So now, like I've promised, I'll get to Ravenor. Ravenor is the continuation, one might argue, of what Eisenhorn began. Its the side of Abnett's work that deals with the 'non-war' aspects of the Imperium. But in alot of ways, though, Ravenor is a different creature than Eisenhorn. The Eisenhorn novels focused more heavily on Eisenhorn as a character and his development through three distinct books (and his more or less fall from grace as a radical.) The Ravenor novels are more 'group' focused - its Ravenor and his team that take the stage, rather than the specific Inquisitor Ravenor (although he's still prominent.) In alot of ways it reminds me of the Dark HEresy and Inquisitor RPG stuff (and I wouldnt be surprised if Abnett's POV was a big influence on these things) The story revolve around Ravenor and his attempt to track down some sort of illicit and dangerous drug trade, which spirals out of control into chaos cults, conspiracies, etc. Again some of these elements bear some similarity to Eisenhorn, and that is a mixed bag.
Honestly, I'm not as big a fan of Ravenor as I was of Eisenhorn. The characters are great as always, and I loved the first and much of the second novels. That said... I feel that the serires really promises a great deal (esp in the second book) and does not deliver quite what it expected. Not unlike the Inquisition War novels really.. the third novel just feels really out of joint (to me) compared to the rest of the series. Some parts do resonate (the character interactions like I said, are top notch) but the parts of the story as laid down really just don't... mesh for me. The parts that try to emulate Eisenhorn just don't do it, and they stand out from the ways the Ravenor series tries to be different. The Eisenhorn approach, I feel, worked because it focused more heavily on Eisenhorn as a character and his development/interactions with others. RAvenors 'group-centric' approach reminds me much more of the approach with the Ghosts series, where the events encompass the regiment as a whole (or at least symbollically key parts of it) rather than any one individual. RAvenor seems to be wedged somewhere in between those two, and I think trying to straddle the fence between the two kind of distracts from the work as a whole. I'm not saying it COULDN'T have worked.. its just not really convincing (again to me) the way it was portrayed.
So, all that said we start with the first novel. I think this is the one that is 'truest' to the intent of the series, and of the lot its perhaps my favorite, because it carries the flavour of the short stories I've covered in the past and that whole Eisenhorn-style 'detective' writing (which did, in my mind, work well with the first two books.) Since I'm lazy I'll draw this out in thre parts, rather than trying to chuck it out all at once. We'll see how long my patience lasts with that.
Page 12
Chaos cultists.. albeit well equipped/connected/trained ones. Not unusual stuff for a FFG book.She walked over to them, mopping perspiration from her brow. Her bodyglove was set to max-chill, and rapidly thawing frost was fuming off her lean figure.
Page 12
Boros Dias sighed. Just eighteen months earlier, he had been magister tutorae xenos at the Universitariat of Thracian, one of the most admired academics in his field.
Yet more proof there is an educational system of sorts in 40K. At least, if you have the money (much as in the USA)
Page 14
- "Sentry drones" (like servitor skulls I assume) connected to a screen display and remotely controlled. Used for patrol and scouting and an early warning system.Hehteng had brought the drone monitor handset from the camp and Molotch took it from him. He studied the little screen display. None of the sentry drones ranged around the camp area and site zones had triggered at all.
Page 15
The implication is that the wound was caused by a las-bolt, but we don't actually see this (but no other weapon before and after the wound is mentioned and it's not explicit enough for me to be certain (at least I know if I am someone may scream about it.)There was a flash, a whoop of superheated air, and the world tumbled over on its end. Molotch found himself lying on his back. His face was wet. A dull, concussive numbness was in his brain, a raw ache in his right thigh. The canopy above him continued to form a lattice of light and darkness. As he watched, two incandescent bolts of las-fire, each shaped like an elongated spearhead the length of an adult human forearm, squealed overhead.
..
There was a bloody hole the size of a bottle top through his thigh. Mulch worms and flies were already invading it.
..
More las-fire whined past.
This is also late-era Abnett lasfire, which means that rather than being a beam its a visually distinct, blaster-bolt stype 'las' weapon that has more in common with bullets than energy weapons.
In any event, if this really IS a las-weapon, the characteristics are one of a highly focused, penetrating shot rather than the 'exploding' type we're more familiar with. assuming 'bottle top' is analogues to a bottle cap we might figure 2-3 cm in diameter, which is consistent with other sources (CAdian Blood, Dawn of War, Gaunt's Ghosts, 13th Legion) describing finger thick lasbeams. Partial cauterization or coagulation perhaps or its hit that didn't hit any vital arteries or the bone (EG he's not spraying blood.) We also don't know what kind of lasweapon it was, although there may be gusses.
It also implies he may have gotten knocked down by some sort of explosive vaporization (its been known to happen with lasweapons) but this is a "pov" sort of thing and it coudl be he fell or dropped due to involuntary reflex or muscle spasm or something similar.
As far as calcs go? If we're talking a pulse train 'blaster' style weapon we might be talking a few kj considering (probable) overpenetration. If it is less efficient (vaporization) we might be talking tens of kj (say 40-50 kj). I'd lean more towards the first one, since that's less likely to 'explosively vaporize' the target in this case but lasweapons can be magical sometimes so it could happen.
Assuming any burning happens (3rd degree, 50 j per sq cm) we might figure a few kj to the wound channel.
Page 16
Tau pulse rifles have automatic.Beyond him, Emmings was hosing the forest with rapid fire from his precious pulse rifle.
..
Ever since he’d picked up the handsome tau weapon as spoils of combat, he’d been itching to use it.
Page 16
Like Molotch, the ogryn had been caught by the first salvo. He was bellowing, Blood was squirting out of a scorched hole in his side.
...
Molotch stuck Nung with a one-use tranq-blunt from his belt pack.
More (probable) lasfire. We dont know how many hits were in the second one, but we do find out that the bolts probably aren't highly cauterizing (but they do inflict burns) and Molotch apparently was lucky enough not to have anything vital hit.
Page 16-17
Ogryn using assault cannon. He must be a rather genius Ogryn by Ogryn standards, but this is hardly unprecedented (they've used autocannon, grenade launcher,s etc.) Also we get further probable confirmation of lasfire as the source of all the damage above....unshipped the Korsh 50 assault cannon from the syn-hide boot on his back. Nung wore three heavy dram magazines from his waist belt the way an ordinary human carried water bottles. His fat fingers fumbled to connect the belt feed.
Then he had it. The cannon shook into life, tongues of flash-fire dancing like an afterburner around the rotating multi-barrels. It roared out a great blurt of noise, undercut by the metallic grate of its cycling mechanism. A cascade of spent cases flew into the air and pattered down onto the ooze.
The cannon-blasts stripped away the vegetation before them, pulping it into matted, wet debris and a sticky mist of sap-vapour. The las-fire ceased abruptly.
Page 17
Bolt pistol this time.Emmings’s head snapped sideways, whip-cracking his reedy neck. The Shockwave travelled down his bony body and twisted it violently. Before his feet left the powder-white ground, his head began to deform, to wrench out of shape, to lose all semblance of Emmings. Then it burst, and Emmings folded like a snap-shut clasp knife. He fell sideways into the dust. Molotch glimpsed a lean figure with a bolt pistol duck back into cover behind one of the pillars.
Page 18
Again, this ogryn seems rather more intelligent than usually assumed. Possibly a recipient of the "Bone'Ead" procedure.Molotch raised his rifle and tried to draw a bead on Thonius, but Nung knocked his aim aside. ’Zygmunt hit her!’ he wheezed.
Page 21
I dont quite know how to calc it, but this implies a pretty damn (magically) powerful flamethrower.He found the hand-flamer Boros Dias used for frying off lichen and algae.
It ignited with a single pump of the trigger, and Molotch wound the nozzle up to full. The flame was blue-hot. He ran it along the lines of the carving, frying out dust, blasting away loose matrix. The narrow chamber filled with the acrid stink of cooking stone.
...
The flamer was no good against the thicker coverings of ancient rock that caked the base and upper left quadrant of the relief.
Page 22
Again a magically powerful hand flamer. The thing can't carry more than a few kilos of fuel to be used in one hand and it can't have been completely full when it did tis. Yet it cremates the flesh off the skull - we're talking several MJ of energy at the very least.,"Doctor, I think it only fair that we conclude our professional arrangement here and now. Consider yourself freed of the terms of our contract."
Boros Dias began to smile. Then his face melted, just as it had started to scream. His bared skull cracked like pottery and he fell onto his back. Molotch dropped the hand-flamer. "I never liked you." he said to the smouldering corpse.
Page 22
Molotch hasn't bled out, despite seconds (minutes?) must having passed. Again, at least partial cauterization (enough to slow bleeding) and/or a very lucky hit.He tossed away the hammer and located the portable brass picter from amongst the late doctor’s overturned kit. Two or three wide angle shots of the whole, then a series of close-ups, one section at a time, with as much overlap as he could manage.
His thigh throbbed like hell.
Page 22
Implied here to be a gunshot, wide enough to pass between the ribs without penetrating. The 'bottle top' diameter lasfire would do that. Implies it was a single hit, and it must have been a penetrating, powerful lasweapon (or a very well aimed, lucky shot that hit something vital) to do that kind of damage.Nung. Blood-loss from the ugly gunshot wound had finished him. He lay as he had fallen: propped up over one of the excavators. Nte-flies foamed around his face and the hole between his ribs.
Page 23
Molotch is identified as Cognitae here. sort of like Inquisitor-version of Blood Pact. We get clarifications later about what that is, but here it shows us some of what is behind the thinking and abilities of the Cognitae.Burned out and panicking, he fell down on his hands and knees and began to cry. Then his Cognitaes-chooled intellect took over: the mind that encompassed noetic techniques, polished and refined by the great and abominated academy. He sat up, and breathed deeply to slow his panic. Then he methodically consulted his wrist-mounted locator. Over to the north, a hundred metres.
Page 23
Guard issue 'recon flier' some sort of skimmer or aircraft/gunship type thing, although it doesn't mean it is antigrav, or even armed. Still it's interesting as a further indicator that some sort of 'air-vehicle' capacity can exist amongst the Guard. And it isn't an inconsistency, we know a Garrison regiment in the 3rd edition IG codex could get sub-stellar system ship transports, skimmers, and civilian/PDF requisitioned vehicles of different kinds. A similar case probably applies here (EG its a 'locally made' Guard designed, and it relies on the local, inter-sector/subsector logistics chain to be maintained and used. Outside the sector you're probably SOL.)Sunlight invaded the clearing where the drop flier sat. It was a handsome little thing, a Nymph model recon flier, removed surreptitiously from a Guard munitions depot in the Helican sub. It crouched on six long hydraulic legs, its wings folded back. It looked like a giant metal mosquito.
..
He popped the cockpit door and leaned in to fire up the engines. The vector fans began to whine into life.
Page 25-26
IG-issue Valkyrie. Might be owned, might be borrowed, migth be loaned, but its further proof they can and do have them.Noiseless, arch-winged, ominous, a Valkyrie assault carrier rose from the forest before him, washing the canopy growth back in a wide, concentric ripple. It was dressed in black camo paint, its Imperial Guard insignia removed. Its chin-turret began to flash. Molotch’s Nymph lost a wing in a shower of splintering metal. It began to descend hard, auto-rotating . Multi-laser shots burst its belly and exploded its leg assemblies.
..
Then the first rocket struck home and blew off the flier’s tail boom. More followed from the Valkyrie’s under-wing pods, snaking out on curling spits of smoke. The Nymph came apart, burning, and dropped like a stone towards the inky forest cover, scattering casing fragments, engine parts and glass specks as it fell.
Page 26
Crash of the recon fire. SEems rather messy.Zygmunt Molotch, ablaze from head to foot, was still alive when the hull finally met the ground.
A firestorm rushed out from the impact point, sucked back in again with the Shockwave overpressure, and left a scorched circle ten hectares across in the undergrowth.
Page 28
Ah, the wonderful life of an Administratum peon. We get views of this several times in the series.I am an administry clerk called Olyvier, tapping at the keys of my codifier, the screen reflecting green phantoms at my augmetic eyes. I have awful halitosis because of an abscess in my gum. I cannot afford the medicae fees unless I put in extra shifts all month. I have a scheduled break in one hundred and nineteen minutes.
Page 28
Ravenor is powerful enough to 'scan' a servitor, for all the use it is.I am a servitor, stacking boxes in a stock-house. I had a name once, but I have forgotten how to say it. It takes an effort just to remember to stack the boxes the right way up. The boxes have arrows on their sides.
Page 29
Reassuring to know that basic hygiene still exists int he Imperium, at least on some planets.I am a sheet-press worker called Aesa Hiveson. I am sound asleep in my one-room hab in the stacks of Formal K. The doubleshift left me exhausted, so I fell asleep the moment I sat down. The feeble shower I intended to get under is still running. The water pipes are thumping and banging.
Page 30
Ravenor can sense dead bodies, or at least some remnant of them. I'm guessing he's detecting the residual psychic imprints - the remnants of their own lives and auras, and possibly the ones of the killers. It might also combine some form of visual scrying.I am anonymous, gender uncertain, a very long time dead, undiscovered behind a false wall in Formal B.
I am two girls in PDF youth uniforms, left in shallow graves in the north end flowerbeds of Stairtown Park...
I'll also add this is rather tame by the usual levels of grimdark (EG we have only two people being killed rather than entire planets purged for someone sneezing the wrong way) but I personally find it more effective because of the manner in which it is presented.. it has more of an element of the personal to it, and really emphasizes that 'faceless' aspect, especially how Ravenor doesn't seem to flinch at finding this (he's a hard dude - imagine how you would react to finding a couple of slaughtered girls?)
Page 30
mag lev....felled by a heart attack on my way home on a transit mag-lev.
Page 30
even with wriathbone pendants, its hard for Ravenor to filter out ten billion people to locate his own agents. This also represents a mention of the population of Eustis Majoris, the hive world Ravenor is currently on. Whether that is a precise measure, an estimate, or what, we don't know.I had almost lost sight of myself in the discordant psyk-noise. Slowly, out of the mass of fidgeting data, I lock down the signals. One at a time, each one is almost drowned out by the polyphony of living minds. It is like trying to single out a lone voice from a choir of ten billion.
Page 35
The take on "automation" is rather intriguing since it gives us benchmarks for Imperial industrial capability (although only potentially, since various factors can randomize the usage: economic, the availability of servitors and the technology in general, other means of automation like in Execution Hour, etc.) The "twenty time" modifier is tricky to apply to, since it doesnt neccesarily have to scale linearly (eg a cruiser that takes a little over a decade to build in BFG will not instantly be built 20x faster in the case of servitors.) And unlike twenty workers, a servitor can only be in one place. Still I'd expect the fact that a servitor can work without food, sleep, etc, to mean that it can produce things at least several times faster than normal human labor, which can account for inconsistencies in building things like starships.Four months before his eleventh birthday, the Departmento Munitorum shut down two fabricatories in the district. Nineteen thousand indentured workers were, in the Munitorum’s words, ’’decruited’’. No reason was ever offered for the closures. But it was common knowledge that there was a trade slump right across the sub. Stories went round that new, automated plants had been opened in the northern-most zone: plants where a single servitor could perform the work of twenty indents without the need for sleep shifts. Other rumours said the fabs had lost a navy contract to manufactories on Caxton. Whatever, the work was gone. The fabs were shuttered up and boarded. Nineteen thousand able indents were hung out to rot.
Also interesting is the implications about informtion and data flow between planets, at least at the subsector level (the rumors of the subsector economic conditions influencing the planet, and the people on the planet bieng aware of it, and the indication seems to be this is recent and ongoing.) This is a different picture contrasted to the "worlds in complete isolation from each other" picture other sources give. The two viewpoints are not inconsistent with each other, as the Imperium is large and diverse enough (and warp travel inconsistent enough) for both conditions to exist simultaneously. It does suggest though, that the more "local" one gets (eg sector or subsector level) the greater the level of inter-connectivity in economic, political and other terms. The FFG material seems to have taken this interpretation and run with it as well, given how they've built up other sectors (like Calixis.) in their materials.
Also interesting is that these were Munitorum operated factories... which suggests military factories of some kind.
Page 36
In the Grim Darkness of the Future, there is only filthy left-wing socialist practices. While again this isn't something we can generalize from world to world, and simply having a welfare/subsistence program is not indicative that it is a good one (the quote actually indicates it isn't.) It is rather interesting to think that Imperial worlds might actually bother doing something that say, the USA considers to be abhorrent. And I'm pretty sure this isn' the first quote to that effect either.It got hard, fast. Welfare and subsist tokens couldn’t feed them. Zael was forced to cut scholam sessions to earn money, by doing errands for local traders.
Note that this doesn't make up for general shittiness in other ways we've seen (The Administratum or Munitorum strip mining worlds or economies for their own purposes mentioned elsewhere, or the fact that the Munitorum shut down a hab plant to go with automated production. "Human fuel" indeed.)
Page 36
She’d been afraid it was the marshals, or a surprise knock from the ministorum temperance division. They’d been working the stacks in Formal J that week, going from door to door bearing pamphlets and disapproving expressions.
Again, this may be a seemingly "civic" minded thing to do, but knowing the Imperium there's a logical reason. Drug use is likely an activity one is going to associate with "cultist" behaviour (or at least certain kinds of drugs.) and we do know for a fact that some drugs can increase the risks of warp-associated catastrophes. Hell, the 'flects' in the Ravenor series are a prime example, but anything that, for example, might draw Slaaneshi attention is naturally going to be bad. Pity they aren't as ardent when it comes to the indolent and corrupt upper classes.
Page 36-37
The cynical part of me wants to think the soup and citrus drink are made from recycled corpses in some way, but Abnett is generally not prone to that sort of thingZael ignored her and looked for the last of the citrus-flavoured drink he’d hidden in their larder.
Nove had already found it and drank it. He set a pan on the stove to boil water for a dehyd soup mix instead.
Page 38
They removed Zael's sister as well. Again, I suspect practicality (health reasons have to be a major concern in something as tightly packed as a hab/apartment building.) Again in 40K you'd generally think they'd leave the dead body to be eaten by rats or something, the way 40K usually runsThe only recent memory that stood out was the removal of his granna’s body by the Magistratum.
A more cynical part of me wants to think they recover the bodies for recycling into water and/or meat.
Page 39
Earlier Ravenor psychically detects a dude on a mag-lev. Clearly transportation of variable tehc levels exists on the planet, which isn't unusual in 40K. That said, I don't find 'steam power' to be all that 'primitive' - in a society with the energy consumption and technologies of 40K, you can probably get alot of mileage out of steam power.A steam train rattled over the boxgirder elevation above him, strobing carriage lights down at the unlit river.
Page 41
The enviromental conditions of Eustis Majoris. Not quite as bad as the ash-wastes of some worlds like Necromunda, but hardly a nice sort of world.Two dozen centuries of dirty industry had poisoned the atmosphere of Eustis Majoris. Ninety per cent of the time, the immense city-state of Petropolis stewed under a roof of toxic stain cloud, its streets choked with hydrocarbon smog. Every now and then, the clouds burst and drenched the surface quarters with acid rain. The rain ate into everything: stone, tiles, brick, steel, skin.
Epidermal cancer, a by-product of exposure to the rain, was the planet’s second biggest killer behind pollutant-related emphysemas.
The moment the rain-burn alarms started to sound, gampers flocked out of alleyways and sink shops and began loudly offering their services to passers-by.
Page 42
Sameter is an agri-world/industrial world as I recall.. likely what Kys means is that the Imperium is full of worlds that are heavily/over populated (hab stacked), and horribly polluted, and may run across various classifications (eg hive, industiral, agri, mining, etc.) rather than falling into one partiuclar category. Sorta like the "billions of hive worlds" from Heart of Rage.Patience Kys had been born on Sameter in the Helican sub: another dirty, smoggy, deluged hab-stacked world. The Imperium was full of them.
Page 43
It sounds hilarious, and I suspect that out of universe its meant to be hilarious grimdark. But in-universe, with the existence of psychic shit and the fact gods are a real, tangible phenomena means that such things could do as advertised (unconscious psychic healing. Hell that sort of shit works for the Orks. The main difference being that for the Orks, the phenomena is widespread and consistent, while faith/religion isn't as consistent.)It was morbidly fascinating to see how many pedestrians around them had skin burns. Some old and faded, some raw and new. Some - and Carl Thonius pressed his fragrant kerchief tighter still - no longer burns, but discolouring into lethal melanomas. The received remedy was faith paper. You could buy it from street corner vendors and stalls in the sink-shop arcades. Tissue-thin and gummed, it had been blessed by various ecclesiarchy somebodies and infused with palliative serums like thisde, milkroot and flodroxil. You cut it to shape - usually into little patches - moistened it, and stuck it to your rain-burns. Faith, and the God-Emperor of Mankind, did the rest. The civilians around them were speckled with faith paper patches. One old man had his entire neck and forehead wrapped in it, like papier-mache.
Page 45
Useful toy. Not unlike synskin albeit more mecahnical seeming. I wonder if its a augmetic, or if its some sort of worn device?The rain alarms had stopped - the downpour had abated - and as he approached the ceramics shop he adjusted the dial of his signet ring. The anti-acid scales that had loricated his skin retracted into the slit pockets behind his ears and under his eyebrows.
Page 46
Kys has some telepathic talent as well as telekinetic, presumably only to the point of reading thoughts (and possibly only of people she knows or is familiar with.)He received an assurance, far softer and quieter than Kys’s crude mind-jab.
Page 48
Whatever the flaws of the Ravenor novels in general, I will admit that the bantering of the characters is quite enjoyable."Great golden throne, you’re such a whore, Kys."
+Shut up, pussy. +
Page 49
Ravenor provides useful intel to his agents. One imagines that either he's watchng thorugh psyk senses of some kind (like astropaths have), clairvoyance of some kind, or he's able to pick up the guy's thoughts/impressions due to his ability to single out Kara and focus on nearby individuals."Where is he?’ she whispered, testily."
+Five metres to your left, coming forward. A sense of high anxiety about him.+
Page 50
RAvenor is able to also provide Kara with the point of view of another individual in the locale psychically.Kara Swole shut her eyes. After a moment, a clear, slightly fish-eyed vision appeared to her. The service parlour of a dingy public dining house, as seen from somewhere up near the ceiling vents. Every few seconds the view blinked and jumped momentarily, like a badly formatted pict-track. She saw the tables and chairs lying where they had been overturned in the stampede, the litter of broken crockery and food bowls.
Page 50
Extended mag and limits on Ravenor's skills.The extended magazine projecting down from the pistol grip of his auto was so long...
...
+Apart from anxiety, I can’t assess anything. He’s smoked obscura some time in the last thirty-five minutes. It’s blocking everything. +
Page 51
Either a local departmento, or something that has ties/associated activities with the ARbites given the connection to Fischig. Magistratum are a kind of enforcer, so my guess is that local Eustis Majore custom is to copy Imperial naming conventions in this regard.Kara Swole had never been in the Departmento Magistratum, but a hardnut chastener, name of Fischig, had taught her the skills some years back.
It may also reflect closer ties between the planet and Imperial Adepta. Some worlds are more Imperial than others.
Page 51
Belowground on Eustis Majoris. Another of those nice 'behind the scenes' civilian touches that always makes me like AbnettThe establishment was called Lepton’s, one of a chain of family-run public dining houses in the Formal D district of Petropolis.
Like all the independent bars and eateries, it was in the sinks. Eighty levels of habs and manufactories weighed down upon it and neither the wan sunlight nor the burn-rain ever penetrated this deep. Only the grim, Munitorum-subsidised canteens could afford higher-level positions on or near the surface street-ways. All of the public places were open round the clock, and catered for the constant shift-work. People came to eat breakfast at tables beside other workers chowing supper and getting addled on cheap grain liq at the end of a hard shift. Down here it was a dark world of artificial lighting, metal decks, flakboard walls and an indelible layer of grease that coated everything.
Page 51
Even the restraunts have servitor access, it seems. Here anyhow, they do. This also leads to an interesting question of how much of the planet's population is servitors, and whether they actually count (Ravenor was able to detect them from orbit and get into their minds, so that is possible. Although they by no means count as 'people'.)Kara ran down into the kitchen. Heedless servitors laboured at bulk skillets or broiling vats, and there was a constant clatter of utensil limbs.
..
The handful of actual humans working the food line were just emerging up from hiding places behind coolers and workstations.
Page 54
Muscle enhancement.There were six big friggers in the alley behind her, all leather smocks and studded jackets and vat-grown muscle enhancements.
Page 54
A hab-ganger type (They call them "Moody Hammers" on this planet) carries a chainfist. How and where he got it from I have no fucking clue....one, the leader, had a chain-fist. It buzzed menacingly as the oiled blade-tracks idled.
Page 55
- Ravenor demonstrates the ability he has known as "Waring" -the ability to take control of another person's body psychically (like a puppet.) Their own personality/consciousness gets minimized/pushed into the background while this occurs. Evidently it also allows for better "body control" or greater reactions (a gift of Ravenor's abilities I suppose.) since Kara kicks the ass of all the enhanced Hammers (who are still armed with blades, hammers, etc.) unarmed."You gotta ware me! You gotta ware me right now!"
+The distance is too.+
"Screw the distance! I’m dead meat unless you ware me!"
He obliged. She knew he hated it. She knew she hated it. But there were times when only it would do. The little wraithbone pendant around her neck crackled, and lit up with psyk-light. She convulsed as he took hold and everything that made up Kara Swole - her mind, her personality, her memories, her hopes and desires - folded up and went away into a little dark box made of solid oblivion.
Kara Swole’s body, blank-eyed, leapt up from prone by arching its back. It deflected a mallet-swing with an under-turned hand, and then side-kicked one of the sling-bladers in the chest so hard his sternum snapped like a dry branch.
Page 56
Chainfist vs industrial mallet.The leader came in, chain-fist shrilling. One of the abandoned mallets was now turning in her hands. She swung it out so the head of it met the punching glove-weapon coming the
other way. The mallet-head was completely abraded away in seconds, but it was a duracite tip, and eating it up burned out the drivers of the chain-fist’s mechanism.
Page 57
Ravenor identifies himself as part of the Ordo Xenos. This leads to some interesting questions, as to why he is hunting down Molotch (A chaos cultist) and hunts flects and gets involved (generally) in chaos oriented stuff. One would think the Hereticus would be better suited, or perhaps Malleus."The authority of the Ordo Xenos, officer. This is an officially sanctioned operation and I am Inquisitor Gideon Ravenor."
Of course the Dark HEresy stuff makes mention that Inquisitors, even specialists, will deal with whatever threats they find even if it is technically outside their jurisdiction. They are Inquisitors, after all.
Page 60
Sounds like a big-damn city although different from the volcano-like Hives of Necromunda and ArmageddonSometime way back in the whenever - history was not Zael’s thing - Petropolis had outgrown the patch of land it had originally sat down on. It had spread, like a fat arse on a bar stool. Up in the north, in Stairtown, it had invaded the hills. In the south, it had bulged out over the river bay. Originally, stone piers had been built out into the estuarine flats and over the water, their wide bases sunk deep into the ooze by the guild masonae. Then, as demand grew for cheap habs, elevated prefab sections had been constructed between the radiating piers, creating a whole city slum-quarter, forty storeys deep, suspended twenty metres above the silt and water.
Page 61
This curiously suggests that Zael does not consider himself an "Imperial citizen." Of course, what a world's inhabitants think and what the Imperium think are two different things, and generally it's what the latter thinks that matters more.Typical snooty off-worlder. By then, that’s what Zael had decided the guy definitely was. An off-worlder. The name was a dead-give away. ’’Ravenor’’. Shit! Why not just call yourself ’Imperial aristo from a much richer planet than this’ and have done with it?
Page 62
Sheen birds. Discussed later on.Plumage had been torn or broken off, or eaten away, and eyes and limbs lost. Metal was exposed in many places, delicate wired mechanisms succumbing to rust and acid-gnaw.
..
On the bench in front of her, a sheen bird was stretched out and pinned down for cleaning in the manner of an anatomical study. Its neck filaments buzzed as its head jerked around, and it piped piteously out of its tiny metal beak. Another bird, much larger and totally devoid of implanted feathers, perched on her shoulder. It was quite a splendid thing, its wing blades and chassis polished chrome.
PAge 64
- Void-field screen protecting a doorway of a major Gang lord's base of operations. Technically I don't think this is a void shield pre se, but probably some form of power field, or perhaps a variation on refractor field tech.It [door] was a simple but hefty wooden door, and it swung in on a mechanical bracket.
The real door was the shimmering void-field behind it. Through the glitter of the energy screen, Zael could see a moody hammer glaring out at them.
Page 65
Not only is the Inquisition well known on Eustis Majoris, apparently, but they have official offices in the city that does walk in business."Hell, I’ll even show him to the Officio Inquisitoras myself. That’s in Formal A, isn’t it?"
The hammer stopped. "What’s the frigging Inquisition got to do with anything?"
Page 66
Ravenor can track life signs psychically.+Three heartbeats, closing from the left.+
Page 66
Lasweapons must be rare on Eustis Majoris. This marks a significant difference from places like Cadia or Necromunda..both held wirestocked lasrifles.
Zael had never seen a lasrifle before.
Page 66
Augmetic human. Identified as a Seneschal.The man was far more terrifying. He was over two and a half metres tall and extremely thin. Not even stick-thin like Jibby Narrows, who everyone said could get good money working part time as a noodle. This freak was emaciated-thin. He wore a beautiful housecoat of vitrian glass, floor-length, and his arms hung from the sleeves like twigs. Twigs coated in gold foil, that was. His head was a skull with the merest hint of skin. His eyes were augmetic plugs; sutured in, multi-facet insect jobs. He smelled really good - a classy cologne or maybe even a flesh-wired pheromone aura. He didn’t walk. He hovered.
Also Vitrian glass must come form fairly close by, becuase lots of places in the novel have it show up in civiilan hands. Either that or the Vitrians have quite an extensive and far reaching export trade going for their stuff (case in piont. The Dragoons show up on the edge fo Segmentum Pacificus during the Sabbat Worlds Crusade (to be fair, so do the Cadians) but much of Ravenor (and Eisenhorn) takes place in Segmentum Obscurus.
Page 67
Our aforementioned augmetic man.He hovered over to his waiting hammers, and held out a bony hand. One of them obediently drew a gang knife and put it into Taper’s palm.
Taper turned and snapped the blade. He didn’t even use both frigging hands. He simply snapped the twenty-centimetre steel with a flick of his twig fingers.
"I am significantly augmetic, my friend. I chose to be elegant and slender because I despise obvious physical threat-postures. A massive torso, thick arms, a shaven head. such as yours, for instance. But I did not stint on strength. I could poke your bastard heart out with my tongue."
Page 69 -
Caxton, it seems, is another planet. At least in this subsector and in some form, there is interstellar travel between planets."I’m a newbie to this world. Just got in a few days back, pulled the long haul from Caxton."
..
"Easy said. I can’t afford another out-ticket, not even a freezer bin."
Though I'm not sure if the second quote implies going to another city, or naother planet.
Page 69
This is from Nayl's Hercuter 10 autopistol.The hammers by the door brought their lasrifles up, slicking off the safeties and making the cells hum.
...
He heard two hard, dry bangs. The hammers slammed back against the doorposts, their rifles tumbling from their hands. Both had blackened, bloody holes in the centres of their foreheads and no backs to their skulls any more.
..
The guy suddenly had a gun in his fist. A great big Navy model Hecuter 10, the muzzle smoking.
Page 69
The Augmetic dude must have body armor of some kind implanted. Or he's mostly metal resistant to weapons fire.He put two more rounds into Taper’s chest, point blank. Oblivious, Taper flew at him, twig arms outstretched.
Page 70
Either we have a metal man blown apart into tiny pieces, or we have a metal man vaporized. Either way is going too be vastly more powerful than a normal grenade, I suspect.The guy threw something small and black at Taper.
...
Instinctively, Taper caught the small black thing. He looked at it for a split second. A split second was all he had.
The grenade's blast vaporised him and brought down the wall behind him.
Page 73
More of Nayl's Hercuter 10. I wonder if we can make comparisons between the Hecutor (autoweapon I think) and a lasweapon?He distinctly saw a hammer with rake-hook spin over onto his back, blood puffing from an exit wound the size of a dinner plate.
Page 74
I suspect its possible Nayl was being wared, but given how shortly before Ravenor had gone silent trying to save Kara, its quite possible this was pure Nayl.The guy seemed completely oblivious to the fact he had just taken out a room full of moody hammers, single-handed, in under ten seconds. Zael knew he’d cost the guy that finger. The guy had been saving him.
Page 75
More administratum goodness. MIUs or MIU-like links seem common.Out of the city’s heart, the Administratum clerks flowed in a monotonous grey tide. Along walkways and pavements, across pedestrian bridges and stack-level galleries, ten hundred thousand pale men and women in sombre rain-coats of emerald and black made their routine way homeward in slow procession. Many had shaven heads, or the scalp or neck punctures of neurolink sockets.
Page 75
Implies the Angelus subsector has some two dozen worlds. Given around 6-8 sectors involved we're talking around 150-200 worlds, which is approximately akin to what the Gothic Sector had.Eustis Majoris was capital-world of the Angelus subsector. Its heavy manufacturing industries may have begun to slump, and its fabricatory districts fall into decay, but it had one ancient craft that still thrived. It was the bureaucratic hub of two-dozen Imperial worlds.
We also get an indication of the relative importane of Eustis Majoris.
Page 75
The exact definition is up for debate. On one hand is it referring to "square kilometers" (a unit of area), or is it saying the city is 10 km to a side (about 100 square kilometres.) Context wise,Here, in the massive ouslite towers of Formal A and Formal C, the minutiae of Imperial life was recorded, processed, evaluated, stored, examined, compared, scrutinised for levy and, ultimately, filed. There were more clerks and scribes, and more processing cod-ifiers, in this ten kilometre square slab of city than in all the other subsector worlds combined.
this suggests the latter interpretation, but it is still may be debated. (I will note that wikipedia here under the "founding" heading discussing Article 1, subsection 8, and the link here also suggest the latter interpretation has greater validity, for what it is worth.)
In any event there's still the question of whether it refers to the city as a whole, or just the parts devoted to the adminstratum.
Page 76
This implies that part of the 7 is roughly 7 km, but we can't really know if it is striaght line, or in what dimension (vertical/horizontal, diagnoal, what) Also a formal J... at least 10 "Formals" (which seem to be sub-sections of the petropolis.)This was a new world to Zael. He gawped at it in a state of mounting unease. It was less than seven kilometres from the formal where he’d grown up and spent all of his however-many-it-was years.
..
Formal J was a dump
Page 78
Thonius comments on the info systems capabilities on Eustis Majoris. One would presume he means relative to Inquisitorial standard,s of course."The local info-systems are damned hard to wire into. Actual decent Arbites cryptography for a change, wouldn’t you just know it?"
Also apparently Arbites info security sucks (at least by Thonius' standards) although we're talking about the Magistratum folks.
Page 79
Eustis majoris has at least "hundreds" of MAgistratum officers. Probably just for this city, and probably not all of them by a long shot. Theres billions on the planet after all.Mam Lotilla was dutifully processing case files at her old-model codifier...
..
..wide wooden stairs led down into the main vault of the department, where hundreds of his officers worked at console stations or long rows of desks.
Page 80
This implies that the above were just one department.. which may imply thousands. There's also various departments, possibly not all of them. Some deal with xenos of course.Sankels, the bull mastiff from interior cases, had been up to his tricks again, and had managed to get all the finance additionals from narco, homicide, xen-ops, special and prohib-pub thrown out in favour of booster funds for his own office.
Page 80
Formal X. We're up to possibly 24 sectors/stacks whatever. That assumes it's linear of course.If the chief magistratum hadn’t made nice with Sankels, the chief magistratum would have been back on stack-beat in Formal X come morning.
Page 80
Departmento Magistratum. Enforcers, in other words. It presumably is a local title, aping the Adeptus, but perhaps the Enfrocers really do get some measure of oversight from the Adeptus Terra? That would be odd considering the PDF doesnt seem to be, and Enforcers are basically the Arbites version of PDF (EG local law enforcement.)In all truth, Rickens wondered why the city bothered with a Departmento Magistratum at all.
Page 81
Rickens department is the "smallest" one, with a mere hundreds of officers.Rickens headed up the Department of Special Crime. The smallest of the hive’s Magistratum divisions, it was a catch-all division, designed to investigate anything that didn’t neatly fall into the remits of the other departments
Page 81
This implies pivot guns are some sort of musket-type smoothbore weapon. I'm pretty sure that ball shot isn't usable in rifled barrels. At least not without some sort of patch.For seventy-two years, he’d walked with a limp caused by a ball-shot from a hammer’s pivot-gun that went through his hip.
Page 82
The Magistratum can find evidence of the juvenat procedures (or at lest some kinds, since its probable 'juvenat' is a class of procedures rather than 'one size fits all' type.) I also believe this is Kara, so she's been alive at least 100 years or so, meaning she's lived 4 times longer than her physical age. And she's had none of the usual visual effects associtaed with some kinds of rejuv."...a female, lacking citizen validation, work dockets, status codes or visitation permits. physical age twenty-five years standard by approximation, though some traces of juvenat procedures..."
Page 83
Some people apparently are daring enough to impersonate Inquisitors, so there have to be security measures to ensure its a genuine rosette.The light of the electrolamps glinted off the Inquisitorial rosette.
Rickens didn’t react. He took a scanner wand from his jacket and played it across the badge.
"Stackers have been known to fabricate this sort of thing out of tin and glass." he said. He sat back and regarded the wand’s readout. "This, however, is genuine. "
Page 83
The main obstruction to Thonius and Nayl's requests seems largely tied up in the bureacracy of Eustis Majoris. Unofficially (as happens) ti can be resolved quite neatly, but probably not without all sorts of adminsitrative/political trouble should that come to light. Again, despite in theory having absolute authority, Inquisitorial power is conditional on various factors (influence, resources, etc.)"It’s not that simple. Not at all."
"You would impede the operation of the Holy Inquisition, deputy magistratum?"
"Throne of Terra, of course not." Rickens looked at the young man. "But there are protocols. Procedures. I know the Inquisition has the power to run rough-shod over every law and statute on Eustis Majoris. It may demand the release of an accredited agent. But. I would expect such a demand to come from the Officio Inquisitoras Planetia itself. Formally. Not like this."
Again, we see the Inquisition seems to have "official" offices/embassies/whatever on the planet, that are well known.
Page 84
Indication about the layout of the hive city.The house, like those of all Petropolis’s worthies, was on the surface level. Despite the burning curse of the rain, it was thought improper for the wealthy and the respectable to dwell in the deep sinks. Sonsal’s house was in Formal B, one of the three core districts of the city-hive, and the only one given over exclusively to residential buildings. To the north and west rose the many massive towers of A and C, the hub of subsector bureaucracy and government.
Page 85
Comments on the relationships between the AdMech and the commercial interests of the Imperium.Engine Imperial was proud of its association with the machine cult. Like other incorporated commercial firms, it leased tech processes and construction secrets from teh guild, and manufactured them under license. The great financial returns made it worth the huge lease fees and the pressure of regular inspection.
Page 85-86
"You’re very faint. Why is that?"
+I’m tired. That, and the landspar. Very heavy, very dense. Most of the residences in Formal B are made from it. It is particularly resistant to the acidic rain. A rich man does not want to lose status by having his house crumble around him, after all. +
"So?"
+It’s psi-inert. Dead stone. It’s all I can do to hear you and let you hear me.
- Very "Heavy" and "dense" stone (at a great distance and fatigued, ,from geostationary orbit) seems to interfere somewhat with Ravenor's telepathic link to Patience Kys. The :"reactivity" (or lack thereof) of materials can affect psychic phenomena, like communication, it seems.
Page 86
- Patience is able to use her TK to pick locks. That shows quite a bit of finesse.She strolled around the room, thought-feeling for niches, hidden panels, hiding places, though she doubted Sonsal would be foolish enough to keep anything in a public room. There was a panel, however, in the west wall, the size of a small door. She could sense its hollow-ness. She traced its catch mechanism delicately with her mind, and then popped it open.
Page 86
More in Kys TK lockpicking.She turned her head slowly, feeling around. A particular density in the third drawer down on the left side of the desk.
The drawer’s lock was significantly more complex than those of the other seven drawers. It refused to pop with a simple, blunt thought-thrust. She was forced to analyse it, component by component, comparing and matching tumblers and pins. The intense mental effort made her perspire. Finally, with a triumphant blink, she turned the last drum and heard the lock click.
Page 87
Whether she injected something in herself (hence why she waited til he wasn't looking) it was some in built augmetic, or a psychic power, we aren't sure.When Sonsal wasn’t looking, Kys glanded an antioxidant to keep her head clear.
Page 87
- Patience can manipulate/excite air molecules to create heat. She can also manufacture her own pheremones and tailor them to a particular individual, displaying a degree of control over her own biology.They both drank too much, but where she was glanded against it, he became loose-tongued and over-familiar. Gently, she mind-stirred the air-molecules around him, heating him up and making him sweat. Then she started to custom-build her own pheromones to suit his veryreadable templates, and steer them towards him.
Assuming a roughly 1-2 meter cube volume (anywere from 1 to 8 m^3) and a 10-20 degree change in temperature (say starting out at around room temperature) we'd be talking injecting many tens kilojoules of energy into the enviorment. Not excessive, but not trivial either. It is also obvious it is not an instantanoues change, but a gradual one, over (probably) a course of minutes. Again the sort of fine control involved here is rather impressive, as is the area of influence. Since Kys is not known to act as a pyrokinetic, I suspect she cannot rapidly agitate molecules like that for something more.. visually impressive and destructive.
Page 93
- Kys "skin writes" information on herself - mentally manipulating pores open and closed in such a way to form a pattern "visible only by microscope." Again, evidence that psykers can manipualte their own bodies to certain extents. I wonder if this is an application of her TK powers or if its something else.Kys used an alphabetiser to locate Bazarof, punched up his address, and memorised it. For good measure, she skin-wrote it too, on her left forearm, gently mind-nudging pores open and closed to form a pattern visible only by microscope.
Page 94
- TK sliding of a dinner table up against a door. Either the table is heavy enough to keep a pair of bodyguards from getting in the door, or Kys TK stops it. Kys also demonstrates her "kineblade" - knifelike blades without a handle and designed to be manipulated-propelled purely by telekinesis.and with a nod of her head slid the entire dining table down the length of the room, crockery and glassware tumbling off it. It slammed into the doors and pushed them shut. Outside, the bodyguards began hammering and kicking at the blocked entrance.
another thing we note is that Kys uses alot of body gestures or motions to control her TK. Blinking, nodding, sighing, other similar feats depicted through the novel as some sort of trigger to specific actions. This may tie into the effort she expends in prolonged activities, (like having to hold a breath, or not blink or hold still or similar actions.)
Page 94
Kys' kineblades.She ducked into cover and crooked her left wrist backwards, drawing the long, handle-less kineblade out of her bodyglove sleeve with a jerk of her telekinesis. The twelve-centimetre blade hovered in the air.
Page 95
kineblades in action.With a fierce burst of directed telekinesis, she leapt out into the open. The kineblade zoomed up the stairs and pinned Sonsal’s left sleeve to the banister rail. At the same moment, she plucked the slide-away clean out of his hand and whipped it through the air.
She caught the gun neatly, and aimed it back at him.
Page 98
security measures of the wealthy on Eustis Majoris.At the warning sirens from Sonsal’s house, the other residences in the street fortified themselves automatically, like herd animals reacting to the distress signals of one of their number. Gates and doors were mag-locked, window shutters furled into place, and roof armour, designed primarily to guard against rain, clattered out into full extension. I could feel the tense sensor-cones of alert-ready sentry servitors, taste the ozone stink of electrified wall-tops, and smell the stirring heat of suddenly armed anti-personnel mines.
Page 97-98
Assuming that was the total force for just Formal B, that would mean there are in excess of 10,000 Magistratum officers in Petropolis. For a city as large as it is implied to be, that isn't unreasonable. IT is probably at least several times that number, as it is possible a significant number, but probably not the majority were diverted there.Alarm protocols had drawn the marshals to the neighbourhood of Sonsal’s house, along with other, less identifiable officials. My mind lingered with her for some minutes as she hid in a temple porch while fast-dispatch cruisers and prowl-tracks scoured the streets.
..
Thirty-five minutes after she had quit the south entry, Kys was still no more than a half kilometre from Sonsal’s house, and seven hundred and seventy three armed officers were hunting for her.
Page 98
[/quote]Kys plied the shadows, forced to keep to the surface streets because the crime-alert had locked out all the descender wells into the sub-levels.
presumably because they don't want criminals getting underground where it is easier to hide.
