Ciaphas Cain novels analysis/discussion thread (revisited)

[Connor MacLeod]

And without further ado, we begin the last book of this 'trilogy' arc, Cain's Last Stand. Arguably the best book of the trilogy, and IMHO the best book of the series, we're presented with a veteran, senior Ciaphas cain. The retired 'Hero of the Imperium', training the next generation of recruits and enjoying the perks of his reputation and permission. Except the 13th Black Crusade comes knocking....

Cain's last stand is the best because, I think, we come closest to seeing the 'true' Cain of the series. This is the Cain who has been through it all, been tempered, and grown tired of much of the bluster and self-deprecation. Indeed, it seems by this point almost mechanical, and his actions - to me at least- seem much more transparent in the series. A big part of this, I suspect, is because this novel interacts on a more personal level with many of those involved: Cain and the other Schola faculty, Cain and his own students, Cain and Jurgen, etc. This is also a novel, that whilst still relatively more lighthearted, has much more serious overtones than the others, and faces Cain with some horrible decisions and (personally I believe) painful sacrifices. That to me is what makes it best, the Cain stripped of all the drama and pretense and bluster is someone who is likable and, truthfully, flawed and even vulnerable. Someone we could imagine being friends with.

But on the plus side, there is Chaos Lord Hitler the Psychic Lycanthorpe, so its not all serious.

Two updates, both at the same time.


Part 1

Page 12

Though Jurgen was ostensibly excused shaving on medical grounds, due to his interesting collection of skin diseases, I always suspected the real reason he was allowed to grow a beard was Cain s understandable apprehension about what might be revealed by the application of a razor.

I'm mildly surprised that beards are forbidden uniformly. I mean I can see some of the reasons, but we know of plenty of Guardsmen who had them. So either it wasn't uniformly enforced or it was a region by region thing.


Page 14

Following the repulsion of the ork invasion in 923.M41, and in response to the growing number of tau incursions into Imperial space at about that time, the military presence in the sectors around the Damocles Gulf was greatly increased. Perlia, being both strategically located and in need of considerable reconstruction, became an obvious staging post for these forces, and benefited from the introduction of a number of Imperial institutions, the schola among them.

The 5th edition codex mentioned a 20% tithe of the PDFs around Tau space, although Is uspect the Tyranids were still by far drawing the vast majority of troops. Anyhow, one benefit of rebuilding is that a devastated world may recover and even prosper.





Page 15

..our system defence squadrons had had their work cut out keeping them away from Perlia itself.
...
All the outlying installations had been either overrun or abandoned to allow the fleet to concentrate on defending the planet itself; now the dust had settled, every void station and off-world habitat had to be cleansed of whatever chitinous horrors had gone to ground there before they could be got running again.

At least 2 system defense squadrons, plus also plenty of outlying installations and orbital facilities (which got cleaned out by the 'Nids)



Page 16

Though relatively rare among the ranks of the Commissariat, there are a surprising number of female commissars: presumably because none of the all-women regiments in the Imperial Guard would take too kindly to being bossed about by a mere man.

Female commissars. Less common than men but still exist.




Page 19

After a few moments of minor tedium it swam into view, resolving itself over the next ten minutes or so into a battered intrasystem cargo hauler.
...
"Estimated time of arrival at the objective seven hours, thirty-two minutes."

Time to reach destination.


PAge 21-22

Asteroid 761 kappa: approximate dimensions 4.75 kilometres by 1.39.
Primary extractable: ferrous metals.
Secondary extractables: silicates, volatiles.
...
Other remarks: Orbital path trailing Perlia by constant 2 degrees at equal distance from primary.

Size of the asteroid they're investigating, and composition. If we go by 2 degrees and the distance being 1 AU for Perlia (circumference), we're probably figuring several million km. Covering that distance in ~7.5 hours we're talking 95-100 km/s roughly for average velocity, and maybe a single gee or so. Possibly several gees.



Page 27

A truly hideous timepiece, which was supposed to commemorate Cain's victory over the greenskin invaders a couple of generations before. Every hour, on the hour, a clockwork commissar decapitated however many clockwork orks corresponded to the time, their falling heads chiming the hours as they fell into a resonant metal bin. Cain, not surprisingly, loathed it.

Heh. Cain's memorial timepiece. No wonder he hates it. (later on he asks if the Chaos cults had destroyed it during invasion. They hadn't, at least during the initial one.)



PAge 34

Which the occasional warband did from time to time, of course, as they so often do on worlds once sullied by their presence, despite the campaign to eradicate them apparently having been completely successful at the time.
...
A phenomenon which seems to be related to their peculiar biology: for a short and relatively accessible précis of the current theory of spore dissemination, see The Fungoid Menace: Orkish Physiology And Its Implications by Migo Yuggoth.

Ork spore growth yet again, this time referred to as 'current' theory.



Page 35

Splitting a standard ten-man squad into two five-man fireteams is common practice among Imperial Guard regiments experienced in urban combat and counterinsurgency, but far rarer among Planetary Defence Forces.

Squads and fireteams again. Not common amongst PDFs, but this PDF isn't typical.



Page 39

Up until then I'd been taking it for granted that staying put and co-ordinating the sweep a stone's throw from the safety of the airlock had been part of his plan; it certainly would have been in any of the Guard regiments I'd served with. But of course there wasn't a nice cosy command Chimera to sit in here, full of vox gear and auspex arrays to make that work; just a data-slate and his vox operator. In fact I was probably more on top of things myself, thanks to the network of comm-beads linking me to Jurgen and the cadets.

Implying that data slates and comm beads are less sophisticated alternatives ot the comm and auspex abilities of command Chimeras.




Page 41

..Stebbins reported, his voice a little attenuated in my comm-bead by scores of metres of intervening rock,..

Implied range of at least scores of metres.. and thats trhough rock. Presumably we're talking hundreds of metres at least more likely.




Page 47

I squeezed the trigger more by reflex than anything, blowing a hole through its thorax, which at least checked its advance...
...
..while the troopers opened up with their lasguns. The 'stealer fell, blown to bloody chunks, and dropping Clode's spasming body as it collapsed.

Cain is with a PDF command squad, so we're talking 5 men. assuming 400 j per sq cm, and 2 m by 60 cm 10-12 thousand sq cm... call it 30-40 thousand sq cm

4-5 MJ, and 12-16 MJ for the other. Assuming 1-2 seconds for 5 troops (5-10 bursts.. call it several dozen or several hundred shots) If we go with 5 troopers and between 60-150 shots its 300-750 shots. 80-150 kj per burst of lasgun, several megajoules per burst at the higher end. If we figure they empty the powerpacks thats 5-17 kj per shot. At the higher end 16-53 kj per shot.




Page 48

...stepping in with his melta raised, and, forewarned, I closed my eyes momentarily against the retinasearing flash as he pulled the trigger. The ravening cone of white-hot energy which burst from the muzzle vaporised the torso of a 'stealer reaching out for me as it bounded across the threshold, setting fire to the nearest stack of boxes with the thermal backwash.

Jurgen's melta in action again. Blows apart torso.. at least single digit or double digit... triple digit or better if literal vaping.



Page 49

..jamming the mechanism as best I could from this side, and putting a las-bolt through the locking plate just to make sure.

Of a door. Presumably it melts the lock or the bolt together. double or triple digit kj, figuring a several cm diameter wide, several cm thick, and 30% iron composition.



Page 50-51

"We've found a fresh tunnel. It's not on our map."
"Show me," I said, fishing out the data-slate, and expanding the image as much as I could around the runes that marked the position of his and Klarch's comm-beads. According to the display, they were in the middle of one of the main tunnels, still a score of metres from any intervening passageways.
...
"I need to get my slate out." A moment later the pict screen flickered, and the map was replaced by a grainy image of his face, which looked as though he was standing in the middle of a snowstorm."'Are you getting any of this?"

"Just barely," I told him. If the dense rock surrounding us was attenuating the vox signals, it was playing merry hell with the more complex pict transmissions. Heskin began to turn the slate, giving me as wide a view as possible of his surroundings.
...
Donal had his own slate out again, studying the transmitted picts with every sign of attention...

Not only do the slates provide mapping functions and tracking of personnel, but they can provide image transmission capability - relaying pictures from one slate to another. A useful ability.




Page 54

..the only sensible option would be to run for the ship, call a couple of SDF gunboats to pound the place to gravel,..

PDF gunboats (several) can destroy a 4.8 km by 1.4 km rok made of stone and iron. Tens or hundreds of megatons at least probably.



PAge 62-63

One of the larger warrior forms had joined the gaunts...
...
The warrior staggered back a pace as Vorlens and his three remaining troopers gave it five rapid rounds apiece, and Jurgen squeezed the trigger of the melta. The results were gratifying, to say the least. The towering creature shrieked, staggered, and went down, steaming like a grox roast (although smelling a great deal less pleasant), its heavy weapon seared into uselessness.

Jurgen's melta in action again, this time instead of blowing apart or vaporizing, it seems to just badly burn or boil. hundreds of MJ to boil, Single digit MJ per nid if its just badly burnt, maybe double digit MJ total.




Page 65

Jurgen nodded, and fired the melta again, barbecuing the 'nid neat as you please.
...
..and resumed his watchful posture as the warrior form flailed and expired in a cloud of rank-smelling steam,..

Melta again, same calcs probably.



Page 71

"Orks use rocks like this for transport, you know, as well as proper ships."
...
From an orkish point of view, they were perfect for the job; either whatever braking system their meks had been able to cobble together worked, delivering a far greater number of warriors to the surface than a conventional drop-ship could ever have done, or they failed, resulting in a titanic explosion and widespread destruction, which they seemed to think was almost as good…

Orks have roks as big as the mining colony they're investigating, which is 4.75 x 1.4 km. Also used as drop ships, which is pretty... hefty KE wise.



Page 73-74

The broad brush strokes of most popular accounts have tended to parcel up the various war zones with unjustified neatness, however, blurring the manner in which successive crises interacted with one another, and in some cases overlapped.

Nowhere is this misconception more egregious than in the popular image of the two principal battlefronts of the time: the so-called Black Crusade, and the Tyrannic wars. In the minds of most interested laymen, the Black Crusade was largely confined to the aptly named Segmentum Obscurus, while the tyranid hive fleets constituted a threat solely to the systems of the Eastern Arm. In reality, the picture was a great deal more confused, with the raiding fleets of the Great Enemy striking far from the main battleground around the Cadian Gate and its adjacent sectors. At least one such flotilla is reliably recorded as being active as far to the East as the Damocles Gulf, close to what was then the border of the Tau Empire, although why it should have been there, and the circumstances of its eventual defeat, remain shrouded in conjecture and debate.

Comments on the Black crusade and Tyrannic wars, some of the largest and widest-spread conflicts in the Imperium. While mainly confined to partiuclar segmentum, they still have wide-ranging implications, as this novel indicates. It tends to pu tthe conflicts into perspective, and precisely why the entire Imperium seems to mobilize against Chaos (or the Nids.)



Page 77

Although most recruits to the Adepta Sororitas are, of course, trained in their own convents, it's by no means unusual to have a Battle Sister or two attached to a schola progenium, since many of the girls taken in by them are likely to feel a calling to join their ranks. Sister Julien would see to their initial induction, assessing which of the aspirants were best suited to the Ordos Militant, Hospitaller, Famulous, or what have you, and which were better redirected along other paths altogether

Sororitas training.




Page 82

The bulk of the education provided at a schola progenium is the same whichever branch of Imperial service the student eventually enters; after this was determined in their early teens, the specialised training provided by Cain and his colleagues would begin. Although he's never specific about the matter, the cadets under his tutelage would have been between thirteen and seventeen standard years of age, the younger ones still spending part of their time following a more general academic curriculum.

Schola Progenium education.



Page 87-88

Sister Julien said, glancing up from her cards just long enough to raise the stakes again. I'd been surprised to see her when I'd arrived in Rorkins's rooms for our regular tarot evening: she'd never attended one before, and I'd always assumed she'd disapprove of gambling on principle, but she certainly didn't play like a novice. If anything, she was as good as I was, which was an interesting challenge, to say the least;...

Yes, thats a Sororitas who drinks and gambles. Although they mention she gives it to the poor, so she's not quite on Cain's level. Really, I like it for the way it breaks stereotypes - she seems more human and it reflects how the Imperial cult encompasses many different (and even contradictory) iterations of faith. Of course I know some who dislike Mitchell's depictions of Sororitas, but you can't please everyone




Page 89

"Astropathic communication's in a hell of a state, with the shadow the hive fleets are castin' in the warp, and the sector fleet's pretty much isolated out here. Whatever news is comin' in by courier boat's out of date before it even gets to this side of the galaxy."
..
"I haven't heard a thing from the preceptory in months."

They can't rely on astropathy here, so they need couriers from the core.




Page 93

"Accordin' to some old friends in fleet intelligence, that's true. Couple of their major septs are under siege, and they're divertin' a lot of their resources to dealin' with that"
..
"Or they were six months ago. For all I know they've been eaten by now, and the little blue blighters are lookin' around for new worlds to replace 'em."

Tyranids seem to be a more serious threat to the tau than other sources have hinted.




Page 96-97

..the real crisis had yet to become apparent; and, to be fair, there was no real reason why it should, since it had its roots in events that were occurring almost the entire galaxy away. Even so, had it not been for the fortuitous return of Ciaphas Cain, the hero of the first siege, at just the right time, things would undoubtedly have gone very badly indeed for Perlia in the next few months.

..
Initial word of the Black Crusade spread across the galaxy as fast as the warp could carry it, first arriving on Perlia some time around 400.999.M41.
..
Given how things unfolded over the next few months...

Perlia is 'almost the entire galaxy' away, suggesting something like 90-100 thousand LY. Implies perhaps that the Chaos forces arrive within a few months, but certainly less than a year. The courier boat took less. So at the very leats, we're talking high tens or low hundreds of thousands of c warp travel speed.




Page 102

..Orelius was far more than a simple merchant; he was another of Amberley's agents, gathering information from across half the segmentum on her behalf.

Scope of Amberley's rogue trader operations.



Page 107

"The sector fleet's got its hands full already,"
...
"The main thrust of the tyranid advance has diverted towards ork-held space for some reason1, but there are enough of them left on the fringes to keep most of our assets pinned down for the foreseeable future."
...
The result of what has since become known as the Kryptmann gambit, although they would have had no way of knowing that at the time.

The Kryptmann gambit is happening now, although noone knew this at the time.



Page 107-108

"The Traitor Legions attacked in force some months ago, trying to force passage through the Cadian Gate. Enough of them are getting through to make things very difficult in the Segmentum Obscurus."

"But that's half the galaxy away."
...
"Other than the resources being diverted to deal with it weakening our defences against the tyranids, of course."

"Most of the fighting's been confined to the Obscurus so far." Orelius confirmed, idly dismissing about a quarter of the galaxy as though it were a single cohesive lump. "but the enemy raiding fleets are getting bolder. Several have been ranging farther afield."
...
"Ranging in this direction."
...
"There's a whole flotilla heading this way, as fast as the warp can carry them. And that's pretty fast at the moment; according to our Navigator, there are currents flowing out of the Eye stronger than any he's ever seen."

Again its been some 'months' since the Damocles gulf stuff started. IF we figure from the date above its probably only 4-6 months... but its also 'half a galaxy' away. Lets call it 50-100 thousand LY. That would be (more precisely) 100,000-300,000c for the courier boats. The Chaos forces are not significantly slower.




Page 112

"I imagine they'll see sense once the enemy gets close enough."
..
"Any idea how long that'll take?"
...
"About a week, I think, at least so far as the main fleet goes."
...
"This contains the best estimate I can give you of their strength and numbers, but I should warn you, it's highly conjectural."

Of course a group of advance scouts show up early. Earlier assessments of timeframe stand.



Page 121

"The system defence boats are all on the outer picket lines," Sprie reminded me, "in case the 'nids come back. These ships emerged well within the defensive perimeter." He shook his head. "Way too close to our gravity well for safety: they must be mad."

Gravity affecting warp emergence/exit. How close they emerge we dont know, though.



Page 121-123

"What landing craft"
...
"The ones they'll be launching any moment now, just as soon as the flyboys start their attack runs against the carriers. They'll break off when they realise they've been suckered, of course, but by that time the barges will be well into the atmosphere, and they'll never catch up before they hit the deck."
...
The thought of a pair of uncontested warships in orbit, able to take pot-shots at anything that took their fancy, was far from comforting.

..
Glancing at the auspex again, I could see he was right. They should have been braking by now, preparing to enter orbit, but they simply continued to descend, following us into the outer reaches of the atmosphere. They were probably hoping to slingshot round the planet, but the fighters must have inflicted some damage to their engines.
...
..both ships hit the denser air above us, dipping within it to blaze across the sky like twin meteors, trailing a shower of lesser sparks as hull plates and external mounts tore loose and vaporised.
...
Both Chaos vessels had re-emerged from the atmosphere, and were now spinning away on an uncontrolled trajectory, no doubt melted to slag by their fiery passage through the superheated air
...
Actually, starships are a lot tougher than that; although both were now lifeless, and their outer hulls little more than featureless blobs of congealed metal, much of their internal structures remained intact. Both were boarded and inspected by Ordo Hereticus investigation teams after hostilities ceased, although I'm assured nothing of particular interest was found on either

Chaos ships taking some damage from high velocity atmospheric pass. WE dont know quite how fast its going, except they can apparently slingshot. We also dont quite know what the classes are, otehr than they get called barges and destroyers, and they deploy dropships (which don't take serious thermal damage in the atmosphere, so go figure.) Beyond that not sure how to calc it anyhow.



Page 130

Many of the atmosphere craft in use by the PDF were simple aerofoil designs, which required runways to take off and land, and even some of the ones capable of lifting or landing vertically would still use them in order to maximise their payloads.

Capabilities of PDF aircrews. Suggesting Imperial navy craft (or similar) are VTOL/vectored thrust cpaable.





Page 133

They were finding them too; local troopers were hurrying to intercept them, trucks and light utility vehicles hurtling across the runways, pintel-mounted stubbers blazing away as they came, while slower-moving Chimera troop carriers followed in their wake, the multi-lasers in their turrets seeking out the largest concentrations of enemy soldiers

PDF vehicles, motorised and mechanised.



Page 134

To my surprise the answering fire which began to patter off the reassuringly solid rockcrete surrounding us was a hail of las-bolts, rather than the odd mixture of rounds from obsolete firearms and whatever else they'd been able to scavenge which I'd expected..

Typical chaos weaponry. The funny thing is, we know of trained Chaos troops like the Blood PAct, Roaring Blades, and similar. Cain must not encounter them much on the fringe



Page 134-135

..wishing I'd made it to the bunker, where I'd have a nice big hololith to help me keep track of which units were where..
...
..I fished my data-slate out of my greatcoat pocket. "Patch a tactical update to my slate."

Fortunately their tech-priests were quick off the mark with the correct incantations, and my commissarial override codes got me into the core of the PDF datanet without any problems, so I was able to run a quick eye over the troop dispositions...
...
At least according to the data I had they were, sitting in their Chimeras ready to lead a death or glory charge...

Like in Duty Calls, Cain gets a tactical data upload/report on troop and enemy dispositions via data slate from vox operator. Useful ability.



Page 135-136

"They're advancing"
..
"By fire and movement."

"Are you sure?" I asked. In my experience the forces of Chaos advanced in a single, uncoordinated rush, screaming blasphemous gibberish, and obligingly dying in droves without displaying anything remotely like sensible tactics.

Comment on Guard tactics.



Page 138-140

The turret above us rotated rapidly, with a whine of servos, the multi-laser barked once, and it all went quiet outside again.
...
I hurried forward, fastidiously skirting the rank-smelling scorch marks and lumps of carbonised gristle that marked the last resting place of the group which had tried to ambush me, and reached their erstwhile leader. To my surprise he was still twitching, my las-bolt having been partially stopped by his armour, and he tried to raise his gun the moment he saw me.

effect of multilaser burst. Assuming between 2-10 bodies affected, and 100-400 j per sq cm, and 1 MJ per side per man. Single digit MJ at least. Possibly double digit MJ per shot.




PAge 141

I snapped, pulling the trigger. His head exploded into crimson mist, and he sl mped back onto the rockcrete..

Cain headsplodes chaos trooper. Single/double digit kj probably.




Page 145

Apart from Rorkins, myself, and Governor Trevellyan, Visiter and Julien were also present, together with a handful of senior PDF staffers whose names I hadn't caught, or particularly cared to. Their apparent willingness to leave the citizens of Havendown to fend for themselves rather than depart from some standard battle plan still incensed me: not that I cared particularly about a bunch of civilians I'd never even met, of course, but protecting them was what the PDF was supposed to be for, and if they were derelict in this duty, there was no telling what else they'd let slide. Not only that, it betrayed a rigidity of thinking that was potentially disastrous on the battlefield, where circumstances are in a constant state of flux, and failing to adapt to them means people dying, possibly even me.

Comment on the abyssmal PDF tactics by Cain's judgement, and again his belief about their responsibilities. He's actually big on protecting civilians despite portraying himself as selfish.



Page 150

"Which doesn't alter the fact that the PDF has been bled white by the Guard tithes," Julien put in. "There are fewer than a quarter of the number of men under arms that there ought to be for a population of this size, the individual troopers lack combat experience, and the higher command levels are barely capable of tying their own shoelaces."

Perlia's PDF is 1/4 its normal size.



Page 150

..the handful of boats you've got left won't hold them up for long.

Handful of PDF boats.



Page 151

If we station them out in the halo, or one of the asteroid fields, powered down, they'll be almost impossible to detect. Once the enemy start movin' in towards the planet from the outer system we can mount hit and run raids against their flanks, pickin' off their transport vessels...
...
The cloud of cometary debris marking the nominal boundary of a stellar system.

Halo zone region, the point where ships enter or exit the warp.



PAge 152

The Sororitas novices had half a dozen suits of antiquated power armour between them, rather more battered and utilitarian than Julien's set, which they used for practice drills; poor as they undoubtedly were as such things went, they would still be quite formidable against lasguns and flesh.

The Schola has some old Power armour for training purposes. Still better than Guard issue.



Page 161-162

"Everyone wants to think they could be a hero too, if the chips were down." She smiled at me, and shook her head. "You don't really understand the civilian mindset very well, do you?"

"It's not my job to,"
...
"Well, trust me, it's something we can use," Julien said. I shrugged, willing to take her word for it. Her sisterhood moved among the proles as a matter of course, at least the non-militant parts of it did, so it seemed reasonable to assume she knew what she was talking about.
...
"You just make a pictcast or two, asking for volunteers to form a new militia. They'll turn out in droves."

"And get slaughtered," I pointed out. "We won't have time to train them, that's for sure."

"They'll get slaughtered anyway, as soon as the heretics arrive," Julien said. "You know that as well as I do."

I nodded soberly, conceding her point. I'd seen the aftermath of Chaotic incursions before, many times, and if there was one thing I was certain of, it was that the concept of non-combatants didn't even exist for the degenerate pawns of the Ruinous Powers.

Cain is good with psychology when it comes to individuals and soldiers, but he's a bit slow when it comes ot civilians. Ironically the Sororitas are quite good at human nature, since they actually involve themselves with the common man.

We also get a good glimpse into a fundamental aspect of warfare in 40K - with so many enemies, there literally is no quarter, no compromise, no diplomacy or surrender. They don't take captives (at best slaves.) And many may seek the annihilation (tyranids.) That sort of thing is rather dramatically different from warfare by and large in our history and real life, and the parameters, risks, and requirements are different. Small wonder they might be so harsh - more often than not they have no choice, even including the conscription of citizens into the Guard or militias.




PAge 164

"If they'd jumped the heretics, the place would have been littered with bolter shells.'"

Possibly a reference to bolter casings.




Page 165

True, there were stories about mysterious precursor races, aeons dead, which even the eldar barely believed, but the only ones from the dawn of time still unequivocally alive and kicking now were the necrons.1 What if the Shadowlight belonged to them, and they wanted it back?

Hinting that perhaps the Old Ones had made the Shadowlight?



Page 171-172

..the little pict was abruptly reproduced on the hololith built into the tabletop. A man appeared, flickering slightly, dad in an austere uniform of military cut, the eight-pointed symbol of Chaos worked into the breast pocket of his greatcoat and the badge on his hat. "Warmaster Varan. Apparently known to his followers as the Conqueror, the Undefeatable, the Great Leader, and a plethora of other sycophantic epithets."
...
"Looks a bit short to me," Julien said, snorting impatiently at the implied blasphemy. "And that ridiculous little moustache makes him look like a clown."
...

The pict-clip showed Varan standing on a podium, ranting away about the supposed perfidy of the Emperor and all who followed him, in front of a rapturous crowd that must have numbered in the thousands. Many of his audience were still wearing Imperial uniforms, I noted with a shudder, but their enthusiasm for the drivel he was spouting seemed just as genuine as everyone else's.
...
Even allowing for the deficiencies of the slate's rather basic audio feed, Varan's voice had an unctuous, whiny timbre which set my teeth on edge, and his theatrical hand gestures were overdone to the point of self-parody. Instead of interrupting periodically with rapturous applause, I was amazed his audience hadn't started to throw fruit by now.

Warmaster Varan, nemesis of Cain in this novel. Henceforth to be known as Space Hitler, because I'm pretty sure thats what Mitchell went for.



Page 187

After a few more echoing footfalls the unmistakable figure of Sister Julien came into view...
...
For a moment I simply stared after her in stunned astonishment: no wonder Brasker had been so evasive. But then, I already knew that she drank and played cards, so I suppose it wasn't too much of a stretch to find that she harboured a taste for more basic diversions as well.
...
None at all: contrary to popular belief, the Adepta Sororitas doesn't actually require its members to remain celibate, although few find the time to take advantage of the fact.

AGain, our Sororitas is more human than psycho nun, which I like. The funny thing is, she's more liberal than the fluff or drama may hint, but she's still dedicated as a loyal Imperial and Emperor worshipper. Its a less silly depiction, honestly



Page 204

Knowing that the cumbersome energy weapon would take precious seconds to recharge...
...
I dived behind the obelisk just as the plasma cannon recharged, and a searing bolt of star-stuff roared past the glittering lump of ironmongery, finally expending itself in the lake beyond. A thousand litres of water flashed instantly into steam, wreathing the whole scene in a chilling mist, which blocked out the sunlight as abruptly as a slamming door, and I began to think we might have a chance after all. It was a slim hope, but the artificial fog might just confuse the constructs' sensoria long enough for me to get the drop on them somehow...

Plasma cannon takes 'seconds' to recharge, and can (purportedly) vaporize a thousand litres of water in a single shot. That works out to several gigajoules easily which puts it in the same order of magntiude as meltas. Of course like the Caves of Ice one, there is always the chance Cain is exaggerating (although even if we treat it as a broad order of magntiude estimtae we'd still be talking double/triple digit MJ at least...) and the converse of that is that it could have vaporized even MORE water. We might treat it more as an approximation - perhaps Cain or someone he knew figured it out after the fact (IF he'd told the story to Amberley her Savant Mott probably would have figured out the specifics for example.) On the plus side this is out in the open and the water involved is much further away, so its actually easier to believe than Caves of Ice was, in that regard

There is also the fact we dont know the setting. For all we know this was max power.

Also Cain seems to think that water vapor will mess with battle servitor 'sensoria' - although whether he means their sight/senses, or actual auspex (or both) we don't know. Heck, he isnt even sure it will.


Page 205

I ducked just fast enough to prevent a swinging chainblade from taking my head off. I parried the follow-up strike by reflex, instinctively recognising the combination move as a standard one from the Munitorum manual on paired blade techniques, and, reasoning that the flesh and metal monstrosity had undoubtedly been programmed to counter all the conventional responses,...

Meaning that melee servitors have a certain predictability to them, although that predictability will depend on the scope of their database and the number of moves in the Munitorum Manual.


Page 206

...just as another bolt of plasma hissed past, missing me by millimetres1, and impacting against the chest of the construct I'd been fighting, with a satisfactory sizzle of vaporising metal and flesh. To my astonishment, however, the thing remained standing, although it was severely damaged.
...
Clearly an exaggeration, as a plasma bolt passing that closely would have inflicted severe flash burns.

Plasma bolts can inflict flash burns by near-proximity, the same way lasweapons can. Also, servitor can tank a plasma cannon hit, although whether at full yield or what we dont know. Assuming third degree burns its providing at least half a megajoule or so.. although that assumes full body flash burns on one side.



Page 208

I'd just end up taking the rounds in the back. Not for the first time I began to regret leaving my precious, and by now rather shabby, set of carapace armour back at the schola; whatever protection it might have afforded would have been minimal at best, but in my experience every little helps under circumstances like this.
...
Which he'd ''forgotten'' to return to stores after our eventful foray into the undercity on Gravalax, some seventy years before; by this time it was somewhat battered, to say the least.

Cain's still got his carapace from Gravalax, and its still reliable enough to provide protection after seventy years. Although its still no match for heavy bolter fire. Whether this is because of its age/battered condition, or because carapace just can't stop bolter fire, we dont know, but I'd bet on the latter. Although it might be more accurate to say the carapace would provide only minimal protection (as in 'if Cain is lucky it might deflect it. Admittedly Cain IS lucky...)

[Connor MacLeod]

Part 2


Page 210-211

"I see you've progressed a bit in the priesthood after all."

"Yes, I have." Felicia smirked a bit, before appearing to recall that the Omnissiah frowned upon such displays of emotion. "Which is one in the eye for all those rust-brains in the seminary who told me I wouldn't amount to anything."

I nodded, having gathered in the course of our earlier acquaintance that her somewhat exuberant personality hadn't gone down at all well with the senior tech-priests, who'd told her in no uncertain terms that she'd never be anything other than a humble enginseer: a prognostication which had singly failed to dismay her, as she'd always been more interested in getting her hands grubby than the theological side of her vocation in any case. Clearly her unexpected promotion hadn't done much to change that, which was something of a relief to me...

Cain's enginseer friend from Death or Glory returns, and despite her lax attitudes towards the theological side of the AdMech, she's risen in prominence. Next to the Magos from Mechanicum, she may represent one of the most liberal AdMech out there. Which firmly puts her in the camp of 'Mechanicus I like'. Anyhow, it really reflects the 'puritan vs radical' approach to politics that afflicts even the AdMech.


Page 222

Felicia looked smug. "I've set up a meeting in the conference room," she said, although how she'd managed that while we'd been together I had no idea; presumably she had some kind of internal vox unit which she'd been able to use during our conversation, in spite of the distraction that must have afforded. (When I asked her later, she said it was something to do with her cerebral implants, which let her think about a multitude of things at the same time; a sacrament she referred to as ''multitasking''.)

...
[amberley]Something most women have been perfectly able to do since the dawn of history in any case, much to the bemusement of men.

Heh,



Page 223

I left Jurgen outside, accompanied by a couple of hellgun-toting skitarii (who were probably wishing they had augmetic noses by now, to go with the ocular implants they both sported)

Perlian skitarii.


Page 228

"Our best intelligence would indicate that Perlia has been deliberately targeted by Varan's flotilla. No one in the defence force has any idea why, but I think we all know what there is here which would tempt a raiding force to cross almost the entire galaxy in an attempt to reach it."

Again an indication of just how far away Perlia is from the Eye, or at least an upper limit on it


Page 229-230

"What really worries me is the prospect of Varan, or Abaddon, or anyone else for that matter, picking up where he left off. They wouldn't hesitate to turn out wyrds in industrial quantities if they could, and Emperor alone knows how much harm that could do."

"It would destroy the galaxy," the young psyker said quietly, his voice somehow resonating all the more for its lack of volume.

"Master Sparsen may be exaggerating," Makan began, "but…"

"I'm not exaggerating in the least," the pale young man I assured him. "The power of the warp would flow through them, untrammelled by the wards the blessing of the Emperor places in the minds of his true servants. Aside from the harm they'd do directly, many would become possessed by daemons and worse, allowing the full horrors o f the empyrean to rampage unchecked among the stars. Within two generations, the Eye of Terror would grow to swallow us all." His voice was no louder than before, but it was the expression of absolute horror on his face that convinced me. Here was a man who gazed into the depths of the warp on a daily basis, and wouldn't be lightly moved by what he saw there, and he was clearly convinced that he spoke no more than the literal truth.

Funny thing is, I find this entirely plausible given how Abbadons plans were portrayed in the new CSM codex. Abby's plans seem to involve bringing Chaos literally down on the Imperium (or at least Obscurus and Solar), and something like the Shadowlight would be a big help in bringing that about. So keeping it out of Abby's hands would also be a good thing.



Page 232-233

"As Magos Tayber might have explained already, the Shadowlight component draws directly on the power of the warp, which appears to be why it can boost or activate latent psychic abilities."
...
"The rest of the device seems to be a system for focussing that energy"
..
"What it was originally intended to achieve we're still not entirely sure, but if we're right, it can alter the very fabric of reality."
...
Instead of taking the better part of a century to annihilate the galaxy, it seemed the Shadowlight could do the job in little more than an eye blink if it fell into the wrong hands.
...
"Why would anyone build a monstrosity like that?"
"Out of fear."
...
...another Inquisitorial delegate chimed in. She was a sharp-featured young woman in the habit of a sister of the Ordo Dialogus, presumably charged with the thankless task of making some kind of sense of the chicken scratches I'd observed on the tablets lining the walls of the chamber in which the Shadowlight now resided. "We know from some of the fragments recovered at other sites across the galaxy that the Ancients were at war. Who or what with we have no idea, although some scholars have speculated that the character most frequently associated with the enemy can be transliterated into Gothic as Katarn or C'tan."

"Never heard of them," I said, with some relief: at least it wasn't the damned necrons.

"Both sides appear to have been wiped out in the war," the sister said. "Complete mutual annihilation. Only the occasional relic of the Ancients survives, and nothing at all of the C'tan.."
...
Unfortunately, in the light of more recent events, this no longer appears to be the case.

Discussion of the nature of the shadowlight and its purpose in being built. And as theories go, based on what we know (or knew) its quite plausible - the old ones in fact did use the warp as a weapon against the C'tan, both by uplifting races into being psykers (like the Eldar and Orks) as well as creating warp weapons (like the Talismans of Vaul), so the Shadowlight fits in with that role. That it could be as dangerous as Cain believes is also quite possible, given its nature and given that we know the Old Ones nearly demolished the galaxy once they'd called the Enslavers down on it through their dicking around with the Warp.

Its also hilarious how Cain doesn't realize the Necrons are/were minions of the C'tan.


Page 233

"...to share any useful knowledge with us lesser breeds, but we have managed to find a few bits of information which might be relevant through some rather unorthodox channels."
..
Meaning Inquisition assets, presumably. It wasn't entirely unknown for individual eldar to co-operate with members of the Ordo Xenos on very rare occasions: Amberley spoke their tongue tolerably well, and I recalled her mentioning that she'd learned it on one such enterprise, the details of which she never confided in me.

comment on Imperial-Eldar contact/cooperation. We know that the most often point of contact is the Inquisition (EG Horst in Gothic War, Czevak in general)


Page 233-234

"According to some rather obscure passages in the Lay of Kelce, the Ancients may have attempted to tap into the power of the warp directly, in an attempt to defend themselves against their enemies. Some eldar scholars even believe that it was this which first unleashed the curse of Chaos on the galaxy."

"A far-fetched piece of speculation, which Sister Rosetta seems to take considerably more seriously than it warrants," Felicia said firmly, receiving a most unbeatific glare in return.

Hilariously, the Sister Dialogus is completely right, as we know, and it seems the AdMech are soo eager to play around with it they're unwilling to consider the alternative. Are we surprised?


Page 240

...and rummaged inside it for a data-slate. "I've managed to put an evacuation plan together in case you do have to pull out." He kicked a couple of files across to my own slate, which I resolved to peruse at the earliest opportunity

Given that Cain doesn't have his slate out he presumably transmitted the files wirelessly.


Page 242

She was in full powered armour again, leading a group of her most senior novices in the battered practice sets towards the firing range. The contrast between the scarred and pitted ceramite, on which votive icons were still visible, despite decades of being bashed about, and the fresh complexions of the teenage girls wearing them was marked, and rather poignant; I found myself thinking they should have been worrying about acne and scrumball at that age, not how to field strip a bolter and the best way of disembowelling a heretic with their sarissas.

Another bit of dialogue from this novel that really strikes me, simply for the comparison/contrast purposes, as well as the fact it affects Cain deeply as well. War ain't so great sometimes, but this really shows it better than most grimdark I read about. Who likes the idea of innocents (kids or teenagers) being sent off to die in a war they never asked for?


Page 243

Julien nodded, and bounded over a sandbagged autocannon emplacement, which had narrowed the entrance to one of the inner courtyards to a choke point, landing with a clatter like someone dropping a plateful of rivets. Probably never having seen an expert in power armour using the enhanced strength and agility it gave them, and certainly not with such casual ease, Maklin's jaw dropped, though not nearly as much as those of the arbites cadets manning the thing, as the Celestian soared over their heads.

Celestian in power armor's agility in jumping and stuff.



Page 244

"Monyka," Julien called. One of the novitiates, her face lightly dusted with freckles, broke off from a conversation with Maklin, and glanced in the sister's direction, manifestly unsure of whether her drifting attention merited a rebuke. "You're in charge. Twice round the assault course, then on to the firing range. I'll join you in a moment."

"Yes, sister." Clearly unable to believe her luck in being presented with a chance to show off in front of Maklin, Monyka beckoned the rest of the group forward. With a chorus of shrieks and yells, which wouldn't have disgraced an ork mob, though in a much higher register, the whole pack of them bounded away towards the butts.

Again this is one of those little touches of innocence that makes all the horrible stuff happening in the novel, the war and death and disruption of peaceful civilian life, all the more stark a contrast. Especially given that these are kids who are being raised to be properly fanatical, xenophobic Imperials. And yet they can enjoy life enough for a couple of teenagers to have a burgeoning relationship of sorts. Even Cain notices it, which really hits me personally, and reflects on his essentially human nature despite being a Commissar.



Page 246

I looked around, vaguely surprised that in all my years attached to this institution I'd never set foot in here before. The walls were lined with bookshelves, of course, and racks of data-slates, but the personal cogitator on his desk was well-used, and there was no sign of the fusty ledgers I'd expected to see scattered about.
...
He gestured to the flecks of ink staining his robe, as always. "Purely for effect, I'm afraid. It's what people expect." He sighed. "The Administratum is a very conservative body, and in order to prosper there, it's sometimes wise to conform to other people's expectations; or at least give the impression of doing so. I'm sure you find the same thing in your profession.."

Administratum dude with his own personal cogitator. The fact he puts on a persona as much as Cain does to conform and to advance in the organization is especially hilarious. It makes you wonder just how common that might be.



Page 256

As heʹd expected, the first wave of enemy vessels emerged from the warp within almost suicidal proximity to the mass of the planet itself, no doubt intending to repeat the tactic which had almost proven so successful during the first incursion...

Chaos forces jump out of the warp within close range of the planet. Given the 'suicidal' bit I'm guessing within a few light seconds or so of the planet. PErhaps a few million km or less?



Page 257

The second wave, however, had emerged further out, and despite continual harassment from the system defence boats and a few hastily‐armed freighters, fared rather better.

We don't know how much farther out, but I'm guessing tens of millions of km, probably an AU or so.


Page 262

The Commissariat oversees all branches of the Imperial military, with the obvious exceptions of the Astartes and the Adepta Sororitas.

Its rather more accurate to say they oversee the Guard, the Navy, and the PDFs. But they have no control over the Sisters, the Space MArines, or the AdMech's troops. Probably not the troops of any other faction (EG Private militaries of Rogue Traders or Navigators, etc.)



Page 268

The second wave of the flotilla arrived in orbit within hours, having been harassed the entire way by the surviving SDF boats, whose commander had adopted the unorthodox tactic of approaching at high speed, unleashing a barrage of ordnance at point-blank range, and continuing past the enemy convoy before it could bring its own weapons to bear. In the main this had little result beyond annoyance, but only one gunboat fell to return fire, the rest managing to retreat beyond effective range again before they could be targeted.

If the range is rather short (few tens of millions of km) and assuming it takes close to a day, we're talking a couple gees and a few hundred km/s velocity insystem. If its a day and 1 AU, we're talking 10 gees at least, and 1.2% of lightspeed max. If its just a few hours we're talking hundreds of gravities, easily. and close to 10% of the speed of light. For the edge of the system (tens of AU) and a matter of hours we're talking thousands of gees.



Page 272

I was looking at a cloud of detritus, ranging in size from crippled starships over a kilometre in length down to chips of metal smaller than a fingernail paring...

Given that they were military escorts and transports full of cannon fodder, this gives us an idea of the size of those transports.


Page 277

"The Madasans must have had an armoured regiment or two on the books. Most PDFs do."

Cain seems to suggest that PDFs maintain only a few armoured regiments typically, which suggests only a few hundred (or thousand) tanks at most.


PAge 278-280

Before I could reply, though, the sky turned white, all colour leached from it by a flare of harsh, actinic energy of almost inconceivable magnitude. Fortunately the buildings of the city blocked any direct line of sight we might have had, or we would all have been struck blind in an instant. A moment later the ground trembled, windows shattered, and a rain of debris pattered down around us, dislodged from the structures we drove between.
..
"Orbital strike," I said, having seen something similar on a few occasions before. "Probably the lance batteries of a warship." An uncomfortable itching sensation began to grow between my shoulder blades as we waited for the next one. In my experience, once Chaos commanders started popping off heavy ordnance from space, they wouldn't be happy until they'd levelled anything in the vicinity taller than an anthill. I began to think about the fastest way out of the city, concentrating so hard on the map-slate that it took a moment for me to register that the bombardment hadn't been repeated...
..
"Rytepat's been obliterated."
...
"I suggest you pull out the way you went in; they'll probably start hitting the city close to Rytepat, and work their way across."
...
"If they were going to fire again, they would have done so by now." We'd had plenty of time to confirm the make-up of the enemy fleet as they coasted in, and Visiter had sent us what pict and auspex records he'd been able to grab on his attack runs to supplement our existing intelligence, so I was certain that they could have unleashed at least half a dozen lance blasts by now, not to mention the widespread devastation which would have been inflicted by the less accurate primary batteries of the warships in orbit. "If Varan wanted to level the city, he'd already have done it."

Varan's flotilla, depending on how you interpret it) could level a city in a matter of seconds, or so Cain implies - half a dozen lance blasts and however many weapons batteries.


Page 285

Briel shouted, glancing up from the miniature auspex in the back of the second Salamander2, and gesturing towards the east. I raised my hand, shielding my eyes against the glare, and was just able to make out a trio of fast-moving dots, closing on our position.
...
Which must therefore have been the command variant, rather than the scout pattern favoured by Cain.

Not neccesarily. The Scout variant's main difference is the overcharged engines for greater speed, so it could be that the scout has auspex (Scout sentinels do after all. )



Page 286

Unlike the commandeered civilian vessels, which had delivered most of the first wave and the preliminary raiders, the three shuttles were military drop-ships, heavily armoured, and carrying enough weaponry for close air support. The PDF guarding the palace opened up with commendable promptness as soon as they came into range, but the barrage of autocannon rounds and sporadic rockets from hand-held launchers barely scratched the paintwork as the menacing formation continued to descend. All the defenders really succeeded in doing was pinpointing their positions, the ones bracketing the shuttles' flight path falling silent almost at once as the drop-ships' nose-mounted lascannons retaliated to deadly effect.

Difference between civilian shuttles and military dropships is primarily armour and weaponry (for close support.) These dropships for example have lascannons, but we've seen others that have battle cannon and missiles/rockets (like in Kill Team, the IG codex, Inferno magazine, the Tetrach heavy lander from Tactica Imperialis, etc.) That said, we know of plenty of dropships that aren't armed and yet are military. I suspect it might be analogous to the Tau's Manta and Orca (Mantas being frontline troop carriers meant to operate in combat zones, Orcas designed for non-frontline roles.)



Page 294

Before I could shout a warning, however, they'd opened fire. Briel took four or five las-bolts in the chest, which practically cut him in half, and staggered back, an almost comical expression of astonishment on his face. No point in risking anyone's neck dragging him back into cover, he was quite clearly on his way to the Golden Throne even before he hit the carpet, which was now considerably messier.

Implication that the bolts more or less mostly (or totally) severed his waist. If we figure it blows more than half of his torso (figure 30-40 cm for the torso, thats at least 15-20 cm) we get between 3 cm and 10 cm holes per bolt through the torso (more than 20 cm) If we're lazy we could figure 45 square cm for half the torso and 400 j per sq cm flaying (60 kj for half front and back and the sides, 320 kj for 10 cm diameter across whole torso and side.) By that it woudl be 12-80 kj per shot roughly. For a 'blaster' style laser, figure 10-20 kj per pulse for 3-4 cm diameter holes, For a bigger hole (8-10 cm diameter) we figure between 60-100 kj per pulse.



Page 297-298

I turned to Jurgen, who was applying a pressure bandage to an ugly hole in Donal's chest; by the greatest piece of bad luck, it seemed, one of the noncoms among the turncoats had a stubber for a sidearm, and had been using that in preference to the las weapons of his compatriots, las-bolts are nasty enough, it's true, incapacitating, often fatally, by thermal shock, but the upside is that if you survive a hit, they usually cauterise the wounds they inflict. Bullets, on the other hand, don't, leaving you to bleed, with fatal consequences if someone can't staunch it for you.

Difference between lasweapons and slughthrowers. Mitchell seems to try to spin it as 'if you aren't killed outright, you'll usually survive' in an interesting sort of way. Cauterization is actually a disadvantage as far as damage mechanisms go, because letting the target bleed out is one of the fundamental ways of killing with bullets (duh.) Anyhow, near as I can tell 'thermal shock' is a particular kind of mechanical damage, but not like a blaster. Rather thermal shock (as I understand it) relates more to rapid heating and cooling, the expansion and contraction causing fracturing and cracks in brittle materials (EG glass.) Sufficed to say, I don't think this would be as dangerous to humans. It could be that it refers to rapid rises in temperature of the body, which by themeslves have adverse effects (and may cause shock.) I've also heard that such rapid temperautre changes may have other adverse effects on muscles or tissues, but I can find no actual proof of this.

Alternately, it may refer to the sudden expansion stress created by the rapid heating of tissues (such as a steam explosion), similar to what is described in the Uplifting primer as energy weapon damage (rapid boiling of the tissues, causing trauma as it dissipates.) But againt hat's largely conjecture. still I find it the most plausible explanation to be honest.


Page 302-303

"You'll find something like it under most Imperial cities."
...
"As they grow and develop over the millennia, the lower levels get built on and forgotten about. Some of the places I've been have undercities more than a kilometre thick."
...
"You'll find tech-priests and maintenance workers in the upper levels, of course, looking after the infrastructure of the city, and all sorts of lowlifes too: gangers, illegal gambling dens, crims on the run, anyone whose business is better carried on out of sight. Below that, you come to the deep levels, where things get really bad. That's where you'll find the mutants and heretic cults, fugitive psykers, and worse."

Cain speaks about underhive- like conditions, which seem to evolve on basically any world and not just hives... and that they can get to be up to a kilometre deep tells us something about the depth you might have to be to obliterate habitability.



Page 305

...so we ended up commandeering a truck from an understandably nervous PDF squad who'd been left to man a roadblock the previous day..

PDF squads using trucks for mobility.


Page 309

"Luckily for us, the debris belt forced the enemy flotilla into a low polar orbit rather than a geostationary one over the capital," Julien said. "The warships won't be in position for an orbital strike on these co-ordinates for about an hour."

Geostationary bombardment from orbit.


Page 320

A second or so later the solid ceramite of the gates began to shiver, as the multi-lasers of the enemy
Chimeras opened up..
..
..the armoured portal began to sag on its hinges.

"They've got three Chimeras positioned where they can target the gates," Dallory reported, his voice in my comm-bead hazed by static from the burning air. "Firing in rotation."
...
..lining up his melta on the collapsing gate. It was glowing a deep ackenberry red by this time, the diamond hard composite softening like caramel, and the end must surely come soon.

Assuming 10 cm thick, 4m tall, 5 m wide (we know its a bit bigger than a Chimera), and made of iron. Figure by here its around 800-900K, with a 300K starting temp, its 500-600K temp change. 200-372 kj per kg, and a 16 ton gate. According to Only War multilasers have 100 shot clips, which meaks 300 shots. 3.2 Gigajoules to 6 GJ roughly. That works out to roughly 10 MJ to 20 MJ based on the thermal effects. If we treat that as an order of magnitude estimate it would still be worth a couple MJ per shot, which is still impressive.

The gate is ceramite however, and it suggests that the melting point of Ceramite is close to turning it red (or cherry, if we assume thats what ackenberry means), which tells us something about the temperature related properties of Ceramite, but not the specific heat. Or at least of this kind of ceramite. We also learn that ceramite is 'diamond hard'.


Page 320

..the first Chimera nosed through the gap, crushing them under its treads, its turreted multi-laser turning to look for a target. Its forward-mounted secondary weapon traversed too, the blunt nose of an autocannon seeming to point right at me for a heart-stopping instant.

chimera with a forward-mounted autocannon.


Page 324

...Stebbins opened up with the autocannon..
...
Caught between the SAW and the blizzard of las-bolts most of them went down very nicely...
...
More Imperial Guard jargon, which, in this instance, stands for Support Automatic Weapon, at least according to Mott, my savant. The military mind is far too fond of TLAs, if you ask me. (Which Cain once assured me, with a perfectly straight face, was the preferred Guard terminology for Three Letter Abbreviations. I'm still not sure if he was pulling my leg or not.)

Autocannons referred to as SAWs, although the context isn't the same as we know it although the purpose is arguably similar.


Page 325

...but unlike the usual Chaotic hordes I'd faced, the enemy wasn't about to charge obligingly down the barrels of our guns, dying in droves in the process. Instead, they continued to act like trained and motivated troopers, content to wait for an opportunity to advance, laying down suppressive fire as they did so, and taking full advantage of whatever cover was available.

On the other hand, they seemed just as fanatical as the acolytes of the Ruinous Powers always did, indifferent to their own losses, and willing to take chances with their lives even Imperial Stormtroopers would probably baulk at.

The worst of both worlds, in other words; I had no doubt that they'd continue to slip past the wreck in ones and twos, every time we paused to reload, until they had the weight of numbers on their side..

Comment on IG tacitcs, the advantages of Chaos troopers, and what may make the 'discipliend' Chaos troops like the Blood Pact so really dangerous.


Page 326

A moment later a cloud of rank-smelling steam told me that he'd picked up an old gunner's trick for cooling a weapon in an emergency, from Emperor knew where, and I found myself thanking the Throne that all our tech-priests were currently filing aboard the cargo ship, rather than being anywhere they could have witnessed so profane a desecration of the Omnissiah's bounty.

Unsurprisingly, techpriests would object to people trying to cool weapons by urinating on them


Page 338

"He'd been hoping to use the freighter as a Q ship."
...
An innocuous-looking merchantman which has been heavily armed, often to the standards of a warship, these vessels are sometimes used as covert escorts for vulnerable convoys, or as bait to lure pirate vessels into an ambush; by the time a marauder discovers that their apparently helpless prey actually outguns them, it's usually too late.

Q-ships defined.


Page 354

Being a Mechanicus facility, the cleared space was far cleaner and better equipped than most such warehouses would have been, however, and liberally equipped with power outlets; our communications and detection gear was already up and running when I walked through the door..

Mobile communications and detection gear for IG HQ.



Page 359

"The Chimeras should be in position by then," I said. "At least that'll give us some air cover." Not much, though. In theory the multi-lasers could inflict a lot of damage on an aircraft, especially one that hadn't been armoured and hardened to military specifications, but they'd need to be fired with considerable precision to do so. I found myself thinking nostalgically of the auspex-guided hydra batteries we'd relied on for air defence during my years with the Imperial Guard, or even the heavy bolters the Chimeras of the 597th had mounted, which could throw enough ordnance into the air to have at least a sporting chance of bringing a target down..

Multilasers on Chimeras used for air cover, with hint that Chimera heavy bolters could provide some impromptu air cover as well. Presumably autocannon equipped ones could, although they're not as good as Hydras, obviously.



Page 367-368

"Felicia. What have you done to my Chimeras?"
...
"Tied an automatic targeter into the auspex array of the command one, with a vox link to the rest. It's an unholy lash-up, given the time we had available, but it'll just have to do until we can burn the incense properly and recalibrate. If it works at all."
..
"If we managed to propitiate the machine spirits with the right prayers and programming, they should open fire as soon as they've got a lock. If not, you'll have to get the gunners to do it manually."

"How will they know if they have to?"
...
"The pict screen will light up, and display the message ''Fire Now''"
...
..as the multi-laser in the turret fired, the miniature thundercrack drowning out everything, even the rising scream of the approaching shuttle engines. For a moment I thought the sound was echoing from the surrounding hills, then I realised that the vox relay had done its work despite the lack of incense, and the other five had fired too almost simultaneously.

Felicia (the Magos friend of Cain) has apparently set up an automated targeting system between five or six Chimeras (tied into the command Chimera) linking all the chimeras into a single entity (datalinking, basically.) They fire automatically when the target comes into range, although they are still computer-assisted targeting if the gunners have to fire for them. Rather useful function, and what's more its impromptu, meaning it probably doesn't require a great deal to pull off - Chimeras must be reasonably capable of such by default.


Page 376-378

Astonished, I faltered for a heartbeat, aware that the hesitation might be the death of me, but unable to override the impulse despite that. 'Donal?' I asked, still not managing to believe the evidence of my own eyes.

'Death to the servants of…' he began, then a look of confusion drifted across his face, and his aim wavered.
...

"Commissar? What's happening?" His tormented expression, so different from the easy self-confidence I was used to seeing, intensified.


The closer we got, the more distressed Donal seemed to become. "I thought you were dead."

"I wish I was!" Donal said, with unexpected vehemence, tearing his coat off and flinging it into the nearest concentration of flames. As it singed, then combusted, with an acrid tang of burning fibre, I was just able to see that the Imperial icons on it had been desecrated with Chaotic sigils, like the body armour of the defectors I'd fought before. "I can still feel the taint, gnawing at my mind…" He seemed on the verge of losing it, so I took another step closer, Jurgen dogging my heels as always.

"Commissar Donal, report," I said, injecting a little of the parade ground into my voice, wondering even as I did so if it was the right approach to take. Fortunately it was, old habits and learned responses kicking in, to override whatever it was which had wrought so bizarre a change in him.
...
There was only one thing left to do, to evaluate just how grave the threat was, and I found myself reluctant to do it; Donal had suffered more than enough already. But he was a commissar, I'd made him one myself: he'd understand, if anyone would, the stern dictates of duty.
...
Donal twitched, his arm coming up, and the laspistol wavering indecisively in my direction. "Death to… the servants…" he gasped, then just as I was wondering if I'd found out what I needed to know too late, and at too high a price, a trace of his old character reasserted itself. "Sorry, sir," he said, with a hint of the self-assurance I remembered, "It's just too strong to fight for long. Kick his arse for me." Then he snuggled the muzzle of his laspistol under his chin, and pulled the trigger.

Of all the scenes in this book, it's probably one of my favorites for how deeply it affects me, and for how deeply it affects Cain. Donal is not some trivial, nameless character, he's been alongside Cain throughout the book, he's one of Cain's students, someone Cain clearly cared about (as he cares about all his charges), and the fact he must die because of the Chaos taint, having to watch him suffer like this and end all that promise, clearly cuts deeply into him. This is the true Ciaphs Cain, I feel.. stripped of all the dissembling and the bluster and the self deprecation. The Cain that is a human being, with flaws, but also with a positive gift for understanding and motivating (or even manipulating) other people because of that essentially human character. It's personal, which makes it more effective as bleakness and grimness than your usual grimdark, moreso for the fact its personal for Cain as well.


Page 386

Visiter just had time to say, before his image vanished from the hololith, fragmenting in a shower of static. A moment later the display reset itself, reverting to the tactical summary we'd been looking at before the commodore contacted us, the icons of the enemy an ominous increment closer to our position.
...

"The transmission was disrupted," Felicia told us, after listening to her internal vox for a moment. "By a massive burst of warp energy."
...
"Those ships have a warp portal aboard," I said. "The necrons must have activated it."

Necrons have a warp portal (which AdMech sensors could pick up) and which can disrupt vox transmissions. Now, before 5th edition I would have said that this was wrong, but we know they got Dolmen gates as of 5th, and its possible those give off some sort of warp signature. Of course, I don't KNOW that they can make mobile dolmen gates, but it makes better sense than anything else I could come up with. That being that it really wasn't warp energy and for some reason they mistook it for such (which would also mean that the Imperials can pick up Necron FTL teleporters LOL)


Page 391

The hulking figures I'd taken for Traitor Marines when I'd seen them at a distance were clad in Sororitas pattern power armour, the fleur de lys decorating them crudely defaced with Chaotic runes, the blank visors of their helmets staring in my direction.

Sororitas are wearing helmets now! Now I'm sure some might think 'how could Sisters be corrupted by Chaos' since we technically only know of one ever, but that hardly means others could not have been. FAith is a powerful defense, but its not infinite. Besides which, once the effect was nullified the Sisters (like Donal) had regained their sanity rather than remaining filthy chaos cultists, so I'm not sure they truly were consciously turned so much as turned into puppets somehow. A fall to chaos normally requires a conscious choice, and there is none of that here, so its nothing like Miriael Sabathiel. And its hardly as if Sisters of Battle are 100% immune to Chaos powers simply because they have faith, either.

Mind you, whatever the effect is, its persistent even when Varan isn't present (or dead, as we discover.) probably some sort of sorcerer's spell or such, which explains why its only broken when Jurgen's blankness comes into play.


Page 394

As Jurgen reached them, the two women began to scream, the sound amplified horribly by the vox units built into their helmets, shuddering as though both their suits had suddenly become electrified. Donal had found the psychic shock of being suddenly released from Varan's thrall traumatic enough after being under it for no more than a couple of days, and he was young and flexible in his thinking; the sudden realisation of what had happened to them, and what they'd been doing for the last few months, must have driven the unfortunate sisters instantly insane.

Jurgan's blankness breaks Varan's spell (literally) and the Sisters return to their normal selves the way Donal does. Suggesting its not literal Chaos corruption in the sense that someone is tricked or seduced into making a conscious fall to Chaos. More a form of mind control or psychic puppetry that suppresses the mind's conscious control or whatever. Unfortunately, the victims retain full awareness of what they've done, and the poor sisters are driven insane (which is another indication they're not turned to Chaos, they still have enough of their original personalities to be horrified by what they did.)


Also a 'few months' have passed since the convent was taken by Varan - which was on Madasa, close to the Eye (or at least in Segmentum Obscurus, by all indications) suggesting it only took them a few months (or less) to reach Perlia (halfway across the galaxy to nearly across the galaxy, depending on interpretation, which we might take as 50,000-100,000 LY again roughly. Assuming 2-3 months we're looking at 200,000-300,000c at least, and again upwards of 400,000-600,000c or greater. Or ot put it another way, quite probably hundreds of thousands of c for Varan's little flotilla.


Page 394-395

...Varan ran forward to meet my charge, screaming almost as loudly as his victims with frustrated rage, and I reminded myself once again not to underestimate him. Talons appeared at the tips of his fingers, tearing their way out of his velvet gloves...
...
..striking at his back with the edge of my chainsword. Instead of biting flesh, as I'd anticipated, the teeth whined, glancing off a surface harder than ceramite, and beneath the ruins of his shirt I glimpsed a layer of scales.
...
..blocked with his forearm, which proved to be as formidably armoured as his torso. He struck at me again, and I dodged, just in time, feeling his talons snag for a moment in the carapace armour concealed beneath my greatcoat. If I hadn't had the foresight to don it, he would almost certainly have disembowelled me with a single stroke.

Space Hilter is actually Space-Lizard Hitler it seems, having Chaos mutations of an armoured carapace/skin as well as claws popping out wolverine-style. They aren't adamantium though, as they utterly fail to penetrate his carapace (protecting him from disembowling.)


Page 408

"Although I can't help wondering why the necrons wanted it too."
..
"I think they were afraid of it." I said. I'd had plenty of time to think about the matter in the weeks following the battle at the shrine, in between hunting down the last of Varan's converts, formally confirming the surviving cadets as fully-fledged commissars, and evading the Perlian media as much as I could, which wasn't nearly enough. "They're as old as the xenos who built it; maybe they were allies of theirs, or the Katarn they were fighting, or maybe they just got caught in the middle. In any case, they were concerned enough to leave some observers in stasis, against the day the ancients might return, or someone else found out how to use their technology."
..
"The necrons revived, and detected the Shadowlight, but because it was shielded down here they couldn't pinpoint it. So they called in a ship for backup, and started combing all the sites they knew the ancients used to have an interest in."

Cain's theory is quite likely, given we know the Necrons and C'tan (at least pre-5th) had a vested interest in preventing any sort of 'ancient' anti-c'tan/Necron tech like that from being used or discovered (eg the destruction of the Talismans of Vaul/Blackstone Fortresses.) It seems likely that preventing the Shadowlight from being taken or used would also fall into that category. Of course with 5th edition rolling around it could be for any number of reasons (Trazyn may have just wanted it for his collection, for example.)

Also if Cain's assertion is right, it implies that a Necron starship had arrived within weeks or (at worst) months of the events of the novel happening. Even assuming they were pulled in from another system we're talking light years away, which would be tens or hundreds of c at least. And proof the Necrons still have FTL capable ships

[StarSword]

I burst out laughing when I read "Chaos Lord Hitler the Psychic Lycanthrope". Pure win, Connor.

[Connor MacLeod]

Back to the Cain novels with Emperor's Finest. This is the first of the new 'trilogy' and I think it was vaguely connected (or at least the last couple were) in some ways, as it involves Tyranids and Space Marines extensively. Not as clear cut as the last 'arc' and generally not as good (but still solid, if you enjoy the Cain gimmick and its repetition.)

In Emperor's Finest we have Cain and Jurgen working alongside Space Marines (and a Imperial Governor's self-centered daughter who has eyes on Cain) on a Space hulk. Not really much more to say about that, except that unlike previous novels, this is the hardcover edition. Most of the following will be hardcover. This also means two more novels to go before the Cain series is 'caught up' Nearly done with IG books too and I should finish up Ravenor this time round.

Part 1

Page 11

There have indeed been reports of necron warriors apparently surviving on worlds which have been subject to decrees of Exterminatus. Although, given their apparent mastery of the warp, it's equally possible that the ''survivors'' merely arrived through an undetected portal deep below the surface after the firestorms abated.

Necrons *may* have a resilience to Exterminatus, although as Amberley notes this may not be the original inhabitants surviving as new Necrons arriving, which in itself is indicative that some structures may still survive the bombardment. Which naturally has interesting implications for Caves of Ice amongst other things. That said the implication is also strong that its just a 'surface' Exterminatus, not a deep-penetrating one (that punches deep into the crust, disrupts it, or outright destroys the planet, that is.) given the comment of firestorms. Tyranids have been known to survive similar by burrowing as well.
Oddly they (or rather Mitchell, through them) continues to insist Necron portals are warp based. This is either mistaken (most likely) or some necrons have access to warp portals. Its not *completely* impossible, as they have Dolmen gates to access the webway and that would require something akin to a warp portal, after all.



Page 14

I wasn't the only unenhanced human aboard, of course: in fact, the few dozen Reclaimers were outnumbered three or four to one by the Chapter serfs who crewed the vessel
...
A typically vague statement: there seem to have been around forty or fifty in total, far fewer than a full-strength company, but still more than sufficient to deal with the kind of civil insurrection sweeping the Viridia System.

Implied crew count of Reclaimers Strike cruiser, which is consistent (roughly) with what is known for Astartes ships.



Page 16

Rebellions in backwater systems like this one tended to be sparked by grievances against the planetary government rather than the Imperium itself, and the arrival of a few Guard regiments was usually enough to bring both sides to heel. So far as I could see the situation hardly merited the deployment of the Astartes at all, and the Reclaimers would undoubtedly have found better uses for their time if it hadn't been for the fact that the Viridia System was a major supplier of food and raw materials to the hive-worlds of the sector: unless the flow of tithes was restored in pretty short order they'd begin to suffer socially and economically in turn, leading to a wave of instability which, left unchecked, would drag down a dozen worlds within a decade. The manpower and resources required to deal with that would be incalculable.

Comment about the causes and solutions to Rebellions. By and large, at least to Cain's judgement, they are relatively bloodless affairs that can be easily wrapped up by the deployment of a small task force of Guardsmen to act as 'mediators' (or more likely, to accompany diplomats and Administratum types to help settle the matter - by force if need be.) Not all insurrections are like this, of course, but it seems (at least in Cain's area of space) to be the most common occurance, and that hints that the 'Galaxy at War' thing of the Imperium is overplayed (as in, say, propoganda? SHOCKING.)
Also Astartes are only deployed when the situation is crucial - either because of the nature of the enemy, the scope of the conflict, or the importance of the facility. A planet that is both a major agri and mining world falls into that category, at least in the Gulf region. By extension this also points to the economic 'inter-dependency' of a sector (and possibly surrounding regions.) - worlds may be self sufficient in many (or most) respects, but the nature of the Imperium (its tendency towards specialization - mining worlds, industrial/hive worlds and forge worlds, agri worlds, etc.) means that without steady and uninterrupted supply lines, the economy can go to shit in short order, disrupting the stability of part (or all) of the Sector (or more, in cases like Armageddon.) And there's always the fact the Administratum will go to any length to ensure its tithes are uninterrupted, of course



Page 24

..as the towering figure of the Techmarine took his place before it, I realised that it was placed higher than the others, where a standing man more than two metres tall could work at it comfortably.

Implied height of a Reclaimer Space Marine. Possibly in armour.



Page 24

The Revenant was made of sterner stuff than the venerable troopship which had delivered me to Perlia, however, being designed to be capable of holding her own against a ship of the line..

Strike cruiser. We don't know exactly what 'ship of the line' means, though. BAttleship would seem the obvious inference, but I kinda doubt (and can think of no examples) of a strike cruiser matching a battleship (Battle barges do that.) Unless its avery small battleship like the 6 km Retribution from Dark Disciple. Besides, we know cruisers (and battlecruisers) often serve as main combatants in space conflicts, even alongside battleships, and that would fill the 'ship of the line' role quite well (esp since Cruisers and battleships are both cap ships.)



Page 25

I found myself looking at a slightly blurred image of a System Defence corvette.
..
"They're turning," one of the vassals said, his voice equally matter-of-fact. "Looks like another attack run."
...
The Techmarine nodded again. "All weapon batteries charged and ready."
...
"Fire when ready," the shipmaster said, his voice as calm as if he'd just ordered a mug of recaf. "Wait for a positive lock."
...
"Target acquired," another of the bridge crew said, seeming equally relaxed...
...
A moment later the attacking corvette broke apart, like a seed-head on the wind, as our starboard batteries tore the guts out of it, to leave a slowly dissipating cloud of debris drifting apart in the void.

If we go by the FFG definition of a corvette, that implies the ship is maybe between 900-1000 metres in length. And nno match for a strike cruiser, although that could be its less a primary combatant and more the space ship equivalent of a Coast Guard cutter, or revenue cutter sort of thing.
Also it takes roughly a second (or a moment, which could be a fraction of a second, although not a huge one if a person can notice it) for whatever weapons fire to hit/destroy the target. IF its a laser that could imply hundreds of thousands of kilometres. Plasma weapons might be tens or hundreds of thousands of km (or altenrately, if we assume the range that gives the velocity.) In the case of projectile weapons it sa bit more complex, I'd probably assume its thousands or tens of thousands of km (accurate range) with the velocity being roughly similar. Beyond that, its hard to tell really, I mean it could be missiles or torpedoes at hundreds of km too, although the bulk of evidence towards range and shit would hint at least at thousands/tens of thousands being more likely than hundreds.



Page 26

I'd arrived aboard the Revenant by teleporter, and been unconscious at the time into the bargain..

The Reclaimers must have unusually safe/reliable teleporters, given that we're sometimes told only Terminators can safely use them (EG Salamanders novels indicate a living unarmored human or even a space marine would be killed by the transit.)



Page 27

The Thunderhawks were impressive enough, too, and I slowed my pace a little as I neared the closer of them. They weren't as large as the platoon-sized drop-ships the Guard routinely used, let alone the company-sized behemoths I'd ridden in on occasion, but their blocky solidity looked immediately reassuring.

Cain indicates that there are both platoon and company level dropships, and both are bigger than thunderhawks. This means the platoon sized is in excess of 120 tons in mass (probably) and the Company sized one is probably hundreds of tons easily. (IF we go by traitors hand, we know its thousands of course.) The funny thing about this is that we know Regiment-sized dropships (or bigger, like those ones depicted on the front of the IG Codex) exist, and they'd have to be even MORE massive (Tens of thousands of tons, perhaps?)



Page 28

..ten tactical troopers, already broken down into two combat squads. Most carried bolters, which I was more used to seeing mounted on armoured vehicles, as easily as a Guardsman handled his lasgun, while two of their comrades were equipped with heavy weapons it would have taken a team of ordinary troopers to use effectively on the battlefield. One carried a missile launcher, several reloads pouched at his waist, while another casually hefted the first man-portable lascannon I'd ever seen without a groundmount.

Space Marine squad breakdowns, which is rather similar to the squad/fireteam arrangement mentioned in the Cain novels. Space Marines wield bolters that are equivalent (presumably) to vehicle mounted bolters (pintle mount, or perhaps he means the heavy bolters?) which suggests they're larger or more powerful than 'human' scale bolters. Likewise, man portable lascannon carried by Space Marine equal to what two human troopers would have to wheel or carry about (suggesting Space Marines can casually carry several times what a normal human can.)



PAge 30

He adjusted the image on the pict screen, and the palace and its grounds rushed towards us, filling the frame. Either the Revenant carried some of the most sophisticated long-range sensors I'd ever come across, or Drumon had managed to gain access to the PDF's orbital net, because according to the time stamp in the corner the image was a current one.

Mentin of PDF sensor network in space, and the ability of the Space Marines to gain access (or hack into) it. Although it might also just be really good sensors too, since they're super special space marines



Page 31

Gries manipulated the controls of the pict-screen again, and the image changed to an external view, relayed from part of the fire control system judging by the targeting graphics superimposed on it.

targeting/fire control system data relayed, so its at least partly optical (manned, probably)



Page 31

As he does so often in the course of his memoirs, Cain is clearly compressing events here for dramatic effect; even at maximum acceleration, the Thunderhawk would have taken several hours, or possibly longer, to reach Viridia from the Revenant's closest viable point of re-entry to the materium.

Assuming we're talking 50 million km or so to 150 million km we'd be talking many tens of gees and the thunderhawk reaching some 1-1.6% of lightspeed. Thats 5e17-1.3e18 joules total at least, and over a 5-10 hour period. If its only 2-3 hours we're talking hundred plus gravities and 2-3% the speed of light (2e18-4.8e18 Joules) Depending on timeframe and output, you get at least e13-7e14 watt engine output for thunderhawk. Billions of km just gets even crazier



Page 38

..unlike most other agriworlds, Viridia exports a great deal more than just foodstuffs. The rest of the planetary system of which it is a part is exceptionally rich in minerals, and millions of its citizens live offworld, in orbitals, void stations and mining habs, dedicated to harvesting this bounty as assiduously as their pitchfork-wielding cousins on the surface do theirs. In fact, it's no exaggeration to say that around half the total Viridian population have never set foot on the planet they nominally call home, and never will. The raw material they gather is dispatched to the manufactoria of the neighbouring systems in a never-ending stream, slaking the hunger of their production lines just as efficiently as the grain barges do the workers who labour thereon.

As noted, the planet has a combination of agricultural and (orbital) mining, defining its key importance to the Imperium. Its also host to a combined planet and void-born population.



Page 46

"The Manticore battery is close to the line of advance we would take to relieve the defenders of the Administratum cloister.."
...
"I've served with an artillery unit, and they're always prepared for an aerial attack. The minute it appears on their auspexes, the Basilisks will scatter. We'd get some, but there's no guarantee enough wouldn't survive to mount an effective bombardment of the aerodrome."

Viridia PDF is pretty well equipped. Artillery and rocket/missile launchers. Also the Artillery has auspexes (at least for detecting other vehicles, if not for assisting in bombardment. And some vehicle does.) Presumably the Manticores and other vehicles have them as well.


PAge 49

..hey all looked as though they could handle themselves well enough, which was no more than I'd have expected: on most worlds, the household troops guarding the governor tend to be the cream of the PDF, or at least the curds left behind after the Guard tithes have been met.

The Guard will literally take the best troops avialable on planet. The amusing thing is that, depending on the planet, you could imply this as being the special forces type units (the 40K equivalent of Seals/Delta Force/SAS/Spetnaz/other examples. Then again that doesn't mean that a PDF's special forces equal line infantry for the Guard (although that's one possible inteprretation) as what qualifies as 'special' can vary (world's industrial/technologicla/cultural level. What is sophisticated on a feral world isn't the same on a hive/civilised world, for example.) At the very least it can mean the best conventional forces too, though, which obviously includes household guards. (probably not just of the governor, but of any nobility. And probalby mercs too, although here again 'variability' plays the same role it always does.)




Page 57

..I found myself reaching for the comm-bead which would normally have been sitting in my ear, and rueing its absence. It had, of course, occurred to me to scrounge one from the command bunker, but such refinements appeared to be lacking among the Viridian PDF. The best they could offer me was a bulky portable voxcaster, which was currently bouncing along on the back of its operator.

Cain implies here that at least some PDF forces in the Gulf region may have at least limited access to comm beads. As we know with FFG, other regions may have them more commonplace.



PAge 58

"'Leave this channel open"
..
"What did he mean by that?"
..
"Probably wants an accurate position fix for the Thunderhawk, so we don't end up on the wrong end of some friendly fire"

The comm signal can be used as something to home in on for deploying friendly troops. Or, in this case, as a teleport fix.



Page 58

... I knew that each artillery piece would probably be fully crewed, plus a few sentries, logistical support personnel and a handful of junior officers and noncoms to make sure the conscripts shoved the shells in the breach the right way round. Given that we already knew, from the orbital picts, that there were five Basilisks in the battery, that meant anything from thirty to fifty men. Although I'd be happy enough taking on odds of three or five to one against mere PDF mutineers with proper Guardsmen behind me, the troops I had now were probably little better in quality than the ones we were facing.

Composition of a PDF artillery battery, which seems to roughly parallel that of a Guard one in the Gulf region (at least.) Includes number of guns, as well as the numbers and dispositions of men in the battery.



Page 63

I approached the corpse warily, anticipating some kind of trick, but as I got closer I could see that the back of his head was missing, taken out by another las-bolt. From the angle of the wound, it had clearly come from somewhere down below, outside the building.
I edged cautiously to the brink of the drop and glanced down. Mira was still crouched in the lee of the burned-out Chimera, her lasgun raised and pointing in my direction.

Lasgun takes off back of human head (or possibly hybrid). Either way at least single digit kj.



Page 63

.. turned back to the bodies of the late sentries. Neither had any vox gear on him, or anything else which might have provided some useful intelligence come to that..

Again PDF troops in this planet at least have the possibility of personal vox gear of some kind.



Page 82

The one closing in on Mira momentarily checked its charge too, as a rash of las-bolt craters erupted on its thorax, then came on again as her lasgun fell silent, its powerpack expended.

Again implying that a short discharge of lasgun fire on full auto can apparently empty the pack. Although we dont know how many shots she had to begin with. Even if it was 10-20% empty (5-12 shots for a 50-60 shot lasgun powerpack) we'd be talking 300-720 rpm easily.
Also the lasgun makes craters of some kind (apparently not big ones, but deep enough to cause injury, suggesting at least several cm diameter and at least several time sthat deep.)



Page 84-85

Abruptly, the creature looming over me jerked and shuddered, keening loudly, even over the stuttering crackle of a lasgun on full auto, as a rain of successive las-bolts chewed their way through its armoured carapace and began making an unholy mess of its innards.
That was the only chance I needed. Tearing free of them, I snatched up my weapons, which, praise the Emperor, still lay on the floor within easy reach, and turned to face my deliverer. I am, by nature, something of an optimist, but I'd never dared to hope that my message would be answered so quickly, if it even got through at all.
"What the hell are you still doing here?" I asked in astonishment, laying about me with the chainblade again and popping off random las-bolts, certain that in a crowd this dense they'd find some kind of mark.
Mira paused for a second, before ejecting the spent powerpack from her lasgun and snapping a fresh one in, whereupon she began firing short, precise bursts at the second 'stealer, presumably having discovered just how quickly staying on full auto would deplete it

Again powerpack drained rapidly on full auto, same assessment as above. Also the lasgun barrage 'chews up' genestealer internals, although the scope/extent of which we don't know. Assuming a 20x20 cm area affected and at least 3rd degree burns, we're talking 20 kj at least for the burst. If we talk 400 j per square cm (flaying 4th degree burns) we're talking 160 kj for the burst.



Page 86-87

With a rumble like thunder, and a sudden burst of ozone which left the hairs on my arms tingling upright, the roof over our heads vaporised in a burst of light so dazzling I was left blinking after-images from my retina for several minutes. Shards of carbonised debris pattered around us, but fortunately nothing of any significant size actually hit; the turbo laser must have struck the ground above us full on, to leave nothing larger than a few handfuls of gravel behind.
...
Clearly the result of air being ionised by the discharge of a turbo laser.
...
The unmistakable bulk of the Terminators I'd seen taking the heretic artillery position apart were lumbering into position around the rim of the pit...

Turbolaser blows hole through ceiling/street in single hit. Will be calced later. 'vaporize' may be literal, or may mean 'explosion'



Page 90

...since the whole galaxy knows that His Space Marines are the strong right hand of the Emperor Himself, and that once they embark on a quest in His holy name, the task is as good as done...
...
Those of us who have had much to do with the Astartes, and found them rather more concerned with the traditions of their Chapters than effective cooperation, may find these sentiments ringing a little hollow...

Cain/Amberley assessment of Astartes and their roles/priorities.



Page 98

..I hadn't been wrong about the effect the sudden arrival of a few score thousand Guardsmen was going to have on the planet, and my peace of mind..

Implying perhaps 40-60 thousand Guardsmen deployed to the planet, at least to pacify the insurrection.



Page 100

...I wouldn't have been all that surprised if at least some of them hadn't suspected Orten of being a hybrid himself.
...
He was, of course, one of the first Viridians to be screened and declared free of the xenos taint. Otherwise he'd hardly still have been breathing, let alone given access to one of the most secure facilities on the planet.

Orten is the PDF commander, and they screen/gene test to make sure the genestealers (or other xenos) have not been corrupted, which gives you an idea of the security measures they employ against such threats.


Page 101

..as if there was any government worth a damn on Viridia at the moment other than jumpy Guardsmen with lasguns, who'd apply whichever fragments of the occupation code they remembered so long as nothing or no one looked like threatening the safety of their squadmates, and use their weapons indiscriminately if their paranoia was sufficiently tweaked.
..
Or, to give it its official title, The Emergency Martial Law Regulations and Provisions for the Safeguarding of Civilian Populations in Areas Under the Protection of His Divine Majesty's Imperial Guard and Allied Forces (CCXXXVIth revised edition, 759.M40).

The Guard has rules of conduct and law pertaining to garrison and martial law situations. Amazing, although it prboably makes sense since any military disruption of economic factors could be as bad as the insurrection itself is.



Page 104-105

"A hundred and forty-seven years ago.."
...
"a flare of warp energy was detected in the halo . Analysis at the time suggested an object of considerable mass had emerged, and a System Defence boat was dispatched to investigate. Perhaps fortunately for them, however, the object disappeared back into the immaterium before they were able to provide more than a few long-range sensor records."
..
The belt of cometary debris which marks the nominal boundary of a stellar system.
...
"But as it was only in-system for a few hours, we felt the risk it posed to our security had been negligible. We kept the SDF on alert for a while, but with nothing to shoot at, there didn't seem much point in prolonging the watch."
...
Concealing my surprise that he was apparently into his second century, which I suppose I should have expected, given what I'd already deduced about the nobility's fondness for juvenat treatments...
...
"The halo is full of small vessels, which the SDF crew would have found extremely difficult to distinguish at the range they were, given the masking effect of the hulk and the profusion of cometary debris registering on their auspex."

Long range (planetary) sensors can reach out to 30 AU or more (halo zone estimate) and also has limits to detection. They can also detect it in a few hours. ASsuming the halo is in fact similar to earth (30 AU) although it can be blocked by cometary debris. It MAY be FTL (at least against the space hulk, which was in 'for a few hours') but it would be a slow speed (a few times faster than light), which could mean that the definition of 'few' is much broader (say 5-6 hours would cover it well) or it may be passive warp sensors (which we knwo are effectivley FTL and exist.)
Also takes longe rthan a few hours for PDF boats to reach the Halo zone, which also usefully marks the 'safe' boundary for warp transits.
Oh and the PDF governor is at least 150-200 years old as per Juvenat




Page 107

"However, it may be possible to follow the hulk to its next destination."
..
"By entering the warp at the same point the hulk did" Yaffel said, "and following the current. We've examined the logs of numerous cargo vessels which entered and left the Viridia System over the last century and a half, and the indications are that the flow of the immaterium in this region of space and time have remained reasonably stable."
"Reasonably stable being something of a relative term" Drumon interjected again, dryly. "Following the wrong current will take us to a different system entirely. But we have a good Navigator aboard the Revenant, and he considers the gamble a reasonable one."

Tracking a space hulk through the warp. Possible, if the warp routes are stable/predictable in the region of space (and some can be so for centuries it seems.)



PAge 115

..the sergeant agreed, stepping forwards, a trifle nervously, with a portable auspex. "But if you wouldn't mind indulging me, sir? I'm sure you wouldn't want us to neglect our orders."
...
..reholstering my laspistol and climbing down to the roadway so he could take his genescan a little more easily The unit beeped, and a rune flashed green, after which everyone looked a little more comfortable, particularly once Jurgen was confirmed to be a reasonable approximation of a human as well.

Auspex used to genetically scan Cain and Jurgen for signs of Genestealer taint.



Page 115

There are far better ways of managing troops than simply putting the fear of the Emperor into them, as I try to convince the young pups in my care these days, in the vague hope that their careers will last a bit longer than their first night patrol.

CAin's Commissarial philosohpy, which I agree wholeheartedly with.



Page 116-117

Then the road ended, as sharply and abruptly as if excised with a knife. For a few metres the road surface became rippled, like a hardened lava flow, then simply dropped away into a broad pit, some three or four metres deep.
...
..if they hadn't flagged us down, we might well have discovered the hole by falling into it. Then, as I began to take in the way the edges of the buildings around me had also melted and flowed like candle wax, realisation belatedly hit. This was where Mira and I had fought our desperate battle beneath the ground, and come so close to extinction before the Thunderhawk had torn the roof off to allow the Terminators to come to our rescue.

Remember the bit where the thunderhawk blasts throughthe road? This is the effect from the other side. 3-4 meter deep hole, which might suggest a 6-8 meter diameter crater, assuming it was roughly hemisphericla. Edges are molten. If we assume it pulverizes a crater out, we're talking at least 40-90 kilograms of TNT equivalent, although the molten bit suggests its much more. Assuming a 1 cm depth of melting we get between 1300-2300 kg for silicon which is worth a good 2-5 GJ itself.



PAge 118

"The Omnissiah directs our footsteps along the path of knowledge," Yaffel replied, cranking up the volume of his voxcaster to overcome the din. Refraining from pointing out that in his case that would be singularly difficult, I merely nodded, as if the evident quotation meant something to me.
...
From Soylens Viridians for the Machine-Spirit, a populist work intended to make some of the principles by which the Adeptus Mechanicus operates comprehensible to the vast majority of us with little understanding or interest in technotheology: a no doubt laudable aim, which it signally fails to achieve, being too abstruse for the lay reader, and too simplistic for even the lowliest tech-priest. Its author, unsurprisingly, was Magos Yaffel, one of the handful of people actually to have read it.

LOL. AdMech version of 'Chicken soup for the soul' I gather. Its more interesting for the fact some AdMech apparently try to 'teach' (or at least propogandize) AdMech philosohpy and such. What principles they explain and how extensively, I dont know. I dont think its quite 'science' per se, but more an attempt to indoctrinate and preserve the AdMech monopoly. Still, that they prefer to educate in some manner is better I guess.



PAge 122

Mira certainly wasn't behaving in the usual fashion of people bidding farewell to their home world, gazing at it through the viewports as long as they could, trying to burn the image of it into their memories in the near certainty of never seeing it again, preferring instead to smile at me in a manner uncomfortably reminiscent of a bored eldar reaver looking for someone to torture to death to pass the time. Perhaps she simply lacked the imagination to grasp what embarking on a voyage through the warp actually meant. Even if she did return home, the chances were that decades, or even a century or two, were likely to have passed, and that she'd be as much of a stranger to the altered Viridia as an offworlder setting eyes on it for the first time.

Its an interesting aspect to interstellar travel in 40K. Even if the speeds end up similar to something like, say, Star Wars, the temporal distortions guarantee that the planet you may return to (if you ever do) may not be the one you left. In that respect for those who travel (like the Guard) leaving the world and travelling the warp may be like saying goodbye regardless of whether you come back or not (sort of like in Forever War.)
One reason why juvenat may be so popular for those who are wealthy or influential (or officers) in that it at least gives people a chance to return home and see people they love. Also its small wonder that offworld business and related matters may be conducted by agent.



Page 122

The strike cruiser was still orbiting Viridia at a relatively low altitude, barely beyond the point where the first faint wisps of upper atmosphere would begin to drag at her hull, no doubt to facilitate the use of her teleportarium, or allow her weapon batteries to strike at targets on the surface in the unlikely event of her Space Marine complement requiring a little additional assistance.

Orbital bombardment and teleport alttitude/orbit



Page 135-136

”Squad Trosque completed the cleansing of the forge complex on Asteroid 459 while you were sleeping, and their Thunderhawk docked a few moments ago. “
...
”Are we under way, then?”
I asked, feeling faintly foolish at having to ask. The barely perceptible thrumming of the Revenant's engines had become so familiar to me in the course of our voyage to Viridia that I hadn't noticed it since boarding, although it was certainly there, a comforting presence in the background. They would have been idling while it was in orbit, of course, ticking over just sufficiently to provide power to feed the innumerable machine-spirits on whose health the vessel depended, and I listened hard, trying to determine if the note had deepened at all; but if it had, I wasn't able to tell the difference.
“We are,” the shipmaster informed me from his control throne.
..
"We'll be entering the warp at the designated material coordinates in approximately seven hours."
"Six hours, fifty-four minutes and twelve point three one four seconds"

Approximately 7 hours for the strike cruiser to reach the edge of the system (or at least the safe distance to make a warp jump. If we figure 1 AU they might reach the edge with an accel of ~100 gees and a top velocity of ~4% of the speed of light. If we'r etalking like tens of AU the accel ramps up considerably (thousands of gees) and the velocity becomes a substantial chunk of the speed of light.



Page 136

“As I've explained, timing is absolutely crucial if we're to enter the warp currents in this particular region of space and time in precisely the right configuration to catch the fastest-flowing portion of the stream.”
...
“but if we're merely going to be following the same current as the space hulk, how can we hope to catch up with it? Won't we be travelling at the same rate?”
...
“But the situation isn't as hopeless as you might suppose. Don't forget that the Spawn of Damnation is drifting, while the Revenant is moving under power. That means we can correct our attitude and orientation to the current, to optimise the flow around our Geller field.”
..
“I gather the sport of waveboarding is popular in some of the coastal regions of your world?” he asked, and Mira nodded, although Emperor alone knows how he discovered this. “Then think of us as riding a waveboard, while the hulk just bobs about as the Emperor sees fit.”
...
A peculiar form of recreation, practised in some form on many worlds, in which people attempt to balance on a plank being swept along by waves or water currents for as long as possible without falling off. Since they inevitably do, the appeal of the pastime escapes me.
..
“'the Spawn of Damnation will be returning to the materium at random intervals, for indeterminate periods of time, some of which will be in the order of years. We, on the other hand, can enter and leave the warp at will. As soon as we determine that it's not at a given exit point, we can re-enter the immaterium and continue our pursuit.”

A bit of discussion about the nature of warp travel, how warp propulsion works (there's a bit of streamlining apparently, if you configure your gellar field to presumably minimize 'resistance' - the surfing analogy is particularily apt. Also the differences between starships and space hulks.
Also timing is important in catching currents for maximum effect. Again Navigator's skills come in handy here.



Page 136-137

”But how can we be sure we've found an exit point in the first place?”
..
“'the passage of so large an object between the two realms leaves a weak spot in the boundary between them, which our Librarian and Navigator believe they can detect”
..
“Not [strong] enough to allow any of the warp's denizens access to the materium,” he said, his flat monotone sounding oddly sure of itself. “The weakness is more akin to a deformation of the interface than a breach of it.”

The size of an object entering/exiting the warp has an impact on the strain it imposes on the fabric of 'reality' (the barrier between warp and realspace, ro whatever.) which can create a sort of 'weakness' that can be detected. Too week to be an actual portale or breach, but more like a dent in spacetime. One wonders if it is permanant, or does it fade away with time. Rather nasty to think about if its permamant, since it means that all warp-travelling races are basically fucking with the fabric of spacetime and hastening the eventual emergence of chaos into the galaxy and suchnot.



Page 140-141

...Gries announced that the Reclaimers' Librarian had sensed the deformation of the membrane between the warp and the material universe which Yaffel had predicted, but when the Revenant popped back into the real galaxy for a quick look round we turned out to be drifting through the silent void between the stars, with nothing on the auspex for light years in any direction except for the occasional gas cloud.

Implied sensor range of light years if Cain can be taken seriously. Again if its passive or active, we don't know, although it seemingly can detect inert stuff (like gas clouds, unless Cain is being figurative. although if he's being figurative, its also quite likely he didn't mean 'light years' literally too. ) May be a warp sensor, or it may be some sort of actual (active) FTL detection (possibly warp based, or a technological version of scrying. For all we know it may even be psyker scrying at work. There have been indications of them having that kind of range.)



Page 141

Our second emergence in the wake of the Spawn found us in a stellar system, which meant several days of frantic activity as we analysed auspex returns and sent the Thunderhawks scurrying around to check out anything which looked promising, but in the end we drew a complete blank.

Implied thunderhawks could cover an entire system in several days. Assuming oh 30-AU system radius, we're talking at least tens if not hundreds of gees, depending on how far you figure they penetrate into the system, sensor ranges, and suchlike. top speed is 16% of c.



Page 141-142

The blade was surrounded by a nimbus of crackling energy, like the claws I'd seen the Terminators use to tear apart the insurrectionist artillery pieces, although he must have moderated its strength in some way, as the tiny airborne servitors simply bounced away from each strike as though dazed by the impact rather than being sheared asunder. In a similar fashion, his plasma pistol had evidently been modified to unleash the merest fraction of its charge, as instead of being vaporised, each of the bobbing skulls he shot was only thrown aside for a moment, before returning to the attack.

Interesting powersword owned by Techmarine. For one thing its variable setting, which we learn (later) is a setting that can imitate a shock maul. What's more, the 'less lethal' setting can blunt the cutting edge. Likewise a plasma pistol that doesn't 'vaporize' servo skulls (megajoule somehow, explode or vaporize) but it just sort of.. bumps them aside with a less lethal setting.




PAge 143

”Are you sure my laspistol wouldn't damage them, though?”
..
“I will obtain a practice powercell to fit it and reduce the power of your shots to within the limits of the drones' structural integrity.” So that was how they'd been able to keep bouncing back from hit after hit that should have pulverised them.

We learn how (at least) the nonlethal plasma pistol was achieved. "practice' powercells. Cain also clarifies that 'vaporize' meant 'pulverize' so we're probably dealing with high kj/low MJ plsama shots depending on servo skull design.



Page 144

The powerfield around it crackled into life, and a flicker of dubiety must have appeared on my face, as he added, “the intensity of the field has been reduced to non-lethal levels.”
..
“Non-lethal for an Astartes, or for a mere mortal like me?”
...
“Both, I assume,” Drumon replied, returning the smile. “It should feel no more uncomfortable than a glancing blow from a shock maul.”

Again, nonlethal setting on powersword's powerfield, which must include restricting its cutting edge. The further implication is that all kinds of power weapons can have a 'shock' effect added to them.


Page 144-145

Drumon took up a guard position, which seemed familiar enough, and beckoned me on. “If you can strike through my armour,” he pointed out reasonably, “I deserve a few nicks.”

Cain's Chainsword evidently cannot cut thorugh Techmarine armor (or at least the TechMarine doesn't think it can.) Although this may be more a combination of the resilience of the armor and the defensive skills/speed of the marine (not staying still long enough for the blade to chew through.)


Page 148

”Where in the Throne's name are we?”
“Processing the starfield data now,” Yaffel assured me calmly, gazing into the hololith. “After correcting for parallax errors, our most probable location would be here, give or take approximately eight light-seconds.”

Warp 'accuracy' can extend up to 8 LS, which is (inf act) several million km. Emerging within 1 AU of the planet is roughly 1 in 4000. Which doesn't seem like alot, but remember if you have lots of ships travelling through the system each day, the risk can add up.



PAge 149

Hardly surprising, since they were [Chapter Serfs] probably aspirants to membership of the Reclaimers who'd narrowly failed the rigorous selection process.

Origin of Reclaimers chapter serfs. Also known as the consolation prize.

[Ahriman238]

I really like this last trilogy of books, though it takes the Greater Good to really tie them together.

Also there's just something about Cain and Jurgen stranded on a Space Hulk, aka the last place any sane man wants to go, and even Astartes being impressed with Cain.

Hasn't Chapter Serfs being failed Aspirants always been part of the lore?

[StarSword]

Hasn't Chapter Serfs being failed Aspirants always been part of the lore?

I recall reading in Grey Hunter that the Space Wolves use volunteers.

[Connor MacLeod]

The next Cain novel is 'The Last Ditch' - actually the smallest of 'Analysis' I've done yet (It almost can fit into one page) it introduces plot points that will (in a way) come to fruition in the last novel - Cain and co get called in to deal with Orks and end up facing Tyranids, which is the plot point (at least insofar that it deals more with Tyranids and less with Orks.. man the Orks get shafted pretty heavily in this series as far as threats go. First the Necrons and now the Nids stomping their butts.) Minor sideplot involving Cain meeting a newbie Commissar.. not really a major plot point all told (Cain's Last Stand did it better.)

Also we finally learn about the world 'Nusquam Fundumentibus'. For whatever that is worth.

Since its too big (slightly) for one large update, it becomes two smaller ones. Enjoy.

Page 10-11

Neither of us expected to remain on Coronus for long – no one ever did – and I’d rather my future access to his table and exceptional cellar remained unimpeded by any bad feeling which might linger at our departure.
...
A world, and its surrounding system, given over entirely to the resupply and redeployment of the Imperial Guard regiments active in the Damocles Gulf; if you think of it as the Munitorum equivalent of an Adeptus Mechanicus forge-world, you won’t go far wrong, although on the whole it was rather less grubby.

Coronus described at last. I'm not sure if 'forge world' means it has industrial capability, or if it just refers to the stockpiling and equipping of regiments moving to and from warzones. Owned by the Munitorum, but less polluted. I'm also not sure on what the exact term to use would be - Garrison world, Armoury world (like Vraks), Fortress world, ro what, but I imagine all of the above could apply in some extent or another.



Page 11

.. I had only been on Simia Orichalcae for a day or two before being forced to withdraw, losing the promethium refinery we’d been sent to defend to the emerging denizens of a hitherto unsuspected necron tomb. Blowing up the installation had buried them again (6), and preserved our little corner of the galaxy from an onslaught of the hideous machine creatures (7), but indisputably failed in our original mission objective. The Adeptus Mechanicus had not been pleased to lose one of their precious shrines, not to mention the chance to loot the tomb they fondly imagined we’d cost them, and Zyvan had been left to face the wrath of the senior tech-priests; at least until I got a message to Amberley, whose retroactive sanction of our actions by the Inquisition had finally got the cogboys off his back
...
(6)Probably.
...
(7) Possibly

Unsurprising the AdMech were ticked about Simia Orichalcae, but even the AdMech must bow to the Inquisition in certain matters. (I imagine trafficking in Xenos tech may not go over well with some Inquisitorial or AdMech elements either, at least the more puritanical ones.)
Also note (one of the few cases of me using subscripts, simply so I can provide context to Amberley's comments on the above. Apparently the GIGATON FAE simply buried them (and even that isn't certain), rather than destroying the complex, and even then it may not have permanantly eradicated them. Given that it would probably explain why Dead Men Walking described the planet being destroyed - thats the only way to probably be sure, but given what we learned in the previous novel, even that may not have worked.
Kinda nice how things continue to seem to support my way of looking at things. And totally not in a conspiratorial sort of way



PAge 12

..he table between us, if a sheet of flakboard and a couple of trestles could be dignified by such an appellation. Like pretty much everything else on Coronus it was temporary, the stark room we’d requisitioned for meetings just as likely to revert to storage space, administrative matters, or a makeshift kitchen as soon as we vacated our assigned barrack blocks in favour of the next regiment to pass through here en route to another war.

Accomodations on Coronus. Temporary like everything else. The barracks/buildings seem designed with 'modularity' in mind, to accomodate the dizzying variety of troops and support elements that may inhabit the planet.



Page 12

Valhallans are the finest cold weather troopers in the galaxy, without a doubt, but that doesn’t mean much to the Munitorum when it comes to deploying them. Although the tacticians and strategists do their best to make use of any special skills a regiment possesses, all too often the never-ending requirement to prop up a faltering front somewhere or other means just sending in whoever’s available.

Cain's comments about the quality and specialization of valhallans, and how it doesn't matter a damn in the greater scope of things. The Munitorum dictates their deployments more by need and circumstance than specialty, simply because they may not be able to afford to wait til someone more 'appropriate' comes up. Such is the nature of the Guard - you basically make do as the situation requires. Sometimes things might go your way, and other times they won't.



Page 13

These days, however, it was hard to believe that any animosity had ever existed between the women who’d made up the 296th and the men of the former 301st. (Which caused enough problems of its own for me to fully appreciate why mixed gender regiments were the exception rather than the rule in the Imperial Guard, but I’d long since discovered that a judicious blind eye and a well-meaning chaplain were enough to let me sidestep most of them.)

Despite the male/female problems that might persist in a mixed regiment (or the issues pertaining to relationships, family, etc.) much earlier fluff (and some stuff like the Ghosts) actually indicate this sort of stuff would be encouraged as an impromptu way of replacing losses in the regiment (children being inducted into the Guard.) This may reflect peculiarities of Guard/Munitorum policies in the Damocles Gulf region: I imagine that the Munitorum doens't care much for having to account for 'dependents'. (of course nothing says that such 'camp follower's or other dependents like family won't show up as a matter of course anyhow, and be 'taken care' of unofficially somehow. Theory vs practice again.)




Page 13

"Another invasion?" he asked hopefully, "or a secondary outbreak?"
"An outbreak," I confirmed, and Kasteen nodded judiciously.
"About time for one."
...
The difficulty of completely eradicating an orkish infestation once they’ve gained a foothold is proverbial; on world after world fresh warbands continue to appear years, or even decades, after the most comprehensive of greenskin defeats. The Magos Biologis have their own theories about why this should be the case; if they’re correct, the only remarkable thing is the length of time which sometimes elapses before a fresh generation becomes numerous enough to cause trouble.

The growth and outbreak of Feral Orks is apparently predictable enough (within an order of magnitude) for the Valhallans in Cain's regiment (Kasteen, etc.) to fortell such occurances. Also bit about the ork reproduction and Imperial theories on such and teh variation in the cycle.


Page 14

"What’s the local garrison doing about it?"
"There isn’t one," I told her. "It was withdrawn when the tau started expanding into the Halcyon Drift." The Imperium had responded to the provocation by fortifying every system vulnerable to annexation, stripping far too many second-line worlds of their protection for comfort, in the hope that the notoriously opportunist xenos would back down in the face of a show of force. So far, to everyone’s surprise, it seemed to have worked; although, knowing them, they’d probably already turned their attention to another target, probably one which had suddenly been left undefended as a result of the recent redeployment.
"So the PDF’s taking up the slack,"
..
"There is one Imperial Guard regiment already engaged with the enemy, apparently."
..
"The Nusquan First"
...
"Newly founded, but yet to ship out."
...
"How many companies?"
...
"Three so far," I said, "out of a mooted six."

Apparently local Guard garrisons on Imperial planets is a fairly common occurance in the Damocles Gulf region, unless they have to be redeployed (which is one reason to garrison them across the sector - it can shorten response times for at least some of your total forces in such cases and permit you to deploy at least some trained troops to crisis zones.) In this caes the tau are enough of a nuisance to require such redeployment, which can leave individual worlds without garrisons (until and unless a new tithing can provide a suitable replacement.)
Also mention of a freshly tithed regiment composed of six companies. Assuming 250-300 troops we're talking 1500-1800 troops, which woudl make a rather small regiment. Although given they seem to have at least some Chimeras later, that may go some way to explaining it.





Page 21

Like many of the civilian freighter captains...
..
As opposed to those of fleet auxiliaries, which, despite being cargo vessels, were Imperial Navy ships aboard which the appropriate military dress codes were to be expected.

civilian freighters (like chartist captains) vs Fleet auxiliaries (naval transports for men and material, basically.)


Page 21

I’d got used to a wide variety of responses to my name over the years, as my reputation continued to grow beyond all reason, especially once the wildly exaggerated tales of my exploits began to be circulated among the civilian population...
..
The Commissariat being quick to see the advantages of one of their number appearing popular with the troops he led for once.

Showing that the Commissariat are more intelligent than we think. Again they're aware of and take advantage of both propoganda and psychology to achieve their ends. In this case, promoting Cain's exploits both to improve their own stock, as well as to improve morale and their ability to manipulate others to Imperial ends. It also points at a certain 'entertainment' aspect to propoganda, which is one of the more clever ways to promote nationalism and such (I mean, looka t America )



PAge 28

My leaving the transport ship as early as possible had become something of a regimental tradition, at least when there was little prospect of arriving in a hot LZ.
..
A Landing Zone already under enemy fire

Some IG drops are directly into the war zone, rather than away from it. We've seen that a few times in the Ghosts novels, in the Last Chancers novel Kill Team, etc. I imagine armed dropships are better for this than the unarmed ones.



Page 28

Broklaw looked considerably less happy than she did, but then he’d be stuck waiting for the last run now, dealing with all the problems you’d expect to crop up while trying to get almost a thousand men and women, along with all their kit, vehicles, and supplies, offloaded, with only enough shuttles available to handle roughly a third of that number.
..
The colonel and second-in-command would never travel in the same shuttle, as if it were downed by accident or a lucky enemy shot, the regiment they led would be effectively decapitated.

IG regulations considering the deployment of commanding officers once again. Also we have a case (again) where the Guard simply has more troops than it has dropships/shuttles to land troops with. Of course since this is a civilian vessel (and one that is shown to be run on a shoestring at that) the lack is hardly surprising.


Page 40

Powering up my chainsword to its maximum speed, I sheared through the cable in a shower of sparks, feeling a jolt in my arm like a kick from a Space Marine as the current it carried discharged itself through the weapon. Fortunately the hilt was insulated for just such a contingency, and most of what sparked across the gap was taken care of by my glove.

Page 42-43

Several small objects arced over my head, bursting against the daemon, which shrieked in a most satisfying fashion; as I rose to my feet, I could see great swathes of it hissing and bubbling, the flesh liquefying, and the metal subliming into froth.
"Acid?" I asked, perplexed, wondering where he could have found so much of the stuff, and Tope laughed, in what sounded like honest amusement.
"Holy water," he said. "Blessed it myself. Good, eh?"
..
"Flamers!" Tope bellowed, scrambling to his feet with the aid of the nearest lectern, and adjusting the Guard-issue helmet he’d adorned with his rosarius to an incongruously jaunty angle. Not for the first time, it seemed, his badge of office had protected him where lesser, or less pious, men would not have been so fortunate.

Amberley notes that the combination of Cain and Jurgen's efforts plust the Priest's efforts are what probably put the daemon down. Overall it really just demonstrates that the faith/belief thing can have a tangible effect and can be more than a mere joke.




Page 43

Though many members of the Ecclesiarchy attached to Imperial Guard regiments retain their priestly vestments, a substantial number, which apparently included Tope, prefer to adopt the uniform of their hosts, with appropriate modification.

Not unlike the Ecclesiarchal factions tied to the Navy mentioned in the Shira Calpurnia novel, I suspect the Guard Chaplains are similarily politicized (and at war with the nonmilitary Ecclesiarchss. But then again when is the Ecclesiarchy not at war with itself? Its more concerned with coopting religions into its fold than it is with ensuring perfect consistency between disparate beliefs.)




Page 46-47

"Anything coming out from the planet would have to shoot past us, turn around, and catch up. Can’t dock without matching velocities."
"We know that much," I said, trying not to sound too impatient with him. "We’ve spent enough time on shuttles transferring to starships. What’s the problem?"
"Our speed," Mires said, looking distinctly uncomfortable again. "Even at full burn, a shuttle could never catch up with us."

Shuttles don't have the fuel and/or acceleration to catch up with a starship, although in this case the Ship Captain confuses thrust and velocity, complicating which (or both) is the issue.





PAge 47

"Then we need to slow down"
..
"Get the engines going again," Mires said. "Then use the manoeuvring thrusters to flip ourselves over. Burn the main engine along the course we’re following."

For whatever reason, this particular starship has to perform a turnover and slow down with its rear engines. Whether all Imperial starships do this, or just some, or if its because of some sort of damage (retros offline, for exmaple) we don't know.


Page 48-49

I can’t pretend the next couple of weeks passed at all easily; the Fires of Faith continued to hurtle like a bullet towards Nusquam Fundumentibus..
..
"We can speed up instead."
"And ram the planet tomorrow instead of the day after?"
..
I glanced up at the big pict, which was showing the view from outside again; by now the sun was a visible disc, and although I knew it was still impossible to make out from this distance, I somehow managed to convince myself that one of the pinpricks of light nearby was the world we were so close to colliding with...
...
"If we accelerate enough, we might just reach that volume of space before the planet does."

Assuming it started out 30 AU away as hintd at in the other cain books (halo zone stuff) the average velocity (over a 2-3 week period) would be between 2480-3700 km/s prior to acceleration. If its much closer (say 1 AU) we're talking 80-120 km/s roughly.
Assuming 1 gee of acceleration for a single day we're talking perhpas 864 km/s added to the ship's velocity, which would point to the former rather than the latter. On the other hand, once they get closer to the planet the situation is much worse and they take some time (minutes) to even cross the planet's orbit, which suggests the much lower speed is involved.



Page 49

" But if we juggle the thrust right we’ll graze the upper atmosphere."
...
"And incinerate ourselves,"
..
"Ship’s tougher than that" Mires said. "You wouldn’t want to be in any of the outer decks. But the middle ones ought to be survivable."

Even a worn down, decrepit rusbucket like this cheapskate runs is apparently more durable than Cain thinks, it can (largely) survive contact with the atmosphere. HEck, the ship survives reentry largely intact (a key part of the story as we discover.) Although the outer decks would be lethal to living beings due to the temperatures involved (which shows that starships are generally made of sterner stuff than the space shuttle but we've already knwon that.)



Page 49

"We’d be in orbit."
...
"A long, elliptical one. Take us months to get back. Supplies would be low, and the air pretty thick. But we should have got control again by then."
"And if we haven’t, we’ll have slowed enough for the shuttles to take us off,"

Months to slow down and return, which would put a limit on the supplies of the vessel, suggesting (civiilan) transports usualyl have less than a year of supplies. assuming this just isn't this particular captain being a cheapskate again. Same with life s upport.
Anyhow no point bothering to play aroudn with accel or velocity calcs here, since we don't know how long to slow odwn, quite how far away they'd end up, or how long they'd take to get back. If we made a rough guess with the single gee decel again (ignoring the parabolic bit) and the velocity above it shouldn't take them more than a week (6-10 days or thereabouts) to come to a stop (within an order of magnitude.) and they'd onyl be ~10 AU out from their destination. And would only require the same time to get back . either the speed is higher than I thought, or the parabolic course adds more time, or I overstated the acceleration value quite a bit
A quarter gee accel/decel would add (over a day) would add 'only' 216 km/s to the velocity (still closer to the higher end estimat ethan lower by that) and would require some 20-25 days to slow down. So we'd get a couple months or so that way, which does fit better (not allowing for other parameters, of course.) To be fair, a starship could slow down to zero velocity at 1 g (from the stated velocities before) within a matter of days, not weeks. And even at a quarter gee would still only require a few weeks, which woudl argue that they travelled much faster than my lower limit and the upper limit, suggesting that starting out much further away would be more likely. Evne so you still need something like a quarter gee accel to pull this off I think.
All of the above assumes, however, that we're going with the high end figure. as I noted that runs into problems when they graze the atmosphere, which argues for the 'lower' interpretation of the argument. In that case lower accelerations are still needed (tenth of a gee or less) and a shorter distance covered is needed (about an AU) and that STIL requires slightly less than a week and a half to slow down, but we might figure that time to turnover is added and engines might not ram up to full power. On the plus side, full day of accel would only mean adding a 'mere' 86 km/s or so. lol. There's still the issue of slowing down for months, and coming back, but at this point I'm giving up.
Overall, I let all this speculation stand to show that sometimes I'm not always 100% right about my numbers, or there may be things I don't consider or whatever. I'm not perfect, and people shouldn't treat my numbers (or at least specific numbers) as so.



Page 52

"Give it everything you’ve got!" Mires barked down the speaking tube to the enginarium, and, in spite of the on-board gravity field fluctuating to compensate, I could swear I’d felt a sudden surge of extra acceleration. Highly unlikely, of course, as the engines had been flat out ever since he’d suggested this insane manoeuvre, but perhaps his sweating subordinates had managed to wring a little more out of them by sheer willpower.

Gravity acting as inertial damping, also the fday long accel was at full power (whatever tha tis.)



Page 53

"It seems to be working," I told Kasteen after a few more minutes of tense anticipation, the huge sense of relief I felt no doubt evident in my tone.
..
...but by now our ventral hull plating was beginning to glow a dull ackenberry red, the haze of ionising air rising all round the external imagifers, and all I could discern on the planet below us were a few patches of grey murk..
..
"How much longer?" I asked,
..
"Just a few minutes." Mires said, his voice betraying the euphoria of a gambler who has just bet the pot on a low scoring hand, and is beginning to realise everyone else’s is even worse. "We’re about to bounce back into space."

Hull being heated by grazing the upper atmosphere for a few minutes) Now to be fair, I don't think they're moving as fast as I initially argued. Thats the weird thing with this estimate its hard to estimate all this. Assuming its following the curvature of the planet partly we might get (over 4-6 minutes) you might get 80-125 km/s, but odds are it would be even lower than that. Incidentally if we figure 125 km/s IS the velocity you're probably getting 1/15- 1/20th of a gee acceleration with 2 weeks.




Page 58

With the crimson glare of the emergency luminators, and the steadily rising temperature, the bridge was beginning to resemble the inside of a bake oven by now. I blinked a few drops of sweat from my eyes, and tried to focus on the pict screen, although the picture it was relaying from the outside was far from reassuring; the vessel’s superstructure was flowing like candle wax, the spires and turrets protruding from the main hull softening under the incredible heat of atmospheric friction, or simply ablating away to join the comet tail of debris spiralling in our wake. I found myself blessing the foresight of whichever naval architect had seen fit to site the bridge and enginarium so close to the middle of the hull.
...
A common precaution, particularly on merchant vessels and the lighter classes of warship, as the intervening layers of hull provide extra protection from incoming fire.

The surface of the hull is heated up to near-molten or molten state (At least on the surface) by atmospheric friction. Bearing in mind this is a rather poorly maintained civilian vessel, this is still pretty impressive. I should also note that eve if this were a warship it wouldn't mean anything because 40K ship design can be variable. Some ships could opt to space the armour in layers between decks throughout the internal structure, rather than slaping huge, dozens of metres thick armour on the outside of the ship (and some might do a bit of both!) In the caes of the former, the outer hull could be less durable than a thicker hull, but the ship could still be resilient to damage because of the underlying armour layers providing additional protection (another reason to stick the vital stuff as close to the center as you can, of course.)
Also comment of putting the bridge int he middle of the ship in some cases (I'm guessing escorts mainly) Cruisers and battleships don't do that with their primary bridge, but they may put an auxiliary bridge there.




PAge 59

"Primary power relays just shorted out." he reported. "Everything’s being channelled to gravitics." Which was the only reason we weren’t all dead already.

Again gravitics seem to consume alot of power, and they're protecting against lethal accelerations (which oddly suggests 10+ gees)



Page 60

"Everyone brace! We’re about to–" when we did, with an impact which jarred up my spine like a kick from a Dreadnought, rattling the fillings in my teeth.
A second or two later I felt a second impact, then a third and a fourth, each gouging out a canyon a score or more kilometres long in the permafrost; how many times we bounced I couldn’t have said, but each dissipated a little more of our momentum.

Depending on how you interpret the second vs the gouges, it would imply that the ship descended into the atmosphere at a velcoity of tens of km/s, and proceeded to 'skip' over the surface losing velocity. Amusingly, the decrepit, civilian starship has in essence survived hypervelocity atmospheric reentry (and glancing collision at that) more or less intact with most of the crew (and the Vallhallans) surivving.




Page 73

..raising his voice a little as Penlan’s squad doubled past, and began to set up a tripod-mounted autocannon ...

The 597th maintain tripod heavy weapons instead of relying strictly on their Chimeras for heavy firepower. I wonder if the heavy weapons teams have their own chimeras?



Page 73

If we had properly functioning comms, and an auspex, and a pict screen to track the signals from everyone’s comm-beads, not to mention a command Chimera to pack it all in, we’d have been able to turn the derelict craft into a highly efficient orkmeat factory.

Importants of sensors and communication to directing the 597th.



Page 74

..I slipped through one of the gaps which had yet to be plugged, and clambered awkwardly up the knee-high tangle of ripped and folded metal where the great metre-thick portal and the hull surrounding it had fallen away..

metre thick bay door of some kind. Hangar I think.



Page 78

"He doesn’t have the head for it," Magot told me, squeezing the trigger, and reducing the pilot’s brains to a greasy mist, which the whirring rotors above him scattered in all directions. The suddenly pilotless gyro lurched wildly to the left, missing the open entrance to the docking bay by no more than a couple of metres, before crunching into the cliff face of metal..

Magot headsplodes an Orkish gyrocopter pilot in a single shot. Again probably high single or low double digit kj at least given how often I've had to do this.

[Connor MacLeod]

Part 2

Page 80

We opened fire with a will, our lascannons, autocannons, and heavy bolters scything into the massed ranks of the enemy below us..

Valhallan heavy weapons.



Page 85

..shrugging into the harness one of Federer’s people had rigged up, by the simple expedient of knotting some lasgun slings into loops and attaching them as securely as possible to the towing line bolted onto the chassis of the power loader. Normally it would be used to drag pallets across the holds, or to lift them into place after the improvised crane had scrambled into position on the narrow catwalks above them...
...
"Will it take the weight?"
"And about five tonnes on top," Shambas assured me, assuming I meant the line rather than the fragile-seeming slings tied to them

Sentinel powerlifter towing line and the weight it can support. It doesnt seem particularily thick by implication (at least we're not talking arm thick cable) but I can't think of anything to compare it to IRL, so I dont know if this is better, worse, or as good as anything we have.



Page 99

Orks are resilient, as I knew only too well from personal experience, but very few of them can stand up to a burst of heavy-calibre fire at point-blank range.

Orks may be able to take a few lethal lasgun hits but heavy calibre point blank fire (EG heavy stubber, autocannon, heavy bolter, or astartes bolter) will obviously fuck them up.



Page 102

An asteroidal impact long before humanity first set foot on the world fractured the planetary crust, creating a ring of fissures, through which magma continues to seep not far below the surface, and into which the Adeptus Mechanicus has been able to tap by great ingenuity and the blessing of the Omnissiah. The towns and cities of the lesser provinces, being less well favoured, are forced to rely on fusion generators and fossil fuel furnaces instead, which, though effective enough, leave them less attractive to the discriminating wanderer..

Power generation technologies on Nusquam Fundumentibus. Not sure if 'fusion' generators are nuclear fusion, or 'pyrum petrol' melta-style fusion shit. It oculd go either way. Incidnetally I'm pretty sure the planet's name means 'ass end of nowhere' more or less



Page 118-119

"Like almost all in the province they use geothermal energy to create power."
...
"water is pumped down to the lava flow, which is quite close to the surface at that point. The intense heat converts it instantly into steam, which powers the turbines"
...
"The 'but,' as you put it, is that unless the flow of incoming water is kept to a constant rate, excess steam can build up, creating extreme pressure in the magma chamber," Izembard explained, as imperturbable as ever. "Unless relieved by the proper rituals, it will eventually vent itself uncontrollably."
"You mean it’ll blow up?"
...
"Blow up would be something of a misnomer," Izembard said, after a moment’s cogitation. "Erupt would be a more accurate description."
"How big a bang are we talking about?" I demanded, hardly in the mood to split hairs.
"It’s hard to be precise," Izembard said, "without accurate figures for the rate of flow, temperature fluctuations, and the porosity of the rock, but somewhere in the low kilotonne range seems the most likely."
"And how soon?"
...
"Again, it’s hard to be accurate." Izembard mused for a moment. "But I would estimate somewhere in the region of four to five hours."

One of the less nasty 'exploding' geothermal powerplants on a planet, but kilotonnes is still hardly trivial.
If we figure it takes 4-5 hours to build up to 'low kilotonne' range and we interpret that as between 1-300 kilotons (arbitrary distinction) you can figure on 200-300 megawatts watts at least for geotheramla power, to 60-90 gigawatts. the 'fusion generators' and fossil fuels presumably are less output capable, and that should be approximate rather than precise anyhow.



Page 119

"Can the process be stopped?"
...
"Indeed it can," Izembard assured me, with a smile I found deeply disturbing. "A man of your intellect should find the instructions for stablising the geothermal reaction perfectly easy to follow." He and Clothilde looked at me expectantly, and, with an all-too-familiar sinking feeling, I realised they were expecting me to take care of the matter myself. "It would, of course, be preferable to send a tech-priest with the requisite knowledge, but their chances of survival would not be high under the circumstances. Far better to restaff the shrine once the orks are out of the way."

This is amusing because its another one of those cases where the AdMech arbitrarily decides 'someone else can safely appease the machine spirits without the Omnissiah objecting' Seriously, they just arbitrairly do this shit when its convenient to them.



Page 121

..I found myself in the passenger compartment of the antiquated-looking Valkyrie Broklaw’s friend in the PDF had found for us, battling our way through another of the blizzards so common on the surface of Nusquam Fundumentibus.

The Nusquam PDF have Valkyries, which is interesting and useful. wonder if they raise regiments with them.



Page 123

The power generated was transmitted to centres of habitation and industry by focused beams of energy, since conditions on the surface would make distribution by wire too vulnerable to climactic disruption. Given the relatively low volume of air traffic on Nusquam Fundumentibus this was less of a hazard to navigation than one might expect, although one or two cases of concussion from being struck by barbecued avians were recorded annually by the Nusquan medicae.

The planet uses remotely transmitted power to distribute the energy. Useufl tech, although with obvious cooked avian dangers



Page 140

..then we were clear of the tunnel, flinging ourselves aside to allow our companions a clear shot.
The results were devastating. Magot had flicked her lasgun to full auto, and the troopers under her command had either followed her lead or been instructed to do so: a hail of fire scoured the tunnel, supplemented by a blast or two from Jurgen’s melta for good measure. When the noise ceased, the passageway resembled nothing so much as a butcher’s slab, the deadly organisms which had pursued us so relentlessly ripped apart by the merciless barrage as effectively as they’d threatened to do to us

Effect of lasgun full auto barrage from a squad of troopers and Jurgan's melta. If we knew how many termagants there were (except there's probably more than two and more than Cain's bunch, suggesting maybe ten or more) and how many Jurgen took down, we might be able to calc this.
Assuming Jurgen takes down half with his melta (figure a couple square meters area of effect) and the crew take 4-5 apart (10,000 sq cm apiece) at 50 J per sq cm it would be 2-3 MJ at least for burns alone. If its 400 j per sq cm (4th degree burns, which woud flay flehs from bone as I've mentioned countless times) we're talking 16-24 MJ. Assuming they drain the powerpacks and 60 shot packs for every squad member (plus 30 for Cain's gun) it works out to 3.2 kj at least per shot, and up to 38 kj per shot. Again, single or double digit kj, but this one is less reliable because of the assumptions made




Page 144

If I was reading it correctly, the pump control chamber was only a ceiling’s thickness above our heads.
..
...my aide replied, aiming the melta upwards and pulling the trigger, while the rest of our party took cover beneath the workbenches. The actinic glare I’d become so familiar with since he’d acquired his favourite toy punched through my tightly closed eyelids, the backwash of heat singed the hair in my nostrils, and charred debris clattered and pinged off the gleaming metal surfaces above our heads.
..
He fired again, then coughed, in evident satisfaction.
..
.. looking up at the hole above our heads. The edges were still almost molten, but cooling fast, hastened by a blast of frigid air which could only be coming from the surface.
..
Despite the cooling effect of the breeze from the surface, the edges of the hole were almost too hot to touch, but that was the least of my worries. If we didn’t move fast, we were going to get a great deal hotter before long, and no one hesitated before jumping off from the much-abused benches, trusting to our gloves and heavy greatcoats to keep us from burning as we swarmed up through the hole.

Two melta bursts to get through ceiling. wide enough for people to climb out. ASsuming melting, and a 10-20 cm thick ceiling of 50% silicon and a half metre or so diameter we get betwee 46 and 100 kg roguhly. ASsuming ~2 mJ to melt it we get 90-200 MJ, which would be 50-100 MJ per shot. Of course if its not completely melted through (which it might not) then the calc degrades depending on actual percentage melted (EG 30% metled would be be 30-70 MJ total, for 15-35 MJ per shot.)
also Valhallan gloves and coats protect against the residual heat from the hole made by Jurgen's melta. Which means they probably would have some insulating/protective qualitis at least from extreme thermal effects (which would be useful in cases of things like.. Caves of Ice perhaps? ) Useful property, actually. Would come in handy in NBC enviroments.



Page 145

The ’nids had finally succeeded in forcing the door of the workshop; a moment later the first termagant scrambled up through it, raising its fleshborer as it came. Before it could fire, a volley of lasgun rounds tore it to pieces, but within seconds the riddled corpse had been shoved aside by another, and another after that as the newcomer met the same fate.

Squad volley of lasgun fire 'tears apart' Termagant, although it probably either was only partial (upper body blasted ti pieces/shredded) or it was figurative because there's still a sort of corpse.
figure half a MJ or so to at least inflict burns over whole body. If we figure single shots its 50 kj per shot. If its a 'burst' of 3-4 shots (per second) figure 12-17 kj per shot.
If we assume 20x30 cm on both sides for torso at 400 j per sq cm to 'shred'. we also get 480 kj, which in similar assumptions gets to be 48 kj for a single shot, and 12-16 kj per shot for barrage. Figure double digit kj (maybe) for lasgun shot.



Page 153

Wanting to know as much as possible about the environment I’d be entering in a few moments time I’d requested a map of the cave system, which Kasteen had transmitted to my data-slate..

Cain's data slate has map data transmitted to it from Kasteen.



Page 153

The Nusquan Chimeras were fitted with multi-lasers in their turrets, rather than the heavy bolters favoured by the Valhallans, and their powercells would swiftly become depleted without the engines running to recharge them.

The Nusquam Regiment has chimeras, suggesting at least part of the regiment is mechanised, if not all of it. Also multilaser powercells can be recharged by the tank engines, which is rather useful. One imagines that Chimeras (or other armoured vehicles) might be able to recharge lasguns or other lasweapons (or be designed to charge them.)



Page 153

Tracked vehicles with wide treads, particularly suited to the kind of conditions prevailing on an iceworld. In the absence of a road network, which would have been impossible to keep clear in any case, they were the primary means of transport on Nusquam Fundimentibus.

heavy cargo crawlers. Local transport.



Page 154

"Nothing moving on the auspex," the pilot told us, although that was only of limited reassurance where tyranids were concerned, their ability to evade detection almost second to none. "No visible signs of life either."

PDF Valkyries have auspex.



PAge 161

"Hydroponics," Kasteen explained, as I reported what I’d seen for the benefit of the approaching platoon, and the analysts back in Primadelving. "We grow most of our food like that on Valhalla too."
...
Water being a great deal easier to obtain on a world covered in ice than soil would have been

Valhallans and other ice worlds seem to be big on hydroponics to support themselves. Considering Valhalla probably has a population in the billions (or tens of billions, given its regimental tithing of greater than 50 million a year) that says alot methinks if they can feed most or all of their population.



Page 166

...Grifen said, consulting her own slate..
...
Kasteen presumably having passed on the details Cain requested to the squad leader too, unless he did this himself

Squad leaders have dataslates, and like Cain's can have data transmitted to them remotely just like Cain's. We know from other novels they can share at least some of the other features (like tactical updates being transmitted, alongside other data) and I imagine they may also be able to do the visual recording/capture/transmission thing the commissarial dataslates from Cain's Last Stand had.



Page 167

Our only chance of surviving the next few minutes was to avoid the notice of the hive mind altogether, which was a chancy proposition at the best of times; although I’d managed the trick on a few occasions before...
...
Generally while accompanied by Jurgen, whose ability to neutralise psychic phenomena apparently disrupted the synaptic link between the various organisms of a swarm equally effectively.

Jurgan's abilities seem to by now be confirmed to work against Tyranids, whereas before it was more conjectural than fact.



Page 168

Forres corrected, interrupting herself with the harsh bark of a bolt pistol, exactly the sidearm I’d have expected her to choose. Loud, ostentatious, and making a spectacular mess of its target, a lot of commissars favour them because they think they’re more intimidating although I’ve found the solidly reliable laspistol far better suited to service in the field. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve recharged it on the fly, when I’d have been long out of ammunition for a projectile weapon.
..
Which is why so many orks find this kind of weapon appealing, of course, although I suspect few members of the Commissariat would thank you for the comparison.

Cain and amberley's opinion of Commissars with bolters. Basically bolters are for show and psychologicla impact more than effectiveeness (though they are effective) but lasweapons are generally more practical and reliable. And easily recharged. Pity the Guard as a whole doesn't embrace this philosohpy to a greater degree.



Page 171

"...and aim for the large ones every chance you get. If we can disrupt the swarm we might have a chance."
...
It’s not always true that the largest creatures in a tyranid swarm are the ones through which the hive mind focuses its control of those around it, but it’s a good enough rule of thumb to be trusted by troopers who’ve fought tyranids before and managed to survive the encounter.

I imagine this references things like Zoanthropes and such, but its also possible it indicates that Tyranids don't always make their synapse creatures quite so obvious. They can be sneaky after all. And are adaptable.



Page 180

"Jurgen and Magot can drive Chimeras."
..
"The problem is that these heaps of scrap aren’t going anywhere, however many drivers we’ve got."
..
"We’ll have to get out through the main door, and hope our pilot can pick us up from the open ground before the ’nids get too close." Unfortunately, the Valkyrie which had brought us here was now providing air cover for the retreating Valhallans, if the transmissions I’d been monitoring in my comm-bead were anything to go by, and it would take several minutes to disengage, circle round, land, and embark us..

Valkyries can, at least in emergencies, carry several squads (or nearly full squads, plus Cain and Jurgen IIRC there were over a dozen of the other regiment, and seven or eight of Grifen's squad.)



PAge 181

A second or so later, Forres, not wanting to be outdone, blew another apart with a shot from her toy bolter..

bolter round 'blows apart' 'nid.


Page 184

.. the termagants scuttling off in search of a place to hide, while the hormagaunts began devouring the carrion which littered the gruesomely-stained ice.

hormaguants actually eating, indicating they're perhaps the more independent operation rather than the 'combat specialized' forms.



Page 185

"Powercells are charged, and the weather looks fair"

Cargo crawlers are battery/fuel cell powered. Presumably the type from before



Page 189

Technically, the Valkyries were armed transports rather than dedicated weapon platforms, like the Vendetta variant, but more than capable of carrying out a seek and destroy mission against unarmoured infantry nevertheless

Or Vultures. Although I woudlnt call Valkyries lightly armed by any stretch of the imagination. They can be as well armed (or better) Than Chimeras after all.


Page 200

"Except that every ork they consume makes the whole swarm stronger," Kasteen pointed out, "not to mention their own casualties. Trying to use the ’nids against the orks is about as sensible as trying to hide a scorch mark in the hearthrug by burning the house down."
...
Which makes her considerably more far-sighted than Inquisitor Kryptmann, whose attempt to pull off the same trick on a galactic scale left an unholy mess for the Ordo Xenos to sort out.

Amberley and her cohorts don't seem too fond of Kryptmann's little strategy of pitting Orks off Nid, which may suggest the Nids won that little engagement, and it caused more problems than it solved for the Ordo Xenos. Meaning Kryptmann is a bit of an asshole it would seem.
Anyhow, it demonstrates the futility of trying to out-attrition the 'Nids or trying to pit one race against the 'Nids. Although presenting them with multiple targets is still better than nothing I suppose.



Page 202

"Preliminary analysis of the specimens found by Commissar Cain, and the depth of the ice around them, would suggest that they were frozen approximately seven thousand years ago. Assuming a relatively even rate of ice formation, of course."
"Long before the planet was colonised."

Much longer it seems. This isn't the first time we've heard of Tyranids in the galaxy before the 41st Millenium. Hive fleet Colossus (probably the Zoats), Ouroborous, Tiamat, etc. Whether an advanced scouting/infiltration force,



Page 203

"What we really need is some way of predicting which sites are most at risk of attack."
"Magos?"
..
"We are working on a predictive algorithm," the tech-priest assured her, "but the variables involved are both numerous and difficult to calculate."

AdMech can attempt to make predictions about enemy based on data. One imagines this was behind things like the analyticae in Titanicus.



Page 204

"You’re surely not suggesting these creatures got in through the lava flow?" Clothilde asked, incredulity ringing in her voice. "They’d be burned to a crisp."
"They would," I agreed, the memory of the swarm advancing across the narrow isthmus of rock surrounded by magma to attack Hell’s Edge still uncomfortably vivid, "if they fell in. But I’ve seen them withstand incredible temperatures. And some of them can squeeze through gaps far too narrow for a human."

Tyranids cannot endure direct contact with lava of course, but they can endure proximity to it pretty damn well.



Page 208-209

these were dispatched as quickly and enthusiastically as one might wish, and their cadavers incinerated to ensure that the tyranids would be permanently deprived of the resources they contained.

Burning organic matter to deny Tyranids resources.


PAge 215

"They used to tell us all about you at the schola progenium," she said. "Making you out to be some kind of ideal we should aspire to."
..
"So when I met you in person," Forres ploughed on, "I suppose I was a bit disappointed. You just seemed a bit..."
"Human?" I suggested, and she nodded gravely. "We all are," I said. "Guardsmen, PDF, civilians..." I broke off, to nod a courteous greeting to Izembard. "Even him, although he wouldn’t thank you for saying so. That’s what makes us strong, and assures us of victory."

Given Cain's status as a hero, and the way they use him for propoganda purposes, its small wonder they would want to encourage more Commissars to emulate him (thus providing more propoganda victories.) Again it shows how practical and psychological the Commissariat can be. I actually kind of liked bits like this with Cain dealign with the 'newbie' commissar, but its a pity because they never played it up as much as they could have. One of the good bits of Cain's Last Stand was his interactions with his pupils for that very reason, and it could have worked here.



Page 235

We’ve only had three convoys attacked so far, and the escorts drove them off easily enough, but that’s how the hive mind works; every failure will have taught it a little more about our weapons and tactics, and it’ll refine its strategy until it comes up with one that succeeds.

Tyranid adaptability. THey're not terribly good at the proactive stuff of course, but they're damn good at reactive adaptation to circumstances. And quite often they have the resources to pull this off.


Page 245

"We’ve got ground shocks, incoming," she told me, the shiver of excitement at the prospect of action I’d learned to dread not quite suppressed in her clipped, professional tones. "Reads like a burrower."
..
"but it looks like it’s alone at any rate."

Chimeras apparently have seismic sensors of some kind, to detect burrowers of various types. Given shit like mole mortars, termite digging transports, and burrower nids.. sounds like a wise idea.



Page 245

A moment later, something huge reared up beyond the window, thick plates of chitin encasing a serpentine body a couple of metres or more thick, before a head like a daemon’s nightmare smashed into the glaze.

Trygon I believe.



Page 248

"Jek, Rowen, check it out," Shambas ordered..
..
..the detached squadron (she mentions a third Sentinel, so either Cain forgot the name of one of the pilots, or they were so used to working together it wasn’t necessary to issue specific orders to him or her

It seems the Valhallan sentinels have gone to 4 unit squads, meaning they may have up to 12 now.


Page 248

Though Sulla appears to have been in overall command throughout the engagement, the 597th’s Sentinel troop was attached to 3rd Company, along with the other specialised units; so, on paper at least, wasn’t under her direct authority. Even if it had been, Sentinel pilots have a well-deserved reputation in the Imperial Guard for acting on their own initiative without reference to the command structure, so Shambas’s display of independent thought here is far from untypical.

Sentinels are part of the 'support' company. And again comment on their typical indepdendent mindsets and initiative.



Page 252

Shambas reacted instantly, directing power to the walker’s legs, and it leapt clear, kicking back at the ’nid’s malformed snout as it did so, in a spectacular display of piloting skill, the equal of which I’ve seldom seen before or since. The Sentinel landed a few metres away, and staggered, gyros whining hysterically as Shambas fought to regain its balance.

Sentinels it seems can 'jump' although landing is another story.



Page 256

..she favoured us with her presence, possibly attracted back inside by the smell of fresh tanna one of the troopers had just drawn from a samovar in the corner next to the weapon rack.
..
A common modification to Valhallan vehicles, although their use on the move is not without hazard.

A common Valhallan adaptation for morale purposes, obviously



Page 256

"Everyone on the snowliner with a portable vox has been talking non-stop about the way you killed that burrower single-handed."

I guess this is the 40K equivallent of people having cell phones. It does demonstrate that vox/communications devices can come in all manner of forms, which has implications for the Guard of course.



Page 258

Wherever I looked, someone seemed to be pointing an imagifer at me, and I even had to duck on a couple of occasions as lens-toting cyberskulls swooped at my head.

Press cyberskulls



Page 260-261

"How do you suggest we get our hands on the shuttles?" I asked at last, clutching at straws. ‘If the Administratum’s blocking access..."
"They can’t," Sulla told me, clearly carried away with her own cleverness. "They’ve already recorded their deployment as part of a Guard operation. So we just tell them they were right all along, and the shuttles are part of our regimental assets."
"They’ve also listed them as destroyed in the crash," I pointed out, sure she’d have an answer for that one too, and intrigued enough in spite of myself to wonder what it might be. "How do you account for them being back in operation?"
"Salvage," she said, with a perfectly straight face. "But we probably won’t have to: military operational requirements automatically overrule Administratum protocols."
..
Much to the irritation of generations of scribes and codicers, who are thereby obliged to amend cherished inventories, often to something resembling objective reality.

A bit on IG logistics, the munitorum/administratum bureacracy, and the 'alternate' means by which regiments acquire the shit they need to prosecute war. The interesting thing here is that 'salvage' is a legitimate military reason for acquisition, and the military (sensibly) overrides the Administratum in military matters (although not the Munitorum, and in the end they amount to the same thing.) All the better because the bureaucratic inertia lists them as lost afer having been assigned to the regiment, they can be attached as regimental assets (at least for the short term.) Which has all sorts of uses, if properly and imaginatively applied.
Amberley also comments why the Munitorum/Adminsitratum are generally dicks about logistics: THE LEDGERS MUST BE PROTECTED. Which leads to fuckups like Vraks of course but try telling them that...



Page 264-265

"We’ve still got about eighty per cent of the civilians to get out from underfoot."
"Which means we can clear the lot in about five hundred flights per shuttle," I said, "if we modify the cargo holds with temporary flooring to create a couple of extra decks."
...
"Five hundred flights?"
..
"But there are shuttles at the orbital docks too, dozens of them. Sulla’s requisitioning those as well."
..
"Once the modifications are complete, on all the shuttles, we can maybe lift around a hundred thousand a day."
..
"Four to five days,"

Not quite sure the math adds up. The population was some 3 million, so unless they had already evacuated the bulk of it so less than a million were left, 80% would be 2.4 million. And allowing for modifications, 500 flights would accomodate 4800 per flight. If there were 'only' 500 thousand that would be 800-1000 per flight, allowing for modifications, and the extra shuttles requisitioned (Again the IG requisitions assets it needs up to and including shuttles and other aerial craft.)



Page 275

The Nusquans bore the brunt of it, retreating cavern by cavern from the lower levels, and sealing the tunnels behind them wherever they could; but the tyranids were relentless, boring new passageways as soon as the old ones were closed, and altering their tactics with every fresh assault.

Again Tyranids demonstrate they are quire reactively adaptable.


Page 278

A stylised cometary fragment appeared in the display, on an intersecting orbit with the looming bulk of Nusquam Fundumentibus, and duly collided with it. A few mountain ranges fell over, an impact crater appeared, and gigatonnes of vaporised slush rose up to enshroud the whole globe. When it cleared, the geography was more or less as I remembered it from the picts in the briefing slate.
"The asteroid" ’ I said. "You were trying to work out whether the ’nids got here before or after it hit."
..
"So far as we can tell, they arrived at exactly the same time as the impact event."
"They hitched a lift on a comet?"
..
"There was no comet," I said, the whole thing suddenly making sense to me. "It was a bioship, which crashed here, just like we did. Only at a much steeper angle."
..
"Which means we’re sitting right on top of it,"
"A fragment, at least,"
..
"And from the increasing cohesion of the swarm we’ve observed recently, it’s safe to assume that it’s regenerating."
"The missing orks," I said, with horrified understanding. "The swarm’s been feeding it all this time."

Bioship survived (in part at least) collison with a planet gigatonnes of slush implies 2 billion tonnes at least (2e12 kg) If we assume its melted thats e 1e18 J. Vaporized would be like 5e18 J at least, which gives an idea of what 'destroyed' the bioship, I suppose. Although the fact it wasn't completely vaporized and 'merely' broke up says a great deal despite the scale of the impact implied. Which is, honestly impressive as fuck.



PAge 279

"The bioship fragment must be at least a kilometre beneath the lowest level of the city, and the only access to it would be along the tunnels bored by the tyranids themselves. We can infer that the system is extensive, but beyond that we have no way of telling which connect to the hive node, which to other destinations, and which have simply been left by a burrower moving from one place to another."

Apparently the 'fragment' is at least a km below the surface of the planet, and that doesnt include the city buildup and the underground structures (however deep they run.)



Page 280

"We’ll just have to pray that the task force or the Space Marines arrive before it can call in any reinforcements, and bombard the site from orbit."
"That may not be enough," Izembard said. "Even a concentrated lance barrage would be unlikely to damage a target buried so deeply."
..
.. at least we’d be spared having to break it to Clothilde that the Navy were about to start using her precious capital for a spot of target practice..

Presumably they refer to tactical strikes, rather than 'fuck up the planet' scale firepower (EG Exterminatus bombardment.) We dont preicsely know how deeply its buried or protected, but its implied that it would devastate the entire city. And we still dont know how many ships either soo..



Page 290

..one of the tracked cycles I’d noticed up on the surface came roaring towards us, apparently just as much at home on the paved surfaces of the city as among the snowfields above. Instead of the garish colours of the civilian machines I’d seen before, it had been painted in the arctic camo scheme the Chimeras were sporting, and a pennant waving from the vox antenna behind the driver carried a Nusquan unit patch. Evidently they had rough riders somewhere in their SO&E...
..
The popular image of these units is of cavalry, and the vast majority of rough rider units do, of course, use horses or other riding beasts to great effect: horses are at home in terrain no vehicle can tackle, are self-fuelling in many environments instead of relying on the proximity of a promethium supply, and are able to replace their own losses to some extent. Some regiments do use light all-terrain vehicles instead, however, particularly those from iceworlds or other environments where the raising of livestock is less than practical.

Some Rough Rider forces are motorised/motorcycle rather than horses or other living creatures. Which has its own sets of advantages and drawbacks, but its kinda neat all told.


Page 295-296

The cycles surrounding us had forward-facing lasguns built into the front fairings...
..
..his desire to emulate the rough riders, all of whom were supplementing the built-in firepower of their bikes with laspistols, apparently quenched for now. Nothing else could have kept up with us, my aide cheerfully pushing the highly-tuned engine to its limits as he always did, but the cycles remained locked in formation, the riders grinning like orks, apparently relishing the sensation of breakneck speed just as much as he did.

The same way Space Marine bikes have twin forward facing bolters, the IG 'rough riders' have twin forward facing lasguns. Also they seem as fast as Jurgen's scout salamander, suggesting 70-100 km/h speeds.



Page 297

...crouched for cover in the lee of a battered-looking Chimera, which had been parked at an angle in the archway to form a crude but effective barricade. Its power plant seemed still to be working, as the multi-laser in its turret continued to reap a rich harvest from among the scuttling abominations....

Again Chimera multilaser recharged by chimera powerplant, whcih is a useful ability.

[Kuja]

Hasn't Chapter Serfs being failed Aspirants always been part of the lore?

I recall reading in Grey Hunter that the Space Wolves use volunteers.

Wolves are something of an odd man out in that regard. In addition to the usual mortality rates amongst aspirants from the brutality of the trials, the instabilities of the Canis Helix mean that failed candidates more or less universally die or become wulfen if they fail the transition to full-blown space marine. The chapter doesn't even have scouts - Blood Claws, their youngest, are already full space marines.

[andrewgpaul]

Part 2
Page 256

..she favoured us with her presence, possibly attracted back inside by the smell of fresh tanna one of the troopers had just drawn from a samovar in the corner next to the weapon rack.
..
A common modification to Valhallan vehicles, although their use on the move is not without hazard.

A common Valhallan adaptation for morale purposes, obviously

Also a feature on all British tanks and other armoured vehicles since WW2.

[Connor MacLeod]

So last cain book for the immediate future. Greater Good. Despite the name the Tau don't really feature all that prominently in the book.. its more a continuation of the Reclaimers and the Tyranid sub-threads, being tied together at last. not really sure what else to say about that, except I can kind of understand why White Rabbit always felt the Cain novels were growing repeititve (I still like them, though,. its just not much new you can say by this point)

Two part update,


Page 7

Although the tau empire is currently co-operating with the Imperium in a joint campaign against the tyranid hive fleets, they can hardly be considered reliable allies, given their notorious opportunism and their obsessive pursuit of the so-called ‘Greater Good.’ Which, let us be clear, would be rather more accurately translated into Gothic as ‘the Greater Good of the Tau, and the warp take the rest.’ I leave drawing any parallel with our own attitude towards the arrangement to those more cynical than I.

There's an alliance between the tau an the Imperium (or at least a truce) in the face of the Tyranids. Which is interesting because neither side trusts the other fully, and it obviously hasn't stopped the tau from continuing to try and grab Imperial worlds when they can (Taros, the world in this book, etc.) To my knowledge the Imperium hasn't launched any current crusades against the Tau (being too busy with the Tyranids) so the aggression comes purely from the Tau side of things (repeatedly.) Amazing what the Greater Good can justify, innit?



Page 9

Tau skin shades actually vary as much as human ones, though the majority appear somewhere in a range between pale grey and an even paler cerulean, a result of the role cobalt seems to play in their metabolism. Anyone interested in the physiological details can find more than they would ever wish to know in Magos Gandermak’s pioneering paper Some Preliminary Conclusions Concerning the Haematology of the Tau, Imperial Journal of Xenobiology, Vol. MMMCCXXIX, Number 8897, pp 346 - 892, Rasmussen’s Tentative Results of the Analysis of Tau Haemoglobin Free of Obvious Methodological Errors, Vol. MMMCCXXIX, Number 8899, pp 473 - 857, and the ensuing century and a half of increasingly acrimonious correspondence with the editor.

Comment on tau physiology again. Not sure how viable 'cobalt' in the blood is,a nd to what extent, but meh. Warp solves everything, or the Imperium just doesnt knwo what the fuck it stalkinga bout in this case. Heck, the whole bibliography sorta exudes that 'I know I'm not wrong, but I prboably am anyhow' with the 'free of obvious methodolgoical errors' and the infighting resulting Heck, I quoted the passage in full partly because of that hilarious part.



Page 10

Which were more than likely to include a firing squad for cowardice and incompetence, at least so far as he was concerned. Hardly fair, given that he’d hung on grimly in the face of overwhelming odds for months; but someone would have to take the blame for the fiasco, and it certainly wasn’t going to be the morons from the Munitorum who’d sent the Guard in under-strength and under-equipped in the first place.

Ramifications of a withdrawl from their current battleground (planet that is) against the tau - at least for the General/officers charged with persecuting the campaign. Unsurprisingly, we learn that no matter what sort of unbalanced situation they're thrown into, or how poorly supported/supplied they are, the Munitorum makes no excuses or allowances for failure. And the only thing that may possibly save you is politics (meaning that in many cases, the people who will be spared this are the people you never wanted in charge to begin with because they're well-connected morons.) The general in this case is just lucky he'd drawn Cain rather than someone more execution-happy.



Page 11

I was sure Zyvan was doing his best to get a proper relief force together, but the tyranid hive fleets had been striking ever deeper into the heart of the Imperium over the past few years, and all too many of our resources were being diverted to contain them; the promised reinforcements could take months to arrive, if they even got here at all.

AGain, the Imperium is currently so focused on the Tyranids in Segmentum Ultima/Eastern Fringe that they cannot commit serious forces to deal with the tau. Although with the aforementioned 'alliance', there's as much reason for them to leave the tau alive (or any other alien empire in that region) alive as an additional buffer against hte 'Nids. Interesting is that the delay in relief being 'months' seems to stem directly from that - clearly they have to put more time and effort into scraping together troops, because they don't have any readily available.
On the other hand, there was the bit in the 5th edition codex where tithing levels were upped to 20% because of Tau incursions, so they can't be *that* thinly stretched....



PAge 12

An Imperial Guard staging world, where many of the campaigns Cain was involved in over the course of his career were planned and the forces for them assembled.

Coronus. Described in the previous book as the munitorum version of a forge world. Whether its an industrial world (we know they have some of those under their aegis as per FFG like Solomon from 'Disciples of the Dark Gods' which is an industrial/administrative/transhipping point for the Munitorum in Calixis, which seems to fit here.), or a Garrison world (mentioned in the 3rd/4th edition codexes as being adminsitered by the Guard, or Fortress worlds (like Cadia), or armoury/depot/supply worlds (like Vraks.) we dont' know. It could even be one or more of those, and its probably that Corounus is a Munitorum owned owrld.



Page 13

So the appearance in orbit a fortnight later of a fleet of tau ‘merchantmen’...
...
Despite Cain’s clear cynicism, that is indeed how the tau themselves refer to their larger capital ships, which combine as much cargo space as a dedicated Imperial troop transport with the firepower of a battleship. An uncomfortable combination in planetary assaults, to say the least, although, as the Navy like to say, at least the defenders get to concentrate their fire against fewer targets.

Tau starships. Whilst we know there are dedicated warships (EG Taros), this seems to be referring to their earlier (BFG era) starships which were sort of combined merchant and military ships. I dont know if Amberley is referring to battleships literally (and if she means all classes, or just specific classes like the Hero or their battleship analogues) but it has fairly impressive implications both in terms of firepower and cargo capacity. However, it doesnt tell us about other capabilities (durability, mobility, etc.) so its possible those advantages come at some sort of sacrifice - Damocles Gulf, Fire Warrior, and similar novels have indicated that Imperial ships are, generally, tougher than their tau counterparts.
It also indicates the Tau are still making extensive use of their 'older' designs, which corresponds to the idea from various sources that their 'newer', and more dedicated warship designs are still relatively rare.



Page 14

Not all the red was due to the sunset either; hab blocks were ablaze in a dozen places throughout the beleaguered city. Unfortunately the firestorms hampered our movements as much as the tau, if not more so: the xenos were able to hop about in their anti-gravitic vehicles pretty much as they wished, instead of having to grind their way along laboriously cleared routes like our Chimeras and Leman Russ were forced to do, only to end up in the middle of an ambush as like as not.

Advantages the tau antigrav vehicles have over Imperial tracked. Mind you, there can be disadvantages in other cases (line of sight/elevation, and the differences in durability/reliability. The tau generally have more reliable and hsorter supply lines due to a combination of circumstances, which offsets the problems the Imperial Guard must cope with.) To be fair this may also apply to 'cityfighting', and tanks in general have been noted to be at a disadvantage there due to buildings impeding speed and range.



Page 14

.. given Quadravidia’s value to the Imperium as a transport hub, cities on the ground were less important than the orbital docks above them. Which, in turn, meant that they were built beneath the footprints of structures in geostationary orbit which, by definition, were positioned above a point on the equator.

Important economic worlds may be major transport and shipment points both for people (those who can afford/permitted to travel) as well as cargo. It also tends to mean more extensive orbital infrastructure, suggesting many people probably do not travel to the ground (At least in Damocles Gulf region.) From a security standpoint there is lots of reasons to do this.



Page 17

Quadravidia will be a familiar destination for most seasoned travellers in and around the Damocles Gulf, since it has the great good fortune to be situated at the confluence of no fewer than four warp currents of unusual swiftness and stability. Unsurprisingly, therefore, this is a world, or, to be more precise, an entire planetary system, which tends to be passed through rather than visited. Indeed, it is quite possible to transfer between vessels aboard one of the many orbital docks and void stations which ring it about without ever setting foot on the planet at all.

I'm not sure if having four warp routes is unusual, or just the nature of the routes. CErtainly having four warp routes contributes to its importance, suggesting that's not a 'typical' number of warp routes, although how common or rare we can only guess at. And again comment about the orbital infrasturcture vs planetary.




PAge 18-19

For the most part, what the tau gained by subterfuge or the force of arms they kept, although the Imperium made them pay a heavy price, and were even able to claim some notable successes of their own, such as the reclamation of Gravalax in 931.
Had the forces of the Emperor been able to concentrate their full might on the upstart usurpers, things would have been very different of course, but the last quarter of M41 was riven with conflict on every front. To the ever-present menace of the orks and the fell designs of the Traitor Legions was added the gradual awakening of the necrons, who began to attack human outposts in ever-increasing numbers, while the eldar continued their piractical raids seemingly at will. Perhaps fortunately the tau, too, were beginning to fall foul of these enemies and others more and more frequently as their sphere of influence expanded, preventing them from engaging in an all-out invasion of Imperial space.

Meaning that overall in the current situation, the tau have benefitted largely by the Imperiums' distraction with other, bigger threats (Tyranids, Chaos, etc.) as mentioned. although one can hardly say that they've expanded massively. That may be partly because they cannot expand beyond their ability to defend those worlds - both from the Imperium, as well as other threats (many of them the same as the Imperium faces, like the Tyranids.) That the Tau's own problems with extenral threats has hampered their expansion woudl bear this out.




PAge 23

..while we took off in a completely different direction, plasma bolts boiling the rockcrete where we would have been if Jurgen hadn’t swung us about.

Tau pulse carbines, I believe We dont know how much rockcrete is boiled (if literally so.) if we assume 2-3 cm diameter (similar assumption for lasbolts) we're probably talking 10-20 grams of rock affected. IIRC we're talking 3-4 MJ per kg for boiling we're talking between 30 kj and 80 kj per pulse. Such is mostly thermal damage, althoug hif its sufficiently fast (and there is some vaporization) you might get a steam explosion


Page 23

Then a solid armour-piercing projectile slammed right through the passenger compartment, punching holes in both sides I could have pushed my fist through.
"One of them’s got a rail rifle!"

Rail rifle projectile size. Not sure I can estimate it more than the fact it overpenetrates A Salamander like a motherfucker. This is the battlesuit version, I believe, although it might also be a pathfinder variant.

PAge 24

The tau had a definite edge when it came to long-range shooting, but they had no stomach for getting up close and personal, while the Guard had no such qualms. In fact the death worlders making up the majority of the garrison here seemed to prefer it, wading in with bayonet and lasrifle butt at every opportunity, their ork hide capes swirling about them with almost as much ferocious energy as if they were still attached to their original owners. Which didn’t mean they fought with all the finesse and tactical sense of Khornate berserkers; quite the contrary. Where they came from, survival meant using their wits as well as their weapons.
..
From the aptly-named Settler’s Bane, a planet teeming with inimical life forms among which the tribes of feral orks rate no higher than a minor nuisance.

Tau advantages and disadvantages. In theory this would suggest they're better in open fields and flat locations where they can take advatnages of sight lines. Whereas in built up areas (urban fighting, jungle/forests, etc.) the IG would be better. Theoeretically at least, since there are alot of other factors (EG tau are better suiting at night fighting becuase they more often have NVG, while the Guard may or may not have it depending on if it was standard kit from their homeworld, and the logistics/supply lines they have access to or are permitted to have. Or if they scrounge them.)
Also mention of a deathworld which may be worse than Catachan (although we've never seen Orks on Catachan IIRC.)



Page 26

Their preferred tactic when faced with a static defensive position was always to surround it, relying on the superior range and firepower of their weapons to wear down the defenders. The bloody business of actually taking an objective they preferred to palm off on their kroot vassals which I could hardly blame them for, especially as the kroot seem to enjoy that kind of thing.
..
A common misapprehension among Imperial citizens, who generally consider the relationship between the kroot, demiurg, and other races incorporated into the Tau Empire, and the tau themselves as something akin to that of the gretchin among orks: slaves or servants to do the dirty work their masters are unwilling to sully their hands with. In fact both the tau and their client races, which, let us not forget, includes a disturbingly high number of renegade humans, seem to consider them as equals; albeit the tau are clearly a little more equal than any of the others.

Tau tactics again. It reflects their dislike of static fighting, taking/holding territory, etc. (unless they use their auxiliaries to do it.) Mind you, I dont think the tau have seen some static defenses like we've known the Imperium to have - hive worlds, fortresses like Coranitorum, etc. Something with shields and such.
Also comment about how the Imperium misunderstands the relationship between the tau and their auxiliaries (assuming that the tau would treat 'inferiors' the same way the Imperium does, specifically.) Which isn't the case. The tau tend to treat their auxiliaries rather well (as long as they uphold the Greater good and a tau-centric way of life) but it would also be fair to say the tau tend to draw more benefit from the relationship than the auxiliary (how many humans or kroot do you see with fire warrior gear?)



Page 27

Then the breath seemed to solidify in my lungs, as the dancing ray of light picked out a cluster of vaguely humaniform figures, more than twice the height of a man. Dreadnoughts, or the tau equivalent at any rate: just as heavily armed as their Imperial counterparts, and a lot more manoeuvrable.

Tau battlesuits. As powerful as dreadnoughts, whilst far more mobile.



Page 28-29

"They’ve got railguns."
...
We both knew the hypervelocity projectiles would punch through the reinforced ferrocrete of the bunker like Jurgen through a meringue, and with an equal amount of scattered debris.

This tends to suggest they aren't crisis suits but Broadsides, although I think Cain confuses the two. Railguns defined as hypervelocity weapons.



Page 40

"Fortunately their vox intercepts had made them aware of your presence somewhere among the Imperial forces, and the on-board cogitator of the battlesuit you encountered had instructions to look for an officer who matched the facial features of an old pict from Gravalax."

Battlesuits have computer systems and facial recognition software. That would be rather useful actually, as it enables them to recognize/identify people who may be of value to their enemies. In this case, identify Cain (and prevent him from being killed.) This can be useful for identifying people to capture/kill or (as in this casE) identify people for diplomatic purposes. Presumably the recognition can extend to vehicles, equipment and other stuff.
What's more, with the tau's ability to share data (EG from fire warrior) they can distribute such info to the battlesuits.


Page 40-41

. I had fewer qualms about venturing into the stronghold of the foe than I normally would, as, by and large, the tau can be trusted to observe the terms of a truce; they’re devious little buggers right enough, but hoisting a white flag to lure you into a crossfire doesn’t sit well with them...
...
There are, indeed, few if any instances on record of out and out treachery by the tau in their dealings with other races, although they’re not above a little self-serving confusion about the exact terms of whatever arrangement has been come to.

Cain trusts the tau not to betray their word. Bear in mind this may be open to 'interpretation' and what their word means (the ambiguity amberley refers to) as we know from this book the Imperium supposedly has a truce and yet still tries to claim Imperial worlds. And of course there are all the tau tactics used against the Imperium or imperial held worlds in FFG. Oh and Kill Team, they tried to trick the Imperium there too, so deception at least under certain cases isnt' ruled out.



Page 41

The tau who specialise in diplomacy and administrative tasks, maintaining social cohesion within the Tau Empire, and overseeing the smooth integration of conquered species. The closest Imperial equivalent would be a cross between the Administratum and the Ecclesiarchy, although the caste’s responsibilities and remit go far beyond anything which that would imply, touching almost every aspect of life among the septs.

Comparison of Tau Water Caste to comparable Imperial institutions. Frankly I'd liken the Ethereals to the Ecclesiarchy, since the Water caste seems to be more administrative and trade. Oh and spy/subterfuge/insurrection.



Page 41

Word of the tau invasion had spread quickly, and the dozens of civilian vessels which would normally have arrived or departed each day changed their routes to avoid the Quadravidia system. Their new paths through the warp were, of course, far slower, and the resulting economic disruption was to continue rippling through the sector for over a decade.

A implied significant world would have 'dozens' of daily ship arrivals and departures. Also an indication of just how inter-dependent and closely tied worlds within a sector can be - the slightest deviation in trade routes or such (due to war, etc.) can have severe long term economic consequnces.



Page 50

"It’s a big empire," she said, failing to take offence, and provoking the first genuine smile from me; but I suppose most of its denizens must have been ignorant of just how small and insignificant the tau holdings were compared to the scale of the Imperium, or they would never have dared to challenge us in the first place.
..
A matter of some debate among the xenopsychologists of the Ordo Xenos, some of whom hold to Cain’s opinion, while others assert that the upper echelons of the tau are perfectly aware of the vast disparity between our two powers, but remain convinced of their ultimate victory regardless. Quite why any would be so deluded as to think that is beyond me, but it’s certainly true that most denizens of their empire have a faith in the Greater Good no less strong than our own in His Divine Majesty.

Cain is talking to a human auxiliary of the tau, raised for decades/centuries under their auspices, and the auxiliary seems to have no idea of the true scope of the Imperium relative to the scope of the Tau Empire. This isn't the first time we've encountered this (Fire Warrior in Kill Team ignorant of the scope of Imperial Hive worlds), or examples of the tau's ignorance of Imperial capabilities (EG Kais in Fire Warrior not knowing about Titans.) That is not to say that the tau as a whole are ignorant of the scope of the Imperium (some aren't as we've seen) but they're not wholly aware of it either. AS far as the 'debate' as to which opinion is right, its probably a bit of both, depending on who you're talking about. Some are (as I mentioned) ignorant, whilst those who are aware, probably either under-estimate the Imperium, or are so convinced of their manifest destiny that they consider it irrelevant. As Amberley notes, the tau devotion ot the Greater Good borders on the religious (much more than humans worship the Imperium, in fact, since true faith is comparatively rare in the Imperium, whilst the tau who throw off the Greater good is small to nonexistent in comparison.)



Page 51

..the softly glowing hololith display suspended in the air, but the image inside it was crystal sharp, instead of wavering like the ones I was used to, and the edges formed a perfect sphere, instead of hazing away in a diffuse blob. It took me a moment to pick out the projection unit from among the other mechanica ranged about the room, as there was no sign of the tangle of power cables and optical links I would have expected, nor of any tech-priests ministering to it. The hololiths I was used to needed constant adjustment, anointing, and the occasional devotional kick to remain focused.

Fundamental differences between tau and Imperial hololiths Tau ones obviously lack the little distinctive things that give Imperial stuff its 'charm' (like having to whack it to make it work, although given the warp this could very well be the human equivalent of 'red ones go faster')




Page 52

"I gather there are humans under arms among the empire’s forces, just as there are vespid, kroot, and others, but they wouldn’t be deployed against the Imperium."
..
"They call themselves Facilitators."
..
"They move in after a world’s been annexed, helping what’s left of the local authorities to rebuild the infrastructure, and nudging everything towards promoting the idea of the Greater Good."
...
Not entirely true, but such clashes are rare, and confined almost exclusively to Imperial invasions of tau worlds with a substantial human element among the population.

The role of the 'facilitators', auxiliaries (in this case, human, although other kinds would not be unheard of) who seem to assist the Water Caste in co-opting a culture towards the tau way of thinking. The last bit is an amberley comment pertaining to the first part about 'humans under arms' in the tau empire. Which is.. probably more or less true, although I wouldn't rule out exceptions.



Page 53

"El’hassai." I said, the sixty years since I’d last seen the tau diplomat falling away like so many days the moment I got a clear sight of him.

Meaning he is considerably older.. possibly seventy or eighty. Given the tau lifespan is something on the order of forty years and rarely exceeds that.. he's positively ancient by now. Its not impossible for the tau to exceed that lifespan, but the factors going into how and why it happens when it does aren't known. It may very well be that life-extension technologies are extensively restricted in the tau empire. (Assuming they have them to begin with.) or it may be something else entirely.




Page 55

My mind flashed back to the burning, dying thing I’d glimpsed in the midst of the eruption on Nusquam Fundumentibus, where we’d been forced to sacrifice an entire city to kill a crippled cousin of this monstrous thing; that had seemed huge enough, and I’d seen only a fraction of its mass.

A (tiny) fragment of a bioship required city-killing firepower to destroy. Full scale ones are, arguably (at least by cain's POV) much tougher to kill. The funny thing is, most Tyranid ships are actually inferior in durability and capability to Imperial warships (cf: Behemoth and other examples where tau vastly outnumber Imperial starships.)



PAge 55-56

"This is the last transmission from an exploration vessel, lost in the Coreward Marches a little less than two cyr ago."
"About eighteen months," Donali murmured, for the benefit of those of us unfamiliar with the tau calendar. "Twenty at the most."

A Tau 'cyr' being 9-10 months, closer to 10, going by the Tau codex. Technically it was tau'cyr. And it was listed as 297 Terran days.


PAge 56

..these are essentially self-guided torpedoes, just large enough to hold a databank, a gravitic drive, and a machine spirit to pilot it; lacking astropaths, this is the only way for exploration vessels to remain in contact with their home worlds, other than taking full-sized courier ships along for the ride.

courier drones. Gravitic drives are used for FTL (the gravitic sail IIRC.)


Page 57

"last kai’rotaa–"
" About two months back"

Slightly less.. about 50 days.


Page 60

"So they’re just going to pack up and leave," Braddick said, not bothering to hide his scepticism. "After all the effort they’ve made to take the place?"
"The tau are nothing if not pragmatists." Zyvan said. "There’s no point in them expending any more resources to hang on here, if doing so costs them three other worlds lost to the ’nids."
"Who would then be strong enough to devour Quadravidia whoever holds on to it."

Which is true as well. If they could have taken the planet and held it against the Tyranids (or Imperium) without risk, they would of course do so. But they won't take the risk that in trying to take the planet they leave themselves exposed elsewhere, especially if they have to expend more resources fighitng the Imperium for it as well as the Tyranids (the tau know better than to get into multiple fights if they can avoid it.)



Page 61

"‘Because His Excellency the governor is a self-obsessed, inbred imbecile, who can’t see the trap for the honey,"
..
"What sort of reparations?’"
..
"Assistance with the reconstruction effort," I told him. "Resources, expertise and civilian advisors to coordinate everything with the Administratum and the Adeptus Mechanicus."
"Preaching subversion and heresy the whole time, no doubt."

Probably yet another reason they're abandoning overt military action to take the planet. At this point, military action is not practical or efficient, but diplomatic/economic 'warfare' could achieve similar ends, especialyl given the ruthlessness of the Water Caste in such situations. Tau be sneaky. At least the Imperium is aware of it this time.


Page 61-62

A world on the Imperial side of the border flared crimson, indicating the presence of an Adeptus Mechanicus holding. "Fecundia provides half the arms and ammunition in the sector."
..
An exaggeration, but a pardonable one; it certainly manufactured a high proportion of the materiel used by Imperial Guard units in and around the Gulf, including lasguns, powercells, and most common variants of the Leman Russ.

Importance of a forge world to the Sector. Not exactly an Armageddon or Mars, but still pretty important.



Page 62

"Let the Mechanicus defend the forge world themselves."
"If they had anything there capable of it, we would,"
..
"‘One company of skitarii and that’s about it. No Titans, no militia. Why would they waste resources on their own defence when they know the Guard need them so much they’ll step in at the first sign of a threat?"
"How very efficient of them,"
...
..I felt a certain sneaking regard for the cogboys, who’d been astute enough to realise that the steady stream of Imperial Guard units putting in to resupply there already gave them all the protection they needed; at least under normal circumstances.

Its 'logical' of course, but certainly atypical for the AdMech. Usually they rely on their own native forces for defence because of the importance they place on their sovereignty and such. Relying on the Guard would allow them to infringe upon that. Not impossible of course, we've known of worlds (EG Titanicus and the Ghosts novels, or Fire Warrior) where some forge world or 'forge world' like industrial world under AdMech auspices had a significant imperial presence (civilian and military.)
Also like Coranus, the Forge World seems to have a fairly steady influx of Guard regiments seeking resupply. This is interesting as it suggests the forge World also doubles as a 'armoury/depot' world, wich has been suggested by a number of sources (including the Munitorum manual) making places like Vraks less important if not redundant. (of course vraks being redundant would be hardly surprising, the Munitorum is first and foremost a creature of bureacracy, and Vraks strikes me as the sort of place a bureaucrat would find a good idea.)
Of course this being on the doorstep of the tau empire, with the Tyranids breathing down their necks... tends not to make that the most brilliant of ideas either, given how thinly stretched the Guard is here even at the best of times.

Page 63

..only a handful of so-called merchantmen orbiting the war-ravaged world. El’hassai, of course, insisted that they were only there to deliver humanitarian cargoes to help with the relief effort, and that their formidable armaments had been deactivated. For all I knew, he was right; the locals could certainly do with all the relief they could get. Of course, it was going to come with a heavy price tag if I was any judge..

Tau demonstrate their general humanitrarian-ness (which the Imperium is willing to accept, interestingly enough) which also gives them an outlet for subversion and spying via the water caste (the 'price tag'.) As I said, the tau are sneaky and their skill at this kind of conquest is tremendous.


Page 64

In fact, the tau appear to have no psykers of any kind among them, although there is much speculation among the Ordo Xenos as to whether or not the Ethereal caste’s ability to inspire and lead might be an entirely natural phenomenon, or have something of the warp about it in a manner not yet evident or explained. Similar doubts exist about the other races associated with the tau, although the question remains a little less clear cut; and surely only the most optimistic could believe that the humans in the tau empire are entirely free of taint, those afflicted undoubtedly being encouraged to use their curses in the name of the ‘Greater Good’.

Page 69

WELCOME TO FECUNDIA!
A Tithe Worker’s Survival Guide
Also available in auditory and direct inload formatting.
Blessings of the Omnissiah be upon you for choosing to dedicate your life to the fabrication of His bounty.
(Please omit the preceding benediction if directed into such service by the Magistratum of your home world.)

An AdMech 'welcome' guide to the forge world. The direct inload format is interesting (MIU impulse version of an audio book, although they have audio formats as well.) The bit about 'omitting the benediction' for criminlas is (to me) amusing as fuck.


Page 70

Fecundia is a forge world, consecrated to the service of the Machine God, and every manufactory is a temple to His greatness. The manufactoria themselves cover approximately thirty-eight per cent of the total surface area, while ancillary facilities such as habitation clusters, protein synthesis units and atmospheric reclamators account for a further seventeen.
As a result, adequate nutrition and air sufficiently devoid of particulates to be barely carcinogenic are freely available in all work and leisure spaces, although augmetic upgrades to both digestive and respiratory systems are recommended for all long-term residents. (Your supervisor will be happy to explain the procedure for repaying the cost of such enhancements.)
Exposure to the unregulated environment is not recommended, and should be restricted to the briefest possible time, unless a full-body upgrade has been obtained. (Average redemption time for this enhancement 285,000 production hours.) Short-term exposure is survivable for the unmodified, provided full protective clothing is worn; in such a case it is essential to check joints and seals periodically for signs of corrosion.

details of the forge world in question. 38% covered in industrial shit, living space and 'life support' elements 17%. So little over half the surface area is 'aritficial' in one way or another. Its not neccesarily 'solid' cover coruscant style, mind.
Also the AdMehc here is a firm believer in the 'company store' approach to worker management it seems.



Page 70

The uninhabited areas are composed of ash desert, acid lakes, spoil ridges, and three mineralogical extraction plants. Since most indigenous resources have been consumed, recovery efforts are under way on the remaining planetary bodies and most large asteroids. Preliminary processing of extraplanetary resources is conducted in the orbital refineries, before the raw materials are delivered to the surface by direct ballistic insertion; the recovery of these payloads from the landing grounds is a job highly sought after, since every hour spent on the surface is considered to be three for the purposes of production hour computation, and many vacancies are currently available in this area.

Suggesting that in the 6 or 7 thousand years the place has existed its exhausted 'most' of its resource. Earth has about ~1e21 kg (5% of the total crust mass) in iron estimated. If we figure over half that has een used, we're talking e20 kg in over 5000 years. Which is around e16-e17 kg annually. Thats just an estimate. I'd guess tens or hundreds of millions of tons of fossil fuels annually (based on EArth.) as well. In any case, they're to the point where they rely more on orbital resource recovery (asteorids and such) to supplement their supplies. Despite the uplifting tone they put on it it seems quite dangerous (huge chunks of metal hitting the planet at hyper-velocities? yeah right.) which is small wonder why there are vacancies.
Assuming they sling the debris to the planet at 10-20 km/s or so, and we go with the estimated annual usage, we're talking e22-e25 joules at least annually expended, depending on exact mass and velocity assumed.



page 71
..above the hive zones, each one of which sprawled for hundreds of kilometres in every direction.
...
[Amberley] He seems to be drawing no distinction between the manufactoria themselves and the adjoining habs; which, to be fair, were so intermingled it was hard to tell where the dividing lines were in any case.
..
[Amberley] Terraforming efforts [for Fecundia] had begun in M35, with the establishment of an atmosphere, which rapidly became all but unbreathable as the business of plundering the world’s resources had begun in earnest.[/quote]
last bit from the 'welcome guide' to the forge world, plus Cain and amberley quotes about the forge world itself. Size of the estimated hab/hive zones, although amberley seems to think Cain might be conflating the manufacturing and residential areas. Also the planet has been terraformed to ane xtent (so they have some terraforming technology.. or at least they did severl thousand years back) and the place has been around for nearly 7000 years.



Page 72

"Our fabricatories are less… profligate with their usage of energy," El’hassai said, a little prissily,

Meaning they don't pollute the shit out of planets they occupy. They also don't infest them like vermin (aka hive cities.)



Page 72

"There’s about twenty billion people down there." I corrected him. "Even if half of them are mostly metal. And probably twice that number of servitors. More than enough biomass to make an attack worth their while."
..
Actually three or four times would have been a more accurate guess.

Population breakdown of Fecundia. Having 3-4 times as many servitors makes sense, although it suggests the planet has more of a hive world type populace (at least for production purposes.) Going by the Ravenor estimate of servitors doing the work of 20 people with no sleep shifts (which if it isn't factored into the 'work of 20 people' they could actually do the work of anywhere form 30 to 60 people, depending on how many hours per 'shift' they worked. I figured between 8 and 16 hours. In any case, that leads to the 60-80 billion servitor population doing the same work as 1.2-1.6 trillion people at least. Which is pretty freaking scary, as that would suggest orders of magnitude greater industrial output than modern Earth (at a guess.)



Page 72

.. I strongly suspected that most of the vessels we could see were actually cargo haulers, feeding the insatiable appetites of the furnaces below with raw materials or carrying away the spoils of their labour to half a hundred worlds...
...
Though Fecundia’s strategic value to the Imperium was predicated on its prodigious output of munitions, it produced a great many non-military commodities too; hardly a world in the sector was without ground vehicles produced there, and the chemical fertilisers made alongside the military explosives (often utilising the same reaction chambers) were all that made food production possible on three neighbouring agri-worlds of otherwise marginal fertility.

Fecundia's nonmilitary exports, more extensive and wide ranging than its military ones apparently (half the sector for military, the whole sector dependent upon nonmilitary stuff.)
Also the chemical fertilizers and military explosives use similar 'chambers' to produce, which probably has implications about military explosives.
Also implies between 50-100 or more worlds in the sector, depending on whether the 'carry away the spoils' is the military or nonmilitary. If its military it could even be more than 100, since 'half' was consideredb y amberley an overestimate.




Page 73

Of more immediate concern were the troop ships carrying the Imperial Guard contingent, which should have made orbit by now, and begun ferrying soldiers to the surface ready to begin fortifying the hives.
...
..we had barely enough manpower to protect even one of the population centres below, let alone all of them...

The Imperium brought enough soldiers that would 'barely' be enough to protect a single hive, but not all fo them. We dont know how many hives though.


Page 74

.. tau and human hearing appear to be in a broadly similar range, although the average tau seem deaf to the higher frequencies while capable of distinguishing sounds most humans would perceive merely as uncomfortable vibration. Which probably accounts for their lamentable taste in music.

Tau vs human hearing.



Page 75

.. like a reef, the hive had accreted gradually, by the actions of uncountable individuals, over thousands of years. Eventually, it would wither and die, the resources it had been put here to plunder exhausted, and the Mechanicus would uproot themselves and begin again on some other lump of rock unfortunate enough to possess something they wanted.
..
By this time their prospection fleet had, in fact, identified five other worlds in the sector suitable for exploitation, and begun preliminary work on two of them, estimating that they would become fully-functioning forge worlds by the end of the first century of M43.

This suggests that the AdMech simply make then abandon forge worlds as it goes.. whic his odd frankly because they've never done this with any of thei rother forge worlds. Alternately it suggests industrial worlds might become forges over time as they exhaust their resources (the same way civilised worlds or other worlds can become hives as resources get exhausted.) which would make a bit more sense. Although we know the Adminsitratum is perfectly happy (as is the AdMech) stripping planets bare and then abandoning them.
Anyhow the other three were held by the tau, the orks (and too troublesome to cleanse in both cases) and one was in the path of Hive Fleet Kraken.


Page 80

Like most of the skitarii I’d come across in the course of my erratic progress around the galaxy, he looked more like a heavily-augmented ogryn than anything human, his musculature bulging with chemical enhancement and interlaced with bionics.

Skitarii described. Sounds alot more like the Titanicus/Mechanicum version really. Chemical and bionice enhancement.


Page 81

"Then take it out!" I ordered, with an eye on the chin-turreted multilaser beneath the cockpit.

Zyvan's personal shuttle is armed.



Page 84

Given their relatively slight stature it’s no surprise that tau, on average, are somewhat weaker than humans, but, as in so many other respects, it’s never wise to underestimate their resolve or tenacity in a crisis.

Tau are less strong than humans, generally, but its not an absolute it would seem.


Page 85

A second later, twin plasma bolts streaked from their pulse rifles, impacting squarely on the rogue servitor.
...
.. the Adeptus Mechanicus having done the job of building the thing rather too well. The construct staggered under the barrage – which, I noted with approval, Jurgen was adding to with the dogged determination I’d become so familiar with over the course of our long association – then recovered, attempting to raise the fused stump of its autocannon once again as it recovered its balance.

TAu pulse rifles in action again. Seem to fuse an autocannon, at least partially. In FFG terms autocannon weigh ~40 kg. Assuming iron, we're talking ~50 MJ to melt the whole thing. If only 10-30% is melted, we're talking between 5-16 MJ, or 2.5-8 MJ per bolt.


Page 87

With sixty-odd kilos of xenos weighing me down..
..
Not a bad estimate, if the combat armour is also taken into account.

Assuming it weighs something like 10-15 kg (carapace to flak roughly) we might figure between 45-50 kilos for a Fire Warrior.


page 87

..hacking hopefully at the construct’s exposed innards on the backstroke. The tau weapons might not have stopped it, but they’d cracked its shell like a cooked crustacean.

suggesting there is some mechanical damage effect form pulse rounds, possibly steam explosion.


Page 90

"The flat side of the casing will adhere by molecular bonding if you activate the upper control, the pad at the end of the cable adheres if you activate the lower"
...
I slapped the flat side of the little box against the underside of the shuttl.... ....and squeezed the button El’hassai had indicated. To my vague surprise, it held.
..
As it most certainly should; a molecular bond effectively makes both components a part of the same object.

Some sort of tau extendable cord/cable thing used to anchor fire warriors to something for 'hands free' use. The cord carrier (the casing) has molecular bonding that adheres to any surface (part of the same object, according to Amberley). Pretty nifty.



Page 94

"I’m the Lord-bloody-General of the Rimward Sectors, and I don’t wait for anyone. They wait for me!"

Which is interestig as it suggests Zyvan is responsible not just for the Gulf sector, but the surrounding sectors as well. Lord General (militants) usually are only a sector level appointment.



Page 94-95

Any exchange of fire with the skitarii would have been suicidal, of course, they were all augmented to the gills, and I had no doubt that the hellguns they carried were the least of the lethal surprises they kept about their persons. Moreover, they were hardwired for combat, and would probably open fire purely by reflex the moment they felt threatened.
..
..trusting in the authority of his position to protect him, the skitarii’s neural programming would interpret the movement as a hostile act, and they’d open fire..

More Skitarii abilities, this time referring to reflexes and potential combat augmentations




Page 97

retty much everyone in the room was wearing some shade of the colour, apart from a couple in white, and I wondered briefly if the subtle variations in hue were signifiers of status in some way.
..
A tradition still stubbornly maintained by a handful of tech-priests, who claim it predates the russet generally favoured by the priesthood of Mars. It seems likely that this unconventional attire is meant to display the wearer’s position on one or other of the countless doctrinal disputes continually raging among the disciples of the Omnissiah, although what these may be is utterly opaque to outsiders, and unlikely to matter to anyone but the participants.

Probably a retcon fo some kind but it ties in nicely with the Schism stuff established in Titanicus as well. Different colors reflecting different factions and such.



Page 100

After all, if Fecundia fell, the tau would be able to rampage unopposed across half the Gulf, assuming there was anything left of it after the ’nids had finished.

Again suggesting the importance of the Forge world to resisting tau expansion in the Damocles Gulf sector.



PAge 101

...once we had thirty thousand heavily armed Guardsmen stationed on planet, I was pretty sure our view would prevail.

PAge 101

"If I read these icons correctly, only a third of them are warships."
..
"the majority are troop carriers. They’ll be returning to Coronus as soon as the Imperial Guard units have disembarked. But the Navy assures me that we have sufficient firepower among the warships to see off a hive ship or two."
...
"Battlefleet Damocles is fully aware of the threat, and moving to meet it"
...
"Three flotillas and a battlegroup are on course to rendezvous at Quadravidia, ready to intercept the main tyranid advance in deep space as soon as its course is reliably determined."

Implied scope of battlefleet Damocles at least. We dont know what a flotilla is, typically its another name for as quadron (even though certain people have argued flotillas could be bigger, eg Xenos) we could get 6-9 cruisers, or 9-18 escorts, plus however many in a battlegroup. Figure at least a handful with the transports already. And you might have a good 30-40 ships at least.


Page 101

"If I read the data correctly, however, this rendezvous will not take place until between five and thirty-seven days after the hive fleet’s closest approach to Fecundia"

Implying a variation of around 1-8x difference in travel speed, at least, although that only measures time after the fleet reaches a certian point so..



Page 102

"The Navy will, of course, be making continuous auspex sweeps, but tyranid spores are notoriously hard to detect in small numbers. Any advice you could give on enhancing the sensitivity of our instruments would be gratefully received."
..
"I will make the appropriate arrangements."

AdMech once again making modifications to gear when situation warrants it (BLESSING OF THE OMNISSIAH) and the difficulty in detecting 'Nid spores.



Page 102

"The real problem’s the number of other ships in the sky," Zyvan said. "Every auspex in the fleet is being clogged up with thousands of returns. We need to close the system to civilian traffic for the duration of the emergency."
..
Like all forge worlds, Fecundia was continually surrounded by a swarm of freighters bringing in food and raw materials, and carrying away the products manufactured there. Zyvan may have been exaggerating the number of civilian vessels present, but not by much; shipping records for the time show an average of six to eight hundred arrivals and departures a day, while many more would be in orbit transferring cargo at the same time.

Implied number of merchant/transport ships in orbit around the planet. At least/average of 600-800 vessels arriving and leaving, but that obviously doesn't include those sitting in orbit, which could still allow for the 'thousands'. We know that major hive worlds (like Eustis Majoris in RAvenor for example) Had a similar scale of merchant traffic, after all.
It also means that the minimum merchant fleets avaialbe in the sector are on the high hundreds/low thousands, at least. Probably more towards thousands, since whilst important, the forge world will hardly be the only system visited by Imperial merchant ships.



Page 102

"We’re completely reliant on imported foodstuffs. Our protein synthesis plants can only provide enough nutrients for forty-seven per cent of the population."
..
"Nutritional intake for the general populace is precisely calculated to maintain the maximum level of health with the minimum expenditure of resources. Even a five per cent reduction will have noticeably deleterious effects, and reducing daily allowances to a level commensurate with equal distribution would starve everyone to death within a month."

Interdependency issues again. Fecundia cannot fully support its population's diet on its own resources - they need to import extra food. Which is a bit different from other places (EG LAthes in Calixis, which cultivated total independence even from food.) but then again Fecundia has a rather siable population which may affect things. Still even if they can barely feed half, thats better than many hive worlds.
Also, the AdMech's view on nutrition and feeding of its people - basically not unlike maintaining any other machine. And like everythign else, they seem to optimize to the point of minimal redundancy (such that slight deviation in feeding can have adverse effects.) Rationing is only possible in the short term as well.


PAge 106

At least the Death Korps seemed happy enough to rough it out in the wilderness, which would have killed more of the other regiments than the enemy, so they were out from underfoot, but the rest, a motley collection from over a dozen worlds...
..
Mostly from within the sector, although regiments from Brimlock, Elyssia and Valhalla were also present; including the 12th Field Artillery, the unit with which Cain had commenced his career..

Regiments deployed ot Fecundia. Given the variety, I'm suspecting they either got lumped into a segmentum reserve, or were part of a crusade that never returned to their native segmentum. Or mayb they just got allocated in a different sector for whatever reason. Anhyow a;ro



Page 106

..the bland diet of soylens viridians on which I was obliged to subsist for the most part wreaking predictable havoc on my digestion..
..
Consisting as it does mainly of reconstituted pulses, the consequences of relying on it as a staple become all too evident remarkably quickly, particularly in a confined space.

This confused me at first until I did more research and discovered here that 'pulse' refers to legumes (shit like beans, peanuts, and related stuff.) So it turns out that 'Soylens' Viridians a legume, and it never was 'corpse starch' like shit I had always assumed. Understandable mistake, given that the 'eating people' shit is not exactly uncommon in reference in 40K.



Page 110

"Some of the surface workers hunt them if the opportunity arises, but the consumption of animal tissue is a singularly inefficient way of ingesting nutrient."
...
"Soylens viridiens is far more convenient, and provides everything necessary for continuing good health."
..
"Except flavour," I said feelingly. "And texture."

AdMech care more about nutrition than flavor. Big shock.


PAge 118

"Three contubernia are stationed here at all times"
..
"Three squads," I said thoughtfully, translating the term into its Imperial Guard equivalent..
..
A near enough approximation, although the actual numbers might vary: combat servitors like the one Cain encountered on his initial arrival would sometimes be attached directly to the formation in place of a regular trooper, as would specialists with other useful skills.

Skiatrii terminolgy for thier squads, plus detachments.



Page 119

.. a small tractor scuttled across the hangar to attach itself to our shuttle’s nose, and began dragging us away into a corner...
...
Which implies that the landing skids had been mounted on wheels or gravitic repellers..

Antigrav repellers used in place of wheels.


Page 125

Our first volley checked the hideous creature’s rush and it faltered, staggering under the multiple impacts of Jurgen’s burst of automatic fire, to which my brief flurry of additional las-bolts added very little if I’m honest. Cauterised craters exploded across its thorax, raising a fine spray of ichor and pulverised chitin, which we were close enough to see wafting around its body like mist rising from an early morning swamp. It recovered fast though, jaws snapping, and leapt forwards again leaking rancid fluids through its cracked carapace..

Effect of lasfire on (I think) either hormagaunt or genestealer. Note asily calced, but notable for the obvious mechanical effets


Page 131

Cyber-Altered Task unit, a mobile mechanism built to carry out simple tasks; like a basic servitor, although their lack of organic components makes them far less versatile, and incapable of being programmed for anything other than their original purpose.

CATs make an appearace once again.


Page 134

Blood and less identifiable fluids were seeping through wide gashes in his body armour from wounds which would have felled a normal man, but he was still fighting fiercely, his heavily augmented body soaking up the kind of punishment only a Space Marine could normally have withstood.

skitarii durability.



Page 134

Roaring with rage, the fleshly parts of his face engorged and almost as red as his uniform, the skitarii seized both sides of the purestrain’s head between his hands and twisted. With a hideous ripping, crunching sound, remarkably similar to that produced by Jurgen and a plate of seafood, the ’stealer’s head came clean away from its body.

skitarii strength.



Page 135

His face was still contorted, even more marginally human than a soldier of the Adeptus Mechanicus normally looked, and I began to feel concerned for my own safety. He was out of his head on ’zerk, or something very like it, and probably in no fit state to distinguish friend from foe, or even care.
..
A combat drug designed to enhance strength and aggression, most commonly used by the penal legions; the long-term effects on unaugmented physiologies are deleterious in the extreme, but this isn’t considered a disadvantage where the troopers aren’t expected to survive more than a battle or two anyway

Skitarii use of combat drugs, inclduing dispenser. They probably can endure it better than penal troops tho.



Page 142

..opening fire on full auto, seemingly unworried by his rapidly-draining powerclip. And why would he be? If we didn’t bring the hideous killing machine down in the next few seconds, we’d be too dead to care about conserving ammo, and any we had saved would be of no further use to us anyway.

Lasgun on full auto implied to have a few second duration. Assuming 2-3 seconds and a 40-60 shot lsagun, we'r etlaking between 13 rounds a second adn 30 rounds a second,

[Connor MacLeod]

Part 2



Page 152

"Fortunately, we were able to source sufficient felons scheduled for harvesting for servitor components, and use those."

Servitors made from criminal/felon body bits. The amusing thing is that when the tau hears about using convicts for servitors (or in this case, genestealer testing) he seems shocked, although he say sthat the 'Greater good demands hard choices.'


Page 153

..like most Adeptus Astartes Chapters, the Reclaimers numbered around a thousand warriors, operating in company or smaller sized units, often isolated from the others for decades, or even centuries, at a time.

Deployment of Marines in Damocles Gulf region.



PAge 158-160

"Our research here is purely theoretical," Kildhar said, a trifle tetchily. "We’re attempting to refine our understanding of the tyranids’ genetic mutability, but that won’t make them any easier to shoot at."
...
"Our primary focus is on the mechanism by which the hive mind is able to maintain control of the swarm," Sholer said. "If we were able to disrupt that, depriving it of the ability to coordinate across a wide area, it would give us a significantly enhanced tactical advantage."
..
"But we believe we can identify some of the neural pathways involved."

Techpriests and Astartes Apothecaries engaging in 'heretical' research to discover a useful tool/weapon against the Hive Mind.


Page 163

..his voice held no hint of his initial impulse to turn the battleship’s lance batteries on the shrine from orbit, despite his insistence for most of our long and somewhat fraught conversation that it was the only way to be sure.
..
.. a clutch of their battle-brothers being vaporised along with everything else. Besides which, the shrine was a large and solid structure, which would probably take several volleys to level. We were just as likely to melt the ice with our first shot, and let the damn things loose ourselves.

Effect of orbital bombardment strike (inferred several shots) to facility and surrounding ice. CAn't really be calced since we dont know the size of the shrine.



Page 170

... that astropaths were little more than living vox-sets, capable of parroting anything dictated or shown to them. Only much later in my career, as I blundered my way into the upper echelons of the Imperial military, did I begin to apprehend the truth, that the crisply-worded dispatches and grainy pict feeds from outside whichever stellar system I happened to be desperate to vacate at the time had arrived in the form of fragmentary images and sensations in the mind of a sanctioned psyker, probably only marginally sane to begin with. Only after long and arduous processing could the original meaning be disentangled from whatever the astropath had first tried to transcribe, an undertaking which often involved the use of other sanctionites as filters, and which typically took far more time than the fluid situation in an active war zone could easily afford.

The interesting bit about this passage is that Astropaths (at least the ones Cain is familiar with) apparently do transmit visual as well as textual information. Which makes some sense, since they can SEE images, and its all just a form of symbolism... And they also conceal the origin of some of this data, for whatever reason.
Also astrotelepathy (at least over certain distances, one assumes) is not reliable enough to react to quickly changing battle field conditions. At least in Cain's opinion.



PAge 170-171

"What have you heard from the scout fleet?"
..
"Heard?" The darting tongue tasted the air again. "Nothing. Babble. Still being worked on. But we all felt it. The whole choir."
..
"Felt what?"
...
"Fear," Madrigel said, his dry whisper hanging in the air for several heartbeats. "The astropaths on the scout ships were all terrified."
...
"There are many echoes of pain and fear, the smell of blood and burning. We don’t have the details, but the fleet has been in combat."
...
“How about the survivors?” I asked. “They must have got away if they’re back outside the shadow.”
“Damaged,” the astropath said. “Wounded. Traumatised.”
It was hard to tell if he was talking about the ships, their crews, or both; members of his order tended to talk in metaphor half the time anyway, worse than ecclesiarchs. “Limping home to lick their wounds.”
..
"They’re heading here." I said, and Madrigel nodded.
"They are. We can feel the connection with the minds of our brethren growing stronger with each passing hour."

The ships must be at least anothers system away, or at least quite awhile away to be outside the Shadow, but the astropath can detect their minds/emotions. whether that is an astrotelepathic signal or just the detecting their minds we’re not sure, but it implies they’re in at least hourly, if not constant, contact either way. at least tens of thousands of c “detection” or communication.


Page 174

So Commodore Stocker dispersed the fleet. Not much, but with a mean separation of about fifty million kilometres. I told him it was a bad idea, but he wouldn’t listen.
..
: I thought it would be more prudent to keep the fleet close enough for the ships to be able to support one another with overlapping fire arcs. Captain Warka of the Hirundin agreed with me.
..
But the commodore didn’t?
...
He felt we’d stand a better chance of returning an auspex echo with the fleet dispersed. As soon as one vessel got a contact it was supposed to vox the others, and we’d all rendezvous around it.

Implied auspex range of tens of millions of kilometers, but the average separation for ships was 50 million km, and they were outside standard weapons range. Whether that includes torpedoes (and if they had torps) is another question.)



Page 179

The Death Korps were the exception, as in so many things, having lost scores of their number to a splinter fleet the year before, but, typically, were too heavily dosed up on combat drugs to care. As usual, the only thing that seemed to bother them was the prospect of not taking enough of the enemy with them when they fell.
..
For a Death Korps trooper, dying in action is a given; although the majority do try to put it off as long as possible, to be of the greatest service to the Emperor in the interim.

Between the use of combat drugs, and the desire to get the greatest service to the Emperor (before dying) - we can tell these arne't Vraksian Krieg. Meat Bags would not care whether they lived or died. Then again for all we know they do use the drugs on the meat droids as a means of dehumanising them.



Page 180

The only good news was the arrival of the battered remnants of the scout fleet, which reinforced our orbital defences a little, followed in short order by a steady stream of warships from all across the sector. Within a month Fecundia was surrounded by a hundred vessels..
..
Considerably more, if the defensive armament of the armada of merchant ships continually arriving and departing from the forge world is taken into account; although this would be so feeble against the might of a hive fleet Cain can be forgiven for apparently discounting it altogether.

Size of the battlefleet force dispatched tou counter the Tyranids. Lower limit on the warship count of the battlefleet, but since (as later mentioned) it includes only one battleship, its probably only part of the whole fleet (there would be at least another one if not two battleships. at the very least.) given that its unlikely they could completely abandon ALL other commitments.
It takes a month for ships to arrive across the sctor. We dont know where Fecundia is, but assuming its between 100-200 LY away at its farthest point (upper limit) we’re looking at only 1200-2400c speeds - thats not an exact value so much as an estimate, since speed and time depend as much on the routes as the ships and the distances involved.
Also, given the mention of thousands (or 600-800) merchant ships before, we might figure merchant ships have anywhere from 1/6 to 1/20th the firepower of warships of comparable size.


Page 182

The first time Cain mentions the class of ship Zyvan had set up his command centre aboard. If he’s being literal, rather than using ‘battleship’ as a colloquial term for an Imperial Navy vessel, it was probably the Retribution-class Throne Eternal, the only ship of its size involved in the defence of Fecundia.

Mention of one Retribution class in the armada, again suggesting this is not the sum total of Battlefleet Damocles. (In fact we know it probably isn’t, unless the Blade of Woe has been destroyed.) If Fire Warrior is in Damocles Gulf (reasonable assumption - Dolumar was on the fringes of Imperial and tau space in the vicinity of the Damocles Gulf crusade) we can add two more (The Enduring Blade and Purgatus from the Fire Warrior novelization), which would mean up to 4 battleships potentially known, probably with associated cruisers and escorts.




Page 184

The atmosphere in the hangar bay was markedly different from our last flight, however, the tiny utility craft awaiting us dwarfed by the Furies and Starhawks being fuelled and armed all around it.
..
Spaceborne interceptors and anti-ship attack boats respectively; both unlikely to be found aboard a Retribution-class battleship, so Zyvan’s flagship may have been one of the many cruiser class vessels among the fleet rather than the Throne Eternal after all. A ship so equipped may also have carried a complement of Shark-class assault boats..

Furies and starhawks. Retributions don’t have Hangers, so Amberley thinks that Cain may not have been literal about Zyvan’s ship being a battleship.



Page 185

Our departure was as straightforward as these things ever are, the deckplates on which the small vessel was parked falling away gently beneath us, seemingly in concert with the rising pitch of the engines. Slowly we began to move towards the gaping maw of the inner lock gates, the metre-thick slabs of metal grinding closed as we passed through them.

Hangar bay doors a metre thick.



Page 185

A squadron of Furies coasted past with flaring engines, one of the groups screening the flagship from enemy drones, and, glancing back, I could see a score or more others clamped to the hull, awaiting the call to action.
..
Which implies that the vessel, whatever it was, had no dedicated fighter hangars, and that the docking bay being used to arm those Cain saw inside may well have been used only for utility craft in the normal course of events: which in turn means that the flagship may have been the Throne Eternal after all. I give up

Once again.. Cain seems to imply to Amberley (who ceases to speculate) that the ship may actually be a Retribution. we’ll never know, probably. In any case, the interesting bit is that while the small hangar is sufficient to hold (and apparently service) furies despite not being a dedicated attack craft bay (‘squadron’ would imply anywhere from 10-20 craft IIRC) the ship has at least a score (and probably more) externally docked/adhered to the ship, not unlike the parasite ‘cobra’ battleships of Space fleet fame. Seems like a good stopgap/impromptu solution to give a ship that would not normally have attack craft some sort of attack craft capacity (at least fighters as a defensive screen.) Presumably other kinds of attack craft could be docked as well, which may suggest the ‘Cobra destroyer’ parasite scheme still persist in 40K. some attack craft in the fluff get to be nearly hte size of small starships (heck some dropships do!) after all.
Also, if there are a score on this side, there’s probably a score on the other side as well. Possibly more in the hangar as well.



Page 186

Occupied as I was in this futile endeavour, it took me a moment to realise that our pilot was throwing us around in a rather more violent manner than usual. Fortunately the Aquila’s internal gravity field was remaining steady, or Jurgen and I would have been flung against the bulkheads hard enough to have broken bones.

Aquila here for reference, has internal gravity. Damn, lots of craft in the Cain novels have internal gravity: thunderhawks, shuttles, etc. The Ultima Segmentum is supposed to be a freaking backwater for tech, clearly the Gulf is something of an exception. Probably also means the fighters have internal gravity as well
Also dampers are effective enough to prevent motions/accelerations which would ‘break bone’ we’re probably talking in excess of ten gees (not blacking out) but probably tens of gees or more, at least for brief periods.



Page 188

Most of the tyranid ships seemed relatively small, about the size of our destroyers or light cruisers..

Size of the bulk of the ‘Nid fleet. Escort size, in toher words, but they can at least build nid ships of similar displacement and size to Imperial ones. What ‘kind’ of destroyer and frigate is another question, as destroyer sizes can go from 500 metres and frigates can get upwards of 4 km depending on your source. the ‘average’ would probably be between 1-2 km though, as a safe bet.



Page 189

By now the first faint tendrils of the upper atmosphere were reaching up to claw at our hull, so even the internal gravitic compensators weren’t enough to prevent us from being shaken about.

Again, Cain’s shuttle has internal gravitics. Not just artificial gravity, but inertial damping of a sort.




Page 191

"We’re being sucked into the slipstream of the bioship,"
..
"I haven’t enough power left to break away clean."
"Why not?"
..
"Diverting most of it to the on-board gravitics," he explained, which was more than good enough for me. If he hadn’t been, Jurgen and I would have been little more than a stain on the bulkhead by this time.

the gravitics seem to be especially energy intensive, as the ship cannot ‘break away’ from the hive ship dragging them down. Whether this refers to some antigrav repulsors or if its inertial damping limitations we arne’t sure but I’m betting on the latter. The inertial dampers seem to be even omre effective, preventing Cain from being killed/pulverized against bulkheads (implying considerably greater accel compensation than even broken bones. Considering even a few gees would be, for a 40 ton shuttle would be in the double or triple digit gigawatt range for power output that says something (assuming 20 tons of reaction mass and a 1000 second endurance)



Page 192

..specially if we could pot a few with the Aquila’s autocannon..
.
An odd choice of weapon for a spacecraft, where the recoil would have to be compensated for by bursts from the manoeuvering thrusters with every shot: for which reason lascannon are more common on Navy craft. Presumably this particular one was generally employed on ship to surface runs, making defence within an atmosphere a higher priority, or had been dispatched by the Adeptus Mechanicus as a courtesy to Cain.

40 ton Aquila. If we assume 1-10 m/s for manouvering thrusters (at least) you get between 40,000 and 400,000 kg*m/s worth of recoil. In the case of the former, assuming a 5 kg projectile and (60-70 mm approximately) and a rate of fire of 600 rounds per minute (rather high for autocannon I’m aware of, at least the vehicle mounted variety) we’re talking 800 m/s to 8 km/s per shell. If we’re talking half a kilo to several kilos for the shell (40-50mm closer) we’re talking 2-8 km/s to 20-80 km/s. 16 MJ per second on the low end, to upwards of 16 gigajoules on the higher end. although to be fair that autocannon would have to be EM or electrothermal to pull that off (Very ET) since we’re talking extreme hypervelocity. It probably isn’t higher than 10-20 km/s all told, but evne that would be impressive (upwards of several GJ total easily.)
Lasers obviously have far less recoil. If we assume 1/10th to 1/100th the recoil you get between 400 and 4000 kg*m/s on the low end to 4000-40,000 kg*m/s on the high end. The laser cannon on the Aquila would thus be between 120 GJ and 1.2 TJ at least, and 1.2-12 TJ on the higher end.
The funny thing here is that this logic could apply to most other fighters/attack craft. we know Lightning, Marauder and Thunderbolts carry autocannons, so they would have some small fraction of that performance (say on the low end). A Lightning is 10 ton and has one autocannon, a Thunderbolt 14 tonnes and carries two and both can be adapted for space use. Assuming 1 m/s recoil but lower calibre autocannon (30-40mm, call it 300-400 grams) but keeping the 10 rounds per second you would get 2.5-3.3 km/s for the Lightning, whislt the Thunderbolt (with two twin autocannon) would have a much slower velcoity 875-1.17 km/s. 12-16 MJ per salvo for the Lightning and only 6-8 MJ for the thunderbolth, approximately (although I’d guess the Thunderbolt autocannon would be more powerful since its autocanon are unlikely to be significantly weaker and it has four of them) Holding similar performance for lascannon (100-1000 kg*m/s for Lightning, 140-1400 kg*m/s for thunderbolt) yields between 42 and 420 GJ for the twin lascannons on the thunderbolt, and 30-300 GJ for the Lightning’s twin lascannon. A fury, which can (IIRC) mass in excess of 100 tonnes, would have 1000-10,000 kg*m/s recoil for its four (or six, I forget) lascannon based on those similar assumptions is 300 GJ to 3 TJ at least, although it could easily be an OOM greater assuming the second assumptions I made with the aquila.



Page 196

I swept the lenses to left and right, and this time, far closer, was able to make out the unmistakable six-armed silhouettes of a small brood of genestealers, then, about a kilometre beyond them, the larger profile of a lictor, flickering like a badly-tuned pict-caster as its chameleonic skin attempted to mimic the constantly-changing clouds of dust blowing about it.

range of amplivisor.


Page 198

One of the gaunts lay twitching on the sand, part of its head ripped away by Jurgen’s las-bolt..

hormagaunt gets most of head blasted away by single lasbolt. Hormagaunts are severla times more massive and much tougher than humans (and perhaps better armoured than Orks) so I’m guessing again double digit kj here, at least (10+ kj) would be required.


PAge 198

Jurgen complied, chewing up its [hormagaunts] thorax with a quick burst of automatic fire, and the hideous thing stumbled and fell, leaving him well beyond the reach of its scything claws.

‘shredding’ thorax. Assuming a 30x30 cm area, and 30-50 j per sq cm flash burns (approximate) to cover thermal damage we’re talking at least 30-45 kj. If we go full out to 400 j per sq cm ‘flaying’ flash burns (explode flesh from bone or something like that we’re talking 350-400 kj roughly (actually 360 kj,but I’m being broader). Braodly call it double to triple digit kj for whatever a ‘quick burst’ is - presumably less than full auto and draining the powerpack at least.



Page 199

.. tyranid tactics tend to depend on overwhelming numbers. Typically, vanguard swarms are deployed in only a few locations, in an attempt to establish beachheads from which they can expand their depredations, while solitary scout organisms, most often lictors, are scattered more widely, in search of more potential targets for the following wave.

Amberley on Tyranid tactics.



Page 199

Each spore pod typically contains around twenty of the smaller organisms, although the number can be less, particularly in the case of larger creatures: lictors are generally deployed singly, for instance, as befits their role of solitary pathfinder, and carnifexes invariably so, given their bulk.

Spore pod capacities.



Page 205

..cracking off a couple of shots from the laspistol in my hand which struck the ghastly thing squarely in the middle of its armoured chest, leaving cauterised craters of vaporised chitin as visible evidence of my marksmanship, but either the thick plates protecting its thorax were holding, or I’d failed to hit anything vital behind them...

‘vaporised’ chitin. to punch craters in the chitin, which may or may not have penetrated. Literal vaporization is too hard (and people would probably complain anyhow) but I’d guess double digit kj for purely thermla and a several cm diameter crater. simply blasting it out (Luke Campbell blaster style) to a diameter of a few cm woudl eaisly be a couple kj for a single pulse. If it has any penetration it might reach several times that number per bolt, of course, althoug it obviously falls short of obvious penetration and doing serious harm, so it can’t be much greater than that (several times would be at most probably.)



Page 206

. Even for a marksman of his exceptional skill, the chances of felling a lictor with the small-arm alone were miniscule; we’d have needed a whole squad concentrating their fire to be certain of bringing something that size down with las-weapons.

Lictors rquire the firepower of an entire Guard squad’s lasguns to take down.



Page 206

..the tattered remains of the habitent,..
...
..while the fabric and memory polymer frame were still flapping about.

IG (or survival) hab tents involve memory materials.



Page 208

Jurgen had fired the melta, in the nick of time. I looked up to see the hideous creature toppling to the sand, a hole big enough to punch my fist through seared deep into its gut.

This represents the most tightly focused melta burst I can remember



Page 210

He braced the melta against a convenient stanchion, steadying the bulky weapon as best he could, and carefully laid his lasgun down next to it. Continuing to work methodically, he replaced the partially discharged power packs of both weapons with fresh ones..

Jurgen’s metla is not of the pyrum-petrol variety, unless Cain is treating ‘power pack’ very loosely, but rather the older type (microwave style) that ran off a battery. Those actually make more sense logistics wise, IMHO. At the very least they probably can be recharged.



Page 210

..followed my aide’s lead, snapping a fresh powercell into the butt of my laspistol..

powercell for cains laspistol is in the handgrip. That obviously puts ilmits on its size. It could be 10-15 cm ‘tall’ tops, 2, maybe 3 cm wide at most, and 4-5 cm ‘long’. Assuming between 10x1x4 and 15x3x5 as the range of dimensions we get 40 cubic cm to 225 cubic cm. at 1.25 kj per cubic cm that means between 50 and 281 kilojoules for the power pack. With 20-30 shots per pack (FFg/Inquisitor) on the low end and 80 (munitorum manual) on the other. At 80 that would be 625 joules to 3.51 kj per shot. At 20 its 2.5 to 14 kj per shot. At 30 its 1.67 to 9.37 kj per shot.
Max power (Storm of iron) woudl be 3-4 shots. would be 12.5-16.67 kj per shot to 70-94 kj on the high end.



PAge 210-211

After some internal debate I started the teeth spinning, on the lowest setting, partly so the characteristic keening wouldn’t be too loud, and partly to conserve the power, as I had no means of recharging it, nor time enough to do so..
..
Chainswords vary as much as any other device common throughout the Imperium: the model Cain favoured was a military design, built for ruggedness rather than aesthetics, with a powercell capable of being recharged in the field in the same manner as those of a lasgun. In an emergency it could be replaced by a fresh unit, but doing so would be both time consuming and require specialised tools; hardly an option under the circumstances.

Cain’s chainsword described here. Its guard issue, and like everything Guard issue its built to last and to be abused. It also runs on a battery that can be recharged, but is hard to replace without extra work. Considering chainswords rarely seem to need recharging after a perceived hours of use in the field, their weight, and the sorts of things they’ve been observed to cut through, I’m liable to think it sa damn powerful battery at that.



Page 212

The main advantage the melta had given us was flash-burning a handful of ’nids just outside the cone of destruction it wrought, setting fire to their spasming corpses instead of simply vaporising them. Now the scene was dimly lit by the flickering flames of their immolation,.

Advantages of a melta. Vaporizes nids in line of sight, those in proximity ‘merely’ take flash burns that ignite shit. Figure at least 2 vaporized in direct line of sight, and 2 each side (and back) The 2 in line of sight hav etheir full surface area affected (call it 20-30 thousands sq cm roughly) and the indirect ones only have one facing (10,000 sq cm) So 40-60,000 sq cm at 400 j per sq cm (fourth degree ‘flaying’ flash burns) and the others at 60,000 sq cm and 125 j per sq cm (ignites shit) 7.5 MJ for secondary effects and 16-24 MJ for primary. So thats at least 23-32 MJ for a melta. Of course if vaporization is ‘literal’ (and considering that ‘nids weigh more than humans) we’re talking vaporizing hundreds of kilos, which would be hundreds, if not thousands of megajoules


Page 212

..dropping the melta and seizing his lasgun."I’m dry." No point in even considering reloading, by the time he’d grabbed a fresh powercell from the storage pouch the survivors would have rolled right over us..

Again jurgen’s melta operates by powercell, no pyrum petrol shit.



Page 2130-214

..instead a blizzard of lasgun fire echoed across the dune field, and the leading gaunt was falling, almost cut in half by the hail of las-bolts.
..
Not all our rescuers were armed with lasguns, a fact which became clear when launched grenades and gouts of blazing promethium from a flamer began to fall among the milling hormagaunts, along with the withering barrage of las-fire which continued unabated.
..
Cain may be misremembering here, as most cavalry in the Imperial Guard carry laspistols as sidearms, but it’s also quite possible, given the harshness of conditions on the surface of Fecundia, and the difficulties of operating vehicles there which he’s already alluded to, that this squadron were acting as dragoons rather than cavalry per se, and were accordingly equipped like an infantry squad.

The unit is lead by a Ridemaster, which suggests its probably a squad (which is confirmed later). Hilariously enough the Ridemaster banters with Cain, proving yet again he's not a meat droid. He also has a name rather than a thirteen digit number. Amberley also mentions they may be 2 perhaps even 3 men short. Anyhow las-fire from less than a squad of Rough Riders nearly cuts a ‘nid’ in half. Figure at least single digit or double digit kj, but its really hard to approximate without knowing how many shots and how many guys firing and all that.



Page 219

I had no doubt my tight grip on the reins, and continual swaying as I tried to retain my balance, was affording the experienced horsemen around me enough amusement as it was. Fortunately the full-face masks they wore were enough to conceal their expressions, so we could all pretend to be dignified, but the contrast with their own relaxed postures was telling.

Definitely not meat droids. More like the Warriors of Ultramar krieg, coupled with gland warriors. I actually kinda like that depiction really. Especially as they have names and personalties, and still be all ‘fanatical siege warriors’



Page 221

...the lenses of his breather had polarised, like mine and everyone else’s, converting them into small, round mirrors..
...
..I took them, a little unsteadily, and raised them to my eyes, only to find that the breather’s lenses kept them too distant to focus.
..
Tyrie glanced back at me, in manifest disbelief, probably grateful that I couldn’t see his expression. "Magnification’s built in,"
..
..stuffing the amplivisor in a convenient pocket. After a few moments fumbling, I worked out how to manipulate the lenses of the breather, and the dune field in the middle distance suddenly expanded to fill my vision.
"Better adjust it back when you’re done," Tyrie counselled, "or you’ll be falling over your own feet when you dismount."

Well thats rather unexpected and neat. Krieger rebreathers have a magnification function built in. It may be something like the infrared lenses that can be inserted into Death Korps rebreather masks used by the Siege Engineers.



PAge 222

"Any sign of movement?" I asked, and Tyrie glanced at his portable auspex..
..
..tyranids weren’t that easy to detect at the best of times, and I doubted that Kildhar’s adjustments would have filtered their way down to individual pieces of field kit.
..
..but the auspex arrays of command posts and air defence units were being accorded the highest priority. [amberley again]

The Rough riders have auspex as well. Heck at this rate they might even have body armour (unlike Vraks)
Also command posts and their air defence utilise auspex as well.



PAge 222

By now we were close enough to make the thing out without the aid of the magnifiers, although that didn’t stop me from taking full advantage of the vision enhancement in any case.

Rebreather vision enhancement again. These Krieg are far and above better than the Forge World stuff.



Page 224

Which implies that none of the Death Korps had personal vox-beads. Though widely used, they’re far from ubiquitous among the Imperial Guard; the constant logistical challenge of keeping supplies flowing to the many areas of conflict around the Imperium often mean that there simply aren’t enough available to equip every line trooper, or even the commanders of every unit, while some regiments deliberately restrict their use to officers as part of their doctrine. In either event, riders would be a low priority for such items, as most of the time their long-range scouting role would keep them out of range of the other units in their regiment in any case.

Well I guess you can’t have everything. Amberley’s reasons for that make sense in the case of Rough Riders generally, although even short range comms would be useful to them for communicating with each other. In any case, Amberley’s comment is that micro beads aren’t used by EVERYONE due to logistics (which is consistent with what we know), and it makes some sense they might be restricted (in the sense we know some regiments are fucking morons.) but they’re still far from rare, and its worth noting that we’ve seen various means of personal communication (handheld, the portable voxes Hawke had in Storm of Iron, etc.) And micro beads can vary in quality as well.



Page 224

..I adjusted the breather’s inbuilt optics to maximum magnification,..
...
Fortunately the sun was perfectly angled to allow a shaft of light within, so I was spared the frustration of attempting to come to grips with whatever image enhancers might also have been installed in the mask’s eyepieces.

The masks have image enhancers, suggesting they’re far more sophisticated than some mechanical magnification (if you could make that work.)



Page 225

As I spoke I turned the horse’s head, and kicked it in the ribs, not far from where the thick tubes pumping nutrients and whatever else enabled it to survive out here into its bloodstream entered the skin.
...
A couple of horses fell, shrieking behind their breathing masks, until the chemical regulators shot them full of analgesics, and they stopped caring about the speckling of open wounds through which their lifeblood was leaking out into the thirsty sand.

The Krieg Horses also have chem enhancement. Which makes sense for pain suppression, keeping them calm, etc. I imagine the same would be applied to the troopers for similar reasons.



Page 225

..he spines arced through the air, bursting among the riders and fragmenting into a thousand razor-edged fragments which lacerated man and mount alike.

Presumably from the Mycetic spore, as its hinted from that. The spore also grows tentacles that can snap a Krieg horse's spine in half and drag it under to consume, to grow more spines.



Page 225

..A second or so later the familiar eye-stabbing flash, muted by the polarised lenses of the breather..
..
My horse flinched, and I braced myself, expecting it to shy or rear in panic, but it calmed itself at once, by virtue of its training and the cocktail of chemicals sluicing through its system.

Polarized lenses on the rebreather protect against melta flash, and the Krieg horses have chemically induced calm. the Polarizing lenses also cut down on other forms of glare (such as sunlight.)



Page 235

Tyrie and his death riders seemed unconcerned, their resolve being both bone deep and pharmacologically enhanced, but I noticed they kept their weapons to hand all the same.

Again, Death Riders seem to have drug-boosted capabilities. Not unlike gland warriors, only more expendable. Something like the Penal Legionnaire from Duty Calls in Amberley’s retinue.



PAge 236

"We adapted one of the dust harvesters.."
..
Mobile reclamation platforms, which sift the sand for trace minerals left by earlier generations of environmental pollution, or too scarce to have been worth the effort of mining conventionally in previous millennia.

AdMech reclamation/recycling technology. Not for cleaning up the world so much as for maximizing resource usage.



Page 237

"But evidently blessed by the Machine God nonetheless." After a moment’s puzzlement, I realised her augmented vision must have revealed the network of chemical injectors and other subcutaneous alterations common to a member of the Death Korps.

Again the Kriegers have drug enhancement apparatus, making them not unlike gland warriors in some respect. Between this and the image magnification stuff, these Krieg are far more than just mere cannon fodder, methinks. Although no less fanatical and inured to death of course.



PAge 258

"We’ve always thought of the tyranids as a single, unified threat, but there are some magos biologis who theorise that the different hive fleets compete for prey"
.,.
A view with many adherents among the Ordo Xenos, although far from universally accepted. Some even argue that if the tyranids were ever to succeed in devouring all other life in the galaxy, the hive fleets would fall just as readily on one another, until the ultimate survivor succeeded in absorbing all the available biomass into itself.

Its’ not a new concept. Battlefleet gothic had plenty of mention of individual hive fleets fighting each other, the victor consuming the vanquished. The advantages of this would be fairly obvious - not only do they gain the biomass of the other fleet, but they gain all its genetic information (adaptations, enhancements to troops, variations, etc) and the fighting between the two hive fleets also promotes further adapatation/evolution. When you have aliens who consider their troops to be ultimately expendable and as easily replaced as Tyranids can be, it can make alot of sense to induce darwinist competition like that.
That the ‘nids might consume each other after consuming the galaxy, also makes sense, for the above reasons.



Page 259

In our experience hormagaunts were little more than voracious appetites on legs, and I expected them to begin gorging themselves on the cadavers of the fallen at once.

Hormagaunts seem in this case to have digestive systems. Of course the ones who infiltrate have also been known to reproduce, unlike previous mentions of gaunts and such who are highly specialized towards combat (redundant organs, superfluous stuff like digestive and reproduction excluded, etc.) So I guess its a case of variation and role customization.



Page 262

Sholer’s bolt pistol barked again, and an elongated head exploded,..

hormagaunt headsploded. Like with lasweapons this is more impressive than human headsplosion.



Page 267

I closed my eyes against the anticipated flash, which punched through my eyelids as brightly as it always did when he fired his favourite weapon this close to where I was standing, and felt the backwash of heat flow over me...
..
.. he’d hit it from point-blank range, and I blinked my vision clear of the dancing after-images. The thick metal slab was half-melted, slumping against its hinges...
..
..the two Reclaimers accompanying Yail stepped forwards. Ceramite gauntlets reached out to grasp it, their fingers sinking into the softened metal, and with a groan like something alive and suffering the door gave way at last.

Melta again, melting (or partly so) some sort of blast door. Assuming its 20 cm, 2 metres tall and half a metre wide (half of one door) and 50% iron would be 787 kg. Its ont completely molten (but extensively so) so figure it got raised to the melting point (1800K or so) assuming 300 K starting temp, and a specific heat of 400-600 J per Kg*K (varies according to source.) we’re talking 600-900 kj per kg which is 472-700 MJ. Its probably a bit higher than that, inefficiencies and to account for the melting, but I can’t really be sure how much was molten. If we figure 5% of the mass was melted (~39 kg) and the latent heat of fusion is between 270-290 kj per kg we’re just talking another 10-11 MJ extra (or if we figure 10-20% tit could go up to 20-45 MJ) but its not really something to worry over since the calc itself is still more an ‘order of magnitude’ estimate anyhow.




Page 269

.. there was a lot of delicate equipment scattered around the place, all of which probably needed to be kept in one piece if the almost inconceivable energies of the fusion reactor were to remain confined.

Fusion reactor powering AdMech facility. Probably an actual nuclear reactor rather than ‘another name for melta’ power source, as it involves plasma and shit (which actually behaves like plasma.)




Page 272-273

..I took her square in the middle of the chest with a laspistol round.
..
She staggered, and stared at me in outraged astonishment, charred wiring sparking and popping inside her ribcage.
..
Then her eyes rolled up in their sockets, blood loss and trauma from the chest wound taking the matter out of my hands.

Techpriestess hit by las-round. Not really possible to calc it in any great degree, but the blood loss is interesting to note. Either its because the augmetics make her tougher than a normal human, or cain’s laspistol doesn’t always cauterize (or only partly does so.)



Page 273

The bolt pistol fell from her nerveless fingers. Jurgen swooped, like a raptor on a vole, scooping the weapon up, and stuffing it into one of his collection of pouches for safe keeping...
..
Cain appears with this weapon, or one very like it, in many of the propaganda prints bearing his likeness, although to the best of my knowledge he never used it in the field, preferring the laspistol he was used to. He eventually presented it to me, and it continues to serve the Emperor well as part of the armoury available to my entourage.

Explanation for book covers, it seems. Makes about as much sense as anything


PAge 275

"They’ve started mass genetic screening in the main population centres,"

For genestealers. Again this doesnt seem to be an uncommon precaution against such dangers.



Page 292

"We’re barely holding on up here, and the leviathans at the heart of the fleet have just come into auspex range. Unless we can come up with something in the next couple of hours, it looks like we’re finished."

If we figure from before with the scout frigates, that might be something on the order of 50 million km or so, and figure 2-12 hours, we’re talking at least 15-20 gees, and something like 1-1.5% the speed of light max velocity. Even if its less than that 10-20 million km say, we’re still talking high single/low double digit gees (5-10gees). accel, and at least high hundreds/low thousands of km/s max velocity. (.003-.004% of c) Which is still pretty impressive, especially considering its bordering on combat.


page 294

"The presence of the node from the bioship must be inhibiting the hive fleet’s ability to pass on instructions."
"Jamming it, like we do with enemy vox-channels"

Individual hive fleets 'nodes' can jam one another (at least competitve fleets)



Page 296

I’d petitioned the machine spirit of my data-slate to keep watch on the tactical information we were uploading to Zyvan’s command centre aboard the flagship.

Once again Cain can use his data slate to send and receive and observe tactical information relayed from other sources. In this case up into orbit, although I think its not Cain directly doing so (rather he’s keeping tabs on what is being sent by other gear.)



Page 296

Jurgen’s ability to nullify psychic phenomena appeared to have disrupted genestealer brood telepathy, and the ability of individual tyranids to sense the greater hive mind, on several occasions prior to this, although, for obvious reasons, experimental verification was never possible.

Jurgen’s abilities once again indicated to likely affect tyranids, despite earlier sources speculating such abilities as unknown. Presuambly this means that at some earlier date they’d acquired some better idea on this, although Amberely notes that even then its not experimentally proven.



Page 304

.. punctuating his words with a burst from his storm bolter, which sent half a dozen gaunts after them in bite-sized chunks.

Storm bolter blows apart half a dozen gaunts. Probably worth several grenades worth at the very least, if not several dozen (Gaunts several times heavier than a person remember.) givne the effects. On the other hand we dont exactly know how many shots this takes, except maybe its not longer than a few seconds of sustained fire.


Page 304

I asked, taking the back of the head off a particularly persistent genestealer with a lucky shot clean through its gaping jaws.

Cain’s laspistol takes a Genestealer through the throught and blows out the back of its head. call it high single digit/low double digit kj. By this point I’m so familiar with such cases in a cain novel there’s no point going throught he math. Its like bolter headsplosions



Page 308-309

The Imperial Guard garrison established in the wake of the incident, and the indigenous skitarii, remain on the alert, however, for any signs of a fresh incursion.
...
The Lord General had his hands full negotiating the terms under which the garrison we were leaving behind was supposed to co-operate with Kyper and his skitarii in cleansing Fecundia of the thousands of tyranid stragglers (not surprisingly, he was pressing for full autonomy for the Guard units, while Kyper was equally determined to keep operational matters firmly under his own jurisdiction),

Again the peculiar nature of the defenses of Fecundia and the politics behind it. Indeed its indicative of how politics rules all even amongst factions that have theoretically ‘absolute’ power. In this case, Fecundia’s lack of significant native military forces (skitarii or titans) means they’re somewhat at the mercy of the Guard. And while the planet is important to the Guard (which gives them an advantage) they are also heavily reliant on Guard protection, and getting a garrison there will require concessions. And like most things the question of who is in charge is always contested.


Page 310

"In fact it almost did anyway, taking a substantial chunk of Battlefleet Damocles with it." Which would have left half the Imperial systems in the Gulf open to an unopposed land grab by the tau. More than enough to compensate them for the loss of the single world they’d handed back to us on the brink of seizing it, and which they no doubt expected to regain before too long in any case.

The 100 warships present represented a ‘substantial chunk’ of Battlefleet Damocles, but not the totality. How significant a chunk is up to debate of course, although I’d argue its far from the majority. Maybe two thirds at most, or half or a third, or even a quarter. We can’t really ascribe a firm figure to it, but its possible that there are hundreds of warships in Battlefleet Damocles, its hardly unprecendented (Rogue Trader RPG implies THOUSANDS of ships, and we know Battlefleet Gothic per the Rennie novels had hundreds of ships.)

[andrewgpaul]

Page 97
Quote:

Pretty much everyone in the room was wearing some shade of the colour, apart from a couple in white, and I wondered briefly if the subtle variations in hue were signifiers of status in some way.
..
A tradition still stubbornly maintained by a handful of tech-priests, who claim it predates the russet generally favoured by the priesthood of Mars. It seems likely that this unconventional attire is meant to display the wearer’s position on one or other of the countless doctrinal disputes continually raging among the disciples of the Omnissiah, although what these may be is utterly opaque to outsiders, and unlikely to matter to anyone but the participants.

Probably a retcon fo some kind but it ties in nicely with the Schism stuff established in Titanicus as well. Different colors reflecting different factions and such.

It is; there's a chart somewhere in the 1st edition rulebook detailing the colours of different departments of the Imperial government; Tech-Adepts were described as wearing white.

[Black Admiral]

Page 62

"Let the Mechanicus defend the forge world themselves."
"If they had anything there capable of it, we would,"
..
"‘One company of skitarii and that’s about it. No Titans, no militia. Why would they waste resources on their own defence when they know the Guard need them so much they’ll step in at the first sign of a threat?"
"How very efficient of them,"
...
..I felt a certain sneaking regard for the cogboys, who’d been astute enough to realise that the steady stream of Imperial Guard units putting in to resupply there already gave them all the protection they needed; at least under normal circumstances.

Its 'logical' of course, but certainly atypical for the AdMech. Usually they rely on their own native forces for defence because of the importance they place on their sovereignty and such. Relying on the Guard would allow them to infringe upon that. Not impossible of course, we've known of worlds (EG Titanicus and the Ghosts novels, or Fire Warrior) where some forge world or 'forge world' like industrial world under AdMech auspices had a significant imperial presence (civilian and military.)

Of course, Orestes (that being the forge world from Titanicus) also had fairly significant Mechanicus defenders (a two-dozen Titan battlegroup from the Legio Tempestus and their supporting Skitarii divisions; and that's specifically considered to be "woefully undermanned" and "a token force", which says something about the defences even minor Forge Worlds are supposed to have). That part of The Greater Good really jolted me out of the narrative, since - while I can understand the probable authorial reasons for doing it - it makes precious little in-universe sense.