds in ways your conscious mind has to struggle to keep up with… and then to feel it all fall to pieces as your implants send another blast of sizzling rage through your thoughts. To grasp strategy, leadership, everything, so quickly and intuitively, and then to have the insight slip through your fingers at the last moment because the choke-chain on your thoughts is dragging you back, not letting you think or learn. Following even the simplest train of thought through to its conclusion requires every scrap of your formidable willpower, simply to avoid veering off into blind rage. Even the boundaries between thought, action and memory are blurred.
(That point about thought and action turned into a big part of the portrayal, actually. I wanted to really emphasise Angron’s physicality: apart from actual battle scenes most of the depictions of the Primarchs I recalled from the books tended to be static, with them seated imperiously on thrones or looming over some hapless human. A good contrast seemed to be to have Angron almost constantly on the move, prowling about the room, circling Kharn, recalling his memories as much with physical actions as with words. I was trying for an ominous, animalistic air and it was cool to have several readers respond to that.)
The more thought I put into how I was going to shine a light into this story, the more I got fixated on that very first introduction of Angron to the Imperium, his abduction from his homeworld and his introduction to the XII Astartes. So much seemed to stem from that moment. So much about him was described as harking back to his brutal gladiatorial background, so the moment where that collided with his ascension to one of the greatest military elites the galaxy has ever seen – the Primarchs of the Human Imperium – had to have story potential. It’s also remarked in the early Heresy novels that Kharn, whom we meet already having taken the post of Angron’s equerry, is the only one who can calm the Primarch’s mountainous rages – that hinted at some sort of special bond between them, and I wondered how that had been forged. That started to bring together some interesting elements: the idea that although Angron might conceive a hatred for the Emperor, that his Astartes might earn his respect as warriors, and that their own loyalty to the Emperor might bring about second thoughts. It’s something Angron’s thoughts turn to in the story: if Kharn is a warrior of such puissance and will, and if the Emperor has commanded such loyalty from Kharn that he will stand unresisting and allow himself to be ripped to pieces rather than breach an order, then perhaps this Emperor might have might that Angron has not yet realised?
By this stage scenes were taking shape. The Astartes assembling outside the meeting chamber. Kharn describing battles they had been in while Angron leapt and shouted and acted out his words: martial excellence would be something he would recognise when he heard it. Kharn’s recollection of the battles on Nove Shendak were fun to write, trying to come up with some of the weirder sorts of wars the Astartes must have fought in the Great Crusade. And then there was Angron’s own life as a slave and then as an outlaw and reaver, which again was fun to note out even though it only found its way into the finished story as quick glimpses and hints. The last element of the challenge was to make each scene and dialogue high-point function not just as a vignette on its own but as a subtle little step in Angron’s progression through the story, as the certainty that his rage gives him leaches away just a little, just enough for him to wonder what he should do now.
(Other elements came in almost out of nowhere. There’s a fair amount of material on the pre-Heresy World Eaters, but almost nothing on the Great Crusade pre-Angron World Eaters, and I needed to develop that a little since their reaction to their Primarch would be so grounded in their existing Legion culture and practices. In the first draft I’d gone for a very barbaric feel for them, with lots of bare arms, rawhide, ceremonial melee weapons and so on, but in the second I revised that since it seemed a more interesting contrast to make them a much more formal, traditional military in contrast to what they later became. The second draft was also when the War Hounds name came in, and was such a sweet and natural fit with the existing story elements that I wondered how I’d finished a draft without it.)
The whole story itself, of course, is a prequel, an illustration of one station on Angron’s journey and fall, working within the whole arc of the Heresy in the same way that each scene works in the story. One of the interesting aspects of working on stories like this is that Angron and his Legion will have more appearances and more stories, that won’t necessarily be told by me and won’t necessarily pick up directly from “After Desh’ea”. As such the story has to act not only as a self-contained piece but as a stepping stone for another author to build on or touch on when they go on to shed light on different parts of Angron’s life in their own turn.
On the basis of current discussions it looks like I may well be doing some more Heresy writing, although whether that’s going to be continuing the story of Angron and the XII is at this point open to question. I’ve really enjoyed the work I’ve done on the World Eaters so far, and it’s tempting to continue that. I’ve already got some ideas about why Angron refused to relinquish his brain implants, on how he implemented his warrior lodges and blood rituals, his clashes with the other Primarchs, and on Kharn’s own journey from what he is in “After Desh’ea” to what he became by his debut in the Chaos Codex.
On the other hand, my instinct as a writer is to take what’s there and turn it on its head, so perhaps for the next Heresy piece I should shoot to the opposite end of the Chaos spectrum and go for something insanely over-cerebral and Tzeentchian. Graham’s doing the story of the Thousand Sons, of course, but that’s only one of a whole treeful of stories ready for picking. Or I could go over onto the Loyalist side and pick up a great figure there to try and do the same thing with. It seems popular to bash Roboute Guilliman as a petty, jumped-up clerk, but in some ways he’s the Primarch I admire most: of all of them he really seemed to fully get the idea of what the Great Crusade was trying to build, not just what it was working to destroy. Then again, let’s take all those great, epic stories of might and fall and turn them on all their heads for that worm’s eye view: how would the Heresy look to a civilian who’d barely understood the nature of the Crusade to begin with, never seen an Astartes, who now has to come to terms with a raging civil war that they never asked for a part in?
There are a ton of possibilities, and if you’ve got thoughts on what I should be looking at tackling then I’d be interested to hear them. I’d also be interested to hear feedback on any of these musings about Angron and the World Eaters – there’s certainly still plenty of good discussion to be mined about the son of the Hot Dust.
The Nocturnalist 
Loved After Desh’ea, and your commentary just makes me realise how deep the thoughts behind your works go. Bravo sir.
Incidentally, I think you should write more World Eaters stuff. I know it’s out of your hands, but a guy can hope can’t he?
Cheers Lucan, glad you liked it. I tend to put the long blog posts together over at least a day and I’m never sure how well they hang together for readers, so it’s good to know it worked.
While BL of course decide what they publish, I’ve got quite a lot of freedom in deciding what I pitch to them, which is why I’m interested in thoughts and suggestions.
Let’s hope that a contribution to Tales of Heresy will mean a Heresy novel from Matt in the near future!
You’ll hear about it here first 🙂
I’d certainly second these comments! This commentary is precisely the sort of thing I love to read (well, in addition to the stories themselves), it’s riveting and thoughtful stuff.
A query I do have is one that I don’t think you seem to have touched upon at all: Why did the Emperor leave Angron with the Warhounds so immediately?
The better speculation I’ve read was that it’d be essential exasperation, that the Emperor treated with Angron for a significant time before the events of the story, but that in the long-run He recognised that…well, that the event sof the story would likely happen one way or another. Other ideas included the Emperor discovering another Primarch or some other significant event (such as uncovering ‘Throne Technology’ like that of the Golden Throne, the Akashic Reader [which was golden and throne shaped] or the Silver Throne seen in “Faith and Fire”]).
In any case, Lord Lucan’s quite right: More thoughts on the World Eaters would be extremely welcome.
Conversely, it’s also reassuring to read your musings on Guilliman. My own take there was that his ‘epic story’ seemed more suited to the time after the culmination of the Heresy (the Scouring, if my memory serves). Having said that, it then seemed a better ‘character’ story therein would be seen in Guilliman before that more epic arc takes place.
With thought to the idea of the ‘worms eye view’ of the Heresy: again, a fine idea. Taking the ideas of “Legacy” and exploring tangentially to those would perhaps work well too (as Counter’s Saturnine Fleet and similar ideas were quite endearing in “Battle for the Abyss”).
Most interestingly, to me, and essentially as a result of Graham McNeil’s “The Last Church”, would be an even more detailed exploration of the Heresy era’s … theology and metaphysics. It came up in a discussion with Marijan Von Staufer who seemed (rightly) underwhelmed by the priest’s accounting for himself. That is: that the ‘Emperor vs religion’ argument could be done on an even deeper and even more stimualting and compelling level. Particularly this would ‘deal’ with the question: Why did Lorgar believe as he did?
As you mention: Angron was, prior to your story, little more than Angry Ronald, who is angry. Guilliman seems popularly regarded as a petty (if potent) bureaucrat. Lorgar then gets afflicted with some sort of amalgam Space Pope Televangelist. But he’s possessed of an awesome intellect; he wouldn’t be falling for the simple pareidolia-spirituality, comforting beliefs and silly tricks with which the Emperor (as Revelation) was so irate.
Unfortunately, I think my thoughts go ‘off the deep end’ at that point and start alluding to the legacy of the Old Ones, the possibility of a technological ascension to godhood (i.e. that Lorgar had pieced enough evidence together to suggest that you could create a secular god, with god-like powers relian on faith but which isn’t *really* a god, as such). As you no doubt see: There’s alot of possibility.
In any case, I look forward to reading more. It’s been extremely pleasant so far.
Some interesting thoughts there, Xisor, thanks.
My take on the Emperor and Angron is not too far from yours: the Emperor had already spent considerable time talking with Angron on the road to Desh’ea, and when he brought him aboard his own ship he tried to speak with him again but Angron at that point was utterly out of his mind with rage, humiliation and grief. Seeing Angron rip a Custodian apart with his bare hands was a pretty good sign that there wasn’t going to be a dialogue any time soon, so perhaps his Legion, with whom Angron had no personal beef, might be able to get through to him.
I do rather like “Space Pope Televangelist”, I have to say 🙂 And the explicitly secular memes of the Great Crusade make for an interesting contrast with the explicitly non-secular universe in which these stories take place: there’s a lot of story potential in the tension between the fantasy and SF tropes and mindsets. I don’t know if my interpretation of Lorgar would go in exactly the direction of yours, but I’m now thinking about how he contrasts with Magnus. Both of them have a deeper understanding than the other Primarchs seem to about the nature of their universe, the non-secular madness that lies in the shadows, but Lorgar’s response seems to be to seek to placate it through worship while Magnus’ response is to seek to control it through occultism. That’d be an interesting thing to try and lay out in a story – I’m thinking a sort of quasi-Socratic dialogue as recorded by their respective acolytes between sessions of the Council of Nikaea, as each Primarch serruptitiously sounds the other out about what they think of the esoteric knowledge that neither wants to own up to having. Hmm.
It is always great to read about what went into a story, especially a story as awesome as this. I personally think it should be you who continues the World Eater’s stories, the story added so much depth and reason behind Angron and the World Eaters and it also pointed to allot of questions in regards to how the Emperor treated each Primaarch individually. And from what I’ve read above it would be a damn shame if these ideas weren’t expanded upon and put into more stories, I think the potential is absolutely huge.
So yeah I would definitely be keen for more World Eaters stuff from you, or failing that, anything. Given the story you’ve put behind such a potentially ‘plain angry’ character, I wouldn’t mind seeing your take on Guilliman and why he has the reputation he has, he often comes across a similar way Angron came across as a ‘thoughtless barbarian’ before your story. Or on any of the Primarchs for that matter. It would also be great to maybe read something from the POV of a world being brought into compliance by two legions that completely contradict each other in ways like the World Eaters and Ultramarines, or something along those lines. I think that sort of thing would be quite interesting, because personally the 40k and HH stories I find most interesting are the ones that look into the mindsets of the ‘big players’ and/or the ‘little people’, and into the reasoning behind these huge events and sort of ‘philosophizes’ on them if you know what I mean. The same way After Desh’ea did. If I had more time I would try to explain a bit
The worms eye view thing is interesting, I noticed with the first story I read of yours which was ‘Junktion’ that it definitely had a unique way of telling the story
Geez guys, you’re going to give me a big head 🙂
Gonzo, your juxtaposition of Angron and Guilliman is an interesting one, because one incident I was thinking about basing a story pitch on was a world (can’t remember the name, I don’t have the original background to hand right now) which the World Eaters and Ultramarines were jointly pacifying. The World Eaters cut loose, of course, and the Ultramarines were basically left clambering after them through mounds of corpses, most of them civilians. The reel of atrocities the Ultramarines recorded was an early sign that something had gone very wrong with the XII.
I’d been thinking that would be a really interesting campaign to base a story on, since it puts the dispositions of Angron and Guilliman into direct contrast. On the other hand, it’s another story from the Great Crusade rather than the Heresy. On the gripping hand, it would follow on from “After Desh’ea” and move a reader along their trajectory into Chaos, giving a Heresy-era story something to really springboard off.
Lots to think on here.
may i just ask, does angron have a…respect for the emperor? ive always thought he hated him but towards the end of the story his feelings seem to change! anyway sorry if im wrong and if i misunderstood what you wrote!
Hi teessider, and thanks for stopping by. No need to apologise, you did pick up on something I intended to be in the story. The idea was not just to show Angron’s fury and grief, but to show how his conversation with Kharn began to moderate those emotions and allowed him to see a way forward. That came from the fact that yes, Angron eventually joined Horus against the Emperor, but for a good while there he led the World Eaters and fought in the Great Crusade just as the other Primarchs did. Something had to be at work there that allowed him to at least tolerate taking orders from the Emperor, and part of writing “After Desh’ea” was that I was interested to try and identify what that thing was.
It’s perhaps hinted at more than stated outright in the story, but what seemed like a good way to present it was that the Emperor never really earned Angron’s respect at all: he earned it by proxy, via Kharn and the War Hounds. The thought that finally penetrates Angron’s rage is that this Kharn is a formidable and proud warrior… who has such loyalty to this Emperor that he will die unresisting if that’s what he feels this Emperor needs. And Kharn by those actions wins Angron’s respect to the point where the Primarch decides, in effect, “okay, if serving this Emperor is good enough for him, then maybe for now it’s good enough for me. Let’s see what happens.” It’s a flimsy sort of allegiance, but it’s enough for Angron to take his place with his Legion. And of course it lays down some interesting story seeds for developing the story of Angron’s own rebellion and fall.
Not coming from a great knowledge of the Black Library or the characters featured in the story I found it a very good read. It sucked me in and spat me out the other end. There was something very intense in the scene with Angron and Kharn and not knowing the outcome kept me on the edge of my seat. So there was an advantage to ignorance in this case. I’ll have to come back here and read in more detail the thoughts behind the story.
Not to pee on anyone’s chips but the idea of a soon to be heretical legion cutting loose on non-coms in a joint compliance effort with a soon to be non heretical legion, followed by the most severe finger wagging, was done in the audio book with the Fists and Night Lords. Then Curze subsequently attacked Dorn. To do it with Ultra’s and World Eaters you’d need a different slant to it, maybe the worm’s eye view already mentioned. Not saying that this event couldn’t have happened twice, but somehow you’d need to avoid a déjà vu reaction in the reader.
Personally, I’d buy any Matt Farrer work on the Heresy after reading After Desh’ea, especially after reading about the thought processes behind it. It was brilliant. More Angron from Matt Farrer please. On the flip side, and in my opinion, Guilliman needs the same depth given to Angron. He does get a lot of abuse even though there is very little available on him.
No worries N8, my chips remain unpeed-upon. It’s actually useful you reminding me of that story so I don’t try and simply rehash it, but to reiterate a point I think we’ve both made, even a basically similar set of events can be told in a fresh way. I can already think of some interesting ways to play Angron and Guilliman off one another that wouldn’t retread the Curze/Dorn conversations from “The Dark King”. Food for thought.
Admittedly, I was indifferent about After Desh’ea and didn’t really understand why (probably because I’m still annoyed at Angron for butchering those who had surrendered in False Gods…As far as a sci-fi story goes though, it was brilliant!)
However, reading this has made me realise that I was reading it with the wrong expectations, infact I was wrong in reading it with expectations (Horus Rising by Abnett set a standard, and I’ve judged every Heresy story since by how much I am drawn to the characters as I was drawn to Loken).
And so, I will read again the story with an open mind and better appreciation of how the story was conceived. The Heresy series is going to be one of the greatest Sci-Fi sagas ever written I feel… How long before a movie company picks up on the potential that is locked away in this.
Good work Matt, and I look forward to reading more of your work in the future.
Hi Danny, and thanks for your comment. I’m pleased that the post here was food for thought and I’d be interested to hear if and how it changes your take on the story when you reread it.
I’ve just read ‘After Desh’ea.’ I went for your story first since it had been so long since I had the chance to read anything of yours that was new, and I wasn’t disappointed..
Anyway, without playing the fawning fan, I just wanted to tell you how much I really enjoyed that story. Angron had been little to me other than a cool name until his dynamic appearance in ‘False Gods,’ after which he was an awesome physicality with a cool name, but now I can finally log him alongside the primarchs who live and breathe in my mind as full-blooded characters (Horus, Fulgrim and Dorn so far). I know a few people who decried writing about the Heresy stating no author could do justice to the primarchs but its great writing like ‘After Desh’ea’ that proves them wrong.
I thought bringing out the tragic side of Angron was an inspired idea. I really appreciate the insights you’ve provided above about never giving up on a trope but instead looking for a new angle. As an aspiring writer myself (with only limited success I admit), that’s made me rethink a few of the ways I’ve been looking at things.
As for Horus Heresy ideas, although I realize you might already have them by now, one side of the Great Crusade that no one seems to have really told is the good side. So far, the glimpses of the Crusade have mostly been human controlled worlds being forced into compliance. Obviously that’s great stuff, but it would be nice to see the Crusade come along and save some humans for a change. Like, for instance, telling a tale through the eyes of enslaved humans under the oppression of brutal alien overlords (along the lines of the ‘Battlefield Earth’ novel). Slowly rumours spread amongst the slaves of a new enemy that their masters are fighting against and losing. The slaves are all gripped with fear at the thought of what terrible creatures could possibly bring low their mighty masters. Finally, drop pods descend from the skies, the alien oppressors are brutally routed and the slaves prostrate themselves before the giant armoured figures they see as their new masters. Then the lead giant takes his helmet off and to the slaves’ shock they realize he’s human and he says “welcome to the Imperium” or something along those lines. To me that seems like a totally different story from everything so far. Any Imperial soldiers or Astartes recruited from such a liberated world would be 100% dedicated to Imperium and its ideals. That in itself could be a good platform from which to expose them to the new Heresy and its corruption of those ideals and how they cope with it. A nice little aside might be if that liberated world turns out to be one we know and love already, like Necromunda or something.
Anyway, Graham McNeill’s story in ‘Tales’ is next and he’s yet to write a single thing that didn’t blow me away. Once again, I appreciate all the good writing.
Thanks for the kind words, Sarcos. You have a point in that the Primarchs were potent quasi-mythical figures in the background and taking on the task of writing them in direct narrative was a bit daunting. Although it’s nice to get confidence-building feedback, it’s probably also a good thing to hold on to a little of that daunted feeling. It’s a good frame of mind to be in when confronting a Primarch, even if it’s only in one’s own imagination.
I like your point about the Great Crusade, too. It’s something I’d like to reflect in some of the stories, even if it’s only in flashbacks or reminiscences: the idea that for a little while there, everything was golden. Just for a little while, the Great Crusade was doing what it was meant to. Just for a little while, its commanders could look back at worlds they had liberated and brought out of terrible tribulation. Just for a little while, Angron was able to temper his bitterness and see the nobility in what he was doing. Just for a little while, Horus’ ambition worked in harmony with his ambition for his army and for humanity. Just for a little while, Fulgrim’s dedication to perfection drove him to revere and uplift all that was best in all of humanity. Just for a moment there, everything worked.
There’s a school of thought that likes the idea of the Imperium is stronger being its brutal, horrific self right from the moment of its foundation. I’ve always thought that the story of the Heresy and its consequences are far more effective if you allow it that brief, shining moment when its founders were bigger and better than their flaws.
I remember Graham McNeill saying in an interview that writing about the primarchs was great because you were getting to play with the biggest and best toys in the box, but you had to be careful not to break them 🙂 So I guess that daunted feeling you described is a good way of dealing with that.
Yeah I totally agree with what you’re saying about the Crusade. The more of a golden age it was then the greater the fall is by comparison. If the Crusade was all bloody-minded oppression then Horus and his Heresy really didn’t change anything since the 40k universe is obviously all bloody-minded oppression too.
I think it is interesting though that the majority of Imperials seen so far, whether civvies, space marines, primarchs or whatever are mostly big supporters of the Imperial Truth, but as yet the novels haven’t really shown us the advantages it brings and all the places and people it has liberated. It would be great to read a vivid account of that golden time in flashbacks or reminiscences like you described and then see it against what the Crusade became towards the end. It might even be a great peice of reverse logic to have one of the traitor primarchs turn bad because his golden vision of the crusade is being challenged i.e. he believes that Horus will bring back the golden age.
Hi Sacros. Just a quick note, but you mentioned about reading something about the good side of the crusade… Well, just wait until you read the Space Wolf story “Wolf at the door” in the book, I think that will more than please you 😀
yeah, thanks Danny I finished that one a few days ago and loved it. It’s great when relatively ‘good’ main characters, like Shira Calpurnia or Uriel Ventris are in the 40k universe, I like the way their different attitudes remind us how brutal the 40k world really is, while their example shows that humanity is still worth fighting and dying for even in such a bleak future.
Your comment reminds me of a term I originally saw in an Algis Budrys essay: “recollective heroes”, someone who’s a hero in terms of our values but who actually clashes with the values that would have been judged heroic in their own place and time. The 40K setting is a great little laboratory for playing with ideas like that, since arguably the whole setting is a thought experiment in how far someone can get from our own values while we still consider them a hero, and what sort of universe you have to set up for them to exist in. (Jervis Johnson has said that for him the keynote question for the whole setting is “in a cosmos where absolute evil verifiably exists, do the ends then justify the means?”) I suspect my thoughts on that are a whole other blog post, though.
Hi again, Matt.
With regards to the idea of recollective heroes, I find the idea fascinating too: that the likes of Shira Calpurnia in-universe could be considered the ‘perfect heroine’, yet in our world’s view she’d be (if you’ll permit a ridiculous simplification) a fascist monster and yet we, the reader, still happily empathise with her as a legitimate heroine and protaganist. Obviously it is a great deal more complicated than that, but the simple existence of the intricacy remains fascinating.
Regarding HH ideas, I wonder if a ‘political thriller’ basis might work well for an exploration of a few of the ideas. It’s perhaps not a worm’s eye view, but still a distant view which could permit alot of insight into the Crusade Era. Particularly I’m thinking about the original charters as discussed in “Legacy”, the foundation of the Adeptus Arbites and so forth.
Writing around those sort of events could serve to explore the ideas Graham McNeil mentioned in the early bits of “False Gods”; that a significant part of Horus’ fall comes from his disillusionment with the Crusade, that it became too official, too bogged down in paper-work and taxes. Working under the ‘guise’ of the onslaught of legislation and its role in the Heresy might be the opportunity to weave many of the ideas you’ve discussed into a more wholesome and different novel for the series?
In any case, it’s still great to see the blog continuing nicely. I trust all’s well.
Cheers again,
Xisor
You’re absolutely bang-on about the dual nature of characters like Calpurnia, and it’s been an interesting exercise to make her a relatable character while keeping her true to the terrible regime she serves. That involves writing a perspective from which that terrible regime seems sensible and even noble, which at times feels enough like apologising for it as to make me a bit uncomfortable. It’s worth the discomfort, though, I think there’s some really interesting territory to explore in that tension between what Calpurnia is and what we assume our heroes will be.
You’ve mentioned the Crusade/Heresy-era political thriller before, I recall, and again, there’d be plenty of interesting stories to tell. Spending time on some blogs with a mixture of military, ex- and non-military have got me thinking lately about the slightly odd relationship that civil societies seem to have with their militaries, and I’m coming around to the idea that that was the point of failure for the Imperium: the Emperor tried to evolve it from a besieged remnant to a conquering, expansionist power to a galaxy-spanning civil polity, and couldn’t manage the second of those two transitions. So you’ve got these people trying to build the institutions of a giant galactic state almost from scratch, while keeping control of pacified worlds and trying to convince the demigodlike figures who make up their military that they’re actually doing something that’s worthwhile.
(The current Imperium’s ramshackle nature started to make a lot more sense to me when I realised that it’s a series of bodges, patches and band-aids slapped onto a system that was only ever half-built to begin with.)
On the other hand, if I do more World Eaters stories I’m not sure that they’ll be compatible with that tale. Angron and Kharn have an element of the classic tragedy about them, in which kingdoms might burn in the background but the story is the highly personal story of the anguish and downfall of one or two larger-than-life individuals. I’d have to think about what it would take to match those narratives up – my instinct at this point is that they’d be better served told separately.
Hi Matt, thank you for replying. Although I haven’t managed to re-read the story, I wanted to comment on something you just mentioned above in reply to Sacros about writing stories about the Primarchs when “everything worked”.
The Horus Heresy series is about the failure of the crusade, it is focused on the Heresy itself. But what an amazing idea you have just hit upon. Wouldn’t it be amazing if a new series of novels were written, focusing on the Primarchs before everything hit the fan!!?? Now that I think would be more of a challenge for any author, especially when writing about a Primarch such as Night Haunter; to portray the Primarchs, especially the ones that we associate with betrayal and heresy, as noble heroes, as saviors, as liberators!! (Excuse my spelling). You have already shown with “After Desh’ea” that there is more to the ‘bad’ Primarchs than the idea’s we have about them.
Quote “Just for a little while, Angron was able to temper his bitterness and see the nobility in what he was doing. Just for a little while, Horus’ ambition worked in harmony with his ambition for his army and for humanity. Just for a little while, Fulgrim’s dedication to perfection drove him to revere and uplift all that was best in all of humanity.” Now those are stories that I would want to read about, and no doubt I am sure alot of other Black Library fans would too. I really think you are onto something there…. and I really think that you should be the one to write the Angron version of Fulgrim (if you get what I mean), that would be another stand out Heresy book; the story of Angron’s discovery, the meeting with the Emperor, his first campaign to bring compliance to a world, and the meeting with Horus that turned him against the Emperor.
Fulgrim was an awesome novel, and I really felt for Fulgrim at the end when he walks back through the ampitheatre and realises what he has done. I definately believe you have the potential to create that same sympathy for Angron, and I would be very surprised if the Black Library didn’t want a similar story for Angron, I know the readers would.
I know I said that I had been indifferent about After Desh’ea, but I did still appreciate the story and the concept. You did an amazing job, and with this new insight into the writing process I know I will enjoy it a hell of a lot more the second time I read it (which will be as soon as I finish Fallen Angels).
Take care Matt, let us know what the editing/Horus Heresy team say about the above ideas.
Cheers Danny, some interesting points there. I do get what you mean about “the Angron version of Fulgrim”, and it would certainly be an interesting project to do. In the 40Kverse Chaos is like water: it takes on the shape of the container you put it in. Each person who falls to it will take a different path downward, a path as unique as their own personality, because it’s your own psyche and soul that Chaos wants to get a grip on and turn against you. That means you can’t take a generic approach to writing a character’s fall to Chaos: you need a thorough understanding of who you’re writing about because what Chaos does to them when they embrace it will be shaped by their thoughts and memories and their whole inner life. Angron’s fall would be as different to Fulgrim’s as the Primarchs themselves were different.
I’m still thinking about whether that pre-Fall story, what I think of as the “brief and golden moment”, is something that should be done in a book or whether it should be sketched and hinted at, through flashbacks and reminiscences in the Heresy books. My current tendency is to the latter, since what makes that moment so poignant is the contrast with the fallen, post-Heresy Imperium. In a Heresy series you can build that contrast in, both directly through narrative and through the musings of the characters, whereas in a dedicated Great Crusade book it’d be harder to maintain. I’m open to counter-arguments though.
Hi Matt. Thank you for your reply and taking the time to share your thoughts, it means alot. Just a very quick question, I am quite a competent writer and was wondering if you could recommend any good software packages that cater for the novel writer? At the moment, I write my stories and poetry using Microsoft Works, but I am sure there are packages out there that are more tailored to a writers needs. Do you use any particular software, and what can you recommend?
Thanks again for your time. 🙂
Hi Danny, sorry for the delay. Some remarks on the writing software I use just went up in the latest post, and I’ve linked to some freeware packages that might be of interest.
Thanks Matt 🙂
Hi Matt 🙂
I re-read After Desh’ea with my fresh perspective, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Not that I didn’t enjoy it the first time around, as I mentioned I didn’t really have an affection for Angron previously and had written him off as a barbarian. One of the things that I hadn’t taken much notice of the first time around was Kharn, and during my second read of the story I found myself warming to him in a similar way I was drawn to Loken.
I sincerely hope that you are handed the task of writing the World Eaters HH novel, as I would like to see how you expand on this noble, honourable warrior and also how he was swayed to fight for chaos when in After Desh’ea he is completely loyal to the Emperor. It is clear that Angron doesn’t have much “love” shall we say for Him, but clearly the War Hounds were devoted to the Emperor so how does the Primarch turn this legion to chaos?? That is going to be an amazing story for sure, and no doubt you have several plots already.
There isn’t alot I can say that hasn’t already been said, and I don’t want to appear as though I am a sycophant. I judge novels/stories by how well they can create imagary in my mind and how strongly I feel emotions, and the second time I read Desh’ea I was more than satisfied! There is a deep tragedy to Angron’s story, and you have given us all a new way of looking at him. I was even annoyed that the Emperor felt that he wasn’t worth His time or effort trying to tame, surely with His Divine powers and psychic ability He could have explained to Angron who he really was etc…
Thank you for your replies, and thank you for the advice on writing software. I am trying, with limited success at the moment, to get to grips with KeyNote but I am sure after a little practice it will become an invaluable tool to my own writing.
MORE WORLD EATERS please!! Up until I read After Desh’ea they were of little interest to me, they just came across as blood-crazed psychopaths. You’ve got me curious about them, and I want to know more!!
Hoping your trip went well, take care Matt.
I think this might be 2 years 2 late but i have to try. Let me say that After Desh’ea was the best story in ToH. The revaluation of how the World Eaters got their name was the highlight. I am with the others who posted who think you should do more with the XII Legion. I also agree that it would be great to see some first hand accounts the events that pushed World Eaters to Heresy. One of the great things about the HH series so far is the new names and places that have been added to the cannon. At the same time getting a better look at those we already know about is just as nice. There is a Loyalest World Eater who, before the new books, was as well known as Tarvitz and Garro. His name is Verran and his story would seem like futile plot of possibilities. I would love to know if this is even in the mix?
Never too late, Loren, thank you for the kind words. It may be two years old but I think this is still the most-viewed post on the blog.
I do remember Captain Varren. From memory he’s one of the ones who appears in some of the colour text in the very first editions of Epic, correct? I’m not sure what official plans there are for him as a character in the new series, though. A study of the loyalist remnants of the Traitor Legions would be fun to do, certainly. In the spirit of the worm’s-eye view principle, you’re taking the question of what drew certain Primarchs and Legions toward their fall, and then you turn that upside-down in turn to ask what caused a handful from each of those Legions to separate from their brothers and stay loyal? The motives would be as wide-ranging as the motives for betrayal.
Yes you have it right about Verren. Before the new series he was the only named World Eater Loyalist. When Tarvitz and Garro got so much face time, being named first in the same work, i had hoped he would show up also.
It has been a year and a half since you talked about your upcoming work on this thread. Is there an Update? Have you been tasked with more Horus Heresy work?
I just found this, by accident. But since people are still commenting, I’ll do so, too.
I love this story. It’s among the very best I’ve ever read, not just in the Warhammer universe, but anywhere. The entire story is a Crowning Moment of Awesome :). The way Kharn manages to bridge the cultural difference between himself and Angron is where it excells for me. Just speaking the same language doesn’t mean understanding one another, so much depends on culture and concepts. You showed this incredibly well, how much ‘translating’ needs to be done before Angron with his very alien socialisation can even process what Kharn is trying to tell him. And that’s without the implants… I was fascinated by that moment where you showed what potential Angron had, and how it was defiled. And still, his enormous intellect is clear, when he DOES understand, and is capable of wrapping his mind about concepts he did not know before. He’s not completely lost here. Both characters are utterly fascinating in this story, showing how extraordinary they are.
I’m also impressed that you refrained from Emperor bashing there. Some questions do not need to be answered. Or maybe even can’t be answered.
I’m with all those who said you should write about Angron and his legion some more. They need some love, really. 🙂
Hi Liliedhe, and thank you for enjoying the story and for stopping by here to comment on it. I appreciate your compliments.
The culture gap between Angron and his Legion would have been the most pronounced of all the Legions, I think, because while every Primarch was shown a spacegoing Legion of warriors they’d never met before and told “these guys are yours”, all the other Primarchs had an established world, often one they had come to know intimately and dominate, and a warrior cadre and ruling court of their own. That had to help, having their own warriors to start mingling with the new Legion to show them their new leader’s ways, and having companions around them and a homeworld behind them as a psychological anchor as they plunged into this great Crusade across a galaxy many of them would never have imagined. Angron had none of that. He came to his Legion completely alone, unable to return to his homeworld and with no-one to help him deal with these strange people and these strange other worlds they kept telling him about. As I type this it occurs to me that while Angron is often portrayed as Spartacus, you could equally imagine him as Tarzan (the Christopher Lambert Greystoke version).
hi, matt.
i’ve just finished my second read of after desh’ea, and it is by far my favorite piece from the entire HH series. your short story, post on the writing process, and the subsequent replies lend such a depth to the 40k and HH worlds. the story brought to mind manu bennet’s portrayal of crixus in the recent spartacus series, tho in a lot less space. your story is a gem.
a lot of the replies to your post bring up topics regarding the 40k and HH worlds i’ve noticed reading the franchise. until lately, the emperor and many of his primarchs have seemed iconically static in many ways. exploring the psychology, pathos, and ethos of these characters in a personal way is a really great read and ultimately blends the character of the primarch to their legion. for me, one of the great strengths of your take on angron and the world eaters is the inner conflict angron has over being taken from the field of battle by the emperor. that moment which angron feels so dearly becomes the conflict for the war hounds and kharn and eventually the rest of the imperium after angron joins horus. just excellent picking up and following out the ways a personality and a simple moment can shape future events so drastically.
another topic you’ve mentioned is the relationship between civil beauracracy and the military expeditions of the imperium. oxford and king’s college historian, peter heather wrote fairly extensively on the overlap during the last few centuries of the roman empire. one of the primary problems between the two entities is distance, and prof heather repeatedly shows how distance, coupled with the right personalites shaped the flow of the empire. the events leading up to the battle of adrianople would be an excellent example of how personalities shape epoch marking events. the cultural norms of the parties involved and the asymetry of their military forces is also interesting.
in my mind, the lorgar/magnus issue broached also has a faint precedent in antiquity in the biographies of arius, nestorius, and their divergent yet still heretical (according to the RCC) definitions and doctrines. it’s interesting that both arius and nestorius were attempting to solve epistemological problems about the nature of their deity and ended up being decried as heretics by their peers. of course, it seems colchis shaped lorgar into the heirophant a la benedict spinoza (the courtier and the heretic is an amazingly well written biography about spinoza btw), while magnus developed a rather pragmatic view of the warp on prospero. magnus reminds me a lot of francis bacon with that ‘hey, this is here; let’s use it’ sort of attitude. there are a lot of sharp divergent angles they bring out of the cultures of their homeworlds, while they ultimately end up siding with horus for the same reason, unfair treatment by the emperor.
there are so many great threads in your post and the replies. please, keep up the great work, and thank you so much for your story as well as the look into your approach.
Hi Jared, and my thanks for your comment and the compliments you gave. It’s great to hear that people are getting so much from that story.
Thanks also for some interesting references to follow up – the Heather study sounds particularly interesting. I think that a crucial shaping factor for the Imperium that doesn’t get enough attention was the fact that while it was pretty much fully-fledged militarily, and technologically at a peak it hasn’t reattained in ten millennia, as an economy and a polity it wasn’t even half-finished by the time the Heresy began. The Adeptus structure that the 40K folks consider to be divinely ordained has actually evolved as a band-aid slapped on a patch that was bolted onto a jerry-rig that was lashed together to try and prop up a half-built structure that nobody really had the plans for and which half the Astartes and a chunk of the rest of the military had suddenly turned around and started trying to chop down.
That’s thinking in applied terms. I may have mentioned that ongoing conversations elsewhere online have got me wondering about the interaction between civil and military ideals and how those play out in symbolic terms among the Astartes. One of the great things about this setting, as you’ve alluded to yourself, is that there are so many different ways to slice it.
the heather study or anything oxford and cambridge publishes on the third, fourth, and fifth centuries CE regarding the roman empire are definately worthy reads. there are so many easy analogs between the Roman legions, the imperial beauracracy, and the various classes and the 40k universe. and again, we’re talking about orders that people believed were divinely established in a ‘golden age’. the tax base represented by agriculture, especially north african agriculture, and how it subsidized the legions, is a very interesting subject. some of the roman senatorial rhetoric that got tossed around the senate in those three hundred years could be right from the pages of a 40k novel. the history of the overlap between the military and civillian populations is an interesting one. there seems to have been a trend of some sort for roman legions to be segregated a little from normal populations. the legions were brutalized in their training and told that they were special, superior people. this type of indoctrination alone has serious psychological consequences. the legions’s battle tactics were incredibly bloody and terribly effective. for instance, if a town or city was to be taken, the people inside had the opportunity to surrender up until the first ram hit the wall. after that, everyone insided, and i mean everyone, was put to the sword. the romans generally took a similarly brutal attitude when fighting nations as well. the modern world has no equivalent to the legions, mostly because of international law. the legionaries themselves were people cut from an incredibly different cloth than average roman citizens, and veterans were settled in special communities, territorial fronts had odd laws regarding non military personel. it’s a rich vein. in modern terms, there are special operations units (at least in the u.s. military, tho other nations certainly have analogs) called civil affairs units that handle the relationship between the civillian populations in occupied countries and the military. it’s a very interesting realm, and definately one looking into if you’re thinking of writing in that vein. mark david grossman, a west point psychology prof and former army ranger, has written a review of the psychological processes that occur after killing someone. it’s called on killing. the book is arranged by the killer’s distance from the victim, details historical and modern training programs of how to teach people to kill, the effects of all of this, and the relationship of soldiers who have been exposed to horror with the rest of the world. i happen to be a former civil affairs soldier and was a handed a copy of grossman’s book pretty early in the first day at my home unit. the red cross and any non government aid organization are also great places to start if you’re looking for research on how these things are handled. wiki has pretty fair articles on c.a. and psyops units, but most of the internal literature generated by these units has limited access. there seems to always be a flood of popular literature in book stores about special operations forces, and while i’d never discredit any of the soliders, marines, and sailors who write them, i think the popular understanding that supports this market is based on a the idea of a big muscley guy with a really big gun routinely participating in suicide missions. it’s a very one dimensional idea of what special operations soldiers actually do and how they work. on killing is a really great place to start. appologies for the rant and all the suggestions. the 40k universe is a great one, and i love it. there are times though that my experience and training kick in, and i get very critical of how some things are treated because the treatment seems a little thin or ill conceived. not to go off again, but there are certain ways people react to fire. there are ways that people who been trained to a high standard act towards other people. and every once in a while there ARE genuinely superior individuals and they have their own set of tics and behaviors. it’s all psychology. the execution of a plan has psychological dimensions… and there are fairly reliable models for this across cultures and spans of time. it’s the human condition. the recomendations are ones i’ve run across and used in my military career. and they were recomended to me because of their effectiveness and reality. thanks for your response.