Macharius series analysis thread

[Connor MacLeod]

Well I've decided I want to start up a few of the ones I still have lying around - the Macharius series, The Priest/Lords of mars duology (which should be coming out this month or next for me I forget lol.) another HH update (Mark of Calth, which is rather small), IA12 (which I don't want to get into) and a few others. So I decided to do the Macharius series. This one will actually be rather small, update-wise, since I didn't pull a huge amount from either book so far, and I'd also like to try doing an update around half the size I normally do (lol) So it will be a small start, and I'll work from there.

The Macharius trilogy marks William King's return to writing for Black Library, which I can say I consider a good thing. Even more he's writing what amounts to an IG novel, which is to me something like a dream come true (I like IG, I like Bill King.) So far I am not disappointed, either. Its not exactly as epic as, say the Ghosts novels are - the SWC spans nearly a score of books and that gives more space to develop depth and scale, compared to a mere three, but what we get is interesting as 'snapshot' glimpses, lots of hints, and key looks at the figure of Macharius at different points in the Crusade and mark those changes, as well as the behind the scenes stuff that mark his downfall. In that respect the novel is much like Wolfblade, in that the 'politics' of the Imperium is as central to the story as the conflicts. Indeed politics (and even some belief) play a bigger role, as Macharius is portrayed as potentially being more than just a commander.

The stories are largely from the perspective of a single IG soldier who becomes bodyguard and even a sort of confidant of Macharius - observing his rise, noting his greatness and flaws, and generally playing the 'observer' role we often had RAgnar take in the Space Wolf novels. He is a major character but not exactly the protagonist, as Macharius is obviously more central to the story, but our 'observer' has his sideplots.. friendships with his fellow bodyguards and troopers from his homeworld, an unlikely (odd?) romance with an Imperial Assassin (far less insane than the Inquisition War one, thankfully) and generally benefits from his status and position brought about by whim or good fortune.

Angel of Fire is the first book, and it chronicles one of the early, pivotal fights for the Crusade, and introduces us both to the political side of things in a basic way, as well as the different views of Macharius and even hints of his possible semi-divine 'nature' (contested from the POv of the novel.) Its mostly 'setup' for the latter ones, and I didnt like it as mucfh as Fist of Demetrius, but it was still pretty fun.


Page 9

Half again as tall as a man, with a huge chainsword gripped in one massive gnarled fist, the greenskin surveyed the barracks room with eyes the colour of blood.

Height of an Ork. Must be well over 2 perhaps evn 3 metres tall.



Page 10

I brought up the shotgun and I pulled the trigger. It didn’t fail me. It never has in thirty years of service. The few brains the ork possessed sprayed against the wall. The headless body toppled over, limbs still twitching..

shotgun blows away Ork skull. Considering how big the Ork is described above.. thats bound to be a damn big head (as usual, many times bigger - and tougher - than a normal human skull



Page 11

...then I hit its skull with the butt of the shotgun. You’d think I’d have known better by now. It bounced off the thick bony ridges. Hell, it barely broke the leathery green skin.

Stepping on the fingers with size 12 Guard issue hobnailed boots works though. Still Orks are ludicrously tough, as the fluff constantly reinforces.


Page 11

The orks raced in through the door. It was a choke point where they died in a hail of las-bolts, flesh sizzling and blackening as they fell. It did not stop the ones behind.

LAsguns in Bill King's novels always seem to be heat-rays, with little or no explosive effect. We dont know how widespread the effect is or how many shots it takes (or how many orks hit) but if we figure 2 orks half again in both dimension sthe size of a person (2-3x the surface area basically) we're talking 40-60 thousand sq cm. AT 3rd to 4th degree burns (50-400 j per sq cm) that would be 2 MJ to 24 MJ delivered total, assuming 100% coverage.




PAge 11

. I found myself ducking the power axe of a monster almost the size of an ogryn, backing away as fast as I could.

Another huge ork.



Page 12

One ork got stabbed five or six times before it realised what was happening. It bellowed in rage and fury before it fell to be stamped and trampled on.

Again Ork durability.



Page 12

I noticed, and not for the first time, that ork blood was greenish and smelled like mushroom steaks back on Belial.

Mention fo hive world cuisine (They grow meat or meat substitutes from fungus) and a direct reference to the Ork's fungal nature.



Page 13

It seemed of the original twenty men who had been with me, more than half were dead and several of those who were left were dying.

Going with the 2-24 MJ estimate above for burning Orks, we can figure 20 men with their powerpacks discharged in a matter of seconds (call it 5 seconds).. thats double to triple digit kilowatts power output. IF we figure 50-100 shots per man that leads to single or double digit kj per shot estimated.



Page 19

"I am not the man who joined the Imperial Guard because he thought he could get promoted to Space Marine,"
..
"You thought so too."
..
Maybe he was right. Maybe we had believed that back on Belial, when all we knew of soldiering was what we read in propaganda novels written at the behest of the planetary government.
Was it possible we had been so naive? Well, whatever naivety had been in us had been burned out by ten years of constant warfare on a dozen worlds.

IG propoganda and recruitment tactics. Use the glories nad stories o Space Marines (and propogadna novels.. must be quite a lucrative industry in the Imperium) to lure people into the Guard. No problems with lying and exaggerating at all




Page 21

Over everything loomed the monstrous bulk of the landing ships on which we had dropped from the eternal dark of space. They were larger than ork gargants and down their belly ramps rumbled Leman Russ after Leman Russ. Company after company of soldiers exited through the external hatches.

IG dropships. Seem to be of the 'fucking huge' variety that carry huge numbers of troops AND vehicles.





Page 21

I thought about how different my surroundings were from that industrial world half a sector away. Belial was a cold place, much colder than this one and much more densely populated. There had been vast wastelands between the hive cities there too, of course. On Belial they had been slag heaps and ash deserts, the products of thousands of years of industrial production in the service of the Imperium.

Description of hive worlds and its distance from current world.




Page 26

"There’s been some shonky repairs done on Number Ten’s port-side armour towards the rear. You need to cover for that where you can. Set her down with the starboard towards the enemy where you can and the gunners will traverse the turrets to compensate. Be that way till we can get proper repairs done. The requisition chit is in – has been since Charybdis. Any decade now we will get the parts."

Hilarious that despite how old and important Baneblades are.. the Munitorum still cannot be trusted to faciilate the proper care and mainetenance of a vehicle in the field. Remember TECHNOLOGY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN MEN.
Of course we get indications this is a 'counterfeit' baneblade so they may operate by different rules.




Page 27

He looked at his control board. It was more or less a duplicate of mine. Hardly surprising really. Redundant controls systems are a feature of the Mark V Baneblade originated on Callan’s Forge. They say that it’s different on the Martian-sourced models but I would not know.

Like I said, 'counterfeit' Baneblade. Less sophisticated but much more common.



Page 28

The lieutenant lounged back in his commander’s chair and invoked the controls. The command consoles emerged from the floor of the hull and locked into place around him as the spirit of the ancient tank responded to his prayers.
..
The lieutenant studied the holo-images.

Baneblade command and control systems. Lots of holos, and consoles and suchlike. VEry electronic it seems.




Page 31

Everyone around the little counter in the Baneblade’s galley looked that way, even the engine-room boys who normally didn’t give a toss about anything.

This baneblade has a galley, which suggests its probably quite a bit bigger than the normal 'forge world' style baneblades, as those are cramped as fuck (as per the Guy Haley novel.) More like the command baneblade from Crimson Tears really.




Page 32

... put them face down on the table and poured himself another glass of Oily’s specially distilled coolant fluid..

I'm not sure if thats just a name or literal, but they drink it ALL the time in the novel.



PAge 33-34

Macharius was exactly what you expected an Imperial hero to look like. He was a big man, broad-shouldered, leonine. His hair was golden, his eyes were golden, his skin was golden. He moved with an easy grace. His uniform fitted him perfectly. Even then he was past what would have been middle age for a normal citizen but the juvenat treatments had taken perfectly. He looked no older than me. Hell, he looked younger and a lot fitter. He looked like you imagine the Emperor did when he walked amongst men; more than human.
When he spoke, he sounded the part as well. His voice was deep and perfectly modulated. There was an edge to it. It was the sort of voice you would expect a great predatory cat to have. His gaze settled on me as he passed. At first it was chilling. There was something cold about those golden eyes, something inhuman, but when he smiled, his face lit up and he seemed pleasant enough.

Our first glimpse of Macharius in the series. He looks the part of 'Imperial Hero' and talks the part. And yet, we get a glimpse of the 'other' side of Macharius.. the nasty side that contrasts the 'great man' aspect. Indeeed that sort of duality has long characterized him since his character was originally conceived, and we definitely see it here.




Page 35-36

It was not the words themselves that convinced you. It was the tone in which he said them. When you heard Macharius speak you knew that he believed utterly in what he was saying, and that you should too. There was something about his blazing conviction that forced you to push aside any doubts and reassess your own thoughts on the matter.
The man had an immense presence, an enormous authority, an aura that enveloped him and everything he touched and transformed if not the words themselves then your perception of those words. All around me, hardened soldiers strained to hear what he had to say, listened as if their hope of salvation depended on it. More than any priest, more than any commissar, Macharius made you believe, in him if nothing else.
..
We’ve all heard similar sermons preached before battles and on High Holy Days and I am damned if I can tell you what it was about Macharius that made his words different. Perhaps his lack of doubt communicated itself, but that could not be all. Many commissars I have known were every bit his equal in faith. No – it was something about the man. When Macharius spoke you could have been listening to the Emperor speaking to you from the depth of his Sacred Throne. I know it sounds like heresy, but that is what it felt like. Something had touched Macharius; maybe the light of the Emperor, maybe something else.

Macharius is, by and large, an impassioned and inspirational speaker.. not neccesarily great with words, but it is the intensity behind them the conviction, which sets his speaking above others as Lemeul notes. Macharius in this series is quite often characterized by a deep, utter conviction in humanity/the Imperium, his own role in the Crusade, etc. So confident, in fact, it may venture over into that 'darker, harder' side of Macharius alluded to above. Perhaps even madness.
Either way Macharius comes across as a much more complex character than some Space Marine 'heroes' do




Page 37

If you have never had any experience of being a soldier in the Imperial Guard, you will probably not realise how unusual it was for a ranking general like Macharius to say things like this to an assembled army. He was telling us the plan – personally. He was letting us know that there was one and that it was a good one, that he and his officers knew what they were doing, and that he personally was taking the time to communicate the details to you so that you understood your place in it, and you shared his faith in its efficacy.
He had the trick of pitching his voice and casting his eye over the crowd in such a way that you felt he was talking directly to you. You felt as though you mattered. As if you had a central role to play in this great scheme. Everyone present was as important as Macharius himself.

Another key attriubte of Macharius, he seems to have a gift for inspiring complete and absolute loyalty in those he leads. Even in those he uses (as bait or distractions, which happens quite a bit in this novel.) Again that duality of being 'inspiring/terrifying' for this ability manifests itself.



Page 38

"I hear the speech was recorded on vision crystal and is being sent out to every unit in the army,"
...
"Those words will be on record somewhere for as long as the Imperium endures."
"Aye, but we were there," Anton said. "We saw it for real."
It was the first time I ever heard a veteran of Macharius’s armies speak in that tone you would hear afterwards, ever and anon, across the stars, in that mixture of pride and awe. We were there. We stood in his shadow. We were part of his legend.

Crystal medium recording used to keep Mach's speeches. Beyond that, I think what really catches me about this quote is how it speaks not from the perspective of 'having heard about it' but more 'having been there' - whilst we know how important and epic stuff becomes later, the characters here REALIZE that import instinctively.. they feel that whole 'weight of history' thing both for good, and for ill.



Page 43

I looked down at the crystal of the console and watched the dots that represented units shimmer and shift, bees of greenish light swarming against a blood-red background.

Some osrt of unit display that shows dispositions and movement, I gather. Again Baneblade gear.



Page 44

The mighty vehicle responded to my commands like some great beast responding to its rider. I felt all of those hundreds of tons of weight move at my will. An armoured behemoth capable of crushing men to jelly beneath its treads, of crashing through buildings and destroying lesser vehicles by mass alone...

estimated mass of the Baneblade. It could be forge world variant here, although it doesnt rule out the 1000 ton type either.

[Connor MacLeod]

Huh. I seem to have been neglecting this thread. Oh well

Back to Angel of Fire. I decided I'll just chuck out obth since I've been lazy, and I'm already starting up the AdMech one so I can wrap this one up and let it sit for a year or so.

Don't worry, they're very short updates both - bit more than half of what I usually would do kilobyte wise

Part 2 of Angel of Fire:


Page 46-47

The tac-map showed the position of an oasis ahead. The holo-spheres representing our forces were already surrounding it. In the distance a few brief high explosive shots rang out as some pueblo village rejoined the dust from which it emerged before our position could be reported.

Mention of Baneblade having tac maps and holospheres again for data and stuff.


PAge 48

By the light of las-burst I recognised the mechanic’s squat form. He and a bunch of others from Number Six were flash-frying one of the beasts, probably wanted to know what it tasted like.

Lasrifles again thermal in effect. We dont know how big the scorpions are but if we figure 3rd degree and they're at least 15-20 cm long and maybe 10 cm across we're looking at least at 7-10 kj at least, probably twice that (15-20 KJ). Although whether for a single shot or burst we wouldnt know.



Page 50

If we dropped behind the main battlegroup there would be no help available either. We would be stuck out in the desert until the recycling systems overloaded and we died of hunger, thirst or bad air.

Counterfeit baneblade has its own recycling systems of some sort. AT the very least its probably air, but could include water and perhaps even food.



Page 51

"Our tac briefing says these storms can last for days. Sometimes the air outside can get so hot it’s like stepping into a furnace. The heat would kill you if the dust did not strip you to the bone first."
..
"It’s why every part of this force is mechanised. There’s no other way of fighting on this planet until we’re close enough to the hives to find some cover. "

Enduance of mechanized vehicles against adverse conditions as mentioned. This is important later, as the entire force is mechanised until they get close enough to assault said hives.


Page 57-58

. Somebody had chained up a number of men within the cages. They had set them alight. In places the flesh was scorched black, in other places pink meat and charred bone was visible where the flesh had sloughed away. Long metal tentacles descended from the top of the cage. They contacted the scorched skulls.
..
"There are heating elements in the metal. The bars, the chains, those cross-bars would all be white hot. They would be branded as they burned."
..
"If I find the bastards who do this stuff, I’ll show them the sort of burning a lasgun can do," said Anton.

Which implies - by my inteprretation at least, a lasgun should be capable of comparable effects on a human body. Again reinforcing its 'heat ray' nature, That said we know nothing of the parameters (rates of fire/duration, number of shots needed, percent of body burned, etc.?)
.5-1 MJ per body if we figure 3rd degree burns or so (50-100 J per sq cm maybe). If we figure a 100 shot clip thats 5-10 kj per shot, as an example.



Page 58

Signs of human occupation became more visible: empty irrigation canals and the huge crystalline geodesics of hydroponic farms.

Hive world hydroponics.





Page 59-60

Irongrad was as large a hive city as any I have ever seen and Belial was not a world short of giant metropolises. Each of those towers was a small fortress in and of itself. Each was like the bulkhead in a ship – it could be sealed off and defended even if its neighbours were taken or destroyed. And that would only be the beginning. Most of the city was hidden from view. Hives have endless layers, one on top of the other, descending into the very bowels of the planet.
..
The possibility of fighting street to street and block to block in that vast apparition was not a reassuring one. Of course, we had enough firepower to level the place if the need should arise. I told myself that was an idiotic thought – the whole purpose of the invasion was to take Irongrad and its pyrite processing plants.
..
How many people were in that hive, I wondered. Millions? Tens of millions? It did not seem possible that we could subdue them all.

Hive world defenses and their scope. The interesting bit is the whole 'underhive' bit, along with the fact that the invasion force (mentioned many times as tens of thousands of troops and later as thousands of vehicles including superheavies) has enough firepower to 'level' the hive. We can't really say much more than that without knowing the shape and size of the hive and the amount of firepower the force has, but it still sounds pretty damn impressive since the implied context of 'hive' in these novels is the volcano-like Necromunda/Armageddon-style hives.
Also an guess/estimate of 'millions' or 'tens of millions' of inhabitants in said hive. Which could be true - as noted we dont know the exact size and dimensions of the hives and they're not the same.




Page 61

Set amid the outskirts of the city, scattered among the slag heaps and volcanic maws were a number of fortresses..
..
Massive batteries of guns spiked out of them, covering the approaches.
..
..enormous turret-topped, armoured towers rising redly out of the desert. From them, guns spoke in voices of thunder.

the fortresses themselves, including the big-ass guns. Keep note of that.




Page 61

The beams of giant lascannon fused desert sand to crystalline slag. I prayed that one of them would not come to bear on us. I had the feeling that even a Baneblade might be reduced to fused metal in the blink of an eye by one of those awful weapons.

some of the big guns I gather are probably some sort of defence laser. Again heat rays. Given a 'hundreds ot tons' baneblade and if we assume iron composition we're talking hundreds of gigajoules at least 'in an eyeblink'.




Page 62

Thousands upon thousands of armoured vehicles belched fire at the distant walls behind which the hive towers rose like man-made mountains. The scream of rockets and roar of guns was dimly audible even through the hull of the Baneblade.

as I said, the Imperial forces are implied to encompass 'thousands' of vehicles of all types - Russes, Manticores, Basilisks, Baneblades, etc. which again plays into the whole 'levelling a hive' mentioned.




Page 62

Glancing around I could see one of those massive guns was pointing directly at us.
..
I swear I saw the distant muzzle of that enormous gun flash and something huge blur towards us. A moment later the Baneblade rocked under a massive impact. Somebody somewhere in the cockpit screamed.
..
It was a natural and understandable fear but the old monster had been built to withstand worse and its front armour was the strongest part of the tank.

We dont know how fast the shells travel but they seem to take a few seconds to hit the target (at most) Beyond that and the fact its a huge gun we can't really calc the effects except that it hit the front part of the tank.




Page 62-63

"Move us back a couple of hundred metres, Lemuel" he lieutenant ordered. "Straight back, front facing the enemy at all times."
..
It seemed that even the lieutenant preferred not to have a repeat of another direct hit. A few seconds later another shell landed where we had been. It blasted a crater a hundred metres wide in the earth but we were not there to enjoy it.

100 metre crater from some big shell of unknown type. By the ADC that would be several hundred tons of TNT, possibly less depending on how deeply it penetrates before detonating. I've heard it said that you need kilotons to blow out a crater that big based on Hardtack nuclear detonations. My problem with that, however, is that similar sized craters have been formed with considerably MORE nuclear devastation (see redwing, both lacross and seminole, which produce some interesting comparisons in tersm of crater size vs yield when compared to Hardtack) There is also Teapot in the context of Teapot Ess. And This one has a few low kiloton examples which are interesting for the crater sizes (Operation Jangle, Sugar and Uncle specifically). There is also possibly the Nougat-Danny Boy subsurface tests described herehere and here although they're quite deep.


ITs even more odd, since a 16" battleship shell, or Mk 84 2000lb bomb can both leave some 15 m diameter craters, yet the Schwerer Gustav (mentioned below) leaves only a 10m diamter crater. Indeed if you look here there are some pretty fucking big craters created (not all 100 m mind) with sub-kiloton explosions. Particular note Lochnager, Braamfontein, the Cali explosion. The largest, the RAF Fauld explosion, actually was a couple kilotons, but was a big larger than 100 metres too.

The battle of the crater is also interesting. I also stumbled across a Popular mechanics article (old oen) here which mentions ~2600 lb of TNT from a bomb making a 100 foot diameter crater.

By and large the point is cratering is pretty damn complex and it can depend a great deal on the parameters - are we talking a final crater or a temporary crater (the two are different, the former being larger as material from the edge fills in the bottom.), the nature of the crater formation (impact or explosion) -how deeply belowground the explosion occurs, the composition and condition of the ground, and so on and so forth. In the case of Hardtack it is not a subsurface explosion (contrasted with the Jangle-Uncle - 1.2 kt 17 feet below the surface, and the teapot ESS crater, also 1.2 kt but at 67 feet.) Likewise a 16" HC shell with a 70 kg explosive charge (and almost that same amount again in KE one might add) has nearly the same effect as a 2000 lb bomb despite far less explosive being used (several times less explosive even factoring in the Kinetic effects probably.) This is relevant because in all probability the shell launched from that cannon is the same - a high-mass, high velocity shell like the 16" HC shell, which means it will penetrate some depth into the ground before detonating.

Two constraints do occur to me. On one hand we might figure its a tandem charge, and the shell is designed to punch a hole deeper to maximize cratering. Why it would do that is beyond me, but the shell is unlikely to be airbursting (if the two shells are the same as before its unlikely in the previous examples, although if its a different shell that's another matter.) On the other hand, its hardly unusual for massive underground tunnel networks to be part of fortifications, and hives typically have a fair bit of underground stuffs too (nevermind underground citiies like Tallarn or Krieg or Valhalla.) if there is a tunenl, its quite likely that it contributed to the crater formation (a differnet kind of crater, but its not very specific here) and that would alter the calc, although by how much it would be hard for me to guess honestly.

But even if I am COMPLETELY wrong (and its always possible) and the crater isn't 100m, we can make estimates otherwise. We know in 'a few seconds' the baneblade travels back at least 3-4 m/s (Based on forge world and FFG baneblade speeds and the Haley novel for backwards speed estimated) which estimates around 10-15 m in diameter, which is comparable to a 16" battleship shell or possibly even Schwerer gustav, which isn't HUGE CRATERS but its still big. And to be blunt its unliekly you could confuse a 10 m crater anyhow for a 100 m crater (we dont know what he's basing the crater size on either, so it could be just eyeball guess or it could be after action reports or whatever, depending on the context one interprets the story as.) Its still pretty insane firepower wise.

My feeling is that what we're seeing is something like the Gustav or a Battleship shell.. a macro cannon or superheavy artillery emplacement firing multi ton shells (which we know exist from First and Only, Necropolis, Flesh and Iron, various sources) at similar velocities (700-800 m/s maybe) and yielding somewhere in the same magnitude of explosive (hundreds of kilos at least, more probably tons or tens of tons of TNT equivalent, albeit omnidirectional blasts.) Now that said, correlating it to other weapons is a bit trickier, since there are more efficent ways of damaging vehicles (Shaped charges, APFSDS) so a baneblade shrugging of a battleship-grade shot (or something on the scale of Schweer gustav) or tons of TNT does not mean it woudl automatically be immune to ANY sort of explosive or kinetic weapon unless it is of that same magnitude, obviously. Besides like any calc its more appropriate as an 'order of magntidue' rather than a specific, precise figure, so there's wiggle room anyways.

Just for refernce, stuff pertaining to crater sizes and explosives here under the post by EODGuy, and this post, specifically at page 15 (where it notes how damn variable stuff can get, and provides examples. Page 21 also notes that certain 'LARGE HE' explosions of a certain volume can produce wider/shallower craters than 'lower' yield ones. Page 26 is useful for comparisons of crater volume/radius too.) At some point I may actually be able to do a more, but now I'm a lazy bastard, but sufficed to say its variable and this is one reason why one should always treat any number (especialyl any number *I* produce) as more of an order of magnitude estimate, because its always hard (impossible) to gauge the precision and I can always be off (hopefully not by MORE than an Order of magnitude, at least!)

Lengthy rant over. Promise

Page 63

As we retreated other Baneblades hove into view on either side of us. I studied the rear monitor, making sure we did not run into anything or back off a precipice.

Baneblade has rear monitor for the driver.



Page 63

As we moved the gunner got the distance once again. Another mighty blow smashed into us. Such was its force that the front of the Indomitable rose into the air a metre or so and then fell back to earth.
I felt the crash through the padding of my seat.

Baneblade impact causes front of tank to lift up. Unfortunatley we dont know if it was a kinetic impact a lone, explosive, or a combination of both, or where it hit. all those facftors can effect the impact (if it struck the front of the baneblade and exploded, it might lift it up if it hit low, whilst a kinetic impact would probably have to hit the top-rear to lft it up. Given that 2 m/s (as noted here on page 3 of the document) recoil can lift a 18 ton tank 20 cm into the air, we could call it probably comparable, suggesting the tank hit by a shell at least 600,000 kg*m/s or so which is roughly battleship grade shells for KE/momentum alone (as per here, the 16" Iowa class BB guns could fire an 862 kg HE shell at ~800 m/s). Even if we figure its several times greater that would be comparable to an 18" naval gun Japanese and American versions fo rcomparison.) The multi-ton shells of the Schwerer Gustav are even nastier recoil wise.
Obviously if there is an explosion (and the nature of the explosive) involved it becomes much more complicated, and we certainly cannot rule it out so the above can be taken with a massive grain of salt.



Page 63-64

Shadowswords erupted through one of the city gates, moving with great speed. They looked surprisingly long and lean for such large vehicles. As mighty as our own mightiest vehicles, their long guns could take out even a Baneblade or a Titan; they were mobile and deadly, great predators of the battlefield capable of destroying anything that they encountered.
..
Perhaps they were a reserve unit swiftly rushed to the north of the city, perhaps they had simply been in the area. Their volcano cannons smashed into our smaller tanks and destroyed them with one shot.
..
A couple of them blew the treads of another Baneblade, immobilising it.

And they have ALOt of them. That's the interesting thing, local forces have a shit ton of superheavies that are anti-titan grade. Moreover they're quite mobile, although the firepower seems to be lacking compared to other novels. Then again if Baneblades are getting hit by the kinds of cannon shells described before, it might be pretty powerful. Again dealt with later.


'
Page 65

More and more tanks hove into view till I gave up counting them. I had no idea how many more of the heretics were still to come. On the front line it really does not matter how much bigger your force is if the enemy has local superiority.
..
The difference between veterans of half a dozen campaigns and untested troops from the planetary defence levies was starting to show. I noticed too that green blobs on the holo-screen were circling round to the north of us. It would not be long before the flanking force of the enemy would find itself outflanked. All we had to do was hold our ground. Their vehicles did not seem as strong as they ought to be either. Obviously they had been constructed in-system and most likely from corrupted templates.

Tank tactics (local s uperiority mentioned) and the differences between Imperial Guardsmen and local PDF forces. Also the Indomitables holo-screens again.
We also get clarification for why these Shadowswords are so numerous but subjectivley less powerful - they're cheap, local knockoffs. 'Counterfeit' shadowswords, so to speak. Less powerful, rpobably less durable, but easier to build.



Page 67-68

I heard the lieutenant report that we were in. More vehicles were moving into position behind us and more Chimera-mounted troops were being diverted our way to take advantage of this sudden gap in the defences.

Apparently the mechanized forces haven't deployed yet, which is useful to know given what I've mentioned already.




Page 69

The two-tailed airframe of a Valkyrie hovered above some huts while storm troopers swarmed down a fibre-rope ladder descending into the clouds of trash and dust raised by the aircraft’s drives. They deployed by squad; their heavy carapace armour made them look bulkier than a normal man, and their outsize lasguns did nothing to make them look less formidable.

Stormtroopers deployed. Note they're described as having lasguns rather than hellguns, although hellguns (or 'hot shot' lasguns') can by pictures qualify as oversized lasguns too



Page 74

They had infiltrated them with combat engineers from the hive below. It showed how desperate and fanatical some of them were that they would consider doing such a thing. Those towers had been the homes of tens of thousands of people and had contained shops and schola and medicae and all the other things that people need to live. All were flattened at the whim of some commander somewhere who had decided that they represented an obstacle to his great plan being accomplished.

I rather liked this because it tried to distinguish between 'fanatics' and the way the Imperial crusade forces view themselves. That doesnt mean the Imperium can't be just as fanatical (There are plenty of organizatons who can, be it the IRon Hands, Sisters of Battle, Death Korps, Puritan Inquisitors, etc.) but not everyone thinks that way, and doing things like this can be considered an atrocity - at least by the standards of some Imperials.
Also its possible to have shops, schools and hospitals in the Imperium.



Page 74

The lieutenant had one hand on his earbead and glanced down at his tac-grid. I was looking into the periscope.

tac grid again for the Indomitable.




Page 79

The entire command chamber erupted in a blaze of light. The air was filled with the smell of ozone and melting fuse wire. My display went mad for a moment and then dead.

Again drivers display seems to be electronic.



Page 85

We scuttled away across the command chamber, jumping over the loader’s corpse, trying to find some cover from the attack that we knew was incoming. There was no place to hide in the corridor and the smell of burning was becoming more intense. We scuttled back along the way Anton and Ivan had come and clambered up the metal ladder, making our way to the top of the Baneblade.

Once again suggesting thise is a pretty damn big Baneblade all told, alot bigger than the one in the Haley novels or in Forge world, at least.




Page 85

Looking out from the top of the tank, all I could see was enemies as far as the horizon.
It was like standing on top of a huge durasteel cliff looking down on a sea of hostile flesh

Durasteel is a component in baneblades



PAge 86

They were like animated statues, perhaps a hundred times the height of a man, made of durasteel and ancient alloys. They moved with a massive, lumbering grace. They were ancient god-machines produced by the Adeptus Titanicus, perhaps the most powerful war engines ever built.

Durasteel is also used in titans. We hear durasteel mentioned more times later anyhow. I'm not quite sure they are 200 m tlal.. we get mention of a Warlord earlier and MAYBE at most an Imperator would be that. Matter of opinion, I suppose. Its not like Titan sizes are fixed. LOL.



Page 86

..Space Marines of the Death Spectres Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. They were massive, armoured men, moving almost too fast for the eye to see. They smashed their way through the oncoming heretics and it did not matter that they were facing tanks and were outnumbered perhaps ten thousand to one.

Space Marines deploy at estimated odds of 10,000:1. Even with only a few squads deployed, we're talking at least hundreds of thousands of enemy troops implied. And before we get to space marine wank, refer before to 'local superiority' and remember that they are attacking in conjunction with the Imperial Guard (who deliberately created the trap - see below) and fricking Titans. That makes a difference, methinks.





Page 87

It was easy enough to understand and even quite admirable if you did not happen to be the bait in the trap. A massive enemy force had been drawn into the counter-attack. It overextended itself as it came on, certain of victory. It punched a salient out of our line and then once it was entrapped, it was encircled on both flanks by our armour and the Space Marines dropped on it from above. I worked it all out as I stood there. It was typical of Macharius or those who had studied his methods like Sejanus. There were feints within feints, traps within traps. We had walked into what looked like a trap ourselves only to draw our enemies into a bigger one. Maybe Macharius had not been quite so open with us as I had thought back when he was giving his speech from the side of the Indomitable.

The 'other' side of Macharius again.. that cold, calculating, even callous side. Again what is interesting is the self-reflective way Lemeul talks about it - he knows he's been used, but he is okay with it, because of the charisma of Macharius and the utter conviction/loyalty he inspires in those around him. He can make men volunteer to risk and even sacrifice themselves to accomplish something great, because he gets them to believe in the same things he believes in. Of course the ability to 'inspire' like that can also be scary too.. because of how fanatical it can make people.
And as we see this 'loyalty' even to the point of being used goes both ways - Machairus isn't the sort of leader who throws his men away for his own aggrnadizement or convenience.. he takes thos sacrifices seriously, and the bond of loyalty that he forges. It's a manifestaiton of his total, utter conviction and a big part of what makes him such a 'great man' and effective leader. Ultimately, he can make people believe, and as we know in 40K belief is a powerful tool.




Page 87

.. I could see heretics scrambling out of the hatch. One was already up. Another had just popped his head out. I blasted with the shotgun. I took the top heretic’s leg off at the knee and put multiple holes in his friend’s head. Ivan and Anton’s lasgun made sure of them.

Shotgun in action again. Not quite headsplosion, but part of the blast does take a guy's leg off.



Page 88

Bolters fired, weapons far larger than any mortal man ought to be able to carry. Where the shells hit, and they always hit, the target seemed simply to explode in a welter of blood and bone and flesh.

effects of bolters. Whether one shot or a burst blowing a guy apart we don't know, but it implies certainly full bodies being blown apart (grenade level damage.)




Page 88-89

One of them was lifted by the throat one-handed by one of the armoured giants and simply tossed away, dropping from the side of the Baneblade legs flailing. When he hit the ground below, he exploded, skull shattering, body reduced to shambles. Somehow, without me seeing it, the newcomer had slammed a grenade into his mouth before he fell.

Space Marine grenade apparently fits inside a guy's mouth (or in enough that it can't be pulled out) and has the firepower to blow apart a body, more or less. Given its pulping the lower body from head-down, we're probably tlaking something more devastating than a RL grenade, although that could be due to difference in size given Space Marine weapons are bigger (then again it also fit into the guys mouth and some Astartes carry micro grenades..)



Page 90

They clambered up on to them, ripped off durasteel hatches as if they were made of paper and dropped grenades into the interior.

Death Spectres again, this time ripping off 'durasteel' hatches of tanks, showing tevne heretic tanks are made of the material, but also giving an indicator of Space Marine strength.



Page 95

". I looked into one’s eyes. It was not like looking into a man’s eyes at all. And I don’t think he looked back at me and saw someone who was the same species as him. They say they live forever, you know."
"They don’t. Just longer than us, if they are not shot."
"Yes, but they have a gene-seed in them that is passed on from one to another. That lives forever. Some of them must be carrying seeds that date back to when the Emperor walked among men."
..
"And… and those Titans, they were old too, old as the Imperium maybe. Some of them must have walked when the Emperor did and that Space Marine’s gene-seed was new. We live in a strange and terrible universe, Leo,"

Discussion and clarification (perhaps) of Space Marine purported immortality, which may be ascribed to Gene seed more than physcial immortality.
Another interesting aspect of the passage, for me at least, is that it shows an interesting point of view regarding time and history. For humans we havent lived long enough as a civilization for thousands of years to matter to us. WE think in terms of decades being old and centuries ancient. What happens thousands or tens of thousands of years old really is beyond our comprehension. But it isn't for these people, and for them to express awe at the notion. The closest we can come to that is perhaps envisioning it in a biblical or mythic sense, and that only a few thousand years at most. For these people, the presence of things that can be old or older than our whole modern civilzation creates a sort of... awe.. I guess... which really stands out considering you expect 40k to be all grimdark. Finding something to have awe and wonder about is rare and precious and I suspect not everyone bothers to look for that. But for me, its worth finding because it stands out against all the grimdark - almost in defiance of it, even.



Page 97-98

There were dead bodies in the corridor leading towards the engine room. They were heretics. They had that strange look, as if their chests or their heads had exploded from within, that is so characteristic of the corpses of those who have been shot with a bolter. There is nothing, with the possible exception of grenades, that leaves quite such a mess and I say this as a man who is quite proficient with a shotgun.
Our boots made a strange sucking sound as we walked. It was impossible to tread through the narrow corridor without stepping in blood and entrails. Something bad had happened in the drive room. It must have taken the first hit and it had been a nasty one. The engine had exploded and taken out the engineers. Oily had been beheaded by a slice of metal half the size of the door that had been blown off in the explosion. The rest of his team had been so badly chopped up that we could not really work out which body parts belonged to which person.

Again its passages like this - and the fact there is enough room for a team of engineers, and for bodies to be littering the tank (and that SPACE MARINEs could fit in them.. the Corridor's in Guy Haley's novel inside a baneblade were 60cm across and an Ork could barely squeeze in) again point to this being a much bigger tank than we're used to. And again like Counter, Bill King seems to be throwing back to the old 'epic' size baneblades (thousand ton mobile city blocks.) I dont know that for sure of course, but it seems likely.




Page 98

The door swung open. Crammed into the tiny space of the toilet were the New Boy and the Understudy.

Baneblade has a toilet, which to my knowledge again points at them being big.



Page 99-100

Most of them were in the uniforms of heretics. I told myself I had no sympathy with them, that they had been trying to kill me only a few hours before, but, of course, it is never that simple.
..
There was one young boy lying there. There did not seem to be anything wrong with him except for the red stain spreading across the chest of his tunic. His face was very pale and he licked his lips when he saw me. He was frightened and he wanted to ask for something at the same time. I tried to ignore him and walk past.
"Wait," he said. He was speaking Low Gothic. The local accent distorted the word but it was recognisable. Something made me turn to face him. "Drink. Please."
I looked him in the eye. He was very young, even younger than the New Boy, younger than I had been when me, Ivan and Anton had run away to join the Guard. He held my gaze evenly.
..
I stuck out my hand. It surprised me to see there was a canteen in it.
"Thank. You." He took a swig and lay back. He was dead before his head hit the ground. I wondered whether the act of drinking had killed him.

heretics they may be, but they are still also humans. I think its interesting that even whent he Imperium tries to think in blacks and whites, there is plenty of scope for grey areas because not everyone can think in black and white, absolute terms. For Leo, the dying boy reminds him that but for divine providence or luck - that could be him. Bill King spends a fair bit of the book building up that sense of mortality - through the eyes of Leo and his comrades - that no matter how many years you might have survived, that next war could be the last. That sense of mortality, and the feelings that it evokes (and from the different perspectives of each person) ties in with the dual image of Macharius, because the reputation of a hero is built on the bodies of the soldiers he leads (or at least thats how it seems to me.) And the book seems big on casting lots of different perspectives on Macharius both as the man and the legend.





Page 103

The rest of the tech-adepts moved around the wreckage. They paid as much attention to the heretic vehicles as they did to our own, which felt subtly wrong, until I realised they were looking for salvage and what they could strip down for parts. They walked around wrecks, banged them with massive, ceremonial spanners, chanting diagnostic catechisms and consulting with their portable divinatory altars.
Once the basic rituals had been performed, they marked some of the less damaged vehicles with reclamation sigils. The rest they began to strip. Soon I saw sparks flying from welding cutters.

Salvaging heretic/rebel vehicles as well as Imperial for reclamation - either as parts or possibly for rebuilding.




Page 103-104

It meant the tech-adepts thought the martial spirit had definitely fled from the old tank. It would be sent back to one of the Temple factorums and be imbued with a new one if that was possible, broken up for parts if it was not.

Again reclaiming and rebuilding vehicles, or breaking them down for parts.

[Connor MacLeod]

Part 3. got a little distracted. Oh well. Done with this one and off to Fist of Demetrius at some point in the future. Enjoy



Page 110

It was quite dark and no one had thought to put the lights on. I suppose the techs relied on their night vision goggles. Anton banged on the bulkhead and someone upfront must have understood what he meant for a glowglobe flickered on and illuminated the scene dimly.

AdMech reclamation crews seemingly have night vision gear, although whether visors or augmetics we dont know (could be either - they're mentioned as having powered armour but also augmetics. The NVG reference would suggest the former tho.)



PAge 112

The Understudy was the last out of the Atlas and he consulted his wrist chronometer. Like all officers’ watches in the Seventh it had a navigator built into it. Having checked the coordinates of our present position he turned and walked towards where he knew headquarters must be.

I'm guessing that means the watches for officers are fitted with some GPS (the coordinates) and/or a fancy compass. I'm leaning towards GPS though as what a 'navigator' is.



Page 119-120
- I won't quote anything here, but it lists the deaths of the Indomitable's crew.. at least 7 died, and we know at least 5 survived, which means a crew of at least twelve.



Page 126

...we would not be getting any more cooling fluid that would convert to rot-gut alcohol any time soon.

I guess the rotgut was made from actual cooling fluid



Page 130

Macharius praised us and pinned the decorations on our tunics. I remember standing close to him as he did so and thinking how tall he was and how young he looked. He radiated power and good health and a certain reserved good fellowship. When he looked at you, you felt the full power of his attention fall on you. When he spoke, he seemed genuinely interested in what you had to say, even if you only stuttered out your words as Anton did. He placed his hand on your shoulder in a comradely fashion and then moved on.
What I remember most about him is his sense of presence. Macharius was truly there. It was as if he was a solid thing and everything else around him was a shadow. Damn, I could spend the rest of my life trying to find the words to describe that but in the end all descriptions would be irrelevant. They could never give you the sense of the sheer primordial power of the man.
..
I know he praised my bravery and I thanked him for it, and that he meant it and I meant it, which given how cynical I am, is a tribute to the man’s charisma.

Yet again we see that Macharius is characterized by his deep, utter, even fanatical conviction, his ability to inspire that conviction in others - to make them believe as he does - and to inspire a deep and abiding loyalty through the person he is. I think thats what I find most positive about the book, because while there is plenty of bleak stuff the importanc eof belief and loyalty underlies it all, embodied by Macharius (often in good ways, sometimes in bad ways.) It cna lead to horrible things - troops being used as bait or sacrificed as needed - but it is done so in the hope of achieving something greater and making those sacrifices worthwhile. Contrast that with the usual grimdark 'lives pointlessly sacrificed for no end.' which serves no real purpose other than to be mindlessly grimdark.



Page 145

The Understudy had his hand to his ear, listening to something on the comm-net in the ear bead.

The Lieutenant in charge of Leo, Anton, and Ivan's group - Ryker - has a micro bead at least. The others when they were in the baneblade had one (at least Leo did) which may mean at least some of the Crusade force have such.



Page 146-147

All I could see was at least a dozen of our boys lying dead on the ground. All that was left of them was scorched bodies. Their flesh was black and cracked in places. Most of their uniforms looked as if they had been set on fire. Their weapons lay close at hand, buckled and melted as if someone had thrown them into very intense flame.
..
Anton studied the survivors. There were half a dozen of them...
...
The corpses of roasted rats lay nearby. Cockroaches the size of dinner-plates had exploded in the heat.
..

One thing I could not see was any sign of the people who had attacked. I looked around very carefully for bodies. There were probably two score civilians but none of them had any weapons.
I surmised that the survivors had gathered up the guns and taken them for themselves because I could not see any sign of flamethrowers or the sort of heavy weapons that would have resulted in this sort of loss. Some of these soldiers looked as if they’d been hit by a lascannon. There were a number of people heavily wounded – they had suffered very bad burns. The last time I had seen people who look like that, they had been dragged from the cockpits of burning tanks. Most of them had not lived very long afterwards.
..
"Was he in a Hellhound, complete with a flamethrower attached?"
..
"He was a psyker, one of those priests"

More specifically the Angel of Fire priests were the psykers. We dont know exact details like how it was done and duraiton, but a psyker basically burnt at least a dozen and perhaps several dozen people badly enough to be blackened/charred, and with plenty of nasty side effects (burning the vermin nearby.) It is also notable that the effects are compared to heavy weapons in general and flamers... which itself has interesting implications.
The one 'hit by a lascannon' is especially interesting as it implies either unstated explosive effects, or the lascannon in this novel are also heat rays (probably not surprising given the big defence lasers could melt baneblades supposedly). It doesnt seem (likely) that the weapon was very explosive, but we're probably talking at least single digit MJ for the lascannon for a single body (we dont know if the context means 'single lascannon hit to troop' or 'severla lascannon hits to multiple troops' or even 'single lascannon hit to a bunch of troops' much less the exact effects, so its pretty open ended. For exmaple the uniforms were set on fire. Assuming both sides of a body at least at 125 j per sq cm flash burns (which can ignite clothing and similar) we get ~2-3 megajoules at least. If it were much more severe, say 4th degree (close to 'cracked and blackened' flesh) we might get upwards of 8 or so MJ. Of course, if the 'cooking' was deeper than surface, it could be double digit MJ or more. Probably not massively more than that, as (disregarding inefficiencies) the effects did not vaporize or cremate appreciably.
The comparison to a Hellhound too is also telling, and again whilst we can't exactly calc the effects the comparisons are interesting both regarding weapons and psyker abilities. We might also guess that lascannon are comparable to flamethrowers in energetic output (whether this means hellhound or regular flamers, and what kind of flamer we dont know, since its possible to argue 'cremation' level damage with some flamers we've seen, and Inferno cannon can easily get to that level too.)



Page 156

I pulled the trigger of the shotgun. The shell broke up en route to its target, coming apart in a spray of molten metal. It never reached the heretic priest but burning hot pellets landed amid his followers.

Implies perhaps that the shotgun shell is a solid slug rather than pellets, although the shotgun uses buckshot later too. Maybe its some sort of round that fragments/disintegrates in midair to scatter the shot, however, or behaves like a glaser round? That might help explain some of the headsplosion bits.



Page 163-164

"Their souls go to join the Angel"
..
"The flames cleanse them of their sins and they join his choir purified and free of the bonds of flesh."
..
"They say that the psykers the Black Ships take join the Emperor. Might this not be the same?"
"I don’t think you can compare the Emperor with the Angel of Fire," said Anton. He sounded outraged. Maybe it was the drink.

Kinda ironic because.. it could be the same despite the fanatical denunciations (no True Imperial would ever countenance their pure faith being like filthy Chaos, after all) because we know from many sources the mechanics are similar (going all the way back to Realms of Chaos.) The 'Angel of fire' can absorb souls like any daemon or warp god, and the Emperor is certainly a warp god (heck he's a psychic shaman gestalt already) and can also absorb souls. I think its really one of those nice 'point of view' scenes we get in the book that shows that many of the comforting absolutes the Imperium can cling to are not, in fact, quite so absolute depending on your point of view.




Page 165

I looked at the room. There were the usual small personal belongings you find in a hab-cell. Some pictures of Anna as a girl with her family, some little trinkets – sacred prints, knick-knacks. You can see them in a billion, billion hab-cells anywhere in the galaxy.

Which might imply that the Imperium has a quadrillion 'hab cells' throughout the galaxy, or it may refer to just hab cells in general (in and out of the Imperium.) Heck it may even be hyperbole. If it were literal, and applied to the Imperium (or even just humanity in general) it would easily imply populations on the order of quintillions. Heck even if the Imperium was representative of a small fraction of that (10% or 1% say) you're still talking a shitload of quadrillions, and we already knew that was possible.




Page 167

"I volunteered, believe it or not. It’s most likely one of the reasons we are talking."
"How so?"
"The Imperial Guard are the elite of the planetary levies. One of the things they look for is superior motivation. Volunteers have more of that than conscripts."

The notion that the Guard favors volunteers over conscription seems to go against the 'theme' of 40K being GRIM DARKNESS OF WAR and futile and dystopian as shit but it makes alot of sense. The Imperium is obsessed as fuck about loyalty, and people who are motivated (such as volunteering out of patriotism, tradition, duty, honour, excitement and new worlds, clothing and shelter and food, etc.) are less likely to jump ship than those who are forced to join (Eg conscripts.) That can have a huge difference in morale and other factors too, so opting for that would clearly be in the Imperium's best interests.
We also get it linked to the 'Guard tithing the elite of the PDF' bits from fluff, which seems to play into that 'motivation' aspect - the PDF forces are clearly the first option, reflecting both a ready source of already-trained and equipped troops (raw material to shape into proper Guardsmen, or at the very worst, already prepared troops to trhow into a meatgrinder if time is an issue.) wheras civilian recruits have disadvantages (especially by conscription. Having to train them if you want them to be effective, and them being evne less effective as cannon fodder than the PDF recruits would be without proper Guard training. Civilians would also take longer to train lacking the PDF foudnations to draw upon.)



Page 169-170

In the case of Karsk there were five inhabited planets in a system of twenty-seven worlds. Each of those worlds helds at least five hive cities and in some cases as many as forty. Each of those hive cities contained enormous armaments factories and populations numbering in the tens of millions.

I think it means at least 5 habitable worlds, each with at least 5 hives, but at least one if not two with 40. At least 60 hives with the opposite end being several hundred. Each with 'tens of millions' If we take that literally, its at least 1 billion people in the system, which is a bit low given the 'billions' mentioned later, but reasonably approximate. If we figure closer to 100 million and 200 hives you get something like twenty billion, which corresponds to other examples (like from the Bastion Wars novels, or the Boros Gate having hundreds of billions of people in that system, reflecting a major and well-defended world of the Imperium.) If we use the '250 million' hive figure from 'Lord of hte Night' as a benchmark you get between 15 and 50 billion, still firmly within the 'tens of billions' upper limit range.
If we extrapolate from this and figure there were roughly 33K hive worlds (call it between 7000 and 33000 depending on whether that number is 'per world' or 'per system') it goes withotu saying that the hives represent at LEAST tens of trillions (and this still being na underestimate given all other fluff) if not hundreds of trillions (still conservative.) If we figure its average for all the million or so worlds that would easily put the Imperial populace into quadrillions (which is more consistent with certain bits of fluff we know.) And if we go with 'billions of hive worlds...' well that bit about quintillions of hives seems alot less silly.



Page 187-188

A number of the heretics had gone down. The burned meat smell of las-bolt wounds and the scorch-marks on their robes told the tale of how they had died.
..
The dead heretics had all been shot in the back of the head with a very high-calibre slug gun of some sort.
..
Those weren’t las-bolt burns. The corpses did not have the exploded-from-the-inside look of bolter victims either so that ruled out Space Marines.

Lasfire in these novels is visually distinct (and distinctly thermal/heat ray) from bolter and projectile weaponry. Seems to again indicate little to no explosive/hole-making effects generally.
Also the smell of lasfire. lol



Page 189-190

Macharius himself grinned at us. There was a glitter in his eyes that was close to madness. I realised then why it was the Lord High Commander led assaults and how he had collected his wounds. He enjoyed combat, loved it with a burning passion. Some men do. He was one of them. The bolt pistol he pointed at us never wavered. I sensed without needing to be told he would be happy to use it if given any provocation at all.

Yet another side ot Macharius. A bit more of, I think the monster/madman angle to complement the 'Great Leader' aspect. Someone who lives for and thrives on war the way some people thrive in certain enviroments or jobs. His passion for war is probably the 'true' nature - the absolute conviction he has for humanity and the Imperium is perhaps what gives that personal, selfish drive its outlet and focus to make the man what he is. There's an interesting duality there, which makes the 'temptations' he faces at the end of the book all the more interesting.



Page 191

Anna raised that long-barrelled gun of hers. There was a faint hissing sound, like a blow gun being used. Heads exploded in quick succession. A few of the heretics managed to turn, confused by the swift savage assault. All that got them was a bullet through the eye or forehead instead. The only accuracy I have ever seen to match it was from the Space Marines.

Assassin's huge pistol. We dont knwo what it is, probably not a bolt gun, although it may use explosive ammo. Seems to be large caliber and subsonic at least, though. Needle gun, maybe?



Page 205-206

"What was it like? A forge world of some sort?"
"An industrial world, sir, allied to the Adeptus Mechanicus but not a forge world. We supplied components. I am not sure what for. The trade routes were disrupted during the Great Schism and trading ships were rare."

Lemuel talks about Belial to Macharius. Industrial worlds are 'allied' to the AdMech but not officially forge worlds. Basically we might say a more sophisticated but less populous hive world (the two can be synonymous), but not as AdMechy. Vostroya is the most obvious example, naturally (Strong admech ties, higher than usual tech base and quality of gear, etc.)



Page 206

" I want to serve the Emperor. I want to restore His peace and His Light to our sector of the universe."
If anyone else had said that to me I would have mocked them. It seemed like a tall order for one man. With Macharius though, it was different. He took it seriously and somehow that made you do so too.
..
"The Schism made humanity weak. It opened our territories to invasion by xenos and heretic. It left thousands of our worlds and billions of our people prey to cosmic evil. We can put an end to that. We can make a difference."
..
"It seems like a big job, sir." I said.
"Too big, you are thinking, but it is not, not for the Imperial Guard. It is too big for one man, or one million men, but with the resources of the Imperium to draw upon no task is too large."

Two interesting points here. First Macharius is talking about a 'sector', which may be an Imperial Sector, and 'thousands of worlds' and 'billions of people' which may again be in reference to a sector. In context it suggests that the 'sector' contains those 'thousands' of worlds mentioned, which would be one of the first (few) mention of the Imperium claiming thousands of worlds per sector. What kind of worlds is of course up to debate depending on how you define 'sector' after all.
It goes without saying that 'billions' at least is an under-estimate, since the Karsk system alone has billions of people at a minimum.

The second, much larger point, is the insight into Macharius' mind - his motivations . He is a 'true believer'.. even a bit of a fanatic and perhaps a madman (all of which become evident in the course of the book.) What's notable is that its a more uplifting sort of madness... an absolute belief in the manifest destiny of humanity. And whilst that 'manifest destiny' typically has alot of destructive side effects (like xenophobia and intolerance.) in another way its one of the more positive outlooks about the Imperium. Rather than the 'The Imperium is vast and you are insignificant and unimportant in the scheme of things' grimdark, you get the 'the Imperium is vast and capable of anything when it puts its mind to it.' which is a much different view to take. Its that view, and the conviction behind it, that drives Macharius and contributes greatly to what makes him 'great' in the eyes of many.




PAge 207

His words were those of the great politician he was but you could tell he believed them. That was what gave them such force. And he spoke with the same passion to an audience of one as to an audience of hundreds of thousands. "If we don’t stand together, we are doomed. I don’t care what the Schismatics believe as long as it includes belief in the Emperor, Lemuel, strange as that may sound. What I care about is the way heresy fragments the realm of humanity and tears us apart. United under the rule of the Emperor we are invincible. Split into thousands of warring schismatic states we will fall. Someone needs to put it all back together."
..
And there it was – the iron core of his self-belief, the secret of what made him what he was. Macharius was a believer. He believed in the Emperor, he believed in humanity, but most of all he believed in Macharius. All of his beliefs were in perfect alignment and all of them supported each other. If you opposed the Imperium, you opposed Macharius. If you were the enemy of Macharius, you were the enemy of the Imperium. I was to see evidence of just how ruthless that could make him, before the end.

Again Macharius' speaking ability is characterised both by the passion and conviction with which he speaks, so much so (and in the manner that it is equally the same regardless the size of the audience, as Lemeul notes) which contributes so much to the man's image and his charisma. And like many such quotes like this it also carries the edge of 'darkness' - that 'conviction gone too far' in how ruthless he can be. And yet, despite the ruthlessness, despite witnessing it firsthand, Machairus inspires such loyalty in Lemeul he is still considered a great man.




PAge 215

"It will be dreadful. It will bring with it things from the hellish space it inhabits, from the warp."
..
"It will have vast psychic powers at its command and legions of daemons. If it gains a foothold here nothing short of Exterminatus will remove it. General Sejanus’s force will not be able to stand against it."

Suggesting Exterminatus can work against daemonic summonings, which is contrary to what we knwo from other works (you only stop daemons by killing their hosts/food source.) That might reflect what is meant here, though.




Page 219

There was no sign of the wounds that had slowed him just a few days ago. His health seemed to have been miraculously restored. There are those who would take that as a sign he was blessed but a medical adept told me that some people simply take very well to the juvenat treatments and that the cellular stimulation helps them regenerate wounded tissue. He thought it most likely Macharius was one of those.

An interesting side effect of Macharius' rejuv/juvenat therapies.. it seems they are persistant and ongoing to the poitn they can speed up healing. This leads to some interesting speculations on their nature - something akin to the 'viral machines' that work on Space Marines, perhaps? Some sort of 'micromachines' like the FFG autosanguine healing ability confers? A mix of the two? In any event I suspect that the same process that reverses the damage inflicted by the passage of time on the body (Aging, in other words) means it can 'repair' other kinds of damage also much more effectively, hence the side effect.
Also it seems that the efficacy of Rejuv is variable amongst people, which may reflect differences in effects, side effects, life extension, etc.



PAge 221

There were thousands of people here, and millions outside in the hive and billions scattered across the system, all of whom believed in the absolute truth of the Angel of Fire.

Again 'billions' of people in the Karsk system, echoing my estimates earlier based on 'hive worlds'.




Page 229

Macharius beckoned. I followed. Macharius had his distraction. I was stunned by his ruthlessness. Having freed the men, he had left them to fight. He was sacrificing their lives so that we had a chance. The horrible thing was that he was right, and what was even more awful was the fact that the death he had granted them was better than the one the prisoners had been going to face.

In this case, to stop a psyker summoning a daemon. This is yet another view of Macharius - a reflection of that aforementioned drive and 'belief', albeit in a darker and more bleak fashion. He is a leader of men and he must sometimes sacrifice them for some greater good, and in this case he is sacrificing men as a diversion so he may (hopefully) avert a greater catastrophe and prevent the daemonic summoning. And Lemeul is right - it IS horrible, however necessary it is and there is the rub. Macharius beliefs strongly in humanity and the Imperium, but that also makes him ruthlessly pragmatic at the same time.
At least he's not doing it solely for glory and personal gain.




Page 236

I put my shotgun to the head of the nearest pyromancer and pulled the trigger. His head exploded in a waterfall of brains and blood. It splattered the psyker beside him. I would have thought that would have got their attention but the chanting never even slowed down.

Shotgun headsplosion.




Page 249

"We won’t find an aircar in this part of the city"
....
"We’ll need a place where they are more common."
....
..we picked ourselves up and began to move again, looking for a way out of this vast maze of rubbish and scavengers and a way back into the wealthier parts of the city where such things as flying vehicles were available to be stolen.

The planet (an industrial world) has aircars - at least civilian model.




PAge 249

The first thing we grabbed was a groundcar. It was easy. Anton jimmied open the window with his bayonet. Anna invoked the engine spirits aided by a piece of sanctified wire.

I thought this was amusing because of the sacred hotwiring ritual




Page 255

We began to move across the plascrete plain, moving closer to the flyers that Macharius had already picked out. They were small local transport models of a variant I was not familiar with. They were armoured though and they had turrets, which might well prove useful, providing no one was already in them and ready to shoot us down.

We learn later they have at least 3 heavy bolter turrets. Its a flyer, but also referred to as an aircraft, so we don't quit eknow what kind, except its military and presumably PDF. Whether its a gunship like vehicle or a plane is up for debate, I suppose.




Page 256-257

He never got to complete it before something took his head off. I looked around and saw Anna standing there with that huge gun in her hand.
Whatever protected those heretic psykers from las-bolts clearly had no effect whatsoever against those high-calibre, sanctified slugs.

The Assassin Lady and her high calibre doomgun. apparently the bullets are psyker proof (recall what happened with Lemeul's shotgun slug.)



Page 257

I kept shooting and backing away up the ramp on the back of the flyer. Metal flexed under my feet even as las-fire melted the metal of the walkway. The smell reminded me of the factorum workshops of my youth with their casting forges and sacrosanct welding engines.

Lasfire melting unspecified amount of metal under/around Lemeul. If we figure a 2 cm diameter area 5mm 'deep' and iron, we get around 18-19 kj to 'melt', but beyond that we can't really guess except to say 'maybe' double digit kj heat ray per shot - however many shots that works out to be.




Page 257-258

The Understudy had caught me and was dragging me inside.
As ever, he ignored the shots of our enemies as if he simply could not see them. This time one of them hit him and I smelled burning cloth and burning flesh.
...
I wanted to take a look at his wound but he had already stripped away his officer’s jerkin and was inspecting the scorched skin beneath. It looked nasty. There was a huge blister that had burst and peeled away revealing the moist, sticky flesh beneath. I began to rummage through the emergency medical kit near the rear loading-bay door. Within a few moments I found what was needed and was spraying the damaged skin with synthi-flesh. It closed over the wound, filled with air bubbles and resembled nothing more than a large wart but it would protect the damaged flesh until it could heal.

First point obviously is that its pretty much 'thermal heat ray' damage - at least flash burns (second degree at least.) but we dont know the acutal depth. According to here a minor burn is any smaller than 3 inches in diameter. If we figure 20-50 j per sq cm (up to 3rd degree) and call it 50 sq cm we're talking at least 1-3 kj, possibly more. Mind you it had to burn through clothing as well, so that would suggest at least 125 j per sq cm for flash burns so the actual energy is 6 kj or so, with the uniform (for whatever reason) 'absorbing' most of that thermal effect (light body armour of some kind? or just naturally resistant to flame or such? Hard to say.)
Also medical care for such severe wounds. That it can probably heal without grafting suggests again against third degree burns, unless there was some active healing agent in the synthiflesh stuff.




Page 266

The Valkyrie set us down beside an enormous headquarters tent, a vast self-erecting pavilion of flexi-metal capable of being set up within minutes and taken down just as fast. It was big enough to hold a dozen Baneblades. Arcane science let it blend in with its surroundings like those desert-dwelling, colour-changing lizards.

Army General's HQ. Interesting for being self-erecting (within minutes), partly metal of some kind and having what I take to be cameleoline. This may be some exmaple of the modular/hab/temporary shit the Imperium can deploy.



Page 283

Macharius looked at us and gestured for us to come with him, so we did. I did not know what to expect but I followed him up the drop-down ladder and into the interior of the Baneblade. It had been modified more than a little. There was a mass of additional command systems and holo-maps inside the enhanced driver’s chamber. It looked like the tech-priests had been very busy in this vehicle. Drake was there and a bunch of people I did not know and whose purpose I could not guess.

Macharius with his own specialized command Baneblade it seems with extra stuff added. Which, in addition to Drake and his entourage joining the normal crew and Macharius, suggests it is far larger than the Guy Haley/Forgeworld version.



Page 292

A cohort of hastily repainted Leman Russ blocked our way. I just kept moving towards them. Our guns blazed, reducing them to so much slag, and the Baneblade pushed through the wreckage like a mastodon pushing through a herd of antelope.

Which I suppose means they may have been melted down, but I suppose that depends on the weapons and whether oyu take it literally (and whether 'wreckage' is assumed to be molten or partly molten. Assuming it WERE taken litereally, we might be talking triple digit GJ if it was completely melted, but even if taken literally it doesnt mean total melting (nevermind it would be hard to justify baneblade shells melting shit unless they were melta munitions.) Then again most energy weapons melt shit in this novel so it not implausible.



Page 295

In my mind’s eye I can picture the proud defenders of humanity surging into battle with hordes of heretics and swarms of manifest daemons, all the hungry horrors that serve the Changer of Ways. On a thousand streets, hundreds of thousands of men are locked in combat with the forces of evil. Thousands of Leman Russes and Chimeras and Manticores roar along roadways and across bridges, seizing the main transport arteries and pushing on deeper into the city. From what I overhear on the comm-net, tens of thousands are dying and far, far more are already dead.

Scope of Macharius' offensive force against the Chaos cult.. hundreds of thousands and thousands of vehicles of various sorts.. it suggests a 1:10 ratio roughly at least for such, possibly a much smaller one. And probably tens of thousands of mechanised at least.
And he has alot of rocket launcher artillery it seems too lol.





Page 299

Drake was surrounded by his own bodyguard now. They seemed to appear out of nowhere but obviously had arrived with the main body of our troops. They were hard, competent-looking men in heavy carapace armour I associated with shock troops and storm troopers. They did not have the insignia of any regiment I knew though which was ominous enough. They were armed with lasguns bigger and heavier than ours.

What's interesting isn't so much that an Inquisitor has storm trooper or ST analogues.. its that their carapace (at least) is associated with 'shock troops' as well as stormies. Whether this refers to like the Cadian Kasrkin, or is meant to imply that the hardshell armour forces like the CAdians might employ is a kind of carapace (lower quality perhaps) I dont know. Its interesting either way, though.





Page 310

I raised my shotgun to my shoulder, took careful aim and fired at the High Priest. The sound of the shot was shockingly loud in the ominous silence. The chief heretic’s head exploded in a cloud of blood and brains.

Another shotgun headsplosion, except from much further away. Implies a pretty damn powerful shotgun.



Page 312

The psykers around Drake started to fall, their mouths open, their faces pale, blood gushing from mouths and nostrils and eye-sockets. It was not the same sound as the heretics made as they were slaughtered, it was something else, the sound of men who were losing their very souls, having them drawn from their bodies and offered up as a sacrifice to something greater.

Beams of light emerged from Drake’s hand and surged around the gateway, forming a lattice around it. His whole body was lit by the energies he wielded. His eyes blazed with the Emperor’s Light. Every one of the people who still communed with Drake stood frozen. Their eyes were wide, their mouths stretched in ghastly rictuses as if screams were being torn from their very souls. One by one, they toppled and died as if their life force was being wrenched from them and used to power whatever exorcism Drake performed.

There's an interesting sort of parallel and contrast between this and the 'sacrifices' by burning the Angel of Fire cult performed. Earlier in the book comparisons between the 'Angel' cult and the Imperium were made (and angrily denounced) but its alot closer to the truth than they might want to admit, I think. The Imperium is as big on 'personal sacrifice' as much as Chaos can be (although they have a greater preferene for voluntary sacrifice and relatively non brutal means - whcih is also a comparison made between the burnings and a 'mere' execution by bullet, for example.) and that sacrifice can be as much a power source (as it is here) for the Imperium's psykers/sorcerer-analogues and God as it can for its Chaos counterparts. The difference lies solely in the motivations and context - the Imperium stands for order and (more or less) humanity and the collective group, whilst Chaos is for the individual, disorder, and the like. That like/unlike bit reflects much of early 40K from the 'Realms of Chaos' stuff that I happen to so like, and reminds me of one reason I like Bill King as a writer.



Page 314

The High Commander’s name became a battle-cry that would ring out down the years and across thousands of worlds. He would change the destiny of our sector and the Imperium and I suppose it all started there.

Again sector implied to equate to thousands of worlds, although the context is not absolute either - the two may be connected but it may also reflect Macharius being known Imperium wide and that his efforts to restore a chunk of Imperial space included (But was not limited to) Lemeul's sector of space. Assuming sector also means what I think it does. lol.




Page 315-316

We had stood in the presence of a great cosmic evil. Men have been killed for less. Entire armies and worlds have, for fear that they might be tainted and turned against the Imperium.
..
He had been tested and he had not been found wanting. Perhaps he was the one we had been waiting for, for so long. Perhaps that is why the Angel wanted him as well. He would have made just as terrifying a tool of the powers of darkness as he was a champion of the Imperium.
..
I could not tell him the real reason a faction of the Inquisition wanted him alive, just as several factions wished him dead. I told him it was because the Imperium needed him, that it must be reunited, that gigantic challenges awaited us in the new millennium and that the realm of mankind needed to be strong to face them. It played to his vanity. I could tell that at least part of him believed while the deeper and more subtle part of his mind sought the truth.

There's quite a bit of foreshadowing about Macharius and his nature, and a big part of it seems to stem from Drake's involvement (and the mention of his 'treason'.) It seems that Macharius' venture is simply a battleground for a much larger Inquisitorial schism. Given what we know of the Big I and what seems to be hinted at here and throughout the book (Macharius being a champion/vessel, either for Chaos or for the Imperium, argument over his beatifcation, etc.), Drake may be a Thorian and the 'treason' was declared by the factions who want Macharius and drake dead because they perceive heresy, whilst Drake and his crowd evidently view Macharius as some sort of Messiah. What this holds for the future, we can't say, but its still interetsing overall and its another one of those storylines about 40K I've always liked (we had it with Farseer as well, for example.)




Page 316 Spoiler

He told me of some ancient kings of Terra. They had a tradition that after a battle they would ride across the battlefield and look upon the faces of the dead who were there because of their will. In this way they understood the cost of their statecraft and what obedience to their orders truly meant. He told me that every one of those men down there on those conveyor belts was there because he had been following his orders, then he pulled the great lever that started the engines. The great gates of the crematorium furnaces opened in a blast of heat and the long lines of bodies rolled into the flames.
Macharius was still watching them when I departed hours later. I heard he remained there for a day and a night and still the bodies burned.

For all the talk about Macharius being a madman, a ruthless pragmatist, and even being a bit vainglorious - he is a man, after all, and thus fallible - this really stuck out for me, much in the same way his interactions with Lemeul and his friends stood out. Macharius is not just a great man, a champion because of his status, or his charisma, or his conviction or beliefs. Its his ability to inspire in and give a sort of loyalty that creates bonds utterly unbreakable. That unity is perhaps symbolic of Macharius' own unshakable convictions in Imperium - its capability to do anything when united. It is an attitude which hearkens back to the Emperor and his Primarchs and the Great Crusade - a vision, a dream, something that builds and inspires rather than suppresses and breaks down. That is what separates Macharius, ultimately, from everyone else.
And what I ultimately like about this, as an ending, is that Macharius does not lightly dismiss the sacrifices - the costs of his command decisions. His ability to remember faces and names can go the other way, remembering those he may have killed through his own actions and decisions. He has a sort of loyalty to them in the same way they do to him, and he does them honour in the only way he can to acknowledge that sacrifice. It shows that while he makes those horrible decisions that kill thousands, he does it in full knowledge and the hope that something ultimately better will come from it. not for personal glory or advancement or ambition like so many may have.

[Connor MacLeod]

Time to start up the second Macharius novel, Fist of Demetrius. This represents the 'midpoint' of the series. We have moved beyond the early days of Macharius and his Crusade and generally reached its high point. He has hit his stride, he has conquered vast amounts of territory in the name of the Imperium, but his ambitions remain undimmed. His vision (As we learn) is considerably greater than his achievements thus far. However, Macharius' nature has earned him the enmity of various organizations, and his achievements have earned great jealousy within the military (including his own hierarchy) and without. Thus we can see the cracks that will inevitably lead to Macharius' downfall. This novel sets out in no uncertain terms the odd nature of the Imperium - it loves its heroes, but only in certain ways or in certain circumstances. Great as figureheads or mythic figures, troublesome if you actually have to deal with them, because they (like Macharius) have a tendency to disrupt what is seen as the 'natural order' of things (EG corruption, greed, etc.)

Like the first book, much of the story is told 'point of view' from the eyes of Lemeul and his friends - once baneblade drivers in Macharius army and now risen to greatness as members of his personal bodyguard. Through them we get once again a glimpse of the man at his greatest and at his most flawed, and we see his interactions with those under his command.

Oh, and in this book (and a big reason why I went AWESOME) was that we get a return to the Bill King era of Space Wolves. Machairus as we see is courting the aid of various other factions for his greater ambitions, and this includes many Space Marine chapters like the Space Wolves. In this book we see one Logan Grimnar and their efforts to recover the Fist (believed to be an artifact of Leman Russ) from the Dark Eldar. It is a welcome feeling to have them back and it offers a bit of 'cool nostalgia' factor to the book all told.

The updates are much smaller, so it will be two parts. And without further ado, part one.

Page 9

One of the humans raises its crude weapon and points it at me. The creature is so slow. I spring to one side and the las-bolt strikes the corpse on which I had stood. Flesh sears. A stomach bloated with charnel gases explodes.

More 'lasfire burns bodies', I'm presuming it burned all the way through to the stomach to 'ignite' the gases, because lasweapons rarely have explosive effects in this novel. How big a burn and how deep is up for debate, but the stomach is not exactly that deep in the human body is it?




Page 10

I leap, crossing thirty strides at a suspensor-assisted bound, and land beside it.

which could mean anywhere from 20-45 meters depending on how you define a 'stride'.





Page 11

It faces a firing squad of its own companions. Its form partially obscures mine for all the moments I need. It screams, thinking it is going to be a barrier between me and its comrades. It does not even have the wit to realise it is merely a distraction.
I leap as the dying human’s skin sizzles under a storm of las-bolts. The greasy smell of frying flesh penetrates the nasal filters of my armour. I make a note to see that my artificer is suitably punished for its laxity before it dies.
...
There are twenty-seven of them, a figure divisible by three...

I'm guessing that he takes some widespread deep burns (note that despite being hit by potentially 23 lasguns he seems largely intact if badly burnt.) If we figure that his body provided torso protection (call it 30x30 cm) and figure 3rd degree burns we could get 45 kj. That just comes out to a couple kj per bolt, of course, but its a number of sorts and there's no real way to be precise about it given the limited information. still yet again, lasguns in this book are purely thermal weapons, but don't seem to have to stay 'on target' long to do the burning.




Page 12

It is so frightened that it thinks it is going to drop the grenade where it stands and die taking me with it.
The grenade begins its slow, slow fall to the ground. I snatch it from the air, grab the human by the head and force the bomb into the creature’s mouth, then down its throat. I backflip away, suspensor-assisted, soaring into the air as its head and chest explode in a fountain of blood.

Grenade blows apart upper torso and head. Roughly as powerful as a modern grenade, I'd think, although it might be a bit smaller than RL grenades (not sure, depends on how big the guy's mouth is.. M67 grenades for example are pretty small IIRC.)




Page 19

The huge warship rocked under the impact of a glancing hit from the planetary defence batteries. I could tell the Lux Imperatoris had only taken a glancing hit because I was still alive. The hull was still intact.
..
For a moment, there was utter stillness, as if a quarter of a million men, the crew of the ship and all the Imperial Guard warriors it carried, held their breath.

Glancing impact from defence lbattery on surface rocks ship visibly. We dont know the exact methods of the interaction or the nature of the weapon (except the void shields seem to allow momentum transfers, which you have to wonder at since some sources posit them as miniature warp portals.. clearly not all are.) but if it was momentum of a beam of photons (EG a defence laser, which is quite likely) and if we figure the ship around 100 megatons in mass and moved the ship by oh, lets say a third to a sixth of a metre (By FFG estimates) the beam might be worth some 1-2 gigatons. It might be around there if it were a PBW (or a plasma gun treated as a pbw) and possibly some sort of fusion/melta beam, but if its a projectile or something else, that might not apply. (of course a large projectile big enough to shake a starship can infer firepower in other ways, depending on assumed masses and velocities involved.)




Page 20

The ten years since Karsk had not changed Macharius physically.
..
The juvenat treatments still worked better for him than any other man I have ever met. He quite literally did not look a day older than when I first saw him inspecting the troops before we began our assault on Irongrad.

If we figure Macharius hasn't aged noticably in ten years, we could figure he can get at least a 10:1 year ratio in terms of life extension. We might view that as an upper limit, given the implied variation in juvenat efficiency (which probably explains why some people seem to live longer on it than others, and Macharius seems to be the best suited.) Since we know some humans have lived to 120 in 40K unassisted we might figure up to 1200 years, although this would HARDLY be typical.




Page 20-21

He had seen something during that encounter that had transformed him into an even more relentless conqueror of worlds, made him more determined to reassert Imperial control over all the sectors lost to schism.
..
For ten years the crusade had enjoyed almost uninterrupted victories. It had reclaimed hundreds of worlds, bringing them back into the Emperor’s Light and restoring the true faith to countless billions.
I doubt that I had changed much either. Since being inducted into Macharius’s personal guard I too had been given access to juvenat treatments, and they appeared to work pretty well for me. I did not feel any different from those early days on Karsk. The same was true for Anton...

Implies that the thousand (thousands) of worlds encompasses multiple sectors (although how many we don't know.) So far he's recovered hundreds of worlds and saved 'countless billions'
Oh and Lemeul and Anton have been given juvenat, with similar effect. Which means similarly potential age ratios for them. M akes me wonder if they just ogt a really good batch of it, or its in their genes or something.




Page 21

The juvenat treatments had not worked quite as well for him, possibly because his body was riddled with mechanical parts and this interfered with the technical magic of the serums. Of course, the quality of his augmetic systems was much higher now..

Ivan, the last of the trio (aside from the Understudy, now the Undertaker.) does not seem to have fared as well juvenat wise, which is blamed on the augmetics, although he gets better augmetics.




Page 22

The worlds of the Proteus system had surrendered, bringing another three planets, ten hive cities and nineteen billion people back into the Imperial fold.

3 worlds with 10 hives and 19 billion. Thats roughly 2 billion on average per hive, and 3-4 hives per world. If we figure billions of hives (from Heart of Rage) we get quintillions of people of course. If we go with 33,000 hives (5th edition) it would be 66 trillion. If we split the difference and figure on the 'million world' thing and don't read too much into hives.. 2 quadrillion.




Page 22

Two more uniformed clerks approached and saluted. Before they could even open their mouths to speak, Macharius rattled off orders, sending instructions to commanders who were five star systems away, instructing them on which cities to besiege, which worlds to offer alliances to and which governors to bribe.

Scope of coordination of forces and micromanagement of multi-system conflicts/deals by Macharius.





Page 23

His thoughts were drifting to those final battles taking place on the world beneath us.
I could tell that he wanted to be there. I could tell also that he had something else on his mind, something to do with his current obsession with prophecies and divinations and ancient relics that so exercised his mind when he talked with Drake.
..
The Lord High Commander appeared invincible, gifted with near-supernatural powers of foresight.
There were some who claimed he was blessed by the Emperor. There were others who thought he was a supernatural being himself. Reports had started to arrive of shrines being set up to Macharius on dozens of worlds and not just by those unbelievers whose temples to false prophets had been overthrown.

Macharius has changed in the ten years as a result of events in Angels of Fire. We learn more about it later but he seems to have become more 'prophecy conscious' - realization of the scope of threats (Daemons) seems to have hardened him.
We also learn that is effective deification starts, which is another step on that good/bad dynamic pertaining to Macharius, and a reflection as well on what Drake believes he may be (personification of the Emperor.) Certainly this novel and the last spent time emphasizing Macharius was no normal man. Whether this afflicts Macharius personally we dont know.




Page 32-33

He was enjoying himself more than he had in weeks. His uniform was dirt-stained, blood was dripping from his cheek, a blister that marked the near miss of a las-bolt had started to rise on the back of one of his hands, and yet he looked like a man who could think of no place he would rather be.
One of his wild moods was on him. He had led from the front as soon as he had arrived on the scene, heading charges, striding across the field of battle as if las-bolts would swerve around him. Of course, Macharius had an uncanny ability to always be where las-bolts were not.

We get Macharius' love for battle outlined again, very much a 'lead from a front' and generally risking his life (and others) to achieve his goals. Whether this is good/bad/crazy I'll leave up to individual choice.

Also not that a blister (2nd degree burn?) from a near-miss with a las bolt across his hand. figure 2x10 cm and 25 j per sq cm thats 500 j at least.




Page 32

I did not need to aim. There were so many of them, packed so close together I could not miss. I just pulled the trigger and pumped the combat shotgun. It tore men apart, but still they kept on coming. The others fired their weapons. They could not miss either. Men fell, robes on fire, flesh seared to burned meat.

Probably meaning Ivan and the Undertaker, since they are the only ones I remember with lasweapons, anton has a sniper rifle which seems ot be a slugthrower. Lasfire is intense enough that it can ignite clothing (125j per sq cm) and severe searing (same magnitude) If we figure it set part of the robe on fire (20x20 cm area) that could be 50 kj at least, although how many shots and such we still dont know. Maybe a rough single/double digit kj per shot thing.

Also shotgun in what I believe is called 'slamfire' mode. However many shots it takes to take apart guys its a powerful shotgun.




Page 33-34

Their priestly caste had guardians. They looked like great white apes with heads resembling those of wolves. They looked twice as tall as a man, stronger than an ogryn and about as intelligent. Local superstition claimed they were inhabited by the spirits of warriors chosen by the forest gods. A tech-adept had assured me the transfer was achieved by means of ancient spiritual engines.

Interesting technology. note that the ape is twice as tall and possibly twice as wide.




Page 35

I pumped the shotgun, knowing I was only going to get one shot.
..
I pulled the trigger. The shell passed through the roof of its mouth and took off the top of its head. The impact was enough to send the corpse toppling off-balance onto the heretics behind it.

Shell instead of shot again, blows out back of Giant ape thing's skull, which is probably several times bigger than normal humans (and several times more powerful shotgun perhaps?)




Page 39

A massive metal gauntlet shimmered above it. Ancient technical sorcery made it float in the air. The gauntlet looked as if it had been made for something the size of one of those ape-wolves. It had monstrous articulated fingers with what appeared to be talons at their tips. About it was an air of tremendous antiquity and something else, perhaps holiness. Runes had been etched on its surface that were not like any I had ever seen before.

The Fist of Demetrius, the plot title and motivation for much of this story. Simply take note of the details as it will be discussed more later.




Page 43

Ancient maps of a thousand systems decorated the walls. Captured banners and pennons spoke of hundreds of victories.

which might again imply 'hundreds of worlds' if we count each world a victory.




Page 44

It was a power gauntlet of some sort, made for someone larger than a man. I would have struggled to lift it with both hands. How could anyone have worn it? Maybe it had something in it that made it lighter or amplified the wearer’s strength when it was worn. Many of the weapons of the ancients were magical that way.

power gauntlet (fist?) rather heavy in human terms (a good 20-30 kg at least maybe?) Speculation suggests it may have suspensor/antigrav or strength enhancement (the latter being more likely with powerfists in general.)




Page 45

"What does Macharius want it for?’"
..

"He’s been collecting a lot of this stuff," said Ivan. He was not looking at either of us. "Maybe he wants to start a museum or a collection of relics in the palace back on Emperor’s Glory."
..
"But would he really risk his life just to add one more thing to his collection?"
..
"He particularly wanted this one, and he wanted it now. He came here personally to supervise the attack on Demetrius. There was no need for that. He could have ordered it just as easily back on Emperor’s Glory."
..
"They say many of these relics do – that they can heal the sick, cure the lame… smite daemons."
..
Macharius had been amassing his trove of holy relics since that time. What he had seen in the Cathedral of the Flame had altered him. He had looked into the eyes of a greater daemon back there, something that would have broken the sanity of a lesser man.
Certainly since then Macharius had been changed inwardly if not outwardly. He had become more driven, and much more fanatical than the man we had followed across the treacherous, rebellious hives of Karsk.

The last bit a reference to events in the last book, but its alot more speculation about the nature of the 'current' Macharius. A big part of this book is that while Macharius is considered superhuman, the jealousy and rivalry that will plague and undo much of his achievements is beginning to set in, and he's made enemies. Its a different Macharius -harder and more fanatical, as we discover, and we're seeing a different side of the Crusade, and we're seeing that Macharius is taking newer (and more ambitious steps.) The recovery of relics seems to be part of this, even if the motivations for at least some of it still remain unknown.

Overall things have really been kicked up a notch, which I can say is one of the things I like about this book.




Page 46-47

You always hear stories about ships that go missing: ghost ships lost in the warp for centuries, crewed by dead men, and those that have suffered catastrophic, inexplicable disaster in the endless darkness of space. People dismiss such things as mere tales, but they crop up with remarkable regularity anywhere star-sailors gather and the crews of the great interstellar ships come to drink. And there is no one, no one at all I have ever met, who does not sense the sheer wrongness of it when a ship makes the jump into that terrible sub-realm beneath the skin of the ordered universe...
..
All jumps are different. Sometimes they happen so smoothly that you don’t even know they have taken place. Sometimes entering the warp is like being in a shuttle as it hits atmospheric turbulence on its way down. Sometimes it is a lot worse. This time, there was just a weird sensation of falling, a momentary nausea and then nothing much at all for what might have been heartbeats, or might have been millennia.

Comments on the risks of warp travel, the variability in how smooth or rough it can be, and other details.




PAge 47

It was one of those things that was strangest and most difficult about warp travel. You never knew how long you were under. The ship existed in a bubble separate from normal time as it passed in the universe above. Your wrist chrono and the ship’s clocks might say one thing, that you had been away for a few days or a few weeks, but when you reached port and consulted with the Imperial Standard timepieces maintained there, you might find that days or months or years had passed instead. There were tales of people who had been gone for centuries and did not look a day older when they returned.

Time dilation issue with warp travel.




Page 52

I could see the great pockmarks in the ship’s sides and the small human figures moving along them, checking for flaws in the hull. From here I could see exactly how huge the ship was, a self-contained worldlet, larger than a dozen parade grounds, large enough for an army to march across. There was a suggestion of mountainous hills in the way the superstructure rose over the plains of the lower hull.

Size of Macharius' flagship. We dont know how big a parade ground he's talking about, but if we figure around 200-300 meters to a side, it might be upwards of 2.4-3.6 km long at least, possibly more. The issue of course is that even if we had a definition on 'parade ground' we dont know what dimensions its talking about (is it just length, volume, or is there some specific layout of parade grounds it means?)




Page 53

The crews of ships are strange. They spent a lot of time locked in these durasteel coffins. They are loyal to each other, and they have no love for outsiders.

mention of durasteel again. And the oddity of the void-born.





Page 58

Certainly the profile of the ship makes it look powerful enough to provide a challenge were it in a proper state of repair. It is a battleship, massive and armed with multiple batteries of primitive but potent weapons.
I measure the strength of my fleet against it. Even if the vessel were at full power they would be sufficient to ensure our victory

Macharius' flagship is a battleship, but its no match for a dozen Dark Eldar ships of unknown class.




Page 58

"How many xenos?"
...
"A dozen ships, Lord High Commander." said the captain. "None of them of more than half our displacement, but that means nothing with xenos. They may each have firepower equal to an Imperial ship of the line, and carry a complement of warriors equal to our own combined force."

Clarification on the vessel types. The interesting thing is that it reflects the 'unknown xenos threats' aspect of what the Imperium can sometimes deal with - they often don't have precise data on the nature and capabilities of their enemies, so making assumptions about capabilities can be dangerous. That cna make combating such threats difficult - the more you know about a given enemy (and the less they adapt to it) the better off you are.




Page 59

The image shimmered and shifted as other eldar ships sprang into being. All of them were subtly different but were obviously the product of the same alien sensibility. There was something strange about the way they flickered, as if they were not quite present in our space. Sometimes they grew indistinct and vanished entirely, leaving only areas of darkness behind them. Our auspex systems were clearly having difficulty pinning down their position.

Dark Eldar shadowfields in action.




Page 61

"It shows the markings of the human Imperium. They are not supposed to be within a hundred light years of this system.’"

Distance of the conflict from the 'borders' of the Imperium.



Page 61

"How long and how far until the insertion point?"
"Roughly half an Imperial astronomical unit." said the astronavigator. "It should not take more than two hours, but it places us on a convergent course with the xenos."
The captain was obviously making some calculations of his own. "The eldar will be upon us before then. We will still have to fight."

Half an AU is 75 million km, and two hours to cover that from a more or less stationary position (remember they were conducting repairs as a result of the warp storm that inadvertently dumped them out here.) That means a sustained acceleration of some 500-600 gravities, and a max velocity of 6-7% of c Averag evelocity ~3-3.5% of c.
Even if we assume (for some reason) they had a considerable intial velcoity (assume some 9,375 km/s, and it would cover 90% of the distance in two hours) you would still need some 50-60 gees of acceleration to cover the rest, and it seems pretty silly that they'd be travelling at that speed whilst making repairs (it would carry them away from the jump point, after all.) and the accel would provide an additional 2000 km/s or so, for a max velocity of around 3.5-4% of c or thereabouts.




Page 61

"Have we come so far from Imperial space?"
..
"We are within one hundred light years of the boundaries of the Segmentum Pacificus."
"They are very close to the crusade"

Again 100 Ly from the edge of Pacificus, and this is considered 'close' in interstellar terms, it would seem.




Page 62

Gargoyles clutch the durasteel of its hull as if prepared to fly into battle. The scarred maws of primitive destructive engines emerge from its weapon bays. They pulse with energy, clearly being made ready for battle.

Human ship from DE pov. Note the durasteel again, and that you can visibly observe the weapons powering up (unless the display is highlighting it.)




Page 63-64

"Lord Ashterioth, the human vessel is changing course. It is positioning itself for an attack run,"
..
"Order the fleet to attack"
..
The ship shuddered again as the eldar weapons slammed into it. Somewhere in the distance a generator whined and threatened to overload. Was it just my imagination or was there a tang of ozone in the air?
..
In his [captain's] mind the whole ship had become a battlefield and he was laying out his forces according to the plan he had formulated.
"One hour until jump," said the astronavigator.

An hour of acceleration later, and they engage the Dark Eldar. First off the DE obviously accelerate considerably faster than the Imperials. At the aforementioned 500-600 gees I'd figure they'd crossed between 20-25 million km before the DE intercept. That means they need to cover some 50 million km or so. Average velocity is some 14,000 km/s, and max speed is ~9-10% of c with an accel ot 1500 gees or so to cover that distance in an hour (two and a half times Imperial acceleration, in other words.)

Imperial accel at this time would be some 3-4% of c, which means that a combined closing velocify of 12-15% of lightspeed roughly for the engagement. Range would be tens of thosuands of km easily, and Macro cannon shells would have to be travelling faster than the Imperials top speed (again probably tens of thousands of km/s) and it says certain things about impacts at these speeds given the use of ordnance or projectiles (on both sides) Attack craft would likewise have to have considerable acceleration to catch up with and match speeds (or impacts. LOL)

Really though it probably speaks more to the insane agility of DE ships, as they would be coming about and strafing whilst the Imperials bull their way trhough to reach the point they enter the warp.




Page 65

The human ship comes closer. The vision crystal stays focused on it, so the distance appears to be the same. Only the vectors on the augury arrays have altered, lengthening to show the vessel’s increased speed, darkening to show it is preparing its energies for warfare.
Dots on the board indicate our own ships, accelerating into attack positions, preparing to strafe the warship, to soften it up for boarding.
In the crystal I see the glint of energies in the enemy’s weapon bays as its armaments power up.
..
Reports begin to pour in over our communication channels. Our ships are opening fire, carefully, calculatingly, aiming for weapons and void shield generators. They seek not to destroy our enemy but to neutralise its weapons and defences. That ship and its crew represent a prize to us so they are careful not to do too much damage to their future property.
The enemy feels no such compunction. They unleash their potent, primitive weapons. Blades of energy stab across the void; lines of fire, brighter than the stars, seek our ships, which even now slide into evasive positions, the dark ripple of their shadowfields concealing their position from the foe.

Context wise it suggests that the engagement is occuring at least beyond visual range of the naked eye (thousands/tens of thousands of km) given the apparent need by the Dark Eldar for visual magnification.




Page 65

t would not be the first time I have died. The haemonculi can always rebuild me if even the faintest fragment survives. But then, for that to happen they need to be able to find the fragment and, even if they do, who willingly gives themselves into the hands of the masters of pain?

Dark Eldar 'immortality'




Page 68

Divinatory scans have revealed the weak points in the human hull. They have been matched with memory crystal records of other attacks on similar human ships, which have been downloaded into the biosystems of my battle-armour. These will be matched against the actual layout we encounter, providing predictive maps to show us where to go. Half a dozen forces will advance from their separate entry points, spreading terror among the human crew, making surgical strikes against all resistance.

Interesting comment on Dark Eldar deteciton abilities and armour systems.




Page 69

"There are emergency suits in those lockers. Please take them. You may find yourself in places where our life support systems have failed."
..
We suited up. It was merely a matter of donning the void-hardened armour from the lockers and putting the rebreather helmets in place. It was all done according to the ancient drills. Macharius had patched himself into our own networks.

Void armour of some kind. Does not seem to be especially bulky or unwieldy, unlike some other versions we've seen. Has comms and rebreathers, which makes sense as you're not going to communicate in a void




Page 72

Their weapons made little sound but men died, flesh stripped, bones glittering, throats wrenched into agonised screams. Perhaps the bolts that hit them were poisoned, maybe the weapons were designed to inflict the maximum pain, but I had never seen men suffer so as they expired.

DE weaponry and their poison mastery.




Page 73

"They use their mobility to probe and strike and search for weak points. They are over-confident. They are not used to being outmanoeuvred. I am building a net with multiple strands, ringing them round with layers of force. Moving our men to where they will need to strike next. I leave some weaknesses in the pattern so that they do not realise what is happening. They have nothing but contempt for us. They think they fight this battle on their own terms. I will beat them before they are aware they have been defeated. By underestimating us, they defeat themselves."

He said it with his usual confidence, and I believed him. With Macharius war was as much a matter of psychology as it was strategy and tactics. He had looked into the minds of those xenos and understood them, at least the part that related to fighting, which was all he needed to understand. Their assessment of his gifts was unflattering but that meant nothing to him. It was just another factor in the cold equations of combat that ran through his mind, an advantage that would give him victory, or so he believed.

Macharius vs DE. With this we go back to the glimpse of Macharius as the pragmatic but brilliant commander. He's focused totally on the problem and solving it - enmeshed more by the love of the challenge than any stain on his honour or to his ego. He couldn't give a shit what the Dark Eldar think of him or humans, he's only interested in putting his abilities to the test and beating them at their own game.

I think it also shows why he is lionized as a great leader and strategist in Imperial terms, and shows despite alot of the grimdark and 'rar trench warfare' it shows tha tthe Imperium can and does value other forms of fighting and even favour them over simple and brutal attrition. If there is no other option they will CERTAINLY do that because winning matters, but it doesn' t automatically mean that's the ONLY way they ever fight, either.




Page 79

I sense the Space Marine is close. The aura is stranger now that I can catch more of it, ancient and unliving. I glance around and locate the source. It comes from a gauntlet, pinned to a marble slab by some sort of restraining clamps, displayed as if deserving of reverence.
It is an ancient object, curiously fascinating. Unlike so much human work, there is a sense of craftsmanship about it, primitive but functional. There is a trace of the aura of ancient battles, of old bloodshed and pain, a tang unlike anything I have savoured before.

The Gauntlet is mistaken by the DE leader for a Space Marine due to the scent/aura. This tells us, at least, that the origins are Space Marine based, and probably loyalist as I imagine a Dark Eldar could detect the taint of chaos.




Page 84

flinched, but the blow never connected. Macharius’s blade intercepted it. The eldar sprang back too fast for me to react but not too fast for the general. He followed it with a spring just as swift, and the xenos desperately tried to defend itself from a predator even more lethal than itself.

Macharius vs DE again, in physical combat. Again its a good glimpse into Macharius being more than human, as he's able to fight almost on equal terms with the DE - unless its a result of his juvenat or special wargear enhancing him, or something (Lemeul's context suggests it is extraordinary by ability, though.)




Page 87

"Sir, there are huge bloody holes in the hull where the eldar came through."
"The emergency bulkheads have been sealed and the screens are being ramped up to the maximum. It’s all we can do. It’s either make the jump or let the xenos blast us out of space."

Which may refer to the voids, but it seems to imply that starship forcefields have some sort of structural enhancement/sealing role as well.




Page 90

And I had never seen so many bodies that had been mutilated in ways that showed a malicious intelligence at work. Even in the heat of battle, the eldar had taken time to work terrible harm on a selection of their victims.
Macharius’s face was a mask. I knew he was furious. He was a man capable of great cruelty himself, but it was always in the service of something, the ideal of the Imperium he served. This was something else. It was a sign of sickness of soul somewhere. It was not the innocent malice of cats playing with rodents; it was calculated, the product of intelligences who had simply decided, for whatever reasons of their own, to cause as much pain as possible to whatever they encountered.

Well, despite whatever changes he may have undergone in ten years, some things about the man remain the same. Macharius has his brutal side, even his loyal guards (like Lemeul) comment on that - such as in this case - but that is balanced by the mans total dedication to his goals and ideals, and his ideas of loyalty. He engenders extreme, fanatical loyalty in his men, but we have also seen in the last book (and we see further in this one) that that loyalty extends from him to them in turn. He spends their lives, but not without purpose, and it enrages him to see them butchered and mutilated senselessly. It plays out again that nice 'dual sided nature' aspect to him - it isn't that he's just a great man, he's got his flaws and prejudices and blind spots. We'll see more of that in the book later, too.




Page 94

They were in the process of reforging an Imperium shattered by schism and civil war, of reclaiming thousands of worlds that had fallen from the Emperor’s Light.

Macharius intending to reclaim 'thousands' of worlds again.




Page 97

"This has been happening more and more lately," Macharius said.
"A man in your position generates enemies," said Drake. "It is inevitable. I warned you about antagonising the magnates. I warned you that the lords of the Administratum would start seeing you as a threat. It looks like the first moves against you have begun."

Reference in context mentions how Navy Admirals are resisting his commands/intentions, and Drake notes how Machiarus' actions are rubbing people the wrong way. Worth noting, as I'll discuss it in detail later.


Page 99

It was beyond a shadow of a doubt the richest planet I had visited, and it was getting richer by the day.
A fantastic stream of wealth swept in, borne on the tides of war. The spoils of a hundred worlds and a thousand ongoing campaigns were stored in great warehouses, piled in the halls of palaces, worn on the scabbard belts and chestplates of victorious Imperial soldiers.
The world was the sector capital now, standing at the hub of a cosmic crossroads where the supply routes of the crusade met. Men and materials flowed in from the Imperium. Tribute and loot accumulated until it could be shipped back to the heart worlds. In the meantime, everyone of any importance was taking a tithe of it. I suspected that several new ruling dynasties would be funded by the profits of this war.

Emperor's Glory, sector capital of.. whatever sector this is. Macharius's conquests have already extended towards incorporating and acclimitizing their new conquests into the framework of the larger Imperium. The actual size of the sector isn't sure - we know he's conquered hundreds of worlds, and we know here that the spoils of a 'hundred' worlds (and a thousand campaigns' routes through here. We could probably, therefore, say there ar at least 100-200 worlds in the sector.

Another key point touched on here, and this starts along that 'Macharius is making enemies' theme, is that for all the rhetoric and high ideals that Macharius may uphold, to many others this is just a chance for fame or glory or wealth, and many seek ways to profit from this crusade, even at the expense of the troops. We'll touch on this more, as it pertains to the way the Imperium works, the efficiency of its military, and the clash between Macharius' own ideals and the reality of the Imperium as a whole.




Page 105-106

Her face was the same today as it had been when I first met her. It did not have to be, she could change it as she liked, but she knew I had a sentimental attachment to that look. Maybe she did too.
....
Her reflexes were much faster than mine. She was much stronger too. Somewhere, sometime, the strange archeotech of the ancients had been used on her, transforming her into something other than human.
No, let me rephrase that. She was still a human. If she had not been, our lords and masters in the Imperium would have terminated her. She was an augmented human in the same way that Ivan was, although she had been changed in ways invisible to the naked eye and with much greater sophistication.

Anna, the Assassin makes an appearance. I'll touch on her and Lemeul in a bit, as their relationship is an interesting side note here, but I just wanted to comment that whilst she seems a 'generic' assassin, she ismost likely a sort of Callidus given the shapeshifting. Also, reminds me of Meh'lindi from Inquisition War




Page 108-109

"There are those in the Administratum who wish to see him fail."
"Why would they want that? He has added more worlds to the Imperium than any man since the time of the Emperor."
"Precisely because that is so."
...
"Powerful men make powerful enemies, Leo, and Macharius is the most powerful man in the galaxy at the moment, with the exception of the one who sits in the Golden Throne on Terra."
..
"There are some who fear what he might do with that power, now that he has accumulated so much of it."
...
"Macharius makes enemies just by being who he is. He demands efficiencies in the supply chain for his armies, that arms and supplies appear where they should when they should and with the minimum of spoilage."
"What is wrong with that? It is merely sound generalship."
"The wealth of merchant dynasties has been built on making sure those supply chains are not efficient. What Macharius sees as inefficiency, powerful men see as sources of revenue."
"Powerful, corrupt men," I said.
"I do not disagree. The word to place the emphasis on is powerful, with money to spend and friends in high places. And Macharius is giving even the High Lords reasons to mistrust him."

As I said before, this book reflects how Macharius has reached the heights of his power (or possibly the limits) and now the great man is making rivals and enemies by his actions. The unity of his crusade is not so strong anymore, and those cracks that will bring it all tumbling down (including the great man himself) are starting to show. It's a bit of an irony given that they make the man virtual warmaster to achieve his goals, and yet when he succeeds they start to grow jealous and distrust him (even the High Lords.)

In this as well we see that peculiar 'loyalty' dynamic in effect. Whilst its also good generalship, it also shows that as far as his men go, they deserve the best because they give him his best. He fights for them on his particular battlegrounds in much the same way they fight for him, and it is that bond coupled with his genius that makes him the great man and leader/warrior he is.

What this really highlights (and again is a big part of this book) is how the Imperium operates, and a big part of why its military suffers so - the corruption and deliberate inefficiency and bureacracy that plague it and sometimes hamper the efforst of the Guard (and Navy to an extent) in the execution of their duties. It isn't the only factor of course (the unreliability of travel and communications, the inconsistency in tech levels amongst various worlds, the sheer logistical nightmare of accomodiating a wide variety of regiments and warmaking styles, etc.) but it is a big part. It actually plays to that 'siege mentality' discussed in FFG with regard to the Imperium - a big part of the Imperium's stability, and the authority and wealth of those on top, stems from the perception that humanity is at war. And even when it isn't, it has to be supporting someone else who IS at war.

In this case Macharius uses his influence and positiong oto ensure reliable logistics, which benefits his men (keeps them well supplied and equipped) but on the other it angers those whose wealtha nd power extends from controlling (and skimming from) that logistical train.

[Connor MacLeod]

Part 2 of Fist of Demetrius.


Page 109

"He has been reaching out to the Adeptus Astartes in subtle ways. That is not something the Imperium encourages in its generals. It likes its various military arms to be separate."

Because of the HEresy. The Imperium is literally paranoid of people rebelling or turning traitor (with good reason admittedly, because it still does happen from people in the various arms of their military) so they would rather enforce deliberate inefficiencies and divisions which hamper the overall military effectiveness in order to ensure a measure of security against those threats. Again the measures are far from perfect, but at the same time without them its quite possible the betrayals would be more damaging than they are.



Page 110

"I am serious, Leo. Some of Macharius’s own generals will be encouraged to plot against him. Perhaps it is already happening."
..
"You have seen some of these men up close. They are great generals in their own right. They too wish to write their names in the Imperial histories. Right now, they are merely moons reflecting Macharius’s solar glory. If Macharius were gone…"

Which is foreshadowing the infighting amongst Macharius' generals when he is gone and the Macharian Heresy.




Page 101-111

"I do like him," I said. I was surprised to hear myself saying that.
..
"You have an unswerving loyalty, you and your friends, I envy you that."
"And you don’t?"
"I am loyal only to the Emperor." She said this very distinctly, as if giving a fair warning.
..
"I am loyal to what he represents." We were looking at each other warily now. I was not quite sure why she was telling me this. Perhaps she wanted me to understand finally at the end of things, and perhaps I did when it came. "You are too."
..
"Do you remember Xenophon?"
I nodded.
..
"Me too," she said. "I was happy there."
She said it as if happiness were a concept that she did not quite understand, a strange intrusion from somewhere alien, a wonder which she still needed to try and grasp.
"You will be guarding Macharius during his triumphal procession?" she said.
"Yes."
"Be very careful, Leo," she said. "I would hate to see any harm come to you."

This is something that reminds me of the love interest (such as it was) between Draco and Meh'Lindi in the Inquisition War, only far less fucked up and generally more upbeat (such as it is.) The idea that an Asasssin could fall in love with a guardsman (even one highly placed to protect a Warmaster) is... interesting to say the least, at least to me. I think its the way she has to balance her needs and desires with her duty, and the slow revelation that there is something as important in her life as that duty, that is remarkable for me really. And this being 40K, it could also be tragic. But still, some romance is never a bad thing, and its another way to play around with those ideas and stretch boundaries in interesting ways I've always liked. I mean why can't an Assassin be human in some ways as well as a fearsome superkiller?




Page 115

" Of course, it would cost the ransom of a planetary governor to hire her away from her present job."
"I have the ransom of a thousand planetary governors,"

Scale of the weatlh needed to recruit a Navigator off her current job - at least one of house Belisarius




Page 115

This was one of the Wolfblades, one of the legendary wardens of House Belisarius provided by the Space Wolves Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes. He was bodyguard to the Navigators just as I was to Macharius, but on his own he was probably a match for the score of us.

And the Space Wolves make their apperance. Which I must say is nice on a personal, fanboy level, because I fucking LOVED the Space Wolf novels. So having them come in is nice as a reminder of the past
Also Space Marine a match for twenty other troopers, although whether its because of the Wolfblade status or general to most Astartes, is up for debate (remember Dorn's comments re Space Marines and normal people.)





Page 116

It hid the mutated third eye that was the mark of the Navigator and which in his case was said to be hideous beyond belief. According to the dossiers, he was some sort of cripple as far as his House was concerned. His third eye did not function as it was supposed to and let him guide ships through the perils of the warp. Instead, he had other gifts: a tremendous understanding of the workings of finance and trade, and an astonishing insight into the corrupt workings of the human heart. He was not only in charge of his House’s business out here with the crusade, he was their spymaster and their chief merchant.

An interesting 'variation' on the Navigator third eye - rather than helping to navigate the warp it gives the user insight into business and interpersonal dealings. That suggests perhaps the eye is definitely a precognitive sort of power, both in helping to navigate through the warp and in other dealings (although the nature of that precog is up for debate - it could be 'reading' the warp in a partiuclar way.) It doesn't mean it can't be used in other ways ('seeing' the warp to navigate through, that is) but it obviously can have other benefits (FFG for example attributes many precognitive and time manipulation abilities to it, and those would benefit in other areas too.)




Page 116

Zarah Belisarius was a lovely, ethereal woman, who did not appear to be much older than twenty, although she was at least ten times that. Her face was that of a tranquil saint, her form willowy rather than full.

The aging of Navigators seems similar to the high end Juvenat of Macharius and Lemeul and co. Although as we know the Navigators are mutants and their 'gifts' affect them in other ways (as we saw in Wolfblade) so the aging is not neccesarily exact.





Page 120-122

"... I do know about the way the Imperium is ruled. You cannot make demands of the people you make demands of. You cannot threaten them the way you do. You cannot execute them for failing to meet your expectations. You must make them your allies."
..
"So my men must go without ammunition so some contractor can grow rich from graft? My tanks must go without fuel because of the incompetence of some placeman, whose relatives just happen to be high in the Administratum?"
"Some would say your generals grow rich from the plunder of worlds,"
..
"They have earned what they take with their blood and their courage."
"With the blood of the Emperor’s soldiers and the courage of the Emperor’s faithful," countered Drake. "Not to mention the products of the Emperor’s temple-factories and the wealth of the Emperor’s worlds."
"The Imperium gets its rightful tithe. The soldiers share in the spoils of victory."
..
"Corruption is just a point of view. I could, if I chose to, see it in the way your generals dispose of the spoils of victory. Any fair-minded observer could. You choose to see it only where it works against you."
..
"How do you think your generals would feel if you purged them for taking the spoils you had previously awarded them?"
"You are surely not trying to make a comparison between my generals and corrupt administrators?"
..
"My point is a very simple one. The men you blame for the corruption are just doing the things that have always been done. They did not set up the system. They grew up with it. They are merely doing what their fathers did before them and their grandfathers before that, and on and on, back perhaps to the time when the Emperor was first immured within his Throne.’"
"So I am to forgive them their incompetence and corruption because their fathers and grandfathers were incompetent and corrupt too?"
..
"No, but you should accept that they are only doing what everyone else does and has always done. You are making enemies you don’t need. The people you call corrupt think you are changing the rules simply to suit yourself. They think you are stripping them of their livelihoods and prerogatives for your own self-aggrandisement. They see you reassigning their rights to your own people and think you are worse than they are. They think you are the corrupt one and that you are taking what is theirs."
"They are wrong."
"‘From your point of view that is correct. From theirs…"
...
"You should accept the reality we live in. You are making enemies, Macharius, where you don’t need to. You sow dragon’s teeth where you could be making friends and allies. Provoke those people enough and they will destroy you. They have power."

This goes back to the earlier discussion Lemeul and Anna had about Macharius and the Imperium, tied up in his absolute conviction and peculiar sense of loyalty and the fact he's making enemies. It again reflects that there are certain 'realities' of the Imperium and the way it is run that dictate alot of the 'less than optimal' methods and outcomes ruling it (EG the shitty logistics because of corruption and bureaucracy.)
What is especially interesting here is how Drake reduces it more toa 'point of view' thing, wheres Macharius is much more rigid in his thinking. I think Drake is right, and this reflects a big flaw of Macharius - as clever as he is in many ways, he is blind in others, and this hinders him. His conviction and loyalty make him inflexible when it comes to dealing with the Imperium, so rather than politick he demands and imposes, and thus, makes enemies. And he refuses to see the similarities between the 'corruption' he sees and the 'spoils' his military takes, because, again that peculiar loyalty and conviction blinds him to things Drake can easily see.
The other good part of Drake's assessment is that it doesn't paint any one side as being good or bad (in contrast to Macharius) but it simply reflects that this is a result of human nature and the culture it produced it. There is no mustache twirling bad guy who is manipulating things to fuck up Macharius, there are just a bunch of people, with a different point of view of things, trying to defend what they view as 'the way things ought to be' and what they see as their just due.
Drake goes on to say that while Macharius is the most powerful man in the Imperium now, he may not always be, and those enemies will still be there, and this will come to bite him on the ass - foreshadowing that.
Another key aspect to this I think is interesting is how this echoes alot of the Horus HEresy series with regards to the views of the Great Crusade, and latter books like Angels of Darkness (and the following Dark Angels trilogy) which does the 'then and now' contrasts between the Imperium as it was and as it is now. In that respect we can see Macharius as a throwback to the 'old days', the Great Crusade era, very much an 'Astelan' view of matters, where a single figure drives things and everyone falls in behind them... whereas the Imperium of now has lost that drive and unity that forged that Empire. It has settled into complacenty, become reactive, and the petty desires and wishes of individual men, bureacratic red tape, and inertia has come to rule it. It creates a really interesting sort of contrast - the Imperium LOVES its heroes as a rallying point to unify people with, but those heroes shouldn't be mor than figureheads, lest they upset the status quo as has been laid down for thousands of years. Macharius is in that position now, he's not a just a figurehead, and that makes him dangerous to the 'natural order' as others view it. Hence, he makes enemies.
It really makes you wonder how the return of Primarchs or the Emperor would be truly regarded, contrasting between then and now, and what sort of upheaval it might cause.




PAge 140

After the Titans marched the men of the Snow Raiders, Leman Russ tanks to the fore, followed by Chimera armoured personnel carriers and then a thousand selected men marching. They wore their tall white bearskin hats even in the warm weather, and the officers had donned white bearskin cloaks.

One of the regiments under Macharius' leadership, seems to be heavily mechanised with armour support.




Page 140

Next came the Calistan High Guard. They had mounted cavalrymen and hairless mammoths among their troops. The giant creatures had heavy weapons platforms strapped to their backs. They were notoriously temperamental beasts. One had run amok at the space port killing a hundred loaders only a few days back. I hoped the same thing was not repeated now. They passed without incident.

A regimental variation on rough riders I guess? Sort of Kroot or Ork like in their way (Squiggoth or Krootox with the back mounted cannons.)




Page 141

The Boilermakers were next. No marching for them. They were a mechanised regiment. All of them were in tanks or APCs, with the cog-wheel flag of their regiment flying above them. When you looked closely you could see that they were as kitted out with mechanical limbs and organs as Ivan, only in their case their best soldiers had volunteered to have their flesh replaced. They followed some obscure sect of the Machine-God back on their home world, or so I’d heard.

An example of an AdMech-influenced/aligned Guard regiment - heavily augmented, very well equipped (fully mechanised.) Some vostroyans probably would be like this, but it shows that Vostroya's dual 'Imperial/AdMech' creed is not unique, and that there are other worlds that have a heavy admech influence whilst still being technically Imperial rather than AdMech domains.




Page 141

Next came the Seventh Belial, our old regiment from what seemed like a lifetime ago. They had Baneblades and Leman Russ and Chimeras. Some of them marched just to show they could. I felt almost nostalgic when I saw their grey tunics and rebreather masks.

Lemeul' and Company's old regiment.. armoured or or mechnaised regiment it seems. Macharius seems to have alot of those, which may reflect the demanding way he approaches the Munitorum.




Page 141-142

Cadian Shock Troopers, in rebreather masks and tri-dome helmets, marched in advance of Darkstorm Fusiliers all in shadowcloaks. Tallarn Desert Raiders, heads swathed in scarves, bodies straight as ramrods, strode along behind bare-armed, tattooed Catachan Jungle Fighters.

Cadians and other familiar regiments. I wonder if the Darkstorm fusiliers might be night fighters and that is some IR-blocking cloak?




Page 144

The nobles danced. All of them were surrounded by their retinues, bodyguards, personal attendants of every sort, courtesans and companions and pet assassins.
Officers wore full dress uniforms, noblemen their court finery, noblewomen long gowns, narrow at the waist, their great hooped skirts supported by suspensor systems so that they seemed to float just above the ground. Every dress was a statement of power. They each cost as much as supplying a regiment. They glowed with precious materials and fitted their wearers with the same precision as a personal battle-suit. They would be worn only once and discarded, just to show that their owners could afford such things.
Servants moved through the throng bearing trays of drinks and elaborate snacks. Enormous chandeliers housing poison snoopers and surveillance systems looked down like the jewelled eyes of enormous insects.

Like Wolfblade, this novel presents us an interesting glimpse of the politics and 'high society' of the upper levels of the Imperium, and how dangerous and nasty it is. The fashions are interesting for many ways, as you have to wonder at the waste of material and technology for something as trivial as 'looking good' but its hardly the first time this has happened in the text, either.
Note the mention of 'personal battle-suits' whatever those are lol. Oh and poison security measures. Oh and the assassins.




Page 154

Here were two men who really hated each other. Lysander was one of those Imperial officers who thought honour was important and that there was a proper way to win a war. Personally, I would rather have followed Arrian: at least he had no illusions and did what was necessary to achieve victory whatever the cause.

A sampling of Macharius' generals, and reflecting just how widely variable the Imperial officer corps can be as far as doctrine and method go. Some seem somehwat practical, whilst others are more.. idealistic.





Page 155

"At 12.09.4078.12.00 local time, the forces of the rebellious provinces of Sindar surrendered to the commander of Battlegroup Cyrus. This ended the unfortunate period of rebellion and satisfactorily returned all one hundred billion souls in the subsector to the Emperor’s Light."

Population size of a Subsector estimated. We know from DH: Daemon hunter there are tens of thousands of subsectors (average) in the Imperium, and we can extrapolate similar from other sourecs (5-10 K sectors for the Imperium - we know that sectors can have as few as 3 subsectors with secondary territories like in IA12, to six or eight subsectors by Ravenor/Eisenhorn and BFG stuff, etc., which means anywhre from 15-80 thousand sectors.) If we go between 20-100K subsectors and figure that population as an average estimate, you can get between 2 and 10 quadrillion people in the Imperium estimated. Or put another way, just settle it as 'quadrillions.'





Page 156-157

Macharius gestured to the huge swirl of stars on the holo-map. A large patch of it became illuminated. "This, gentlemen, is where we will be going next. This is what we will reclaim for the Emperor. There are thousands of systems, trillions upon trillions of souls, entire civilisations of xenos to be crushed or driven off."
...
..the plunder of such a campaign would be immense, on a scale that had not been seen since the time of the Emperor. Or perhaps he was contemplating saving all those souls.
..
" There are human worlds who crave the blessing of the Emperor’s Law. They will side with us. There are thousands of worlds which can be recruiting grounds for new armies, factory worlds to equip those armies, agri-worlds to feed them. There are empty worlds that can be colonised with veteran troops."
..
Drake was staring hard at Macharius. He heard the promise there too. Trillions of souls to be reclaimed for the Emperor, a gigantic expansion of the Imperium. He could be part of it as well. I thought I saw the glitter of ambition in his eyes, quickly suppressed.
..
"If we strike quickly and hard it is possible. We could overrun these sectors before they knew what hit them. Amass a big enough hammer and you can crack any nut with one swing."

Macharius talks about the scope of his ambitions, and fires up his generals at the same time. Thousands of worlds to reconquer and 'trillions upon trillions' to bring into the Imperium - worlds and peoples that can further help fund his ambitions. This again reflects his 'Great Crusade' style mentality (which is good and bad as we've seen.)
It also reinforces the notion that the Imperium has far, far more than 'trillions'. If we figure between 2-10K worlds for 'thousands' the population gets into the hundreds of trillions if not quadrillions which is conisstent with the rest of the book and other sources, as previously discussed, and that's just a lower limit. (note as well as the refercne to 'thousands' of worlds encompassing multiple sectors.)





Page 158

"I have seen no additional requisitions for men and materiel put through to the Munitorum, though."
"The campaign can be funded by the worlds we have already conquered," said Macharius. "And supplied by the worlds we have added to the Imperium, and will add. The crusade will be self-sustaining and self-funding."

Interesting because this is a big issue with the Jericho Reach crusade.. wanting it to become self sufficient os it can succeed rather than bleeding dry established sectors with the constant tithing like it has been. It seems Macharius being able to do the same is seen as a BAD thing.. This actually reflects the conflict of mindset between Macharius and the machinery of the Imperium - he's interested in turning over the status quo and establishing something better and more in line with the Emperor's intentions, whilst those in power want things to stay as they are.
What's more, we see his blindness. He can't see what others (His generals, Drake, even lemeul) can see - this creates the image that Macharus may be trying to carve out his own empire - Lemeul certainly wonders that himself. A man of Machiaru's stature and ambitions, with the influecne he has, haivng an independent source of power like that is dangerous, and not something the High Lords or the organs of the Imperium are likely to tolerate.





Page 160

I found myself looking up into the face of an armoured giant. He showed long fangs that were in no way reassuring and grinned as though I were not pointing a shotgun directly at his head. I swallowed but I held my ground. Eyes that caught the light like those of a dog studied me for a moment. The pupils contracted. He sniffed the air, wrinkled his nose as if he caught wind of something he didn’t like.
"Did I fart?" I said. It sounds ludicrous but at that exact moment I could not think of anything else to say. The giant’s booming laughter washed over me.
"By the Allfather, you don’t lack courage, son of man," he said. "Now point your shooting stick somewhere else before I take it off you and ram it up your arse."
Macharius’s hand fell on my shoulder. "Do as he says, Lemuel."

I foudn this scene pretty amusing becaues Lemeul is basically doing the unthinkable and standing up to a Space Marine to protect Macharius. Its just.. funny and kinda impressive. Interactions between Bill King's space wolves and normal humans is always fun.




Page 162

"You will bring war and havoc to thousands of worlds,’ said the Space Wolf. ‘You will make it rain blood and snow skulls. Billions will die."

Scope and cost of Mach's crusade.





Page 162-163

"Drink, little man," said Grimfang. He offered me a goblet with his own hands. I was later to learn this was a great honour. Apparently he had been impressed by the way I had got between him and Macharius.
..
Grimfang slapped me on the back. I am sure he was being as gentle as he could, but the force of the blow almost knocked me face first onto the table. "You can drink, even if you are not a Son of Russ,"

Again Bill King Space Wolf/Human relations are worth a chuckle.




Page 169

" I think there will come a time when powerful people may come to you, and the other Adeptus Astartes, carrying tales of me. I wanted you to see me for yourself, to judge me for yourself. I want you to know that I am sincere in what I do, that I wish nothing more than to rebuild the Imperium into what it should be. I want there to be no misunderstanding between us."
..
"There are those who have made fortunes from the chaos. There are those who hold power because of it," Macharius said. "They do not wish to see an end to the ages of schism."
..
"There has been an age of chaos," said Macharius. "It must be seen to be ended."
..
"I will send a company of Wolves to watch over you. Logan Grimnar will act as a liaison. He is young and needs seasoning."

While this is a sort of politicking, I think its interesting to consider why this is going on. I think Machairus knows, deep down, he cannot wholly rely on the High Lords/Administratum/Munitorum to sustain his ambitious and the things he desires, not alone. He needs the support of the more powerful and independent factions, like the Space Marines and I suspect - through Belisarius - the Navigators (and quite probably, the AdMech.) to achieve his goals. Indeed, its more likely that the Space Marines would be sympathetic and supportive of those goals than the Administratum, for the reasons he outlines, and thus gaining alliance with some of them (particularily first founding Chapters) is valuable. The Navigators of course love profit and knowledge (of warp routes) because that is their power base, so tempting them should be easy. and any new technology they grab can of course be used to tempt the AdMech (which must have already happened a number of times now.)
Also we get introduced to Logan Grimnar, before he became Great Wolf of the Space Wolves. Given Macharius' crusades happen in or around the start of the 41st Millenium, this would mean Logan Grimnar is nigh on a thousand years old.




Page 175

"I am picking up an unusual drive echo in our wake. It is possible that a ship has left orbit around Emperor’s Glory at the same time and on the same course as us."
...
"It is probably just another craft making for the out-system jump point, but if it plots an intercept course or shows any sign of threat, speak at once.’"
..
"Not much of interest will happen until we reach the jump point now and I hand over control of the ship to Navigator Belisarius. It’s a two-day transit until then."

Two day transit from Emperos' Glory to the warp jump point. Its probably more than an AU (given the accels implied earlier.) IF we just cut to the chase and assume somewhere between 500 million and several billion km at least (3-14 AU) it woudl be at the bare-assed end 6 or 7 gees of constant accel and a top velocity of 1.5-2% of c, and this for a battleship/near battleship scale vessel.
If its billions of km we'd be talking at least 25-30 gees of constant accel and a max realspace vleocity of 7-8% of c for 2 billion km or so. We might reconcile the difference in speed with performance levels - in the battle against the Dark Eldar speed was important and max thrust would be required, whilst in this case they can afford a more leisurely pace (not to mention it could be this ship is bigger/more powerful and thus slower, or it may just have different engines, or whatever.)




Page 176

"If we are attacked I can assure you that The Pride of Terra is capable of handling even a fully armed Imperial battleship," said Blight. "We will not be arriving crippled like your previous vessel, either. We are prepared for anything. With this ship we could take a planet."

Scope of Blight, the Rogue Trader's vessel compared ot Macharius' flagship. I wonder what class of ship it is, since it apparently is battleship grade.. even though its often said Rogue Traders rarely have stuff more powerful than a cruiser or grand cruiser. It may reflect either he DOES have a battleship, or he has something that comes close to battleship (an upgraded grand cruiser in some fashion, perhaps.)




Page 177

"We have arrived at the exact coordinates you gave us. Preliminary divinatory sweeps have revealed traces of wreckage, most likely relics of your previous encounter."
..
"We must head in-system as soon as possible."
..
"I have already laid the course."
...
"Lord captain, we are picking up traces of xenos ships. They are on an interception course."
...
"It will be a few hours till we are within range, and then things are likely to get hairy."

A 'few hours' to get into range of the Eldar. Unlike last time, though we dont know how long yet to travel insystem and how far out. We know the Eldar travel at (or can) 1500 gees, so if we play on that before we can figure some one third lightspeed or so (100,000 km/s roughly) before they get in weapons range. If we use the 50-60 gees from before the accel would be 3-4 thousand km/s (400-500 km/s if we go with single digit gees.) If we use the later-guessed at 300-350 gees it would be some 20-25,000 km/s.
Either way we could figure engagement ranges in this case of at least 100-150,000 km/s roughly at least, and similar implications for other weapons and suchlike (torpedoes, munitions, etc.)




Page 178

Small lights change vectors within holospheres. Occasionally, you feel a ripple of strangeness as the ship changes direction and the artificial gravity compensates. When things are going well there is no sensation at all, really. When things go badly…

Sensations of space battle. Note the AG adapting for accelerations and maneuvers.




Page 179

"They are in retreat. Victory is ours. We’ll be in orbit over the target within twelve hours."

It seemed that The Pride of Terra was every bit as powerful as Blight had claimed. Or perhaps the eldar had retreated for their own reasons and were simply leading us into a trap. I had seen Macharius do similar things many times.

14-15 hours to reach the core of the system from the warp emergence point or thereabouts. (depending on how long the battle lasted. Again assuming the 3-14 aU distance. we'd probably be talking 60-70 gees total accel at least (3 AU) and a 5-6% of c top realspace velocity, whilst at 14 AU we'd have 300-350 gravities and a 25-30% c top velocity.




Page 182

As we watched the planet spin below us, divinatory engines were building a picture of its surface, locating major cities, pinning down the remaining communication sources, compiling as much information as was possible.

Orbital surviellance and support of the ground conflict.




Page 183-184

"It’s not a guess. There are multiple attacks, but if you look at the aggregate reports the numbers never exceed more than a few thousand. The eldar commander is using superior mobility to give the impression of a much larger force than exists down there. He is causing as much chaos as possible. His forces are destroying power cores, communications grids, railheads, space-fields. Any attempts to concentrate forces are smashed."
..
"The valley is central to the continent, capable of being fortified and the one place they could make all their attacks from in the time spans available. Their ships and aircraft always come from there or pass over it."
...
"The orbital monitors were destroyed in the initial wave of attacks. The defenders are blind. The attackers are not. Nor are we. I can see what the planetary commanders cannot. I have a massed armoured force. We can stop these aliens. We can certainly drive them out of the valley."

Macharius pulling out his gift for predicting the actions of his enemy again, which shows again his skill as a commander. Also mention of (and the importance of) orbital surveillance - even the PDF had orbital facilities for that.




Page 189

"Refugees, sir, unless I miss my guess."
..
"It tells us that the Tyrant and his regime are not terribly well organised or they would have set up shelters and encampments for such people." For Macharius, a problem could always be solved by logistics. Or almost always.
..
I wondered if Macharius had ever known what it was like to be poor and have no other entertainment save what you saw in the street. The answer was obvious.
"I will have the quartermaster disburse some ration tabs to the crowd,’ he said. ‘It won’t do any harm to get some of the locals on our side."
It was typical of him to turn a gesture of charity into a military action. The charity was genuine, I think. But still it was propaganda.

Another of the peculiar habits and traits of Macharius. He has charity (a manifestation of that loyalty he feels? His dedication to the Imperium and humanity?) but like most things he does there are multiple motives driving it. But still a good indication of the 'great man'. nonetheless.




Page 197

Macharius had ordered the bombardment to begin on the eldar in the valley and Blight had obeyed. His ship had taken up a geo-stationary position in orbit and lashed the xenos below.
I stood on a ridge overlooking the valley and studied the fury of the attack. Missiles blew massive craters out of the earth. Energy beams turned gigantic eldar statues cherry-red. There were no eldar to be seen through Ivan’s magnoculars.
..
"More likely they have taken refuge in the tombs and shrines below," I said. "They are supposed to run for leagues down there. It’s what we would be doing. I don’t think they are any more stupid than we are."

Geostationary orbital bombardment. May imply thousands/tens of thousands of km range for the strikes, although says nothing about power or accuracy, only capability in some fashion.
Not ethe two statues turned red by the energy beam strikes. Apparently thermal, but without knowing the size and the properties of the mateirals that all we can note.




Page 199-200

I watch the bombardment continue. It is as I suspected. They are not hitting the valley with the full force of their weapons. For whatever reasons they wish to spare the buildings, or perhaps take us alive. There is no other reason so powerful a force would have been dispatched to assault the valley. They could just have bombarded us from orbit. Perhaps they realise how deep this complex runs. There is no way even the most persistent onslaught from orbit could affect us in the depths. Indeed, the great temple I have chosen as my headquarters is strong enough to withstand the bombardment easily. The massive external walls are warmed by the blasts, but the effects are barely felt within at all.

Using 'reduced power' shots for orbital bombardment (like in Nightbringer) We can't really figure much more beyond that (we don't know how deep they are or how strong the temple itself is (ancient eldar stuffages for all we know - the effects on the eldar statues stand testament as does the wall mentioned above.) And 'persistant' speaks more to duration rather than intensity, so it could be saying 'it can withstand the most prolonged planetary bombardment' which would not be the same as 'maximum power' bombardment too, so it does not neccesarily mean the temple would withstand max power bombardment (either single strike or prolonged.)




Page 203

The command Baneblade was even more heavily armoured than a normal super-heavy tank, and Macharius always liked to lead from the front.

Macharius 'command baneblade' has extra armour - to protect said commander, obviously




Page 210

I roll one side to avoid the blade as it falls, biting chunks out of the stone of the floor. I turn, put my gun against his head and trigger it. Flesh shreds, reinforced bone resists, brain explodes outwards.

DE archon's pistol headsplodes Space wolf.




Page 229

Hundreds of landships were there and other things, hovering monstrous scuttling things, large as tanks with long, lashing limbs that reminded me of tentacles mixed with the pincers of scorpions. Their vehicles were silent. Their weapons opened up in counter-battery fire. Suddenly a flight of their attack craft soared overhead to engage with our batteries on the eastern heights.

DE engage in counter-battery fire with Imperial artillery.




Page 230-231

When death taps you on the shoulder even a few more minutes of life suddenly becomes very appealing.
Against the urge for self-preservation other things warred. Working against that impulse to flee were other ones, some of them coldly rational, some of them steeped in primal emotions. There was the knowledge that if they turned and fled all of us would most likely die anyway as the enemy swept over us from behind. If they stayed they would have a chance to take some of the foe with them, and their lives might at least buy the lives of their comrades. It’s hard to communicate the sort of loyalty that gets built up towards your fellows in an Imperial Guard company, but it exists nonetheless. You see men lay down their lives for each other more often than you would think and more often than a cynic would believe.
And they were proud too, of themselves and of their unit. They would stand their ground and die because they were the sort of men who could, or at least they wanted to be. They were brave, they believed in Macharius and they believed in the Emperor. They could die as cowards or walk into His Light as martyrs. One had meaning. One had not. In either case they would die.
I could see all of this pass through their minds in less time than it takes to tell. I read it in the way slumped shoulders squared and lasguns were suddenly raised to the firing position. One or two of them saluted. The one or two who wavered, seeing their companions’ resolve to stay, gave bitter smiles and hunkered down to sell their own lives dearly.
It’s at moments like this that the quality of a single man can make a difference. All it takes is one soldier deciding to flee to provoke a rout. One soldier determined to hold his ground can keep an army pinned in place if he is the right soldier at the right time. These men were the right men. It made me proud and sad at the same time...

Its another one of those scenes I like for the 'hope/despair' contrast... mere humans who are no match for the Eldar individually (as this book demonstrates) are much more than the sum of their parts when togther. The shared unity of purpose and loyalty to their comrades (and Macharius) gives them the strength they need to face up to an unbeatable foe. How often have we seen that in Imperial Guard novels? Even though we know some, many of those will die, they will still do their duty, protect their friends, and oppose those that threaten them and those they care about or swore to defend. The loss has more meaning when you have something uplifting to compare it to, and breaks up the repetition of the 'lol GRIMDARK'



Page 238

He was scanning the area beneath us through the scope of his sniper rifle. It had a night-sight attachment.

Anton's sniper rifle has a night vision scope. Or a scope with a night vision mode, anyhow.




Page 242

I began to bellow out the words of Gone for a Soldier, the ancient marching song used by Guard regiments for millennia. A searchlight probed us. Some las-bolts turned surrounding rocks cherry red. I heard Anton and Ivan singing behind me. The las-fire surrounding us moved on behind us, stabbing through the night towards the pursuing eldar.

We dont know how big of rocks or how many or how many shots, but if we guessed between 3-5 diameter at least.. figure tens to hundreds of grams melted. And going by here for color we could figure between 600-700C (873-973K) which is about a 573-673K temp change assuming 300K starting temp. specific heat of rock is between 600-1000 j per kg*K IIRC, which is 344-673 kj per kg heated. On the low end you might get 'only' 7 kj per shot, whilst on the upper end you might get hundreds of kj.



Page 250

Bael’s lips were moving and liquid musical sounds were coming out; a moment later crystalline sounds, more mechanical than musical, spoke the words in Imperial Gothic. It was like listening to a machine speak to the accompaniment of distant, lovely, alien singing.
I realised the singing was the actual eldar speech, the words the product of a translation engine.

Inquisitor drake has a machine for translating xenos language - Dark Eldar, in this case.




Page 251

Clearly Drake was picking more from the eldar’s mind than the xenos was saying out loud. I knew he could lift memories and experiences directly from human minds when he brought his powers fully to bear.

Drake can take the memories/experiences from a mind with extnesive use of his power.




Page 252

"Limbs can be regrown. Bodies can be rebuilt."
..
"They could regrow you even from a simple cell, from the genetic helix if they could find it. Fascinating."
..
Grimnar tilted his head to one side. "Is that true?"
"This creature believes it is. More than that it believes, really believes, that the genetic sorcerers can restore its life and memories from as little as that."
"Then they must be very different from humanity," said Macharius. "Such a thing is not possible, memories stored in the genetic helix."

Comments on the ability of Haemonculi to resurrect dead Eldar as long as they have some portion of the body. we know its true, but the Imperials clearly don't believe it.




Page 255

"We must get rid of this body. Destroy it utterly," said Drake. "Bathe it in acid or burn it with lasguns until not the slightest trace remains."
It sounded as if he feared the xenos’s return as much as he feared the eldar’s plan for the Fist. Given what he had done, and given the nature of the creatures that was understandable.

Unknown number of lasguns for unknown duration to cremate dark eldar body. Figure 50-60 kilos, and at least 2-3 MJ per kg it would be at the bare minimum 100-200 MJ. But thats improbably efficient, and you could figure many times that, possibly a GJ or more (modern crematorium energy intputs. If we call it between 100-1000 MJ, and figure anywhere from 10-100 lasguns firing a full powerpack's worth (call it 100 shots) we get between 1000-1000 shots. That would be at least 10 kj per shot on the low end and 1 MJ on the high end. Figur thats approximat efo ra heat ray to within an order of magnitude, although 'heat rays' probably argue more than single digit kj per shot. double or triple digit more likely, since it tkaes lots of energy to burn tissue and thats the only way to inflict lethality.



Page 258

"Got the bastard." I wondered how he had done it. After all, one of those helmets had almost withstood a direct hit at close range.
I hadn’t realised I had spoken aloud until Anton replied. ‘You don’t aim for the head. There are weak spots in the armour at the joints, at the armpits, at the throat. If you hit them there you hurt them. I’m not saying you’ll kill them this way, mind, but you will hurt them. Let’s see how they like a taste of their own medicine.

Dark Eldar armour resists (at least the rigid parts do, mostly) the heavy slug (unknown calibre/size) from Anton's sniper rifle, so you have to aim for weak points.


Page 261

. I rolled onto my back and pulled the trigger of the shotgun. The blast caught the eldar on the chest and lifted it upwards. It had not killed it, though. It swung its weapon to bear on me.
Anton’s rifle spoke from nearby and a heavy calibre shell put a huge dent in the xenos’s helmet. It did not penetrate it, but I doubted it had done the alien much good. The bullet must have driven part of the armour through the eldar’s skull.

Again DE armour resists shotgun blasts and sniper rifle fire, although the sniper slug deforms it enough to be potentially lethal.



Page 266

I took another breath and felt nothing. My lungs did not burn. I was not poisoned. I checked the hazard monitor on my wrist. There were no indicators of danger.

Lemeul has a hazard monitor.. presumably to test for dangerous/hostile atmospheres.




page 299

I raised the shotgun and snapped off a shot at almost point-blank range. The force of the blast sent the eldar bobbing upwards. Most of its weight must have been neutralised by some sort of suspensor system. Either that or the eldar and its armour were both much lighter than they looked.

Suspensors reduce 'weight' - again another of those belts that allow those crazy jumps. Eldar, as typical in this novel, survives the shotgun blast.



Page 314

I mumbled my thanks, and then I noticed Macharius’s face, and how strange his expression was. Something about it reminded me of the Undertaker. His features held the look of a man who had seen too much. He stood there for a long time, looking at the dead eldar. Drake entered and behind him came Anton and Ivan and the Undertaker, along with a few surviving Lion Guard.
My old comrades raced over and began to treat my wounds. They slapped synthi-flesh on the ripped skin and applied adhesive bandages.

I honestly admit I'm not sure what to make of Macharius face here. Its obvious another 'change' in his mind or personality has happened, something like what happened at the end of the first book, but what it represents.. I don't know. The comparison to the Undertaker is a bit shocking, and we (and Lemeul) have never seen this in ten years. Could Macharius have reached his limit? Throughout the book, his frustration with the obstinacy of his own side (Those who fear him/see him as a threat/resent him eclisping their prominence) and the brutality of the Dark Eldar and their tortures have outraged him. I suspect we won't know til we see the next book, but I am guessing Macharius has just gotten alot colder, and this is a turning point in his Crusade.. a downward turn.