Horus Heresy series analysis thread

[Connor MacLeod]

I suspect my dissatisfaction with alot of the anthologies is because they're basically just a variation on 'filler'. The individual stories an be enjoyable, but they don't contribute anything to the larger setting, and since about Prospero Burns/Thousand Sons you haven't had a significant progression of the storyline (not really anyhow.) Lots and lots of teasing and hinting, but nothing definite. Its kinda frustrating because its reminiscient of what happened after the 13th Black Crusade was conceived and ended.. taht was the last significant 'progression' of the in-universe game setting, and it hasn't progressed beyond that much since (except in lots of hints.) You basically just get rehashes of the same event from different POVs/attitudes.

Edit: The reason I dont consider KNF to be an actual progression, or 'fear to tread' is because they're actually setting things up more than they're carrying forward the storyline in any significant manner. One can argue that Thousand sons/Prospero Burns was actually significant because it was one of the major turning points with Horus' side of the Heresy (putting the Thousand Sons in his corner, so to speak, as well as the Nikaea stuff and the Emperor's approach to things in a greater sense.)

[Connor MacLeod]

Breaking pattern again, I'll touch on First Heretic. Then I'll go back to Thousand Sons/Prospero burns, because they're two sides of the same coin. First Heretic is ADB's venture into writing the Word Bearers and their POV in the Heresy - the start of everything so to speak. Lorgar gets his reprimand, then goes out to seek a new 'way', discovers Chaos, and basically fucks everything up. I can't say I loved the novel, but that stems more from my innate dislike fo the Word Bearers than it does from ADB's writing. If anything, the fact I could read the book and enjoy it (while I found the Word-Bearers-centric parts of the Word Bearers trilogy fairly tedious.) is a testament to ADB's writing I think. I also consider it better than Fulgrim, but I enjoyed other novels far better.

As HH novels go its a shorter update, divided into two (smaller) chunks than I usually do.

Part 1

Page 9

Forty-three years before the events of Isstvan V

The timeframe concerning the meeting of Erebus and ARgen Tal.. so we know at least 40 or so years has elapsed prior to the pivotal point of the Heresy. One of the things I'm curious about this novel is to bookend the construction time of Furious Abyss from an Earlier novel, since the ship was designed with the specific purpose of destroying Utlramar


Page 10

If a man gathers ten thousand suns in his hands… If a man seeds a hundred thousand worlds with his sons and daughters, granting them custody of the galaxy itself… If a man guides a million vessels between the infinite stars with a mere thought… Then I pray you tell me, if you are able, how such a man is anything less than a god.

Lorgar speaking of the Emperor at some point. It must be around the midpoint of the Crusade or something if there are only 100K Worlds in the Imperium. Note the 'million vessels' - which may be warships as wlel as transports. Dunno what to make of ten thousand sons.. systems perhaps? Ten worlds per system isnt unusual.
It also suggests that in the Heresy Era the Emperor had at least a fraction of his power/attention devoted to actively guiding ships through the Immaterium, although its possible we mean 'guide' in the beacon sense. I wouldn't rule it out, but we know from the Collected Visions that he could take active measures too.


Page 13-14

In his disgust, he sends flights of angels to deliver damnation. In his rage, he seeds the skies with fire and rains destruction upon the upturned faces of six billion worshippers.
...
Tell me you can imagine heaven weeping fire upon the land below, and a city burning so bright that all sight is scorched from your eyes as you watch it die.
...
And they called themselves the XIII Legion. The Warrior-Kings of Ultramar.
...
You came to me asking how my faith survived the Day of Judgement. I will tell you a secret. When the stars fell, when the seas boiled and the earth burned, my faith didn’t die.

Implied resuls of what happened when the Ultramarines purged a former Word Bearer conquest for its religious zealotry. I dont know if its literal or hyperbole (some of it doesn't show up in the mention) but its at least possible, and interesting if it does. boiling the oceans would require e25-e26joules, even if only a small percentage of it was boiled.


Page 18

All of them carried great weapons too heavy for a mortal man to lift unaided.

Again Astartes weapons are much heavier than mortal weapons.



Page 24-25

The sky grew brighter still – too bright, too fast. Barely past dawn, it was already becoming as bright as noon.

Cyrene raised her head, watching with weeping eyes as the clouds of heaven lit up with a second sunrise.

She saw the fire fall from the sky, lances of unbelievable light spearing into the perfect city from above the clouds. But she did not watch for long. The sun-spears’ incomparable brightness stole her sight after only the first few moments, leaving her in darkness as she listened to the sounds of a city dying. The world shook beneath Cyrene’s feet, casting her to the ground. Worst of all, her eyes itched as they failed, and the last clear sight she ever saw was Monarchia in ruin, its towers falling into the flames.

Effects of orbital bombardment. We dont know how many lasers despite the short duration.


Page 27

Monarchia is not alone. Sixteen cities across the planet stand empty, likewise swept clean of life.

For many days, we were silenced, unable to call out to you. The XIII Legion has allowed us this moment, in the hours before the last dawn. They have vowed to end the perfect city in a storm of fire as the sun rises this very day.

Implies an astropathic message sent in a matter of hours to the Word Bearers.. less than a day. Assuming a 10 LY distance (and probably more) we're tlaking 87,000c


Page 29

Cyrene's reckoning two months to arrive. Almost nine weeks of lancing headlong through the tides of unspace, breaking through the immaterium with little thought of safety or control. They lost vessels. They lost lives. But they lost no time.

Assuming a 10K C speed (1.25 LY/hr roughly) They would have clovered close to 2000 LY in 9 weeks.


Page 29-30

The first ship to burst from the immaterium ripped back into reality on tormented engines. As it accelerated from the wound of re-entry, it seemed cast from the warp like a grey spear....
...
Along its ridged spine, statues of marble and gold stared out into the starry void. Armoured buildings of worship rose like overlaid carbuncles from the vessel’s skin. Battlements lined the walls of those cathedrals, and dozens of lesser temples were decorated with banks of weapon turrets in their tallest towers. The vessel, terrible in size and grim in aspect, was more a bastion city of prayer and warfare than a spaceborne vessel.
...
Blue-white engine wash streamed in disintegrating smoke trails from immense boosters that had taken decades to construct, by thousands of labourers working millions of hours. The ship’s prow was fashioned into a colossal ram – an eagle figurehead, wrought in dense metals polished to a silver sheen. In its talons, the eagle held the steel forged icon of an open book.

Lorgar's flagship, I think. Implied that the ship (or at least parts of it) took decades (millions of hours) to build.


Page 30

Other ships arrived, rending reality, breaking from the warp as lesser blurs of grey – a volley of arrows that eclipsed the stars around them. A few at first, then a dozen, soon a fleet, at last an armada… A hundred and sixteen ships, one of the greatest coalitions of force the human race had ever assembled. And still more arrived, savaging the layer between realms, dropping from the immaterium, attempting to race alongside their glorious flagship. The grey armada moved in loose formation, the slower vessels falling behind as over a hundred ships closed in on a single bluegreen world.

Implied scope of the Word Bearers fleet responding to the distress signal.


Page 32

The eyes of every warrior, officer, serf and slave were fixed upon the planet of Khur, and the capital city that had once been visible from space. In a sense, it still was: an ashen stain blackening a quarter of a continent.

Scope of devastaiton on the planet.


Page 32

"The enemy fleet in geostationary orbit above Monarchia registers as Imperial, sir."

Page 35

His visor display tracked his subordinate captain, scrolling white text feeds of biorhythmic data across his vision. He blinked at a peripheral rune to clear the automatic tactical display.

Helmet vitals data/


Page 36

"We stood here, six decades ago."

Anotehr indicator of the timeframe of the Furious abyss, perhaps.


Page 37-38

The Air was gritty, thickened by dust and smoke haze. The ground was a black ash desert, with heat-seared patches of glass and melted marble that reflected the sunlight until they were crunched underfoot.
...
Nothing was left standing. Stone powder in the air, the result of a million pulverised marble buildings, was already coating their armour as the Word Bearers stood in the heart of Monarchia.
...
Argel Tal walked without purpose, crushing ruined rock underfoot. He sealed his armour’s ventilation systems when he grew tired of inhaling the sulphuric stench of Monarchia’s grave. Melted rock and scorched earth were never easy on the nose

Effects of the bombardment.


Page 40

Although the Chapter was far from the primarch’s favour – such honour belonged to the larger and more prestigious Chapters made from twenty or more companies...

Chapter sizes. some exceed 10 companies by quite a bit.


Page 41

In hulking Terminator armour, the silver-wrought warplate still fresh from the forges of Mars, First Captain Kor Phaeron stood apart from his brothers, as was his right. In the armour of the Legion’s elite, he towered a metre above the lesser captains, clad in layers of reverently sculpted ceramite as thick as the hull-skin of a battle tank.

Terminator armour.



Page 42

When the God-Emperor came to Colchis over a century before to offer Lorgar command of the XVII Legion, Kor Phaeron had been far too old to receive the organ implantations and prepubescent genetic manipulations necessary to grow into one of the Astartes. Instead, through rejuvenat surgery, costly bionics and limited gene-forging, Kor Phaeron was exalted above humanity as a sign of the value placed in him by the primarch.

Despite leaving humanity behind, he had not ascended to the ranks of true Astartes.

Like Luther, Kor Phareon was enhanced artificially. It seems to be a combination of gnetic engineering/biological implants (glands), bionics, and rejuv.


Page 45

None of the one hundred thousand warriors gathered spoke those names now.

Size of the Word Bearers Legion.


Page 52

Malcador raised his head, for he was half the height of both primarchs.

Malcador's height vs Primacrhs. Assuming Malcador is between 1.5-2 m we're talking 3-4 M tall primarchs.


Page 57-58

+Kneel+ it whispered with the power of a hammer to the forehead.
There was no resisting. Muscles acted instantly, no matter that many hearts fought not to obey.
...
One hundred thousand Word Bearers kneeled in the dust of the perfect city, rendered prone by Imperial decree.

A tangible indicator of the Emperor's psychic might. He instnatly drops 100K Word Bearers to their knees with a verbal command. Consider this relative to Eisenhorn's voice based powers, or hell even Ravenor (a handful!) Hell, consider the Alpha class psykers that ran amok in Malleus (hundreds). It's not exaggeration to say that the Emperor is literally orders of magnitude (many orders of magntiude) more powerful than even incredibly powerful psykers, and thousands of times more powerful than ones like Eisenhorn. That's.. impressive.


Page 59

Argel Tal felt sweat painting cold trails down his temples and cheeks. Trembling threatened to take hold as his traitorous muscles bunched, locking in painful cramps. The joints of his armour thrummed with unreleased strength, forcing him to endure this perversion of the Legion’s most sacred ritual.

The Emperor's power (however it manifests) seems to be keeping the Word Bearers on their knees despite their desire to stand, suppressing even the power armor. Considering the physical might of armoured Marines, this says a great deal (although if he's messing with their nervous systems and the control systems of the suits, that is another brand of impressive.) This isn't even him at his full might.


Page 60

+It is not my Imperium+
...
+It is the Imperium of Man. The empire of humanity, enlightened and saved by the truth+

The Emperor's responses to Lorgars allegations the Emperor is a god. Which ironically he is, sort of. I'm actually quoting this to indicate the sheer level of hypocrisy involved in what the Emperor is chastising Lorgar for. We've seen the Iterators and the Crusades in action. They "enlighten" after a fashion, but in truth its more or less forced conquest (and often with devastation) coupled with extreme efforts at propoganda manipulation by the iterators. We have, in fact, an Imperium that is not based on logic and truth so much as an ideology of 'LOGIC AND TRUTH!!!' - in the same way there is a difference between science and 'SCIENCE!!'. You still have your priests and your fanatics, they just replaced the relgious words with ideological ones. They're still as intolerant and fanatical, and in their own ay just as blind.

What's more is that the Emperor cannot be wholly ignorant of his, because he's had a hand in both Remembrancers and Iterators, nevermind the military side of things.

I dont know if there was a better alternative than the one he made (even with his mistakes), but its pretty funny to consider that the rationale for all this may stem from the 'Last Church' short story by Graham McNeill, where Big E shows his utter hatred of religion. Even a godlike being can have vices and hates.


Page 60

"In your grip, a thousand worlds turn! By your will, a million vessels sail the void. You are immortal, undying, seeing all and knowing all that transpires across creation."

Again there are a million warp capable ships in the various crusade fleets (roughly) at this point. We're still decades before the Heresy as well. "thousands" of worlds too, which if we go from earlier might mean 100K or so worlds.

Between the two quotes you have to find interest in how there seem to be an order of magnitude (or more) warp capable ships (military and nonmilitary) in the Imperium than there are planets. I'd guess this ratio might hold true even in modern times (it probably isn't much lower.)


Page 67

"I am sure none of us are blind to the echoes of those ancient events taking place here. How many orbital bombardments have we prosecuted ourselves? How many times have we battled in the ruins of a sky-blasted city? This was more than simple destruction.

This was eradication. The Ultramarines did as they meant to do, and wiped every significant remnant of Khur’s culture from the face of the planet."

Apparently the Ultramsurfs ended up eradicating virtually all of the populace. Given ealrier, this probably means they all resisted compliance. What's more interesting is the implication this level of destruction was not unusual, so there are perhaps a good many worlds brought into 'compliance' that are still horrible wastelands (which is suggested in other sources), or may have been wastelands but rapidly brought up to some measure of usefulness (because some planets are providing help, at least.)


Page 90

Cyrene was inured to servitors; the Imperium had left behind the secrets of their construction sixty years before, and they were commonplace in Monarchia. Penance was the term used for the fate suffered by heretics and criminals.

Either way, it amounted to the same. The sinner’s mind was scrubbed of all vitality, and bionics were installed within the body to increase its strength or enhance its utility.

Servitors


Page 96

"I was told your vision is still not showing signs of return. The adepts are considering augmetic
replacements."
...
"Augmetics of delicate organs are specialised and rare. If you wish to have them, there would be a wait of several weeks before they were ready for implantation."

This is an interesting statement, considering that even low quality optical enhancements are damn commonplace in the Imperium throughout all levels of society and branches. This could very well stand as another indicator of one area where Imperial technology has advanced rather than regressed, much like power armor, bolt weapons, and the like.

In any case it shows us the requirements of augmetic enhancement of eyesight at least at this point in time.


Page 99

The globe span in the void with an orbit of slow grace comparable to distant Terra, and its blue-green surface marked it as a younger sibling of that most venerated world. Where Terra’s seas were burned dry from centuries of war and tectonic upheaval, the oceans of Forty-Seven Sixteen were rich with salt-surviving life, and deep beyond poetic imagining. Perhaps the future would bring a need for this world to be a bastion-metropolis akin to Terra, where the buried earth choked beneath palaces and castles and dense hive towers. For now, its landmasses wore the green and brown of unspoiled wilderness, the white and grey of mountain ranges. Cities of crystal and silver, spires that speared the sky from almost laughably fragile foundations, dotted the continents. Each city was linked by well-worn trade roads – freight veins with traffic for blood.

47-16, the world mentioend in the Tales of Heresy Short story Scions of the Storm with the 12 hour orbital bombardment. Provides an interesting peek beforehand, although it was far more storm wracked when we saw it in the book. I wonder if the water content affected the bombardment.

In any case note Terra's oceans again having supposedly boiled away (despite this being mentioned in other sources not being the case.) It could be that the Emperor had the oceans replaced. They certainly have the cargo capacity for it.


Page 101

Another cheer rang out across the decks of over a hundred of ships.

There were over 100 ships at 47-16. Whether or not all were warships, and what kinds of warships, we don't know. It's not inconsistent with the other depiction, neccesarily. Also these forces seem to, for odd reasons, represent a huge chunk of (if not the totality) of the Word Bearers' spaceborne assets Whether these are cruisers and battleships, or just battleships/barges, or what.. *shrugs*


Page 101

Storms formed in a crawling, meteorological ballet as the Legion stood witness – the fleet’s low orbit was curdling the planet’s skies.

Somehow within the 9 hours or so they spent over the surface of the planet doing nothing, storms appeared. I'm guessing all that moisture would make bombing the planet alot harder and mitigate effects we might be expecting (EG global firestorms are alot harder to pull off . Having say 1% of the mass of the oceans injected into the atmosphere as water vapor is alot of energy but can hamper things like global firestorms) It could be that, given their advanced crystal based AI/mechanical tech and lightning weapons, the inhabitants of this world have means of controlling or creating such storm weather.

also this seems to be an Imperial world, so this is a (rough) indicator of Imperial tech.


Page 102

"You didn’t feel the ship quake as it opened fire?"
...
"I find it difficult to believe you slumbered through twelve hours of orbital barrage."
...
When the sirens wailed and the room shook two days before, she’d known what was beginning. The Word Bearers’ warships commenced their invasion with a full day of cannon-fire. At times, when myriad mechanical processes aligned just right, the main batteries hurled their incendiary payloads at the planet below in a united burst. The thunder rang in her ears for half a minute afterwards, and they were the worst moments: blinded and deafened, completely without senses.
...
"Did you go to the surface after the sky-fire had ended?"

"Yes. We landed in view of the only city that remained standing. It had to be destroyed from the ground. Our orbital weapons couldn’t pierce its defensive shield."

"You… killed an entire world in one day?"
...
Argel Tal had seen the augury estimates. They put the number at almost two hundred million souls sacrificed that day.

"All of them." said the captain. "A world’s worth of human life."

Effects of the bombardment. 12 hour bombardment, although it seems it wasn't constant barrages, but more like coordinated, delayed-bombardments (implying 30 seconds between volleys perhaps)

Also I wonder if the 'two days' covers the time to emerge from the warp and reach the planet, plus the timeframe for delay and bombardment.. we might be looking at 24-36 hours to reach the inner system if so.


Pge 106

Still, a city of toughened alien glass… Roads of black stone…

IIRC the short story indicated the glass structures were incredibly resilient. this would seem to support that


Page 107

From a crater ahead, several Word Bearers rose in trained unity, each of them opening up with bolt pistols. Shells hammered into the glass creature’s body, knocking it off-balance but inflicting no visible damage. Electrical force sparked where each bolt round punched home, detonating the shells before they inflicted anything more than minor kinetic annoyance

The crystal/glass defensebot durability.


Page 112

The jetbike ran cleaner than its grounded cousins, its power generator venting much less exhaust than the wheeled bikes in Dagotal’s squad.

This implies jetbikes have a different powerplant than ground bikes


Page 114-115

Each one was clad in dense armour plating painted in chipped coats of crimson. They stood almost five metres tall, their mechanical joints not even attempting to mimic human motion. The first two down the clanging ramp were gangly Crusaders, their long bladed arms swinging as their shoulders rocked side to side in awkward motion. Circuitry, thick and crude, was etched along the arm-swords’ edges, linking the blades to power generators in the robots’ bodies.
...
The third figure to stomp down the ramp was twice the width of the first two, bulky where the Crusaders were gangly, great fists of riveted metal fused to form siege hammers. Even more than its kin, it reeked of greased machine parts and the earthy scent of lubricating oils. The Cataphract-class machine was hunched, made dense by sloping armour, and moved with even less claim to grace than the others
...
This one seemed a compromise between its construct-kin, almost human in its posture and gait, armoured with thick plating and bearing weapons for arms. A third cannon rose from its shoulder, with ammunition belts trailing down its back, dreadlocks of bronze shells rattling with each step. Dagotal knew each of Xi-Nu’s wards, familiar with them
from twelve years of sharing battlefields. This last was a Conqueror, and the primus unit of the group.

Legio Cybernetica Battle Robots.


Page 116-117

Sanguine and Alizarin stalked forward first with all the grace of stumbling beggars, their movements a stark contrast to the liquid grace of the enemy machine. Lascannon fire streamed from the shoulder mounts of both Crusaders, carving searing scars into the Obsidian’s skin, the sludge-gleam of melted glass bright against the black
...
It turned into a barrage of gunfire, shoulder-mounted heavy bolters punching shards from the construct’s face and torso with a torrent of explosive shells. Incarnadine, regal in form compared to its brothers, tracked every movement made by the enemy machine. It didn’t cease fire, even for a second. Nor did a single shot go wide.
...
The Cataphract-class Vermillion, as bulky as an Astartes Dreadnought, was an altogether more ponderous engine. Stocky and lumbering, it closed the distance as the Obsidian sought to right itself on its four remaining legs. Siege hammers swung in, meeting alien glass with a thunderclap’s refrain.

Battle robots in action



Page 117

"Their artificials are robotic shells housing machine-spirits. Cybernetica tech-priests engineer organic-synthetic minds from biological components."

Battle robots again. Note the 'organic-synthetic' mind from 'biological components' which suggests something vaguely servitor like, but not wholly so. Possibly a 'brain' analogue made from biomechanical components as we learn later.


Page 118

"Suffice to say, the difference is in the mind. Organic intelligence, even synthetic in nature, is still tied to the perfection of humanity. Artificial intelligence is not. That’s a lesson many cultures only learn when their machine slaves rise up against them, as the Obsidians would have done one day, to the people of Forty-Seven Sixteen."

Machine spirit vs Supposed AI. I guess they are just like squishy human brains just made out of synthetic materials.


Page 124

"Aurelian will meet us in the heart of the city, once we’ve extinguished the last of this world’s unholy life. And this time, when the Legion kneels in the dust of a dead city, it will be because that city died in righteous flame."

This might suggest that what is happening here happened on Monarchia when the Ultramarines purged it, which could include the ocean boiling.



Page 124

The five warriors killed in silence, their glaives spinning with the force and speed of turbine rotors, lashing through limbs and torsos with the ease of knives through mist.

Custodians implied strength and fighting ability.



Page 125

The militia squads against them carried rifles that spat a solid shot not far removed from the smallest-calibre bolter shells. The culture’s ancestral connection to humanity’s pre-Imperial era was proven beyond dispute – and yet they were damned by their deviance.

Rifles firing bolter-calibre (or like) ammo, and apparently some ties to Imperial tech. Although they're 'smallest calibre', indicating its probably not .75 calibre. May be the .50 cal or thereabouts (.40 cal maybe? .45?)



Page 126-127

The way the Custodes fought seemed almost identical to the Astartes; it took a trained eye to see the subtle differences.
...
Perhaps by the standards of the Astartes, who waged war and lived life with brotherhood etched into their genetic codes. But Custodes were the sons of a more rarefied and time-consuming process – the biological manipulation that gave birth to the Emperor’s guardians bred warriors who weren’t shackled by bonds of loyalty to anyone except their Imperial overlord.
...
"Watch how they move. See how each one fights his own war, alone, unsupported by the others. They’re not like us. These are warriors, not soldiers."
...
Here was a weakness, a savage one, masked only by the heroic skills of each warrior and the worthlessness of the enemies they faced.
...
"In standing free of brotherhood," he said, "they also sacrifice its strengths. The tactics of a pack. The trust in those who fight by your side. I suspect the secrets woven into their body and blood gene-bind them to a higher loyalty – perhaps their only brother is the Emperor himself."

Custodes vs Astartes, both in creation and fighting style.


Page 138

Unlike much of the emergent Imperium, Colchis was unprotected by vast orbital weapon platforms. More tellingly, it also had little in the way of the industrious space stations responsible for feeding and refuelling parasitic expeditionary fleets in their crusades through the galaxy.

Implies that there are more than just Earth/Mars providing for the forces of the Great Crusade, although that does not mean a great many planets do so or in great quantity. It is still possible for Mars (or at least the forge worlds of the AdMech) to be providing the bulk of the material supply for the Imperium (or at least the Astartes side of things.) and the supplies are distributed to different space stations across the galaxy. Although if palnets do directly contribute this might imply some orbital industrial capability as well.



Page 140

"But you owe me some answers, dragging me across half the Imperium like this."

Magnus has come from halfway across the Impreium to Colchis. I presume this means he came from Prospero, which gives a vague idea of the location and distances (50K LY or so)



Page 142-143

It had taken four months to reach Colchis from the ruin of Forty- Seven Sixteen. Four months of flight through stable warp conditions....
...
With the four months of travel to Colchis added to the rest, Argel Tal and the Chapter of the Serrated Sun had been absent from their own expeditionary fleet for well over half a year.

Magnus arrived before Lorgars forces did, so we can assume that he took far less than 4 months to cross 'half the Imperium' to reach Colchis. Certainly far less than the 6 months stated, so we'r etalking at least 100-150,000c travel speed on average, assuming a linear path.



Page 143

From what little word reached him, apparently the 1,301st Expedition was sending repeated pleas for the Serrated Sun to return...
...
Already one of the smaller fleets, they were apparently grinding to a halt without their Legion contingent.

1,301st is another 'small fleet'.



Page 144

Word from the Legion fleet was constantly cycled back to Colchis...
...
Several times a week, broadcast from speaker towers across the Holy City, updates of the Legion’s progress drew..

Implied astorpathic speed of a few days (2-3 tops) to transmit information across unkonwn distance. Presumably the edge of the galaxy or close to, so we're tlaking thousands if not tens of thousands of light years - hundreds of thousands if not millions of c travel speeds at least.



PAge 146

He donned his helm, staining his sight blue and adding a layer of targeting information to his vision.

Astartes helmet provides targeting data.



Page 158

"How could I know what psychic power boiled within me, seeking a release? I was not you, to know from birth how to control my sixth sense. I am not Russ, to be able to howl and have every wolf in the world howl with me. My powers always fired in fits and bursts, coming in feasts or famines."

It seems that all the Primarchs have some degree of Psychic potential, even Russ. Consideirng 4 of them (including Lorgar) have some measure of prophecy and precognition (Lorgar, Sanguinius, Magnus, and Kurze) and it seems likely that other powers (their charisma, their ability to influence and lead, etc.) stem from this. Why Magnus is the only one to ever innately (or willingly) tap this power in a controlled fashion we don't know. Something to do with sorcery, perhaps.



PAge 159

"He brought as many questions as he did answers. Father is hollowed through, infested by secrets. I hate that about him. He is a creature incapable of trust."

Lorgar is quite right here. One of the recurring problems we have with the HEresy, and a big reason it comes about, is because Big E kept way too many secrets from people, especially the Primarchs. Even way back to Horus Rising, it was the uncertainty created by his Great Work after Ullanor that allowed Horus and others to be lead astray, and it also played into catastrophes that Magnus inflicted (leading to the destruction or Prospero. Perhaps it is unfair to blame the Emperor for this, as he is the only one of his kind, and the burden of knowledge and duty he has must be great but... he needed to learn trust, he didn't, and the Imperium suffered.

That's actually one of the greater hypocrisies you find in the HH series. The Emperor and his minions kept advocating some great and noble 'Imperial Truth', yet it was something that was little different than the religiosu fanaticism he sought to supplant, and it was a ideology based on a great many deceits - about the nature of the warp, about his plans and goals... and so on. So much deceit that gave Chaos its foot in the door and allowed the HEresy to come about. People often talk about what a poor 'father' the Emperor was, but that really isn't the key problem - it's all the secrets and lies and deception, and it started with the Emperor.



Page 162-163

"I fear the Emperor will break the Word Bearers – and break me. We would be cast alongside the brothers we no longer speak of."
...
"Instead, he swore that he’d already lost two brothers, and had no desire to lose a third."
...

“Two already lost.” Lorgar looked back to the city. “I still recall how they—”

“Enough,” warned Magnus. “Honour the oath you took that day”

“You all find it so easy to forget the past. None of you ever wish to speak of what was lost. But could you do it again?”
...
“The Word Bearers will not walk the same paths as the forgotten and the purged.”

Hints as to the fate of the II and XI Legions. It seems that prior to the Heresy there was some measure of rebellion or defiance that required purging, although the whys we don’t know yet.



Page 163

”Already, there’s talk that compliance was achieved on Forty-Seven Sixteen with laudable speed. Settler fleets are en route, are they not?”

an interesting quote considering that they used orbital bombardment (or intended to) to wipe out all life on the planet in Scions of the Storm and in this book. This would tend to suggest we’re not talking super-extreme sterilization yields (EG not tens of billions of megatons, quite probably not even billions of megatons). We’d probably be talking something in the 1e7-1e8 Megaton scale, maybe 1e8-1e9 megatons (at least with some terraforming.) In that context it seems reasonable to conjecture they may not be unleashing their full firepower (controlled bombardments would be more likely) Althought the stormy/water-based nature of the events might still fudge the numbers a bit.


Page 165

“We are immortal,” Lorgar pointed out. “Why would we worry for the future when we will still be around to shape it?”

Lorgar says the Primarchs are immortal. This may be the source of the confusion as to whether the AStartes are immortal or not (200 years isnt enough time ot test the theory, and if both the Emperor and Primarchs are, its possible the Astartes are as well.)



Page 166

”But the Emperor is a god in all but name, Magnus. He is psychic power incarnated within a physical shell. When he speaks, his lips never move and his throat makes no sound. His face is a thousand visages at once. The only aspect of humanity he possesses is the facade he wears to interact with mortals.”

Much as I hate to say it, Lorgar has a point yet again. He is more or less a god/godlike being, although I still believe he is a vessel/avatar for the actual, sleeping god. More of a stand in until such a being cna be ‘born’.

This also suggests the Emperor uses a great deal of illusion in his dealings with humans, which suggests perceptions of him could be flawed or subjective.

[Connor MacLeod]

Part 2

Page 167

”A fear of dooming another world to destruction. A fear that father will order a third Legion, and a third son, to be purged from history.”

More on the fate of the two lost Legions.


Page 175

The biological manipulation, flesh-smithing and genetic rewriting that goes into the construction of one of the Emperor’s sons was a unique and unrepeatable practice, with its roots hidden beneath layers of ubelievable secrecy, for even if another sentient being could glimpse the Emperor’s gestation laboratories, they would never understand what transpired within. Every mote of biological matter in their bodies was painstakingly shaped – forged on the quantum level to contribute to the whole. It was beyond science, beyond alchemy, beyond psychic sorcery, and yet drew from all of these and more.

Humans had suffered strokes and heart attacks in the presence of primarchs. Almost all, without exception, abased themselves upon first meeting one. Many wept without intention or reason.

More on the nature of the Primarchs. They seem to be a little bit of the ‘magical’ and the scientific, which makes sense, although it has ominous overtones for what we learn in Thousand Sons and this novel.


PAge 183

The crystal wafers are cored by a psychoreactive liquid, the images taking shape in the celadon resin as the tarot reader holds each card in his hands.

He had hoped, in time, that every psychically gifted soul in his father’s Imperium would come to learn this tarot. Instead, their creation had been scorned – even by Magnus (who had no need of such foci for his powers) and Leman Russ (who derided them even as he cast runestones and knucklebones in a bid to see the future).

Lorgar had a hand in creation of the Emperor’s Tarot.



Page 197

Argel Tal couldn’t see the daemon. He looked left and right, targeting reticule not locking on to anything.

It goes without saying that this being an ADB Space Marine onvel, all their powered armour have targeting sensors/reticules/gunsights show up. As well as various retinal displays and suchnot.


Page 199

Smaller than De Profundis, the destroyer Orfeo’s Lament was an attack ship, a sleek and narrow hunter, not a line-breaking assault vessel like many Astartes cruisers. under a thousand humans and augmented servitors at full complement, in addition to the hundred Astartes – a full company’s worth.

Astartes destroyer complement, which includes servitors. Must be heavily automated.


Page 201-202

“Power hasn’t been restored to all systems. Not even close. The Geller Field is enabled, but we lack void shields, plasma propulsion, energy weapons, projectile weapons, and life support on half the decks.”
..
“Manoeuvring thrusters?”
...
“Taking that into account, and lacking warp flight… On manoeuvring thrusters it will take us at least three months to break clear of the… nebula.”

Energy weapons, projectile weapons and voids seem to be on a similar magnitude of power draw, although Gellar fields, life support and manuvering thrusters do not. This also suggests main engines are a hell of alot more powerful than the manuvering thrusters (and probably the braking thrusters.)


Page 205

”Seven. Months. There are barely forty of us left. No food. We ate the crew… hateful mouthfuls of leathery flesh and dry bones. There was no water. Water tanks ruptured in the storm damage. We drank promethium fuel… weapon oils… engine coolant… Sire, we’ve been killing each other. We have been drinking each other’s blood to stay alive.”

Testament ot the limits of Astartes endurance, but also the various things they can survive on - they can drink fossil fuels and oils and coolants for crying out loud!


Page 211

”Three years, and seven worlds. History will point to those worlds, the husks we left, and describe how the XVII Legion vented its wrath in the wake of our failure. World after world burned, the populations butchered to slake our fury.”
...
“But seven worlds died in fire, and we were almost destroyed after leaving the eighth.”

3 years for 1301st fleet to destroy 8 worlds.


Page 212

Lorgar’s grey gaze didn’t waver for a moment. He was seeing with his sixth sense, looking into his son’s heart, and sensing the second soul gestating there.

Lorgar’s psychic powers manifest at least in a sensory way - he can detect daemons.



Page 213

His fingers – fifteen of them spread across three mechanical hands – worked in the armoured bowl of Alizarin’s skull. It was a process of restructuring globs of bio-plastic, each one dripping with nutrient-rich juices, within the robot’s head. Each tract of spherical relay globes needed to be fixed and sealed into position, then connected to the slave systems they controlled, as well as the fail-safes they relied on in incidents of battle damage. Such were the workings of the robotic mind: an intelligence in mimicry of life, grown in a gene-lab to be used in a machine body. The smell rising from this bowl of artificial cerebrospinal fluid was a revoltingly spicy reek reminiscent of rotting onions...

More on battle robot ‘brains’ - the bioplastics and other elements, despite being ‘grown’ suggest a effectively ‘artificial’ brain, which has implications for other machine spirits (or, at least, certain kinds of such.)



Page 214

He paid them little heed, knuckle-deep as he was in organic slime, plugging tiny interface feeds into segmented spheres of bio-plastic. Each sphere was a part of the cortex program. Each fibre-optic link simulated synapses.

More on the artificial robot brains. Fibre optics seem to replace the neural links, suggesting/indicating they run on photons rather than electricity.



PAge 214-215

The machine’s spirit had the error-laden propensity to act unpredictably, and that was unacceptable.
..
On one occasion, never to be repeated, Xi-Nu 73 had taken the greatest, gravest risk, purging Incarnadine’s bioplastic brain. After flushing every trace of matter from the robot’s skull bowl, he rebuilt the cortex over the space of four months, using spare parts, ritually cleansed after being taken from his supply caches. The robot had a new brain, for Cog’s sake.

yet more on the synthetic brains of the battle bots



Page 223

"The warp is a cruel mistress. How many vessels has the Imperium lost in its tides over the course of the Great Crusade? Hundreds? Perhaps even a thousand or more."

Considering the size of the fleets, that really isn't alot over 2 centuries. That's literally a handful per yeah out of hundreds of thousands or millions.



Page 224

”We’re on the frontier, and we all know it. Reinforcements aren’t coming our way, no matter how loud we shout for help.”
...
“The closest Imperial expedition to us is the 3,855th, almost a year’s warp flight distant.”
...
“The 3,855th Expeditionary Fleet is between thirteen and fifteen months distant, depending on the vagaries of the warp.”
...
We are over a year’s flight distant from our nearest brothers, and even farther from the Imperium’s true edge

Comment on the distances of fleets at this point.


Page 225-226

”Our auguries are… That is to say… Our senses are… I can hear the world we move towards. It’s difficult to put into words.”
...
“We hear voices in the void,” he said. “A world is a hive of sound, the buzzing of locusts or flies, but far, far in the distance. It is never easy to make out one world in the endless reaches of space. The Imperium is an ocean of silence, and only the most intense focus allows us to hear the hum of human sentience. Imagine yourselves beneath the water of a great sea. All sound is muted, while the silence is powerfully oppressive. Now try to listen for voices in the nothingness, when all you can hear is your own heartbeat.”
...
“If you focus too hard on listening for voices, you will forget to swim. You’ll drown. If you devote all your energy to swimming for the surface and breathing once more… you will hear none of the ocean’s sounds.”

Astorpathic ‘detection’ of planets.


Page 227

In flickering imagery, the region of space – zoomed out to display hundreds of suns and their systems...
...
The area was vast. Bigger than vast. It covered hundreds upon hundreds of solar systems, ugly even on the hololithic. The warp anomaly showed as a gaseous fog staining the stars, coiling down to a centre of roiling, boiling energy.

Implied scope of the Eye of Terror, 'hundreds' is probably an understatement, and shouldn't be read into too deeply, esp given later statements.


Page 228

”That storm blankets thousands of star systems around us.”

Thousands in/around the Eye of Terror, not hundreds.


Page 229

”What vessels were lost in the journey through the storm?”
..
“The Unending Reverence, the Gregorian and the Shield of Scarus.”

The Word Bearers present inclined their heads in respect. The Shield had been the strike cruiser of their own Captain Scarus and his 52nd Company. Their loss was a savage blow to the Serrated Sun, finding itself at two-thirds strength purely by the warp’s fickle winds.

Implied strength of the Crusade fleet. It might imply they have 9 or so vessels, including 300 or so AStartes (although its possible the 2/3 strength applies to the Astartes contingent too.

Ironically Lorgar names this the Scarus sector They’ve discovered the area close to and around the Eye.


PAge 231-233

Violet Eyes.

It was only apparent deviation from the purestrain human breed. With violet eyes, the people stared at the emissaries from the stars.
...
“Their eyes,” said Xaphen. “Every one of them has violet irises.”
...
“The storm?” Vendatha asked. “Their eyes are violet because of the storm?”
...
Lorgar nodded. “It has changed them.”
...
“‘I know the warp can infect psychics with the fleshchange, if their minds are not strong enough. But normal humans?”
...
“These barbarians are mutants…” he gestured with his spear at the approaching tribes,

“…and they must be destroyed.”

The first-generation cadians (prior to the purge) had purple eyes due to their proximity to the Eye of Terror. As we learn later, Cadians still retain violet eyes (although whether all have it or only some I dont remember), so this hilariously suggests that latter-day CAdians are (at least by Vendatha’s views) mutants or abhuman. Possibly low level/latent psychics. On the other hand this can probably explain why they are supposed to be so badass.


Page 237

“Your voice is as divided as your soul. I can see the latter with my psychic sense – two faces stare out at me, four eyes and two smiles. None would ever know of it, save perhaps my brother Magnus.”

Again Lorgar is psychic enough to detect the daemonic possession of ARgal Tal.



Page 255

Bolt rounds hammered into the Custodian’s golden armour, beating the faceplate and chest out of shape, tearing chunks of plating away as they detonated. Each suit of battle armour was individually wrought for the Custodian granted the honour to wear it, and despite their finery, Custodes armour was a step beyond the mass-produced wargear used by the Astartes Legions.

Even so, the burst of bolter shells to the head and upper torso was almost enough to kill the warrior outright.

Comment on Custodes battle armour as well as its durability.


Page 262

Tactical data streamed across Argel Tal’s eye lenses as his targeting sensors cycled in frantic inability to lock onto the creature. Each attempted lock drew an invalid response. Where his retinal view would always display analyses of an enemy’s armour and anatomy...

Power armour targeting systmes try to lock onto a daemonic creature, and fail. Also the sorts of information the targeting systems pick up on and provide.


Page 269

The Vessel chosen was Orfeo’s Lament. A sleek, vicious light cruiser...

Now the Lament is a light cruiser instead of a destroyer


Page 275

”Have the flagship’s augurs managed to measure the afflicted area of space?” she asked.

Thousands upon thousands of solar systems lie within the Great Eye.

Implies Lorgar’s flagship has sensors that can scan/measure the Eye in some way, at least the size of the systems. And again thousands of systems within the Eye (rather than hundreds.)


Page 286

Melisanth is but one world floating in the Sea of Souls. One amongst millions.

Now its implied there are millions of worlds in the Eye. I find this more believable than hundreds, honestly.


Page 287

Their sorceries are fading. This is on the edge of the Great Eye. The destruction took days to unfold on these lesser colonies. At the core of their empire, all life was ended in mere moments.

Days to cross 5000 LY. Suggesting a propogation speed for the creation of the Eye.


Page 294

Etched clearly onto its front plating in silver lettering was the Gothic numeral XIII. Beneath the silver plate, an inscription was scratched into the metal in tiny, meticulous handwriting.

The exact meaning of the words escaped Argel Tal – it seemed a long and complicated prayer, beseeching outside forces for blessings and strength...
..
The tongue you name Colchisian is a fragment of a primordial language. Colchisian… Cadian… these tongues were seeded onto your worlds in readiness for the coming age. The Emperor’s golden pets could not read those inscriptions, for they do not carry Lorgar’s blood in their veins. All of this was planned aeons ago.
...
Their world was touched, as Colchis was touched. Seeds planted in abundance, all to flower in this moment.

Primarch creation myth according to daemons. This particular case implies sorcery used in their births (prayers and magics and such.)


Page 295-296

”The eleventh primarch sleeps within this pod – still innocent, still pure. I ache to end this now.”
...
“It would save us all a lot of effort, wouldn’t it?”
...
“And it would spare Aurelian from heartbreak.” Xaphen traced his fingertips over the designating numeral. “I remember the devastation that wracked him after losing his second and eleventh brothers.”
...
“But the Eleventh Legion—”

“Is expunged from Imperial record for good reason. As is the Second. I’m not saying I don’t feel temptation creeping over me, brother. A single sword thrust piercing that pod, and we’d unwrite a shameful future.”
...
"And deny the Ultramarines a significant boost in recruitment numbers."
...
"Those are just rumours"
...
"Perhaps, perhaps not. The Thirteenth definitely swelled to eclipse all the other Legions around the time the Second and Eleventh were “forgotten” by Imperial archives."

More on the fates of the lost legions, including the rumor that the excess were dumped into Ultramarine ranks. Oddly this might suggest that the lost legions were of a similar magnitude to the Ultramarines and Word Bearers.


Page 299-301

"It’s haemolubricant, for a machine-spirit. These secondary generators are fastened behind each pod. And look, they run along the spinal columns of these structures, up the tower."
...
"This is a generator," his voice softened in disbelief, "for a Geller Field."
...
"The most powerful Geller Field in existence."
...
You do not truly comprehend the effect you name a Geller Field. It is more than a kinetic shield against warp energy. The warp itself is the Sea of Souls. Your fields repel raw psychic force. They are a bulwark against the claws of the neverborn.
...
"...is why these incubators are shielded against…"

Say it.

Xaphen smiled. "…against daemons."
...
You have been raised with tales of the primarchs that lead your Legions, but you have been fed centuries of lies. In a matter of moments, you will witness the truth. The Anathema dealt with the Powers of the warp long before he left Earth on the Great Crusade.

The Anathema desired mighty sons, and the gods granted him the lore to forge them with a union of divine genetics and psychic sorcery. He came to my masters, hungry for answers, beseeching the gods for power.

With the lore they gave him, he shaped his twenty sons.

But treacheries have occurred. Oaths – sworn in blood and paid in soul – have been broken. The Anathema now refuses to show humanity the Primordial Truth, and the gods of the warp grow wrathful. The Anathema is keeping its twenty primarch sons and paying no price to the Powers that gifted him with the knowledge to shape them.
...
"‘Our father – all of our fathers – are the spawn of ancient blood rituals and forbidden science."
...
"The Emperor that denies all forms of divinity shaped his own sons with the blessings of forgotten gods. Prayers and sorcery are written upon their gestation pods. This is the most glorious madness."

The supposed 'truth' about the origins of the Primarchs. Overall I'm inclined to call bullshit on this, because it is entirely in Chaos' interests to lie and misdirect and turn the Word Bearers away from the Emperor, and because that's pretty much what Chaos does. It's what they did to Horus in False Gods, they did it to Magnus in Thousand Sons, they did it to Fulgrim in Fulgrim, Mortarion, and so on. They lie, decieve, trick, and manipulate as it suits them, and that means that anything they say cannot be trusted. At best we have a half truth, and we dont know which parts are truths and which are lies (The Emperor could have, for example, tapped the power of the warp to create the Primarchs, but the Chaos Gods are twisting that around to make it sound like he tapped THEIR warp power to create them, for example.)

And frankly this is where any sympathy and liking for the Word Bearers I have mostly dies off. If they'r gullible - desperate - enough to believe daemons after all the shit they pull, then they're fucking morons.
The nature of the Chaos gods is to take the worst traits and excesses of living beings (esp humans) feed off of them to grow stronger, and then influence people towards even greater excesses in order to perpetuate that feeding, and the Emperor's plan is not only a threat to end that pattern, it threatens to end their existence.


Page 306

"In forty-three years, Horus will speak four words that will save humanity or lead to its extinction."

43 years before the HEresy starts.


Page 311

Astartes battle armour wasn’t made for this. With its immense weight, his boots sank into the sticking river mud, generating grinding protests from the inbuilt mercury-threaded stabilisers in his shins and knee-joints.

Power armour 'stabilizers' (for balance and support against recoil and such, I think.)


Page 320

"The Cadians… well, they were destroyed for their deviance."
...
"You will destroy the tribes?"
...
"Genocide has never given me pleasure, my son. Tales of unrest will be spread among the fleet, and we will use tectonic weapons on the landing site to destroy the tribes that occupy the wastelands."

mention of use of 'tectonic weapons' to initiate genocide/mass extinction.


Page 332

"The planet is sparsely populated, and much of it is a paradise despite its proximity to the hellish storm. Cyclonic torpedoes will annihilate the tribes, and leave the planet free for future colonisation – if the Emperor wills it."

A more 'tactical' use of cyclonics, again to wipe out all life without totally destroying the planet's habitability. Much like forty-seven sixteen. It also suggests that cyclonics (or at least some kind) are defined as 'tectonic' weapons - which might suggest they're designed to burrow into and detonate inside the crust ( to destroy subsurface installations/cities, as well as create groundquakes and such.) They'reporbably meant ot be used in conjunction with airbursting cyclonics or virus weapons.


Page 345

Forty years later

40 years pass between Lorgar allying himself formally with Chaos and planning the Heresy, and the events of Horus betrayal and the Isstvaa conflicts. Again the timeframe for the Furious AByss falls withint his. 20-40 years tops.


Page 349

If it came to a choice between paying for his crimes in the traditional manner or catching a transport ship halfway across the galaxy to serve as a remembrancer...

It seems that at this point in time it is common for Remembrancers to travel 'halfway across the galaxy' to the fringes to meet up with expedition fleets (From Terra.)


Page 352

The flight to join the 1,301st Expeditionary Fleet had lasted nineteen long, long months...

Assuming he is in fact travelling 'halfway across the galaxy' the transport travels 50-60 K LY, which gives an average speed between 30-40,000c assuming a straight line course.


Page 352

The grey-hulled fortress-flagship of Lord Argel Tal, silent and serene despite its world-breaking weapons array.

Tal's battle barge has 'world breaking' weaponry.


Page 363

"Slain by a human, of all things. An unlucky thrust with a wooden spear."Argel Tal tapped two fingertips against his neck. "Tore out most of his throat, laid it bare to the bone. I’ve never seen anything like it. Blood of the gods, I’d have laughed if it hadn’t been so pathetically tragic. He bled out before the Apothecaries could reach him, still trying to shout the whole time."

It is possible to kill an Astartes with a wooden spear, if you know where to hit this has become my favorite running gag for poking fun at Astartes SUPERHUMANITY, and I don't deny I'm biased. The fact its Word Bearers makes it even more amusing to me, and I admit this is perhaps my most favorite part of the book.


Page 376

Their lander was an Army troop transport, a shaking, rattling example of the ancient Greywing-class shuttles that he’d assumed were out of service these days, replaced by the smaller, sleeker Valkyries. Ishaq had looked at the boxy underslung compartment where the thirty passengers were evidently supposed to travel.

I wonder if there is a Valkyrie class dropship in the HH era, or if this is referring to the atmopsheric gunship-transports?



Page 383

Aquillon span his blade – a deflective propeller to ward off any assassin’s shot. He wasn’t connected to the Legion’s networked data-stream, and couldn’t read Argel Tal’s life signs on a convenient retinal display

Astartes data-networking.


Page 394

"Exalted sire, the aether has cleared a great deal in recent days, and the message from Terra was clear"

Implies a matter of hours, or days for a warp message to reach the Word Bearers 1301st fleet from Terra. Assuming thousands/tens of thousands of light years, we're talking hundrds of thousands/millions of c again.



Page 395

"Argel Tal informs me we will reach Isstvan in thirty-nine days."
"Thirty-nine days?"
...
"That is incredulously quick," Kalhin said. "We’ve spent years pushing through turgid tides and bringing backwater worlds to compliance, and suddenly the Navigators are reporting clean warp-lanes all the way to where we need to be? A quarter of the way across the galaxy? That journey should take a decade."
...
"The warp has cleared."
...
"‘In good tides, it is still a journey of many months. Even years."

An interesting commentary on warp travle, especially in the Crusade era., At this point in time (prior to Isstvaan) the warp had been stirred up immensely by Chaos, so 39 days is considered 'incredibly quick' when months or years or even a decade seems more usual to voer a 'quarter of the galaxy' - 25-30 K LY. This leads to a velocity anywhere from 2500-3000C to 180,000c depending on context. 25000-30,000 LY in 39 days is 234,000-281,000c. Bear in mind that this is still assuming a perfectly straight-line course even with a clear warp lane, so it probably should be taken as an order of magnitude estimate. IF it followed the curve of the galaxy, for example, it might be several times that speed.

They also mention that they will be aboard 4 word bearers ships. Assuming there are at least 2 other ships in 1301st, this means they had at least 6, which would lend credence to the 9 ship fleet from before (unless they got replacements.)


PAge 396

It would be a long night of pulsing so urgent a message all the way to Terra, and maintaining a link with an astropath on the distant home world long enough to carry a reply.

Sending a message to tErra (again probably form the edge of the galaxy - tens of thousands of LY) in 12 hours or less. tens of millions of c at least, and its probably faster because it is implying (via maintaining a link) that it is effectively relatime or nearly so.)


Page 403

Every second saw three strikes made, and each strike snapped back with the weapons’ electrical fields repelling one another after the metal kissed for the briefest moment. The air was rich with the ozone scent of abused power fields in only a matter of heartbeats.

Speed of strikes between AStartes and Custodes.


Page 405

The system’s third world, comfortably close enough to the sun to support human life, was a virus-soaked mass grave marking the anger of Horus Lupercal. The world’s population was nothing more than contaminated ash scattered over lifeless continents, while the bones of their cities remained as blackened smears of burnt stone – a civilisation reduced to memory in a single day. The orbital bombardment from the Warmaster’s fleet, payloads of incendiary shells and virus-laden biological warfare pods, had seemingly spared nothing and no one anywhere in the world.

Isstvan III lingered now in silent orbit around its sun, almost grand in the extent of its absolute devastation, serving as the scarred tombstone for the death of an empire.

description of the death of Isstvaan. This runs a bit different to events in prior books, but we might speculate the incendary payloads were either part of a later bombardment (the bombardment that destroyed the loyalists who survived the biowarfare attacks) or that somehow the incendiaries were part of the bombardment firestorm after (and ignited by lance attack or something.) In any case it may suggest an interesting magnitude for conventionla firepower, if we knew the number of ships involved and could settle on an exact yield (assumign 100 teratons and 1000 ships over a 12 hour period, we might get several megatons per second of incendiary.)


Page 406

In preternatural concordance, hundreds of vessels drifted closer to the world from the system’s farthest reaches.

Implied scale of the combined Word Bearers/Iron Warriors/Night Lords/Alpha Legion fleet.


Page 429

Torgal thumbed a gear-rune on his chainaxe’s control, shifting settings from soft tissue to armour plating. A thicker second layer of jagged teeth slid forward alongside the first. In truth, a chainbladed weapon would always struggle to do more than strip the paint from layered ceramite, but it would chew through fibre-bundle armour joints or exposed power cables with ease.

Variable mode chainsword - anti armour and anti-personnel modes, although it seems that anti-armour still has limits - such as against ceramite, indicating that chainswords are meant to be psychological weapons against lightly armoured opponents, and don't offer much against heavily armoured/power armoured troops usually, unelss you aim for weakpoints.

That said, it could be that the aforementioned limitation is dependent upon the kind of chainsword (the sorts of teeth it has, etc. Monomolecular teeth might be more penetrating, for example.)


Page 444

Lascannon fire rained towards the primarch as the Iron Warriors turned their turrets on the gravest threat in range. The Word Bearers caught in the net of streaming fire were sliced apart as surely as the ones killed by Corax’s claws, but the beams themselves flashed aside from the primarch’s armour, never striking it straight-on, leaving savage burn scars without once penetrating.

Sustained lascannon fire slicing through Power armoured marines, but glancing off Corax's armour.


PAge 452

He saw the soldier’s rifle half-buried in the junk, and hauled it free.
...
Ishaq flicked the switch along the gun’s side, and pulled the trigger. He’d never fired a lasweapon before. The crack-flash left dancing lights before his eyes...
...
The man was dead now, his head emptied against the wall behind him.

lasgun bolt blowing out human skull with a single shot. Depending on presence/absence of thermal effects, we're talking at least single or double digit kj. Probably not MJ range though even if very thermal.


PAge 458

Lorgar’s preternatural biology was regenerating his damaged tissue with alacrity, but the primarch was shivery and weak as he reached for the fallen crozius.

Lorgar not only survives virtual disembowlment by Corax's lightning claws (multiple stabbings and laceration) but he's rapidly healing from it it seems.


PAge 474-475

"If you have a being’s blood, you can tailor a poison to slay them and no other – a venom bred to end a single life, but to spare all others."

"And our blood is the blood of the Emperor."
...
"Yes. But it is thinned and filtered by mass production, with too many artificial chemical components, making it too weak to use in either alchemy or sorcery. The link to our grandsire is far too tenuous."
..
"You believe the Custodes offer a closer link to the Emperor."

"I do. They are born from the same genetic code, though ours was filtered for mass production. They are purer for their rarity, if not their quality."

It was an old assumption, and one with no proof, to claim that the Emperor was a primarch to the Custodian Guard.

Astartes vs Custodes blood, and the theory of Custodes having a direct (strong) link to the Emperor. Erebus hopes to use that purported connection to fabricate a magic Emperor-killing poison.


Page 477

"The approach to the fleet was a nightmare, and the auspex chimed out with hundreds of dead ships in the upper atmosphere. It will rain steel on Isstvan V for decades to come"

hundreds of ships destroyed.


Page 489

Signals and firing solutions flew between all nearby Word Bearers vessels, and seven ships let loose with their broadsides, spilling their immensely destructive firepower into space in the hopes of hitting the tiny gunship.

STarships coordinating fire and sharing targeting info.

[Vaporous]

The Emperors "rargh destroy all religion even when it is impractical to do so" attitude makes even less sense when you remember that he very pragmatically made terms with the Mechanicum at the beginning of the crusade. More than that, he manipulated their beliefs and pretended to be their long foretold Messiah to convince them to join him willingly. Unless his decision to pretend to be robot jesus was influenced by other factors than the fact that the Crusade would have been impossible if he hadn't had the willing help of Mars.

I'm looking forward to ADBs' Master of Mankind. It'd be bad to learn too much about the Emperor-it would ruin the mystery. But they need to do something to clear up some facts about who and what he is so we can understand his mistakes. If we can interpret them as the result of his flaws, then they are part of a tragedy. If not, then they're making the semi-divine superman who set their entire story in motion look like a moron, and that undermines the story.

[Cykeisme]

The Emperors "rargh destroy all religion even when it is impractical to do so" attitude makes even less sense when you remember that he very pragmatically made terms with the Mechanicum at the beginning of the crusade. More than that, he manipulated their beliefs and pretended to be their long foretold Messiah to convince them to join him willingly. Unless his decision to pretend to be robot jesus was influenced by other factors than the fact that the Crusade would have been impossible if he hadn't had the willing help of Mars.

I haven't read the novelizations that fully detail these events, but the pre-novelization history states that the Adeptus Mechanicus had sects that predicted the coming of a Messiah. The Emperor was unaware of these prohecies when he first contacted Mars, but some Mechanicus adepts immediately recognized him as fulfilling all the prophecized details of the Messiah, while some disagreed.
He probably went along wholeheartedly with misrepresenting himself anyway, since it helped. Or perhaps the prophecies were indeed about his coming to Mars, maybe.

Are there novels that describe it differently?

[Vaporous]

In Mechanicum, the Emperor shows up on Mars and repairs a warhound (I think) by laying his hands on it and saying "Machine, heal thyself." Like Robo-Jesus. The Mechanicum soldier in the warhound immedietly hails him as "Lord" and "Omnissiah."

Unless he didn't say that. Some of the primarchs mention that they see him with more than one face. Maybe the Emperor doesn't have complete control over how he's viewed by everyone around him, and others perceive him through the prism of their expectations/desires/fears to some extent.

Or maybe he knew they would be there as a side effect of him leaving the Void Dragon on Mars, and he just played to expectations. Who knows?

[Connor MacLeod]

I think the Emperor's decisions are less a reflection that they 'don't make sense', but rather they make sense in a very limited, specific way. The Emperor may have nigh-godlike powers and be an Avatar for humanity and shit, but he's fallible just as anyone is, and being the only one of his kind must be a horribe, horrible burden. I'm thinking of 'Chosen one' in the Harry Potter context, where all that fame and glory and expectation carries more negative connotations than it does positive. Since he is not truly a god, and is merely a really powerful human, he's prone to the same prejudices, fears, doubts, insecurities, etc. everyone else is. But unlike normal humans, he does not have the luxury to display or always act on those feelings. I suspect that the position he's in and the role he is forced to act often makes him manifest those frustrations/doubts and fears through his role. Instead of trying to treat the Warp as simply an 'dimension full of aliens that must be crushed for humanity' or some such propoganda BS, he tries to suppress knowledge of it entirely, and to crush religion completely out of existence and replace it with an godless ideology to depower those warp entities. He keeps secrets even from his Primarchs. He conquers the galaxy not through the science and reason and logic his agents promulgate, but rather through conquest and war and propoganda and manipulation. Its why rather than simply trying to brainwash or indoctrinate a planet's population, he has Guilliman commit genocide.

The funny thing is, its pretty much the same thing the Primarchs all go through to varying degrees, and they're simply aspects of the Emperor. How much worse for him then, because he is the whole thing, and the Primarchs, whilst rare, still have a sort of brotherhood amongst themselves to rely upon, whilst there is only one Emperor/New Man/whatever term you apply to him.

I think the short story 'The Last Church' is a rather significant indicator in this and in the mindset of the Emperor, but we get lots of little hints given the way people regard him, how he acts towards others, the escrets he keeps and the shit Chaos keeps insinuating regarding him and his motivations. While he has a lion's share of blame in the events leading ot the Heresy with all his secrecy and shit, it also makes me feel a bit sorry for him because it indicates he is also quite a tragic figure in having to play that 'Chosen one' role. Even ten millenia later, he's not yet freed of that burden, and dying is no escape from his responsibilities, and he's still playing a role for the benefit of humanity.

[Vaporous]

That's true. It's not reasonable to expect someone older than civilization to be big on cooperation and trust. People and nations and ideas die, but the Emperor keeps going. The only permanent thing in his universe is himself. Arrogance is inevitable from that perspective, and it is all the easier when that arrogance is largely justified thanks to how knowledgeable and powerful he is. It doesn't even have to be arrogance; after having lived apart from people for tens of thousands of years, (except for when he stepped in to manipulate nations or events), his first instinct in any situation couldn't be to explain himself clearly. It may have been a long time since the idea even occurred to him.

[gigabytelord]

I'm not sure if this has already been posted here, but the Emperors hatred of religion came up in a conversation I was having yesterday and I found this old piece fluff while I was looking for stuff concerning it.

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Uriah_Olathaire

Not sure if it's cannon but It's an interesting little story none the less.

[Connor MacLeod]

I'm not sure if this has already been posted here, but the Emperors hatred of religion came up in a conversation I was having yesterday and I found this old piece fluff while I was looking for stuff concerning it.

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Uriah_Olathaire

Not sure if it's cannon but It's an interesting little story none the less.

Its in the Tales of Heresy anthology. Its called 'The Last Church.' where the Emperor has his little theological discussion with one of the last priests on Earth, trying to get him to abandon his faith.

[Connor MacLeod]

We return to our 'traditional' route by broaching the novel A Thousand sons, by Graham McNeill. A rather popular one, and considered one of his best works (I think) in the Horus HEresy series. I thought Angel Exterminatus was quite good, though, but meh. Thousand Sons chronicles magnus' bunch, obviously, but more specifically it follows their route to Nikaea, and to the destruction of Prospero. The high point of the novel is that it is a very well written tragedy. Magnus and his brood come across as likeable, intelligent, if a bit prideful, and contrasted sharply with the Wolves in this regard (exposing some of the Wolves more obvious, and annoying, hypocrisies as this point, such as the Rune Priests.) and it is easy to see them as being victims in every sense of the word. Victims of their own hubris, of the Imperium, and of Tzeetnch and Chaos. Especially the last one.

The novel is certainyl better than Fulgrim and yet... it really didn't engage me. Not the way Horus Rising did. It was certianly epic, and the tragedy was excellent, but.. I dunno. I think its mainyl that while there has been efforts to 'empathize' with the CSM forces, I think McNeill tried way too hard with Magnus and the Thousand Sons, it even sort of contradicts his earlier attitudes about Magnus (Magnus of False Gods was considerably more arrogant, for one thing.) Magnus doesn't really 'feel' flawed as much as a victim. Sure he makes mistakes and he is arrogant with regards to the warp, but I never really felt that as much as he was misjudged and misunderstood.

I will say that there is something synergistic about this book and Prospero Burns together. I think its because they tell two sides of the same story, from different perspectives, and that its both Abnett and McNeill telling those tales. I think ATS is better than PB (my opinion at least), but together they're much more enjoyable than they are separate.

Anyhow, on with the book. Two short parts for the update:

Part 1

Page 10

His abilities are like nothing else wielded by man. He could kill me from the other side of the galaxy, but he will not.

Magnus, in context of speaking about the Emperor's psychic abilities I guess.


Page 14

Surrounding the rumpled skirts of the Mountain, scattered collections of raised stones, each taller than three men, were gathered in loose circles. Such monuments should have been towering achievements, incredible feats of engineering by a culture without access to mechanical lifting equipment, mass-reducing suspensor gear or the titanic engines of the Mechanicum.

A commentary on Admech construction compared to some stonehenge-like formations I suppose. Also note suspensors are 'mass reducing' technologies, even though they do not literall reduce mass/momentum as per Soul Drinker.


Page 17

Ahriman’s battle-plate cooled him, recycling the moisture of his body and turning aside the worst of the searing heat.

Comment on Thousand Sons armor enviromental and recycling abilities.


Page 28-29

To those without aether-sight, Tutelaries were invisible, but to the Thousand Sons with power they were bright visions of exquisite beauty.
...
Ahriman had thought them angels at first, but that was an old word, a word cast aside by those who studied the mysteries of the aether as too emotive, too loaded with connotations of the divine. Tutelaries were simply fragments of the Primordial Creator given form and function by those with the power to bend them to their will.

They don't seem to be legit warp daemons per se, but more a daemon like entity, perhaps a construct created by the Thousand Sons themselves as sorts of familiars.


Page 29

Following the successful compliance of Twenty-Eight Fifteen, the sixty-three ships of the 28th Expedition translated from the Great Ocean...

Size of the 28th Expeditionary fleet. Probably a major fleet.


Page 38-39

...newly issued rotary cannons capable of unleashing thousands of shells per minute. Their official designation was assault cannon, but such a graceless name had none of the power of its former incarnation, and numerological study had led the Thousand Sons to keep its previous title: the reaper cannon.

The Mechanicum had not the wit or understanding to recognise the power of names or the mastery and fear a well chosen one could instil. With six letters, three vowels and three consonants, the reaper’s number was nine. Given the organisation of the Thousand Sons into a Pesedjet of nine Fellowships, it was a natural fit and the name had remained.

Reaper/assault cannons and Thousand Sons naming conventions (which of course is based on MAGIC!)


Page 42

Eight hundred and seventy-three warriors of the Thousand Sons had died, forcing Magnus so reduce his Legion from ten fellowships to the Pesedjet, the nine fellowships of antiquity.

This owuld imply the size of the TS Legion is around 10K or so, so its smaller than the 'tens of thousands' Legions or '100,000+) Legions like the Ultramsurfs and Word Bearers.


Page 42-43

...a gargantuan war machine of the greenskin, crudely built in the image of their warlike gods. Defeat seemed inevitable until Magnus stood before the enemy colossus, wielding the power of the aether like an ancient god of war.

Two giants, one mechanical, one a flesh and blood progeny of the Emperor, they had faced each other across the burning ruins...
...
But Magnus raised his arms, his feathered cloak billowed by unseen storms, and the full fury of the aether unmade the enemy war-engine in a hurricane of immaterial fire that tore the flesh of reality asunder and shook the world to its very foundations.

Magnus uses his wapr powers (some sort of vortex/D-cannon type attack I'd guess?) to take out a Gargant.


Page 71

The idea of servitors needing to take breaks had amused Camille no end until Adept Spuler of the Mechanicum told her that he had been forced to decommission six of them due to heat exhaustion. Servitors didn’t feel fatigue or hunger or thirst, and so continued to work beyond the limits of endurance.

Servitors (at least these type) still seem subject to the limitations of human physiology.


Page 73

“Look at the lines running through it. They’re lines of growth. This wasn’t pressed in a mould or stamped by a machine. This material, whatever it is, grew and was shaped into this form."

The 'organic' nature of Eldar Wraithbone can be visually distinctive.


Page 83

"...the Great Ocean is so much more than that, Lemuel. It is the home of the Primordial Creator, the energy that drives all things. It is a reflection of our universe and we are a reflection of it. What occurs in one affects the other, and like a planetary ocean, it is not without its predators. Your mind, dull though it is, shines like a beacon in the ocean for the creatures that lurk in its depths."
...
"Those lights, as you call them, are aetheric echoes of a person’s emotion, health and power. A shadow self of that person exists in the Great Ocean, a reflection of their psyche that imprints itself in its currents.”

Ahriman explaining the nature of the Warp to another person.


Page 86

“They are Titans,” said Khalophis, slowly, “giant war machines. In ages past they could level cities and lay waste to entire armies..."

Capability of Titans. These are Eldar titans in context, but the abilities obviously are no less impressive than their Imperial counterparts.


Page 89

His connection with Sioda allowed Khalophis and the 6th Fellowship to burn entire armies to ashes without firing a single shot from their many guns.

I don't know if this is literal or not, but it implies some really fearsome psychic firepower.


Page 92

What lay beneath the Mountain was a gateway, an entrance to an indescribably vast and complex network of pathways through the Great Ocean, as though an unseen network of veins threaded the flesh of the universe. To gain control of that network would allow humanity free rein over the stars, the chance to step from one side of the galaxy to the other in the blink of an eye.
...
He could not simply open this gate without the Great Ocean spilling out with disastrous consequences.

Magnus discovers the Webway. apparently there are dangers to using it if you aren't prepared/knowledgable about the matter.


Page 94

The ships of the Thousand Sons hung motionless in the void above him, the Photep, the Scion of Prospero and the Ankhtowe. Together with Mechanicum forge vessels, Administratum craft and a host of bulk cruisers bearing army soldiers of the Prospero Spireguard, they made up this portion of the 28th Expedition.

Composition of the 28th Expeditionary fleet. Or at least this component of it.


Page 94

Unlike his brothers, Magnus remembered his conception and growth, recalling with perfect clarity the bond that existed between him and his father.

Even as he was forged in the white heat of genius, he spoke with his father, listening to his grand dreams, the colossal scale of his vision and his own place within it. As a mother might talk to the unborn babe in her womb, so did the Emperor speak with Magnus.

A bit of Magnus' past.


Page 98

Five Fellowships of the Legion, nearly six thousand Astartes, stood resplendent in crimson and ivory battle armour..

We get the size of a 'Fellowship'.


Page 106

That energy swirled around Skarssen and his warriors, yet where it easily passed through the Astartes of the Thousand Sons, the Space Wolves were anathema to it. Skarssen’s aura was little more than a dulled haze, like winter sunrise through thick fog.

Was Skarssen veiled?

That seemed unlikely, though perhaps the many fetishes hanging from his armour were shielding him. The protection offered by such talismans was largely illusory, but belief in such things could be a potent force.

An interesting commentary on the interaction between the Space Wolves and the warp. It strongly implies they have some resistance to it, although the reasons why aren't well defined here. It could be tied to faith/talismanic powers which are prevalent for the Wolves, it may be due to their rune Priest,s or even a combination of factors.


Page 118-119

“They were engineered?” asked Ahriman. “By whom?”

“By the first colonists of Fenris,” said Magnus with a smile.

“Can’t you see the dance of helices within them? The ballet of genes and the remarkable feats of splicing the earliest scientists achieved?”

The wolves (the real wolves, not the Space Wolves) are genetically engineered creatures.


Page 120-121

“First, tell me what you know of the Canis Helix?”

“It’s a genetic primer,” said Hathor Maat, “a precursor gene that allows the remainder of the Space Wolf gene-seed to take root in an aspirant’s body.”
...

“That is part of its function, yes, but it was never intended to be used so… obviously,” he said.
“Then how was it supposed to be used?” asked Ahriman.
...
“Imagine the time when mankind first discovered Fenris,” continued Magnus, “a world so utterly inimical to life that humans simply could not survive. Everything about Fenris was death, from the blood-freezing cold to the sinking lands to the howling winds that suck the life from your lungs. Back then, of course, geneticists saw impossibility as a challenge, and daily wrought new codes within the chromosomes of human and animal genomes as easily as the Mechanicum punch data-wafers for servitors.”

“So you’re saying that these colonists brought gene-bred wolves with them to Fenris?” said Phosis T’kar.

“Perhaps they did,” allowed Magnus, “but more likely they adapted, imperfectly at times and without thought to the consequences. Or perhaps there were other, older races living on Fenris.”

Magnus comments on Fenrisians and the Canis helix. There's alot of hints dropped here not yet specified, but it strongly suggests the Fenrisians themselves are genetically engineered.


Page 136

The Sons of Russ had a reputation for wild recklessness, but that didn’t make them stupid. To charge headlong into this battle would see them all dead, and Skarssen knew it.

Even the Space wolves aren't morons. At least in the Heresy.


Page 137

A haze of electromagnetic fire vented along the length of its smooth gauntlet.

Then it fired.

A blizzard of slicing projectiles shredded the space between its fist and Magnus, a thunderous storm of razor-edged death. Magnus didn’t move, but the storm broke above him, shunted aside by an invisible barrier to shred the ground and fill the air with whistling, spinning fragments of rock and metal.

EM fired shuriken projectiles from a Titan scale weapon. Magnus deflects it with a psychic shield.


Page 137

..Ahriman was again struck by the fluid, living grace of the Titan. It moved as if its every molecule was part of its essence, a living whole as opposed to a distant mind imperfectly meshed to a mechanical body with invasive mind impulse units and haptic receptors.

Difference between Imperial and (I think) Eldar Titans.

Page 138

Before it could unleash the destructive fire of the weapon, a storm of energy blistered its limbs. The Thousand Sons Land Raiders stabbed it with bright spears of laserfire...
..
The Astartes of the 6th Fellowship let fly with explosive warheads and storms of gunfire. Ceramic plates cracked and spalled. Fires rippled across the surface of the Titan’s armour. Imperial engines marched to war protected by shimmer-shields of ablative energy – not so this behemoth. Whatever protection it had relied on in life was denied it in this incarnation.

Land RAiders dont seem to do much against hte Eldar titans, except scar the armor.


PAge 138

Ahriman saw a thin smile play around his primarch’s face as he drew his fingers back to make a fist.

The enormous gauntlet that had spat such venom upon Magnus was crushed utterly as an invisible force compressed it. Fire bloomed from the shattered hand, black tendrils like dead veins hanging from the rain of its shoulder as Magnus coolly crushed the entire length of its arm.

MAgnus crushes the shuriken weapon.


PAge 138-139

An impossibly bright pinpoint of light grew at the end of the weapon before a pulsing storm erupted in a blaze of streaming fire.

Three Land Raiders exploded, instantly vaporised in the blast, and a fireball of burnt metal mushroomed skyward. The surging beam of liquid light swept on, carving a glassy trench across the valley and immolating everything in its path. A group of Hathor Maat’s warriors on the periphery of the seething fire burst into flames, their armour running like melted rubber.

Eldar titan lance weapon.. vaporizing 3 Land Raiders (assuming iron) is 200-250 tonnes is maybe 1-2 TJ. We dont know how many in a 'group' but melting a individual power armoured marine assuming iron is 300 or so MJ apiece.


Page 139

Firepower to end entire regiments surged back and forth: heatwash, ricochets and shrieking intakes of breath from guns capable of mass murder. The shape of the battle was fluid and its tempo was increasing.
...
The Astartes were fighting back, filling the valley with disciplined volleys, but save for the augmented fire of Khalophis’ warriors, it was having little effect.

Scope of the Titan vs Legion battle. Some of the Sons are using sorcery enhanced weapons to damage the Titan.


Page 142

He glanced over the white-hot rocks he and the Space Wolves sheltered behind. The searing fire of the Titan’s weapons had vitrified them, the solid stone now smooth and translucent. Razoredged discs the width of a man were embedded in the glass caught by the molten rock before it hardened and singing with the vibration of their impacts.

Titan firepowe rmelts a alrge quantity of rock (unknown, but large enough to hide a Comapny or more) Assuming a 50x50, 10 cm deep quantity of rock was melted would take 1.2 TJ, although we dont know the duration (aside form its fairly short, like seconds.) Also the discs are 'man wide'.) Assuming 1 mm thick and 2 m in diameter and silicon density each might weigh 1 kg. If they fire 50 shurikens at 3 km./s we're talking some 225 MJ of KE and 150,000 kg*m/s worth of momentum.

PAge 143

The Primarch of the Thousand Sons drew back his arm and loosed a stream of blue fire that struck the nearest Titan square in the chest.

The alien engine was an artfully designed war machine from an age long-forgotten, the ancient craft of its makers wondrous to behold, but it could not resist such incredible, awe-inspiring power. Its torso exploded, vast ribs of unknown manufacture
shattering like brittle china and falling in fire-blackened splinters. The pendulous head toppled from its neck and crashed to the rocks far below.

Magnus demolishes a Titan.


Page 144-146

Its lance arm slid around, the barrel aimed squarely at Magnus, and Ahriman saw that the enormous power the primarch had wielded had cost him dearly.
...
And a blazing lance of sunfire stabbed out, searing Magnus from the face of the world.
...
The heat of a million stars wreathed their primarch, and no matter that he was one of twenty towering pinnacles of genewrought superhuman warriors, even he could not survive such an attack. A surge tide of liquid fire swept out, turning the rock of the Mountain to glass.
...
Moments passed in utter silence, as though the world itself could not quite believe what had happened.
...
A vitrified bowl of a crater spread out at the mighty war engine’s clawed feet, yet at its centre was a sight that lifted his heart and filled him with awe.

A shimmering dome of golden-hued energy rippled in the heat haze, and within it, two armoured figures. Atop a crooked pillar of rock at the heart of the crater, all that had survived the Titan’s fire, were Phosis T’kar and Magnus the Red.
..
“A kine shield,” breathed Uthizzar. “Who knew T’kar was so
strong?”

Titan fires on Magnus again. I'm going to ignore the 'heat of a million suns' bit because it could be referring to temperature as much as energy, and that's relative.

The Crater isn't exactly defined, but it is presumably far bigger than either Magnus or the Astartes guarding him, so we're probably talking.. 5-10 meters diameter perhpas. The width is implied to be similar to the width of the titan as well, whcih are more slender than Imperial titans, but can still be within the 5-10 m range easily. The question is now, whetehr it was pulverizing, melting, vaporization, or some combination thereof. Cratering could easily be single digit GJ or so, while melting would be in the single digit TJ to double digit TJ (kilotons) for vaporization. Going by context I'd say a combination of blasting (pulverization) and melting, setting it somewhere into the GJ to singe digit TJ range.

Either way, the Son uses sorcery to deflect the shot.


Page 160

“Warding symbols?” suggested Wyrdmake, “Like the wolf talismans we bear.”

Skarssen touched the wolf pelt at his shoulder, and Ahriman watched as all the Space Wolves superstitiously reached for various fetishes hanging from their armour. Those closest to Wyrdmake touched the eagle-topped staff he carried, and Ahriman
smiled.

“Superstition?” he said. “The Emperor would not approve.”

“An Astartes of the Thousand Sons telling us what the Emperor would not approve of?” laughed Wyrdmake. “Ironic, wouldn’t you say?”

“No, I just find the gestures quaint,” smiled Ahriman, “almost primitive. I mean no offence of course.”

“None taken,” replied Wyrdmake. “But you too reached for a talismanic device.”

The smile froze on Ahriman’s lips as he realised the Rune Priest was right. Without even being aware of it, he had pressed his fingers to the silver oakleaf cluster on his shoulder guard, the icon that had once belonged to Ohrmuzd.

The importance of talismans.


Page 176

He had seized control of their destinies from the talons of a malevolent shadow in the Great Ocean that held their fates in its grasp. The Emperor knew of such creatures, and had bargained with them in ages past, but he had never dared face one.

Interesting. If Magnus is referring to Daemons and Chaos gods, he's just implied the Emperor has had some sorts of dealings with the powers in the warp. Which powers and what kind and when, we don't know, but it echoes some things we learn later (like First Heretic.) However, I remain skeptical about how truthful it is... and Magnus is rather arrogant.


Page 176-177

This power was a pale echo of that, a degenerate pool of trapped energy that had stagnated in this backwater region of space. He could sense the billionfold pathways that spread out from this place, the infinite possibilities of space linked together by a web-like network of conceptual conduits burrowed through the angles between worlds. This region was corrupt, but there were regions of glittering gold in the ocean that threaded the galaxy, binding it as roads of stone had once bound the empires of the Romanii Emperors together.

To memorise the entire labyrinthine network was beyond even one as gifted as him, but in a moment of connection beyond the darkness, he imprinted a million paths, conduits and access points in his mind. He might not know the entire network, but he would remember enough to find other ways in and other paths. His father would be pleased to learn of this network, pleased enough to overlook Magnus’ transgression at least.
...
He realised he had not seen these paths because they were not there to be seen. Only this break in the network on Aghoru had allowed him to see it.

Magnus is, I think, talking about the webway. A 'billionfold' pathsways is implied, although this is probably little more than an approximation, since he can't fully map it himself (only a 'million' paths, although that is in the fairly short term as well.)

Likewise the webway is hidden from outside observation even in the warp, it can only be inferred from breaks or gaps or weak points, like the Thousand Sons apparently uncovered.


Page 190

Hathor Maat’s weapon sat next to him, gleaming as though lifted fresh from the sterile wrapping of a packing crate. He had no need to even strip down his weapon, and simply disassembled the molecular structure of the grease, dirt and foreign particles from the weapon’s moving parts with the power of his mind.

An interesting way of cleaning your weapons


Page 191

In the six-week journey to the Ark Reach Cluster..

Travel time between their past destination (where they fought the Titans) and Ark Reach. Implied maybe tens or hundreds of LY journey. Thousands of c perhaps, although how many thousands is up for debate.


Page 191

Wyrdmake taught Ahriman the casting of the runes, and how to use them to answer vexing questions and gain insight into matters of inner turmoil. As a means of reading the future, they were a less precise method than those taught by the Corvidae, for their meanings required much in the way of interpretation.

Wyrdmake also taught him the secret of bind-runes, whereby the properties of several different runes could be combined to draw similarly-attuned aetheric energies towards an object or person.

Rune craft.. for enhancement and divination.

Page 194

"And what Russ and his warriors haven’t savaged, the Word Bearers have put to the flame. An entire mountain range was burned out with a saturation promethium bombing three days ago to cleanse the aeries that Ahzek and Ankhu Anen found.”

Some sort of FAE bombing, I'd guess.


Page 195

The defeated empires all stemmed from an incredibly diverse genetic baseline, far removed from the archetypal human genome by millennia of separation from the world of their birth. Mechanicum geneticists confirmed such variances were within tolerable parameters, and thus Magnus had arrived in expectation of acquiring treasure troves of accumulated knowledge in the wake of compliance

Abhuman or near abhuman then, I'd guess, although to the Wolves and Word Bearers there seems to be no difference between mutant and abhuman. It shows again the extreme diversity of humanity in 40K (types and natures), and illustrates that racial purity is something of a joke (or rather an arbitrary, if not imaginary, boundary.)

Page 198

The Avenians were graceful and fine-boned, their facial features
sharp and angular, like the mountains in which they lived. Their bodies appeared weak and fragile, but that was a lie. Autopsies had discovered bones that were flexible and strong, and their armour was augmented with fibre-bundle muscles not dissimilar to those within Astartes battle armour.

The abhuman physiology (birdlike obviously) and they also seem to have some derivative of power armour (or at least powered plate that is like powered armour)


Page 201

The primarch’s hair was a resin-stiffened mane of molten copper, his piercing grey eyes cold and unforgiving, forever moving and on the hunt. A mighty blade, fully a metre and a half long, was sheathed at his side, and Ahriman saw its hilt had been rune-bound with symbols to draw the frozen ice of winter to its edge.

Leman Russ. The size (and probable mass) of the sword gives you an idea of his raw strength.

Page 204

To be conscious of your body growing around you, to have awareness of your brain taking shape as architecture instead of organism, and to have discourse with your creator even as your existence moved from conceptual possibility to tangible reality
had proved too complex to explain to those who had not experienced such a uniquely hastened evolution.

Magnus was aware of his own creation. This has some interesting implications for the nature of the warp-realspace connection living beings share, especially humans. In a way it's alot like a form of possession. the 'soul' and the non-physical traits of the being seem to persist in the warp in parallel (yet distinct, at least for a Primarch of Magnus' scope) to the physical development. To me it kind of echoes the nature of daemonhood, a sort of 'immortality' is implied in this, and if a person has another body they can be reborn (sound familiar? It was the plot of Chaos Child.)


Page 208-209

Within Ahriman’s Stormhawk, internal spaces normally reserved for troops and heavy equipment were filled with banks of surveyor gear and crystalline receptors.
...
Ahriman’s head was encased in a gleaming hood of shimmering light, a gossamer-thin matrix of precisely cut crystals hewn from the Reflecting Caves beneath Tizca. His mind floated in a meditative state, unbound from his mortal flesh and occupying a detached state in the higher Enumerations.

Fine copper wires trailed from this crystal hood, their nickeljacketed ends immersed in psi-reactive gels that amplified Ahriman’s thoughts and allowed others to receive them. His mind skimmed the surface of the Great Ocean, allowing Aaetpio to guide the currents of potential futures his way. This close to the present, such echoes were easy to find...
...

His heightened sensitivity to the immediate future gave him an unmatched situational awareness. He could read the flow of thermoclines across the mountains, see every aircraft, and feel the fears of their crews as they surged towards Phoenix Crag. His awareness floated above the unfolding assault, reading its ebbs and flows as surely as if it were a slow-moving battle simulation.

We get a look at some psi-amplifying machinery, which the Thousand Sons seem to use extensively (and seems to work with sorcery as much as with psychic talent), and an idea of Ahriman's 'enhanced' precognitive abilities in battle.


Page 210

Magnus directed the assault, but the Athanaens were his thoughts, the Raptora his shield, and the Pyrae and Pavoni his fists.

The Corvidae were his eyes and ears.

A discussion of some of the major Fellowships/cults in the Thousand Sons. Corvidae are the precognitives, Pavoni seem to focus on electricity and the mechanisms of life and biology (manipulating bodies basically - micro-telekinetics like molecular agitation.), Pyrae are pyrokinetics, and Raptora seem to be macro-scale telekinetics (Shields, levitation, etc.) The Athaneans are telepaths.

Page 210-211

Each
permutation altered the schemata of the future, each conse quence rippling outwards, interacting with others in fiendishly complex patterns that only the enhanced mental structure of a specially trained Astartes could process.
...
High ranking cultists of the Pavoni and Pyrae filled the air around the aircraft with crackling arcs of lightning and fire to detonate incoming shells before impact, while the Raptora maintained kine shields to deflect those shells that penetrated the fire screen. Athanaeans scanned the thoughts of enemy fighter pilots, skimming the manoeuvres and intercepts they planned from the surfaces of their minds.

Thousand son defensive measures, each in its own specialty.


Page 212

Ranked up in three lines were nine automatons, bulky machines in the shapes of humanoids, but twice as tall as an Astartes. Khalophis had called them Cataphracts, battle robots that reeked of grease and a hybrid electric fuel smell. Their bodies were exaggerated and armoured on the torsos and thighs, heavy plates of armaplas bolted to piston legs and cog-driven arms.

Battle robots. I'd guess by hybrid they run on electricity and some sort of other (chemical?) fuel.


Page 213

Camille followed the coursing energy filling the robot as its power came online and new life flowed through its cabled veins. She followed the trail of power from its source, feeling the swelling sense of purpose as the robot’s battle program came alive, its synthetic cortex processing the instructions that would send it to war.

That journey stopped as she sensed a higher consciousness within the machine, a spark of something she hadn’t expected to find within its circuits and valves. She sensed a dreadful, aching need to destroy occupying the higher functions of its partmachine, part-organic mind.

Camille saw a shard of mirror-smooth crystal embedded in the robot’s cortex, and knew immediately that it had been cut from a place called the Reflecting Cave on Prospero...
...
Seated in the back of the crystal was a dancing flame, an animating will that overrode the robot’s childishly simple doctrina wafer, a consciousness that linked all nine robots together under one supreme authority.

The fire burned brightly, swelling to fill the crystal with potency and the urge to fight.

The mind inside a battle robot. They seem to be at least partly 'organic' or perhaps a synthetic organic, which may be what sets them apart from servitors. Of course it could just be a matter of degree (how much biological material is used.) which defines a servitor vs a robot/machine spirit for Imperials.

The Magic crystal stuff, we learn, is a Thousand Son modification. I wonder if they got AdMech help to do that.


Page 216

...Tutelaries in the forms of birds, eyes, lizards and a myriad other unnameable guises. They darted out into the open, and streams of fire and lightning erupted from their shimmering forms as their masters channelled aetheric powers through their insubstantial bodies.

Tutelaries can be used as some form of psychic relay, extending the range of attack powers.

Page 216

He clenched his fist, and the guns exploded in the Avenians’ hands, felling the entire line at a stroke. Screams of pain quickly followed, but Magnus paid the awful sound no heed, and strode towards the fallen soldiers.

Magnus and another of his neat tricks. Impressive for the scale and control rather than raw power.


Page 219

Hathor Maaf’s 3rd Fellowship burned their enemies alive, boiled the blood in their veins or sucked the air from their lungs, turning their bodies against them in spitefully painful ways.

Pavoni attacks. Seem to be pyrokinetic in nature this time.


Page 219

Psychically resonant crystals allowed the captain of the 6th Fellowship to direct his mindless charges with complete precision, instead of relying on the doctrina wafers provided by the Legio Cybernetica.

Like I said, the magic crystals are a robot modification./


Page 221

Ahriman swung his pistol around and drew on Aaetpio’s connection to the Great Ocean, tracing the myriad potential pathways of the future to follow the path his bolt would take in a fraction of a second. He squeezed the trigger twice in quick succession.

Using short-term precog to aid aiming. FFG mateiral has psychic powers used in similar ways, so this may not be all that unusual.


Page 221

“You were in no danger. Sobek maintained a chameleon field around you, so the birds were probably not even aware of you until you screamed, and Sergeant Xeatan protects you from a chance kill with a kine shield.”

More psychic defenses. Chameloen fields seem to be Corvidae powers.


Page 222

Before they could fire, sheet lightning leapt from Hastar’s outstretched hands, and a deafening thunderclap shattered every pane of glass for five hundred metres in all directions.
...
The Avenian soldiers were charred columns of blackened flesh, burned statues kept upright by heat-fused bones. Flesh ran from their corpses like melting butter.

Effects of a Pavoni (I think) lightning attack. Easily in high MJ/low GJ range.


Page 233

Hastar stood next to him as his fellow warriors of the Pavoni unleashed the full force of their bio-manipulation. Unseen currents of aetheric energy sliced into the Space Wolves, blocking neural transmitters, redirecting electrical impulses in the brain and rapidly deoxygenating the blood flowing from their lungs. The effect was instantaneous.

More Pavoni powers.


Page 237

A thunderous bang sounded and Hastar’s body exploded as a single, explosive round detonated within his chest. Silence descended, and Ahriman distinctly heard the heavy tink of a monstrous brass casing striking the ground.

Leman Russ's Primarch sized (bolt?) pistol explodes an Astartes sized target. Many times more powerful than a regular Bolter.


Page 241

“Necromancy?” scoffed Magnus. “You know nothing.”

“I know enough,” spat Russ. “You have gone too far, Magnus. This is where it ends.”

Lorgar placed a golden hand upon his breastplate and said, “All the Legions wield such power, brother. Are your Rune Priests so different?”

Russ threw back his head and laughed, a booming roar of great mirth and riotous amusement.

“You would compare the Sons of the Storm with these warlocks?” he asked. “Our power is born in the thunder of Fenris and tempered in the heart of the world forge. It comes from the strength of the natural world and is shaped by the courage of our warrior souls. It is untainted by the corruption that befouls the Thousand Sons.”

Now it was Magnus’ turn to laugh.

“If you believe that, then you are a fool!” he said.

For the most part I think Russ is being a dishonest shithead. He's pretending Rune Priests are different from Librarians (or sorcerers) in general when the differences are nowhere near as great as he makes it out to be. The main differences (aside form Sorcery being learned and external whereas psyker talent is internal.) is in how they view and approach the warp. It's a difference of methodology, nothing more. The Sons are without a doubt far more arrogant than the Rune Priests (who are not afraid of the warp per se, but are cautious of its dangers.)


Page 246

Mechanicum forge-vessels, city-sized monoliths bringing vast builder-machines and billions of tonnes of raw materials, dropped into the lower atmosphere like continents set adrift in the sky. The descent of such enormous cities of metal through the atmosphere set off a butterfly effect of clashing tempests that howled and raged across the world before settling into a continuous downpour that lasted two months.

Forge vessels described. Interesting in the magnitude of materials they haul around, although whether that is for individual ships or collectively we don't know. Even for gorups that has to be quite a bit, since they can't have more than double digit forge ships (and probably far less than that.) It speaks alot ofr the mass carrying abilities of their transports (and the requisite energy expenditures, which are not trivial)


Page 247

As the iterators did their work in the deep-valley reeducation camps, public debates and potent examples of the Imperium’s majesty were unveiled to the people of Heliosa. Lemuel studied the techniques used by the Imperial speakers, noting the armsmen discreetly placed to drag off hecklers, the native turncoat planted within an audience to reinforce the speaker’s message with loud agreement, and the unseen vox-bee that flitted through the crowds to broadcast Imperial-friendly questions to which the answers were already prepared.

Each iterator had a team of investigators, whose task it was to unearth local beliefs and traditions, which were then embellished and finally supplanted with subtly altered versions that reinforced loyalty to the Imperium

And the iterators in action. Again its amazing how cynical and self-serving it all is despite the whole emphasis on 'Imperial Truth' which is simply an ideology rather than a religion, but serves th eexact same purposes. All that separates the iterators from priests is that they don't call Big E the God Emperor.

The vox-bee is an interesting technical knicknack though. Not unlike some of the spy/vox flies we've seen in other novels and the RPG materials.


Page 251

Four Labour Fleets of geoformers went to work on the rugged hinterlands that had housed the feral warlord of the savages, levelling the world’s largest continent as a stage befitting the Master of Mankind. Millions of servitors, automatons and penal battalions went to work on its construction, reducing mountains to rubble and using the debris of their grinding down to fill the lightless valleys and even out the undulant wastelands where the greenskin had lit his revel fires and thrown up his ugly fortresses of mud and clay.

What should have taken centuries took months

Another indication of the scale and industrial capabilities of the AdMech.


Page 252

Almost obscured by the smoke, hundreds of enormous vessels hung in low orbit, their engines straining against the pitiless attraction of gravity. The atmosphere clashed with chain lightning from the blistering electromagnetic fields each vessel generated.

Flocks of strike cruisers, fighter aircraft and bombers flew formation overhead,

The Naval might amassed at Ullanor. It seems not to include escorts or smaller cruisers (light cruiser size or thereabouts) but only the big battlecruisers and battleships/battlebarges. The above represents the amassed might of fourteen Legions and 9 Primarchs.


Page 252

...supreme amongst them was a gilded warship that held anchor above the one element of the continent not planed flat by the industrial meltas of the Mechanicum.

This was the Vengeful Spirit, command ship of Horus Lupercal, second only to Phalanx in its savage power of destruction. Entire worlds had died by its lethal arsenal, and Horus Lupercal had shown no restraint in unleashing its full fury. Fourteen Legions had answered the Emperor’s summons, a hundred thousand of the greatest warriors in all human history, and nine of the primarchs were in attendance, the rest too scattered by the demands of the crusade to reach Ullanor in time.

Eight million soldiers of the Imperial Army had come...
...

They stood proud alongside thousands of armoured vehicles and hundreds of Titans of the Legio Titanicus.

The assembled military might on Ullanor. This seems to represnet the fraction of the forces available (at least as far as some segments, like the Army and such.) Also Horus' flagship is second only to destructive capability to Phalanx, although in what context this is we aren't clear (we know the ship carries virus bombs after all.)


Page 255

...the Sekhmet marched across the mirror-smooth surface of the continent towards the one feature that stood proud of the landscape. The mountain had once served as the greenskin warlord’s lair, but it had been erased from the world, its flattened base a steel-skinned dais for the Emperor and his honoured sons.

More indicators of Mechanicus industry.

[Connor MacLeod]

Part 2

Part 2

PAge 258

"For all their skill, the Mechanicum haven’t yet invented a machine that doesn’t need a human being to control it. I could agitate the water molecules in the princeps’ skull until his head exploded, boil the blood in his veins or send millions of volts through its carapace to electrocute the crew.”

Capabilities of the leader of the Pavoni. Steam exploding the skull or the blood in his veins should proably be high kj/low MJ range at least.


Page 262

“The Unified Biometric Verification System has identified and logged your genetic markers within its network,” said Haedo.

“You are who you claim to be.”

The system seems to travel EVERYWHERE with the Custodes. I wonder if its connected with the rest of the Imperium at that?


Page 264

“A great day is it not? Nine sons of the Emperor gathered together on one world, such a thing has not happened since…”

“I know well when it was, Magnus,” said Mortarion, his voice robust and resolute in contrast to his pallid features. “And the Emperor forbade us to speak of it again. Do you disobey that command?”

I wonder if this is a veiled reference to the lost Primarchs/Legions. If so this would suggest that at least nine Primarchs had been found by the time this mystery came up and was no longer spoken of. Curious that, given it would be fairly well into the Crusade, but any knowledge of them (or troops serving with them, if they did) is nonexistent. That implies some nasty acts to hide it all. Of course, lacking details we can't really say much...

And of course, one or two of those nine could have been the lost ones, so we could actually have involved only seven or eight Primarchs.



Page 272-273

The 28th Expedition had left Ullanor and made the two-month journey to Hexium Minora, a Mechanicum outpost world, to resupply.
...
For six months, the Thousand Sons fleet suckled at the planet’s forges and materiel silos like newborns eager for the teat. Billions of rounds of ammunition, thousands of tonnes of food and water, uniforms, dried goods, pioneer supplies, armoured vehicles, power cells, fuel bladders and the myriad items an expeditionary fleet required in order to function were shipped from the surface in bulk lifters or via impossibly slender Tsiolkovsky towers.

With resupply almost complete, the Legion and its millions of supporting soldiers lay at anchor awaiting orders.

Six month resupply of the Thousand Sons fleet, and the diversity of supplies being drawn off. We also see the AdMech do have other terrirotires (non forgeworld at that) which aid in the supplying of the Imperial war effort, to some extent at least.

Further, the bulk of the Thousand Sons Legion is also supported by 'millions' of troops, although how many millions we aren't told.


Page 277

The effect was wondrous, despite being born of chronic pollution and rampant industry pursued without heed of the cost to the planet’s ecology.
...
A side effect of the Mechanicum Borealis was the thinning of the veil between the material world and the immaterium,...

Rampant pollution can affect the barrier between realspace and the warp.


Page 286-287

“Still, no thanks. Those mandibles look like they could tear a man’s head off.”

“They could, but that was not what made the psychneuein so dangerous. It was its reproductive cycle that was its most potent weapon. The female psychneuein is drawn to psychic emanations and has a rudimentary fusion of telepathic and telekinetic powers. When fertile, the female psychically projects a clutch of its eggs into the brain of a host being with an unprotected mind, vulnerable to the power of the aether.”
...
“The eggs are small, no larger than a grain of sand, but by morning the following day, they will hatch and begin to feed on the host’s brain. At first the victim feels nothing more than a mild headache, but by afternoon he will be in agony, raving and insane, as his brain is devoured from the inside out. By nightfall, he will be dead, his skull a writhing mass of plump maggots. In the space of a few hours, the grubs have picked the carcass clean and will seek a dark place to hide in which to pupate. By the following day, they will emerge as adults, ready to hunt and reproduce.”

The Joys of Warp predators.


Page 288

“They salvaged enough knowledge and equipment from the destruction to construct techno-psychic arrays and sustainable energy sources, which then allowed them to build giant hydroponic gardens deep in the caverns of the ventral mountain ranges.”

This passage has been paraphrased in other sources, and implied warp power sources were/are available to the Imperium.


Page 304-305

Only by following a constant beacon of incandescent light that speared into the heavens from the world below could any craft hope to navigate the Nikaea system.
...
It had taken an entire year for the 28th Expedition to travel from Hexium Minora to this remote corner of the galaxy.
...
The year spent traversing the immaterium from Hexium Minora had seen a frenzy of research and study aboard the Photep...

A year of travel between Ullanor (maybe) and Nikaea. We dont knwo where they are, though Nikae is in the eastern part of Segmenum Solar, and Ullanor is implied (in Know No Fear and HH Betrayal) to be close to segmentum Solar, possibly on the Ultima side. Which might imply some thousands of LY distance, which implies againt housands of c.


Page 307

A column of purest light soared from the summit crater, invisible to mortal eyes, but a blazing spear piercing the heavens to those with aether- sight. A gathering thundercloud, shot through with goldenlightning, filled the sky above the volcano.
...
“That is true power, a mind that can reach across the galaxy and bind an empire together in the dream of Unity. It humbles me to know we serve so magnificent a master.”

Apparently the Astronomican signal will actually follow the Emperor as he moves about. That must be rather confusing.



Page 316

Falsehoods.

Whoever occupied the boxes retained their anonymity by virtue of chameleonic cloaks that shielded them from the casual sight of observers.

Visual/optical cloaking.



Page 317

The Sigillite’s white hair pooled around his shoulders like snowfall and his skin was the texture of old parchment. He was just a man, yet had lived out the spans of many men. Some put this down to the finest and most subtle augmetics or a rigorous regime of juvenat treatment, but Ahriman knew of no means that could sustain a mortal life for so long.

Malcador's age - whatever it is - apparently exceeded what juvenat and augmetics can do.'



Page 320

“This gathering will address the question of sorcery in the Imperium. Yes, gentlemen, we are here to resolve the Librarian Crisis.”

At first I thought this implied pre-Heresy Librarians were using sorcerry rather than psychic power, but this isn't the case - they're actually psykers. Which makes you wonder what the fuck the deal is. They use sanctioned psykers - astropaths are no less prone to the warp than other psykers... so why is this all sorcery? Especially since as per 5th edition you have crazy shit like Grey Knights and Malcador using sorcery shit.

Again this comes across as just some highly biased double standard bullshit. Especially since Nikaea doesn't ever seem to hold past the Heresy.


Page 326

"The psy-engines and occullum of Terra search out the latent witch-genes among humanity and the Black Ships of the Silent Sisterhood trawl the stars for these dangerous individuals. Did the Emperor, beloved by all, build these machines for no reason? No, they were built to protect us from these dangerous mutants, using their powers in service of their selfish ends."

I bleieve these were mentioned in Collected visions, but basically the HH Imperium had devices designed to detect/locate nascent psykers, which apparently directs the Black ships. It makes me wonder if they still have them in the modern age.


PAge 344-345

Nor was this a normal blade, it was sentient.
...
It was forged by alien metallurgists in ways too inhuman to be understood, imbued with the power of the fates.

It was a nemesis weapon, crafted to slay without mercy.

Remember the Kinebrach anathema that wounded Horus? That must be tha name for it here. I wonder if it is related to Nemesis Force weapons?


Page 359

The five months on Prospero had been good for Mahavastu..

5 months on Prospero. Keep this in mind for a bit later.


Page 370

“Ahriman hasn’t said anything, but with the other Legions earning glory in battle, I know they’re eager for a tasking order. The Emperor’s Children on Laeran, the Luna Wolves on One Forty Twenty, the Ultramarines at Mescalor; it’s been over two years since Ark Reach and yet the Thousand Sons are idle while their brothers make war.”

2 years since Nikaea, that means it took approximately halfa year to get from Nikaea to Prospero (taking away the year to get to Nikaea, and the 5 months on Prospero.) IT also gives us a timeframe for other events in the galaxy.



Page 379

“Oh? I was led to believe the Astartes were more or less immortal?”
“Barring battlefield injury, we may well be. It is too soon to tell.”

Astartes agelessness seems to be up in the air, which is a bit different from previous books.


Page 381

"The warp storms that had all but isolated Terra in the lightless age of strife were resurgent once more and the effects were felt all across the world...
...
"I was one of the lucky ones, conceived and born among the wealthy tribes of the Achaemenid Empire. Our kings had allied with Earth’s new master more than a century before, and we were spared the horrors of atomic war or the invasion of the Thunder-armoured warriors.”
...
“With the end of the wars, the Emperor tightened his grip on Terra and turned his gaze to the heavens, knowing that he had achieved only the first step on the road to Unity."

Ahriman mentions being born towards the end of the Emperor's wars of unificaion on Terra, whilst the Warp Storms are still active. This sets something of a timeframe on how long the preparations for the Great Crusade could have taken place.



Page 381

"They were ordinary men, the fiercest warriors of the Emperor, within whose bodies he had implanted full-grown biological hardware and mechanical augmentations to boost their strength, endurance and speed. They were monstrous things, and most were eventually driven insane by the demands their enhanced physiques made upon them.”

The Thunder Warriors. The interesting thing is that the process seems to closely echo what happens with certain 'too old' individuals who end up serving in the Legions anyhow, like Luther, or Kor Phaeron or others like that. It's also not purely organic, but organic and mechanical augmentation both.



Page 382

"The Emperor created the primarchs using lost science and technology he had uncovered in his long wars. With the aid of rogue geneticists from the Martian Hegemony he crafted beings of such luminosity that their like could never be conjured again. They were the pinnacles of genetic evolution, but they were lost to the Emperor before they could reach maturity."

The Primarchs. Again the events leading up to the Crusade seem to happen in a fairly short span of time.. years or decades rather than centuries.


PAge 382-383

“My people’s biological heritage was uncontaminated by many of the inherited flaws and viral defects so common to the other tribes of Earth, so the Emperor walked among us with his army of scientists, testing each and every family grouping for the requisite genetic markers. In my brother and I, he found what he was looking for and, with my parent’s blessing, took Ohrmuzd and I to a secret place deep within the high mountains at the crown of the world."

...
“We grew rapidly and trained harder than any have trained before or since. Our prowess was unmatched and we marched into battle to quell the last pockets of resistance and rebellion on Terra to test our battle skills. Armoured in the latest battle-plate and equipped with the most destructive weapons, none could match us, and we were named the Thousand Sons."

“When the time came to leave Terra, it was a great moment."

Again Ahriman's time seems to have been spent in preparing for being a Thousand Son (born on TErra). He's about 200 years old or so at this time, so again the timeframe between Crusade and his selection seems rather short.



Page 383

"The alliance of Terra and Mars was complete, and the Mechanicum had outdone itself, building fleets of ships to allow the Emperor to take to the stars and complete his Great Crusade of Unity. The skies over Terra were thick with starships, hundreds of thousands of them organised into more than seven thousand fleets, reserve groups and secondary, follow-on forces."

The initial scope of the Crusade fleet - hundreds of thousands of ships in 7000 fleets, reserve fleets and secondary fleets. There are several points to note in this.

first, we can compare the 'initial' fleets to the fleets as mentioned in Horus Rising (where we have some 60-70K primary, secondary and reserve fleets mentioned.) This means the fleet must have grown by almost an order of magnitude (or more) in the intervening timeframe (not accounting for losses, garrison forces, and such.) which means millions of ships in the pre-Heresy Crusade. To be fair, not all of these will be warships.

The second point is the timeframes involved. We know that less than a century can have passed both from Mechanicum and from this book as well. Given Ahriman's commentary on his own development into a Thousand Son, we're probably looking at years or a few decades tops. Admittedly its conjecture, but the bulk of the sourcs indicate that very little time passed between the Emperor making his deal with Mars (and unifying Terra) and the start of the Great Crusade (both tend to correspond very closely to a 200 year timeframe.)



PAge 384-385

Our character manifested itself five years into the crusade. Our warriors began to display abilities far beyond anything we had expected."
...
"Many of the Legions had been reunited with their sires, and some of them found the notion of our powers to be hateful. Mortarion was the worst, but Corax and Dorn were not much better."

This is before discovering Magnus. Recall earlier the discussion between Mortarion and Magnus, which means that Dorn, Corax, and Mortarion (as well as Horus) were all part of the 'early' Primarch discoveries, and this was before Magnus as well. Apparently the 2 and XI legions were still active around this time. The context makes it clear that they were still relatively close to Terra (or only a bit distant from it)


Page 396

The creature launched itself forward, but erupted in flames before it reached her. The charred corpse struck her in the chest and disintegrated into hot ashes. She screamed, and frantically brushed the smoking remains.
...
“Damn things,” said the Astartes, flicking his free hand towards them. A wall of red flame erupted from the ground, consuming the creatures in seconds.
...
The Astartes warrior hurled a torrent of fire from his hands towards the largest group of psychneuein, and they screeched in rage as they erupted in flames. A chop of his left hand sent a spear of fire into a psychneuein that dared swoop down at him from above. His right hand shot out, and an invisible blaze of heat rippled outwards. A dozen beasts spontaneously exploded as the molecules of their bodies were superheated to explosive temperatures.

The air was blisteringly hot, and Camille felt her skin burning in the fire shield around them. Secondary fires were filling the air with sooty, carbonised smoke.

Pyrokinetic exploding (steam explosion) or cremating Psychneuin.


Page 408

“He has looked long and hard into the necessary rituals to hurl his body of light halfway across the galaxy.”

Davin is 'halfway across the galaxy' from Prospero. Exactly where, we don't know.


Page 412

“I will travel the Great Ocean for nine days,” said Magnus through gritted teeth, and Ahriman was astonished. To travel for so long was unheard of. “No matter what occurs, do not break my connection to the aether.”

To Davin and back bodiless for nine days. Assuming 100,000 LY (Half a galaxy back and forth) implies an effective travelling speed of 4 million c. This is via ritual, so we're not talking astrotelepathy. On the other hand this was stated to require a great deal of power and it killed hundreds of lesser psykers.


Page 423

No one knew where it came from, for the techno-psychic arrays built into the mountains were normally an entirely reliable means of predicting and controlling the planet’s climate.

(partly?) psychic means of weather control.


Page 434

"Long ago, I encountered powers in the Great Ocean I thought to be sunken, conceptual landmasses, but over time I came to know them as vast intelligences, beings of such enormous power that they dwarf even the brightest stars of our own world. Such beings can be bargained with.”

Magnus is (probably) talking about the Chaos Gods, which means they have the power equal to stars (According to him, at least.) At least in the warp - the ability to translate this power into realspace is another story. And since the Chaos Gods are all roughly equal, this gives you an idea of what other Gods might be capable of too (but bear in mind the ability to translate this power into realspace is usually far less due to the barriers, which is why chaos wars arent planet-busting affairs I suspect.)


Page 435

“You would have me trust the vagaries of Astrotelepathy? You know how fickle such interpretations can be. I dare not trust a matter of such dreadful importance to mere mortals. Only I have the power to project my being into this alien labyrinth and navigate my way to Terra with news of Horus’ treachery."

Magnus uses the webway to communicate with Terra, which is why the entire thing backfires. He breaks into the webway, materializes on Terra, and drags a whole bunch of daemons with him (as well as destroying the wards and defenses of Terra in the process, as we find out.) Also Astrotelepathy is of the symbolic/interpretive variety, again.



Page 445

Magnus’ white robe was stained and unkempt, his flesh worn with weeks of neglect

Implied 'weeks' passing since Magnus fucks up.


Page 446-447

Wards that had kept the palace safe for a hundred years were obliterated in an instant, and the psychic shockwave killed thousands and drove hundreds more to madness and suicide.
..
The Golden Throne was the key. Unearthed from forgotten ruins sunken deep beneath the driest desert, it was the lodestone that would have unlocked the secrets of the alien lattice. Now it was in ruins, its impossibly complex dimensional inhibitors and warp buffers fused beyond salvage.

The control it maintained on the shimmering gateway at his back was ended, and the artfully designed mechanism keeping the two worlds apart was fatally fractured.
...
He saw himself atop the Golden Throne, using his fearsome powers to guide humanity to its destiny as rulers of the galaxy. He was to be his father’s chosen instrument of ultimate victory.

A bit of a spoiler showing EoM's intentions for Magnus. That suggests he would have been vastly more powerful than Malcador - and that the Emperor is actually VASTLY more powerful than is needed to sit in the Golden throne. Apparently he could somehow act as guide through the webway.

It does make you wonder why he hadn't used Magnus for this earlier? IT's not as if the Thousand Sons weren't more of scholars than warriors - they could have been used to protect Terra and Magnus just as easily whilst the other Primarchs travelled the galaxy. That might have also curbed some of the arrogance which got them in trouble. Then again, Magnus head dealt with Chaos already, so this might have been a danger too.

We also learn about the Golden Throne. THe Emperor clearly didn't create it or the portal on Terra, but he found them, and he adapted them to his purposes. The Throne seems important for controlling/maintaining the webway access and providing protection, which sounds far more technological than what the Eldar use (nevermind the golden throne.) I have begun to suspect that the Golden Throne and the Gate sustaining it are necon or C'tan technologies. After all, the Dragon was on Earth before the Emperor bound it on Mars, so that would follow. What's more, the kind of stasis tech sustaining the Emperor seems more like Necron than Eldar technology, what along with the warp damping nad suppression tech.



Page 461

Almost a week had passed since he had killed Uthizzar, a week in which he had almost given in to his self-destructive urges and turned his powers upon himself.

Another week (almost) on top of the weeks mentioned already since the ritual. That gives a rough timefrmae on Russ arriving - not much more than a month or so, but longer than 3 weeks.



Page 463

Amon followed him, his dutiful friend and beloved son. At length, they came to the region of stillness he had seen a week ago.

He felt Amon’s horror as he beheld the vast fleet of ships, the slab-sided warships, the sleek strike cruisers and the monstrous monuments to destruction that were the Battle Barges. Hundreds of vessels drew ever closer to Prospero, ships of many flags and many allegiances, united with one shared purpose: annihilation.

The Space Wolves force sent to sanction Prospero. This probably includes Sisters of Silence (hence the stillness) and the Custodes as well however.

They're still not quite at Prospero, but I gather they are very close. Again, longer than a week, but clearly not years.

Unfortunately we aren't quite sure where the wolves started from yet, either. We may find out more in Prospero burns.

Recall as well that Horus communicated with Russ during this time, so their communication took less than weeks as well over vast (thousands of LY?) distances.


Page 463

They flew closer to the brutal vessel, the protective shields that kept void-predators at bay no match for travellers of such power. They passed through its layered voids, diving down through metre upon metre of adamantium hull plates, integrity fields and honeycombed bulkheads until they reached the heart of the ship.

Starship defenses. Note the voids and the separete 'integrity fields' which must be like some structural enhancing property, as well as the more physical/material defenses.



Page 468

Thousand Sons battle-barges slipped their moorings and set sail for the outer reaches of the star system, and squadrons of strike cruisers flocked around them as they departed Prospero.
...
The Photep led an armada of ships with the power to level planets to the furthest edges of the star system, while the Ankhtowe, Scion of Prospero and the Kymmeru assumed equally-angled vectors, leading fleets to the corners of the Thousand Sons’ domain.
...
The order to disperse the fleet had come with the highest alert prefixes, and the four battle groups made best speed for their destinations.

The dispersal of the massed Thousand Sons fleet. Probably the bulk of t, if not the entirety. AT least 4 Battle barges, prboably severla times that number, and multiple 'squadrons' of stirke cruisers, nevermind the escorts. Hundreds if not thousands of ships quite probably.

It's not clear whether 'ships with the power to level planet's refers to the armadA (batlte groups) in whole or individual ships (cruisers and/or battlebarges.)



Page 469

Eventually, the vessel’s Master Steersman was able to pilot his way towards clear space and open up the plasma drives to take his vessel towards the coreward jump point.

From there, warp-willing, it would be a three-week journey to the Thranx system.

Time of warp journey to its detination. We dont know where, but I'm guessing its pretty far away. Thranx is a hive world mentioned in a great many other sources (usually Bill King's stories) It's hinted Thranx *might* be close to Necromunda (like implied in the Deathwing short story), but it was never really confirmed. The oldest and most densely populated, which a Corsucant-like Thranx would presumably include, would be in that approximate region of space. So we might be talking thousands or tens of thousands of light years in 3 weeks. A few tens to a few hundreds of thousands of c, perhaps.



Page 469
[quote...]instead of taking four days to reach the coreward jump point, Cypria Selene achieved
the necessary safe distance from the Prosperine star to safely activate its warp drives in three.[/quote]

3 days to reach the jump point ~ 3 days would take about 1 gee. 4 days would be half a gee for constant thrust, with a maximum velocity of between 600-1200 km/s for that distance. It goes without saying that the furhter they go the faster they move. For 10+ AU the acceleration goes up to 5-10 gees. Maximum velocity goes up to 3-4% of c.

This doesn't seem like alot, but this is a huge (60+ km) starship and a mere transport at that. It doesn't need to acelerate fast, and even pulling single digit gees is damn impressive for that kind of tonnage. And even 600 km/s would be a high velocity for a transport that big (conservation of propellant and energy on such a ship would make sense.)



Page 469

Set high on the rear quarter of the Cypria Selene, the dome provided a commanding view over the vast superstructure of the mass-conveyer. Its hull stretched away from them for sixty kilometres, ending in a blunt wedge of a snout. For a vessel intended to carry vast quantities of war materiel, troops and bulk items of warfare and compliance, it was handsomely appointed.

The Mass conveyor. I wouldn't call it the most common, and its possible the Imperium has nothing like this anymore, but it gives you an impressive idea both of the scale of their shipbuilding capabilities, cargo volume carrying capabilities (assuming it was ONLY 1 km across and tall and had a density of cardboard/styrofoam The thing itself should mass billions of tons and sitll be able to carry that much stuff. And I'm lowballing this to such an absurd degree that the mass is almost certainly many many orders of magnitude higher due to greater density and volume.) It also tells you about the sorts of logistics and supply they need - of course given that Crusades can spend months or years (or longer) away, this only makes sense.

Assuming a 10 billion ton 60 km transport (Hah!) and an average realspace velocity of 600 km/s to reach the edge of the system you'd need somewhere in the e23 joule range of KE at LEAST just to reach the edge of the system. When you consider that plasma engines will consume yet more energy than that, that distances (and velocities) coudl be greater, that I'm almost certainly understating the mass, AND that there are probably a great many of these ships (scores if not hundreds at LEAST, and more probably thousands or more) that's alot of mass and energy to be slinging around.

Bear in mind that 60 km is the lower limit on length as well. It measures 60 km from the observation dome, which is in the 'rear quarter' somewhere. That means that 60 km may represent upwards of 3/4 of the ship's length, suggesting it could be upwards of 80 km long. And this isn't neccesarily the biggest ship built - Vengeful Spirt is implied to be only second to Phalanx (as noted before) and we kno wthe Furious Abyss was one of the biggest (and most powerful) warships built, which suggests it is as big or bigger. And it only took 'decades' to build The transports may have taken a few decades (or years!) to build. And when you consider Mars *probably* built them too...



Page 471

As it cleared the flaring tear in reality, scores of other fighting vessels jostled for position behind it, golden craft, black craft and a host of predatory vessels in identical livery to the fleet’s leader.

The Wolves reach Prospero.


Page 472

The first bombs from the Space Wolf fleet struck Prospero just before dawn.
...
...the armada moved into high anchor above Prospero and assumed a geostationary assault pattern. Thousands of weapons were trained on the planet below: energy weapons, mass-drivers and bombardment cannons. The ships drifted sedately like grand liners in a regatta among the stars. The Hrafnkel opened the assault, its massive weapon systems blinking as etched lines of icy light stabbed down. Moments later, the rest of the fleet opened fire.

The bombardment of Prospero begins. Note they're deploying at geostationary orbit to bomb the planet.



Page 473-474

the Raptora cult maintained a constant kine-barrier over the city of Tizca.
...
Multiple sonic booms from hypersonic projectiles shattered the graveyard silence...
...

Like a stabbing finger of raw light, the first energy lance struck Prospero a kilometre north-east of Tizca. It impacted in the wide ocean bay of the port and flashed a five-hundred metre column of seawater to superheated steam. A series of follow-on blasts seared into existence within seconds, marching vertical striations of incandescent brightness that sent up towering geysers of saltwater.

Banks of scalding fog rolled in from the ocean, boiling the flesh from the bones of early-morning dockworkers. Projectiles streaked through the lower atmosphere on trails of fire as shockwave fists pummelled the sea and sent foaming breakers crashing to shore.

Whole swathes of mountains simply vanished in towering mushroom clouds, magma bombs levelling entire peaks and filling the valleys with rubble. The earth shook with man-made thunder, the relentless pounding of the planet’s surface like piledriving hammers repeatedly slamming down. In orbit, more and more warships added the weight of their fire to the bombardment, hurling building-sized ordnance towards the planet below.

The total saturation of the target area ensured that the city was completely engulfed, enough to level a continent’s worth of metropolises. Yet Tizca endured. The kine-shields of the Raptora were the strongest defences any city in the Imperium could boast. Harder than the thickest adamantium and more unyielding than layer upon layer of voids, the invisible umbrella of protection soaked up the violence of the bombardment, though at fearsome cost to the warriors who maintained it.
...
They watched, openmouthed, as blinding energy weapons burned searing traceries in the sky above, while smudges of black smoke and fire painted the clouds as steel-jacketed shells flattened on the shield.
...
The sky was stained a bloody orange as airbursting incendiary rounds burned the clouds away, and a tear fell from his eye as he watched the land around Tizca die. The forests were burning to ash and the wild grasslands blazed with secondary fires, reducing the unspoiled countryside to a wasteland in a matter of minutes.

The Desolation of Prospero was complete.

The bombardment. It is made out to be a virtual mass extinction event, but we don't have much more data to go on at this point, so this should be noted until later(we see the event from the Wolves POV in Prospero burns for example, and it mentions oceans boiling away) We know some of the bodies of water are boiling off in the bombardment, they're inflicting at least continental level destruction and wiping out the planet "in a matter of minutes" for this part at least. Not ehe hypervelocity projectiles.

The other calcable bit is the lance strike in the water, vaporizing a 'five hundre metre column of seawater" we dont know if it is length or diameter. If its a 500 meter long column, we still don't know the exact diameter, but assuming a 20 m wide diameter beam it would be at least ~393 TJ. If it was width, we dont know how deep it is, but assuming a 5 km "long", 500 m wide "column" it would be some 500-600 MT. A sufficiently large volume (coupled with inefficiencies) could get up to gigatons, but probably not very high, although its ambiguous enough it could be interpreted that way.

If taken completely literally we have a "lance" weapon of some kind on some sort of ship generating hundreds of kilotons to megatons of energy. They don't have much reason to hold back (EG no dialling down that I can tell - although Prospero burns hints there might have been some reason to take the Sons alive. The lance may just be a laser weapon rather than a dedicated, sustained beam lance though, and even so the parameters are vague enough that you can't really hang a definitive on this either way (except that its a good argument against a teraton level strike for the weapon in qeustion.)

In any event,, we know of megaton range lances anyhow from the FFG materials tactical bombardment sutff where a similar feat was mentioned.


Page 476

Then the bombardment had fallen in a rain of thunder and steel.

Within moments of the first bombs landing, the warriors of the Corvidae mustered for war in the lower reaches of the Pyramid.

Prospero was dying around them, though Tizca remained untouched.

Implies the planet as a whole has died, except for Tizca due to its defensive shield. And also implies it died in fairly short order.


Page 476

No one had seen the primarch for weeks, but the great column of fire from his pyramid had been visible all across the city.
...
In the past few weeks, Aaetpio had been his constant companion, his Tutelary no longer needing his summons to attend upon him.

Implies weeks passing again, suggesting a fairly narrow timeframe for the Wolves to reach Prospero from wherever they did after Magnus fucked up on Terra.


Page 477

“We need to deploy before they launch assault boats,” stated Phosis T’kar. “The kine shield cannot be maintained any longer. I have lost too many warriors holding it this long.”
...
“Then lower it, my son,” said Magnus, “for the Wolves are already on their way.”

The limits of the Kine shield.



Page 480-481

The land around Tizca was in flames, a ruined wasteland from which nothing would ever rise again. The city’s high marble walls, glorious museums, libraries, silver towers and great pyramids remained intact, the protection of the Raptora holding firm in the face of one of the most sustained and powerful bombardments ever unleashed in the history of the Imperium. The mountains burned, the skyline forever changed by the world-shattering detonations.

Hot on the heels of the bombardment, the invaders came in their thousands.
...
The kine-shields of the Raptora could not protect Tizca from the attack, but their cover was no longer needed. The bombardment from orbit had ceased, and packs of roaring Stormbirds led the charge, skimming low over the water towards the Tizca’s port. Hundreds of craft flew over the churning seas, leaving foaming breakers in their wake.

The seas probably are at least partly boiling still, although not completely boiled off. The Kine shield can't protect against orbital assault (either because it is at it's limits or it shares the same limitations as void shields.)

Also the general confirmation of the bombardment being a mass extinction event.



Page 486

The moment stretched for Ahriman. His perceptions raced down the length of his bolter, following the path his shot would take. In his fleeting vision he saw it smash through the visor of one of the Space Wolves, blowing out the back of his helm in an explosion of blood and brain matter.

More precog marksmanship And Space Wolf head popping.



Page 487

One warrior went down, his chest-plate broken open and his vital organs pulped by a mass-reactive shell. Two others dropped, but returned fire. The spell on Ahriman was broken, and his choler came to the fore as his bolter bucked in his hand and a Space Wolf was pitched backwards, his helmet a smoking ruin.

Bolter fire penetrating Power armour.



Page 489

No longer were his muscles fashioned from meat and tendons, but from enormous pistons and fibre-bundle hydraulics newly lined with psychically resonant crystals. The bolter was no longer his weapon, but vast guns capable of obliterating entire armies and fists that could tear down buildings.

One of the Thousand sons 'possesses' a titan. I wonder if the psi crystals are intrinsic to titans or a modification. The Imperium seems to have extensive use of 'fibre bundle' style hydraluics and stuff.



Page 494

Lightning danced through the Space Wolves, exploding their bodies within the armoured casing of their battle-plate. Hissing sheets of fire turned the ground molten, while the kine shields soaked up the weight of return fire.

Lightning exploding bodies, grenade like.



Page 531

...as Leman Russ led six thousand Astartes and Custodes towards their position like the closing jaws of a hungry wolf.

at least a minimum estimate of the attacking force on Prospero.



Page 545

At a conservative estimate, Ahriman guessed that just over a thousand warriors had escaped the attack of the Wulfen.

“A tenth of the Legion,”

between 10 and 15 thousand in the Legion total.


Page 547

The Wolf King’s frostblade struck at Magnus, but his golden axe turned the blow aside as they spun and twisted in an epic battle beneath the madness of a blazing storm of sheet lightning and pounding thunder. This was a battle fought on every level: physical, mental and spiritual, with each primarch bending every ounce of their almost limitless power to the other’s destruction.

The Battle between Russ and Magnus. Apparently Primarchs can fight on multiple levels.


Page 548

Ahriman had cautioned his warriors not to wield their powers for fear of the flesh change, but Magnus showed no such restraint and battered Leman Russ with fists wreathed in fire and lightning. Russ was a primarch and such powers as could shatter armies had little effect on him save to drive him to higher fits of rage.

A possible indicator of the scale of Primarch combat.


Page 553

Ahriman thrust his hand towards Khaphed and unleashed a barrage of fire and lightning into the Lore-Keeper’s body. Such powers were the provenance of the Raptora and Pavoni, but they leapt from Ahriman’s fingers as naturally as though he had been trained by those cults since birth.

Khaphed’s charred body collapsed and shattered into ashen fragments as it hit the ground.

More psychic creamation.


Page 555

This was no corporeal shell of a subtle body as worn by the primarch when he had walked among them. This was a body of light that could exist beyond the confines of the Great Ocean. Magnus had sacrificed the flesh that had contained his essence, and in so doing had ascended to a more evolved form, one free from the constraints of mortality and the limits of reality.

I suspect this means he's a Daemon Prince now.

[Connor MacLeod]

And now the counterpart to A Thousand Sons, Prospero Burns. This tend to be another of those Abnett novels I have a dual issue with. On one hand, I continue to enjoy many of the characters he writes and the manner of his storytelling but... the way in which they're used, the ideas being told.. are just really off to me. One really shouldn't be shocked that things change in 40K, and one of those things is how the Space Wolves have changed (Battle of the Fang being another example.) but.. I'm just too muhc a product/Fan of the Bill King 'Ragnar' perspective, and that I suspect colours my perceptions (ADB once commented on this WRT 40K fans 'not liking' something, and its got alot of merit. Quite often our 'not liking' something about 40K is based on it simply being different than we think things should be or we envisioned them. A good example being the 5th edition iteration of the Necrons.) and I will admit its probably my bias talking. And yet... I hate the whole 'no Wolves on Fenris' thing and this whole take on Space Wolves just strikes me as odd. And yet its kind of appropriate in other ways, as they're supposed to be horrible executioners for the Emperor and all that, and they do at least carry that vibe. But everything else.. I really just cannot get behind it, much as I couldn't get behind Legion, even if Abnett was writing it.

Anyhow, Prospero Burns is one of those relatively rare 'Loyalist' novels telling the events of the Great Crusade and Heresy from the Space Wolf point of view, or rather the view of their chronicler. There's a bit of a 'twist' or mystery to the story (at least it wsa to me.) and it concludes (much as Thousand Sons did) with the devastation of Prospero, save from the Space Wolf side. Prospero Burns, like ATS, tends to work more in conjunction with its opposite number, playing on the compare/contrast angle that the differences in viewpoint provide. Obviously the story is more sympathetic to the Wolves and less to the Thousand Sons, but that should hardly be surprising by now.

You don't read this novel coming into it expecting Space Vikings either, they're much more solemn, serious, and even intellectual behind a facade. Its not the intelligence I object to per se, because no Space Wolf was really stupid.. but I just feel its another step down that path of 'absurdity is bad', because the Ragnar novels always had a blend of the absurd and the serious at the same time, and having one without the other in this novel just feels.. odd. Abnett's view of the Space Wolves would never incorporate a Wolfblade, or a Torin or a Haegr. That said, its not inconsistent, as the time between the two series is vast and views/attitudes can change, but still.. like I said its probably a personal bias and we can't always get over those.

If one does not mind this change in attitude (or at least if one is not biased against it like I am lol) the novel probably would be quite good. There is nothing inherently 'wrong' with the story or the writing itself - its still Abnett after all.

2 small parts in the update.

Page 31

The conservators wore sealed bodygloves and masks to go in, shambling through the murk with their heavy, wheezing aug-lung packs in their hands, like suitcases. The packs were linked to the snouts of their masks by wrinkled, pachydermic tubes.

40K archaeology gear.



Page 31

..haz-guard masks of plastek and ceramite, and lidless photo-mech goggles.
...
He could hear the visor displays of several team members clicking and humming as they accessed the memories of their data-packs for comparative images.

Photographic recording visors.



Page 32

He began an examination of his own, adjusting the macular intensity of his goggles.
...
He took a sip of nutrient drink from his mask feeder, and cleaned his fogging goggles with hand spray.

More suit/goggle functions.


PAge 38

They were Imperial Army, hussars from the Tupelov Lancers, one of the very oldest regiments. They had left their cybernetic steeds outside the shrine and dismounted to enter.
...
They were in full war-armour, combat visors down, frosty green photo-mech cursors bouncing to and fro along their optical slits.

Imperial army troops Abnett style. This isn't even the end of the upteched "Imperial army' sorts, but its an interesting take on such oddities (guys with lances wearing high tech gear - very 40K) It almost makes you think Abnett should be writing less Space Marine and more Imperial Army stuff (although less so compared to what we got in Legion.)



Page 56-57

"My translator’s sampled enough, and it’s built a workable grammatical base."
...
He adjusted the little translator device woven into his quilted collar. He began to speak. A huge voice, tinny and harsh, boomed out of the device in his collar.

Language translator - can pick up, understand and extrapolate from other (human) languages. Useful device.



Page 63

He brought something up from his side, something metal and heavy that had been strapped there. It was a box with a handle.
...
The box made a noise like a hundred thunderbolts overlapping.
...

The nearest Balt wyrmboat shivered, and then disintegrated. Its hull shredded and flew apart, reduced to wood chips and pulp and spinning nails. The mast and the quarter rigs exploded. The figurehead splintered. The men on board atomised in puffs of red drizzle.

The wyrmboat behind it began to shred too, and then the boat beyond that. The daemon kept his roaring lightning-box aimed at the boats, and invisible hands of annihilation demolished the craft drawn up along the ice-line. A thick brume of wood-fibre and blood-mist boiled off the destruction into the wind.

Astartes bolter. I'm not even going to try quantifying it (I can't) but its interesting to note either way for the sheer level of destruction.



Page 64

The daemon raised his lightning-box and pointed it at the gothi. He made it flash and bark just once, and the gothi’s head and shoulders vanished in an abrupt pink cloud. What remained of Hunur snapped back off the rock, as if snatched from behind.

Bolter again. Grenade level damage of some kind in this case.



Page 101

There had been a shortlist of notable candidates, but in the end it had come down to Hawser, and a neuroplasticist who had eradicated the three strands of nanomnemonic plague devastating Iberolatinate Sud Merica.

The Space Nobel candidates (They call it the Prix Daumarl.) Not sure what a nanomnemonic plague is but it sounds nasty and has 'nano' in it, so it has to mean something.



Page 102

He was an old man, rumoured to be on his third juvenat.

Multiple juvenat treatments. It seems in this context (or by this method) they don't last or halt aging, just reverse it.


Page 102

...Hawser was three seats down to the left, between an industrial cyberneticist and the chairman of one of the orbital banking houses...

SPACE BANKERS.



Page 105-106

The hand was perfect. It was clean and manicured, scented, graceful. The skin was white and unblemished and uncreased, and the flesh plump and supple. There were no signs at all of the consequences of age, no wrinkles, no liver spots, no discolourations. The nails were clean. It wasn’t the gnarled, sunken, prominently-veined claw of a hundred and ninety year-old man, and prefect-secretary Giro Emantine was at least that. It was the hand of a young man. Hawser wondered if the young man was missing it.
...
Of course, the prefect-secretary had access to the best juvenat refinements Terran science could afford. The treatments were so good, they didn’t even look like juvenat treatments, not like the work Hawser had had done at sixty, plumping his flesh with collagenics, and filling his creases and wrinkles with dermics, and perma-staining his skin a ‘healthy’ tanned colour with nanotic pigments, and cleaning his eyes and his organs, and resculpting his chin, and pinching his cheeks until he looked like a retouched hololith portrait of himself. Emantine probably had gene therapies and skeleto-muscular grafts, implants, underweaves, transfixes, stem-splices…

Maybe it was a young man’s hand. Maybe the skinweaves were why the prefect-secretary’s smile looked so fixed.

A bit more on juvenat treatments. First he's at 'least' 190 years old, so we're talking 2-3 years of life being equal to 60-95 years of age at this point in time, probably closer to the hig end (he's on his third - hes alreayd completed two.) which says something about living standards at this point amongst certian circles at least.

Secondly we get details on Juvenat treatments... which seem to be a combination of subltle augmetics or artificial implants, cosmetic surgery, weird nanotech (not neccearily gray goo crap), genetic engineering/cloning, and quite possibly even organ theft. It's an interesting glimpse at Imperial medtech at this stage.



page 110

"You mean great years?"
"Yes."
"That’s three, four, times as long in Terran years!"

Fenrisian years are equal to 3-4 Terran years.


Page 116-117

"...too broken to live, and too old to heal. The only way to save you was to remake you."
...
He had the fit, athletic body of a thirty year-old. Fitter and more athletic, in fact, than the thirty year-old body he had once possessed. The muscle definition was impressive. There was not an ounce of fat on him. Nor was there any sign of the old augmetic. He had the makings of a moustache and beard, a fuzz of growth a few weeks thick. His hair was shorter than he chose to wear it, as if it was growing back in after being shaved. It was darker than it had been since his fiftieth birthday.
...
"You refashioned me," he said.

"There was significant damage to your limbs and to your internal organs," said the ice-creak voice. "You would not have survived. Over a period of nine months, we used mineral bonding and bone grafts to reconstitute your skeletal mass, and then resleeved it in musculature gene-copied from your own coding, though reinforced with plastek weaves and polymers. Your organs are primarily gene-copied transplants. Your skin is your own."
"My own?"
"Removed, replenished, rejuvenated, retailored."

Space Wolf Medtech at work, which is probably more rejuv stuff. We also get a duration and a details on teh scope of the repairs and the methods, which are quite interesting and again include some sorts of genetic engineering/cloning, and implants/grafts to enhance it. Pretty neat really.

They also give him a more accurate 'space wolf' style eye to replace one taken from him (an augmetic) which has night vision capability.



Page 118

"It was an implant. It was not your eye. It was an optical recording device. It was not permitted. Therefore, it was detected and removed"

Optical augmetic eye implant that has a recording function.



Page 131

The Upplander could smell the petroleum reek of the drink. There was blood in it too, he guessed. Liquid food, fermented, chemically distilled, extremely high calorific content… more akin to aviation fuel than a beverage.

Space Wolf booze.



Page 136

The building had once been a clerical office, perhaps for patents or legal work, and a penetrator shell had gone through its upper storeys like a round through a brainpan.

Not sure what kind of shell (KE? Shaped Charge? what kind of penetrator?) or vehicle, but its interesting.



Page 138-139

Hawser was interested in the tradition and histories of faith and religion, but it was hard in the modern age to believe in any god who had never bothered to prove his existence, when there was one who most profoundly had. It was said that the Emperor denied all efforts to label Him a god, or entitle Him with divinity, but there was no getting around the fact that, as He had risen to prominence on Terra, all the extant creeds and religions of the world had correspondingly dried up like parched watercourses in summer.
...
Mystery. All religions required a believer to have faith in something inexpressible. You had to be prepared to accept that there were things you could never know or understand, things you had to take on trust. The mystery at the heart of religion was not a mystery to be understood, it was a mystery to be cherished, because it was there to remind you of your scale in the cosmos. Science deplored such a view, because everything should be explicable, and that which was not was simply beneath contempt.

A bit on religion. On the Emperor side, I'm, not sure he's actually a god so much as the vessel for the actual god (going by my readings of the Raalms of Chaos stuff for intention, since they seem to be borrowing/reinterpreting much of that.) but he does serve as a godlike being more or less. Kind of an irony and such.

Also I agree about the idea of mystery, and its one venue of 40K (pertaining to Chaos, the nature of the Emperor and of gods in general) which doesnt get explored nearly enough. The 'magical' side to so speak, and that's kinda sad because there's potential for exploration and development there like was intended in the older (Realms of Chaos) style fluff. It's not arbitrary - someone did put some thought and effort into working something out.



Page 141

She was a good looking woman in her mid-thirties, and the plating and ballistic padding of the Lombardi Hort battlegear did not entirely disguise the more feminine highlights of her form. Her right elbow was leaning on the chrome ’chetter strap hung from her shoulder. Sunlight glinted off the armoured links of the ammo feed that ran between weapon and backpack. A giant slide-visor of tinted yellow plastek came down over her eyes like an aviator’s headcan. Hawser knew its inner surface was flickering with eyeline displays and target graphics. He knew it because he’d asked her to let him try it on once. She’d grinned, and buckled the strap tight under his chin, and explained what all the cursors and tags meant.
..
In the street, the Hort forces were moving up. Vox officers scurried like beetles with their heavy carapace sets and long, swaying antennae. Troopers prepped ’chetters and melters, and set off in fire-teams. The sunlight winked off their yellow slide-visors.

Another high tech Earth based Army regiment. Rigid and flexible body armor, sensor/visor stuff and I'm guessing 'chetters' are flechette weapons and melters are melta weapons. I wonder if the flechette guns are chemical (or some 'ehanced' chem propellant like ETC), EM, or what.



Page 144

"N Brigade members strap toxin bombs to children," she snapped back. "I am not going to take chances with an old man and a wooden box large enough to take a mini-nuke."

Terrorist WMD I'd guess.. both man portable.



Page 145

...as the firing plate of the nano-mine inside the clavier engaged.

In less time than it takes a man’s heart to beat its final beat, the clavier vanished, and the old man disappeared, and the troopers surrounding him puffed into vapour like cotton seed heads, and the surface of the street peeled away in a blizzard of cobblestones, and the buildings on either side of the road shredded, and Murza left the ground in the arms of the shockwave, and his blood got in Hawser’s eyes, and Hawser started to fly too..

Nano mine. no idea of size, but its hidden and its powerful (many grenades worth, subjectively.)



Page 152

An enemy may fabricate wonderful armour, but the Wolves of Fenris have learned through experience that the effectiveness of an enemy’s protection is proportionate to the efficacy of his weapons. This may be a deliberate design philosophy, but it is more usually a simple, instinctive consequence. An enemy may think "I know it is possible for armour to be strong to X degree, because I am able to forge armour that strong; therefore I need to develop a weapon that can split armour of X degree, in case I ever encounter an opponent as well-armoured as I know I can be."

A comment on weapons/armour design in the Imperium and in the galaxy at the time.



Page 152-153

The heat-beamers emitted thin streaks of sizzling white light that hurt the eyes. They made no dramatic noises except for the sharp explosions that occurred when the beams struck a target.

The gravity rifles launched pellets of ultra-dense metal that laced the dock’s warm air with quick smudges like greasy finger marks on glass. These weapons were louder. They made noises like whips cracking, underscored by oddly modulated burps of power. Unlike the heat beams, which split robust armour open in messy eruptions of cooking innards and superhot plate fragments, the gravity rifle pellets were penetrators that made tiny, pin-prick entry marks and extravagantly gigantic exit wounds. Stricken robusts faltered as their chests caved in under scorching heat-beam assault, or lurched as their backs blew out in sprays of spalling, shattered plastics, liquidised internals and bone shards.

Alien weapons used against aliens themselves (who are Astartes-sized targets)



Page 153

The Quietude’s social networks had frantically analysed the nature of the threat, and processed an immediate response. This took the networks less than eight seconds. The robusts were armoured with interlocking, overlapping skins of woven steel as their principal layer of protection, but each one also possessed a variable force field as an outer defensive sheath. After only eight seconds of shooting, the social networks of the Olamic Quietude successfully and precisely identified the nature of the weapons being used against its robusts. They instantly adjusted the composition of the individual force fields to compensate.

As a result, the robusts were effectively proofed against heatbeams and gravitic pellets at exactly the same moment as they started to take Imperial bolter fire.

Alien defenses, which includes optimisation.,

Note that bolters are distinct from the gravity pellets as far as the defense optimization goes.



Page 154

Boltguns were the symbol of Imperial superiority and Terran unification, emphatically potent and reductively simple. They were Astartes weapons, not exclusively, but as a hallmark thing. Few men had the build to heft one. They were the crude, mechanical arms of a previous age, durable and reliable, with few sophisticated parts that could malfunction or jam. They were brute technology that, instead of being superseded and replaced by complex modern weapon systems, had simply been perfected and scaled up. An Astartes with a boltgun was a man with a carbine, nightmarishly exaggerated.

This is a POV on boltguns which seems to run contrary to what is commonly thought (high tech high precision weapons or something like that) although I like this better. It's not that the bolter is the most high tech weapon or efficient weapon (it's neither) but it is a simple, brutal, and psychological weapon (which it is) - especially in the hands of the Astartes. That's it's prime (and perhaps only) value.

It also introduces an interesting sort of parallel - such a weapon being symbolic of a supposedly 'enlightened' Imperium. Indeed, its one of those things (like the Astartes themselves) that makes you wonder 'why would an Enlightened society need someone like the Space Marines, and more specifically the Space Wolves?' - its a current that runs throughout this novel (and to a degree through A Thousand Sons). The Imperium is once again not so shiny and wonderful and intellectual as it is made out to be.




Page 155

They operated in social networks, cohered by communications webs neurally spliced into them at birth. They sacrificed most of their flesh anatomy to ritualised surgical procedures during childhood that prepared them to inhabit artificial bodies. Pretty much all that remained of a Quietude adult, organically speaking, were the brain, skull and spinal cord. These rested in the neck socket of an elegantly engineered humanoid chassis, which contained the machineanalogue organs that fed the brain and kept it alive.

Cyborg servitor-like beings. The AdMech must just love this. And it's human tech, so they probably 'borrowed' it for study like they always do during the Crusade.



PAge 163

They disabled specific parts of the control centre using magnetic mines, gunfire and blunt force, but spared enough of the primary network architecture for the Mechanicum to later examine and, if necessary, operate.

Again AdMech studying the tehc.


Page 168

They felt the megastructure shudder as it took disabling hits from the warship’s massive batteries. The shots were annihilating secondary docks and support vessels, and crippling the graving dock’s principal launch faculty.
...
In his imagination, the warship’s complement of monastically-hooded calculus bombardi, ranked in steeply-tiered golden stalls around the warship’s gunnery station, were intoning their vast and complex targeting algorithms into the hard-wired sentiences of the gun batteries too rapidly. Mistakes were being made, or just one tiny mistake perhaps, a digit out of place, enough to place the delivery of a mega-watt laser or an accelerator beam a metre or two to the left or right over a range of sixty thousand kilometres. The graving dock would rupture and burst like a paper lantern lit and swollen from within by combusting gas.

Interesting passage. First, I'm sure there's going to be a massive HA HA at the 'megawatt' lasers since they're describing main battery weapons, but I would point out further that they are 'disabling/crippling' the dock explicitly. And there are Space Wolves onboard (and they intend to ferry more troops aboard)l, hence Hawser's worries about a near miss. So you don't want to go all out. Indeed deliberately dialing it down for crippling shots could very well reduce the odds of penetrating hits as long as you remain accurate (we dont know what sorts f hits would rupture it.. it sounds explosive so and even a megawatt laser isn't going to blow apart a 2 km wide metal struture by itself.)

In any event, we know that much more powerful weapons are flat out mentioned so it can't be used as an irrevocable upper limit - indeed this would tend to suggest the precision and yields they can dial down to - crippling shots or orbital bombardment shots (megawatts would be quite useful in that in avoiding collateral damage.)

Of more interest is the targeting systems on the space wolf vessels - servitor gunnery again and centralized fire control, and an estimated accuracy (against a fixed, 2 km wide) target at 60,000 km.

Not sure what 'accelerator beams' are - particle beams maybe. Or m aybe some sort of force beam weapon.



Page 179

He meant the ice was sterile. Hawser could sense it too. This was not the absolute white wilderness of Asaheim. This was an engineered landscape. The towers were generators, in his estimation. In the face of a massive extraplanetary invasion, the Olami Quietude had used its appreciable technology to extend its natural ice caps to form shields. The thickness and composition were such that great parts of the orbital bombardment had been reflected
or resisted.

There were cities under the ice where the Quietude was preparing its counter-attack.

Not sure what the generators were, but apparently the ice is some sort of shield resisting the bombardment. Whether it is just the ice alone (thickness and volume) or if the generators play a part in that we don't know. We also dont know the yield of the bombardment either - it could be kiloton, megaton, or whatever.



Page 180

Mass gunfire had stippled the ice field, and the crust around the tower’s structure was beginning to melt, suggesting that damage had been done to parts of its mechanism

That might suggest the generators are playing some role in the shielding properties of the ice.


Page 180

But this was bigger than anything he had ever seen: a battlefield the size of a continent, an armed host that numbered millions, and that host only one of hundreds of thousands that the Imperium had birthed upon the awakening cosmos.

Scope of the Imperial army contingents of the Great crusade - many hundreds of billions - if not trillions - of troops all throughout the galaxy. What's more,the hundreds of thousands of armies would suggest a similar scale of warships (troop transports at least, nevermind escorts, support vessels, etc. - hundreds of thousands if not millions of ships total) - note that while the number of armies mentioned perhaps conflicts with the number of primary and secondary fleets in Horus Rising or Thousand Sons, those armies can also be involved in other tasks (garrisoning and mopping up operations, etc.) and given the combined nature of the fleet and ground elements in the Imperial army, the ship number implications still imply (indeed,
we knew from False Gods that army garrisons still had fleet elements.)


Page 181

Super-heavy tanks in deep formation braced for ice-firing and began to devastate the lower flanks of the tower. Parts of it blew out, ejecting huge sprays of debris. The explosions looked small from a distance, and the clouds of debris little more than exhalations of dust, but Hawser knew it was simply scale at work again. The tower was immense. The cloudbursts of debris were akin to those that might rain down after the destruction of a city block.

Implied scale of devastation by superheaavy tanks. We dont know if its for single tanks or for multiple tanks, but its pretty impressive.


Page 182

...the formations of Army gunships and ground-attack craft lining up on the tower were having to fl y instruments-only as they penetrated the sulphurous pall.

Army air units.


Page 184

They entered the Army encampment. It had only been there a few hours, but it was already the size of a large colony town. Arvus- and Aves-pattern transatmospheric lifters were still coming in and out to make drops in a haze of ice vapour on the far edge.

...
The encampment, a patchwork of prefab tents and enviromodules mixed with pods, containers, payload crates and vehicles...

Imperial army camp and the speed of deployment


Page 184

Around the edges of the mobile base were pickets of Savarene Harriers with their shakos and gold-topped staves, and G9K Division Kill eliters wearing long dusters over semi-powered combat suits.

Imperial army troops with 'semi powered' armour of some kind. I wonder if this is like the 'powered carapace' of the Ravenor novels (like Lucius Worna wore) or some of the battleplate from other novels (like Legion) or the semi powered scout carapace from Crimson Tears. In any event its upteched Army stuff yet again.


Page 185

Nearby, a crew of polished silver servitors laboured to install and activate a portable void shield generator that would, by nightfall, be protecting the high-value section of the encampment under a fizzling blue parasol.

Portable theatre voids to provide partial protection to the camp.


Page 186

They were surrounding a mobile strategium desk, the top of which was alight with active and moving hololithic displays.
...
As he stepped up on to the self-levelling interlock staging, Hawser felt a pop in his ears and a chill on his face that announced he had just entered an artificial environment bubble.

Army base command center, with more fancy gadgets. Again betwene this and the theatre shields, Abnett likes a sophistiicated army


Page 186

Hugely armoured from the gut down, he stood with his long, white arms emerging from the rubberised black of his sleeveless underlayer with its feeder pipes and heat soaks like necrotised capillaries...

Under-suit for powered armour.

[Connor MacLeod]

Part 2

Page 191-192

Towards the end of his first great year, Dekk Company returned to the Aett from a long tour of service in the Second Kobolt War, and Tra found itself rotated into the line, with instructions to shadow and support the 40th Expedition Fleet in the Gogmagog Cluster.
...
Nine weeks later, at a mandeville point shy of Gogmagog Beta, they retranslated and made contact with the 40th Expedition Fleet, which was, by then, pressing fruitlessly into Olamic Quietude territory.

9 weeks to travel from Fenris to whevere the Quietude are. Which we don't know (yet).


Page 193

G9K had a considerable reputation as a front-line force. It famously maintained an archaic performance-based pay and advancement model that was said to have its origins in the prediluvian traditions of mercantile-sponsored mercenaries.

More on the G9K.


Page 193

"Thirty-seven years, eight campaigns. I know what ugly looks like. I’ve seen Astartes fight four times. Every time, it’s scared me."

"They’re designed to be scary. They wouldn’t be effective if they weren’t."

Again the purpose of Marines. They're meant to terrify. Everyone. Quite an Enlightened Imperium, eh?




Page 195

"That there are Space Marines and there are Space Marines. That there are supermen and there are monsters. That in order to breed the Astartes perfection, the Emperor Who Guides Us All has gone too far once or twice, and made things he should not have made. Things that should have been stillborn or drowned in a sack."

Again questions abound about what the Emperor was thinking, and what sort of Imperium he is creating.



Page 202-203

He just shoved to lurch the man away, so he could walk on, get past them, leave them behind.

Chinstrap hit the side of the pile of rubber-sleeved crates on the back of the track. He was airborne and travelling backwards. His spine and shoulders took the first impact, and his skull cracked back across the top of the uppermost crate.
...

While Chinstrap was still in the air, one of his men swung a punch at the back of Hawser’s head. The punch seemed to Hawser to be ridiculously telegraphed, as if the man was trying to be sporting and give him a chance. He put his hand up to stop the fist from hitting his face and caught it in his palm. There was a little shock. He felt finger bones break and knuckles detonate, and none of them were his.

The third man decided to kill Hawser, and made an effort to insert a heavy, cast iron crate spanner into Hawser’s skull. Once again, however, he appeared to be doing this in a delicate fashion, like an over-emphatic stage punch that goes wide of the mark but looks good from the audience. Hawser didn’t want the spanner to come anywhere near him. He swung out his left hand in an impulsive, flinching gesture to brush the man’s arm away.

The man screamed. He appeared to have developed a second elbow halfway down his forearm. The skin of his arm folded there like an empty sock.
...
"Why didn’t you tell me how thoroughly you’d rebuilt me?" he asked.

Not only was he given a better physical shape and a younger body, he was genetically enhanced physically.


Page 209

He wondered if he had misunderstood something, something cultural that even the processes nanotically wired into his brain had not been able to translate.

Sounds like.. nanotech-implanted knowledge? *shrug*



Page 216

"But we were denied that honour. The Wolves of Fenris were too busy on other errands, fighting dirty fights no one else wanted to fight in other corners of the galaxy."

This would suggest the Quietude are in some corner of the galaxy. Given Fenris' location in the 5th edition map, if the Quietude is on some edge of the galaxy (even in the same segmentum!) we're talking tens of thousands of light years to reach it. a hundred thousand c at least for 9 weeks travel, and it can easily be hundreds of thousands of c. I doubt its much more than half a million c though in any case.



Page 219

"When the Allfather sired His pups," said the priest, "He gave each one of them a different wyrd. Each one has a different life to make. One to be the heir to the Emperor’s throne. One to fortify the defences of the Imperium. One to guard the hearth. One to watch the distant perimeter. One to command the armies. One to control intelligences."

When you think about it, the specialization makes a lot of sense. Not just in the sense of Magnus being the only sorceror, but you have Guilliman as a statesmen and administator. Dorn as a defender. Horus as leader, Corax as ninja, etc. IT makes you wonder though who is the 'heir' - do they mean to rule the Imperium, or do they mean one to sit in the golden throne the way he does?

Anyhow this does fit in with what we learned from Deliverance Lost and such novels about Primarch genetics.

The wolves, btw, are the executioners. They're the ones who everyone else (even the other Astartes) are afraid of because they'll destroy them. Hence their feral/bestial nature. ENLIGHTENED.



Page 223

Hawser could see Imperial Army troops drop-landing on platforms above him...
...
...as gun-cutters and blitz ships swept in over them and raked the facades of the ancient citadels.

Not sure what blitz ships are, but guncutters are familiar. they were also used to escort the Stormbird/Thunderhawks in.



Page 225

A Stormbird was a large transatmospheric craft with a broad, threatening profile designed to menace. It was considerably more substantial in both mass and sheer craftsmanship than the bulk-produced landers like the Thunderhawk and the dropfalcon models that had been churned out of constructor factories as short-term, utilitarian solutions to the Crusade’s material demands. A Thunderhawk wasn’t designed to last: it was just a cheap, functional, template-pressed disposable.

The Stormbirds were legacies of the Unification Wars on Terra, superb machines that were far more costly and time consuming to manufacture. Armadas of them were assembled for the Expansion, and only when the true scale of the Great Crusade became apparent was it realised that a cheap bulk supplement would be needed. They were not the sort of things that should look vulnerable or ungainly. They were lords of the air, soaring creatures that could dive from orbit straight down into the fires of hell, and survive.

Stormbird vs Thunderhawk. Implies they are no longer built (or if so in few numbers), and given what Thunderhawks can do, that relaly tells you something about Stormbirds.



Page 232-233

He evaded again, this time more aware of what he was doing, of how superhumanly fast his reactions were, how ridiculously instinctive. The wolf priests, geneweavers and fleshmakers of the Vlka Fenryka, had done so much more than repair his wounds and shave years off his life. They had given him so much more than the enhanced vision of a wolf.

They had accelerated him, his senses, his speed, his strength, his muscle power, his bone density. Even without any combat training, he had snapped the limbs of the G9K malcontents who had outnumbered him.

More on space wolf/Imperial medical and gene-engineereing tech. Makes youw onder why its not employed more often.. it ranks up there with what was done to Luther and Kor Phaeron.


Page 243

"I told you this. A role for each primarch-son. A role for each primarch’s Legion. Defenders and champions, storm troops and praetorians… we all have our duties. Sixth Legion are the executioners. We are the last line. When all else fails, we are the ones expected to do whatever is necessary."
...
"There are lines that other Legions will not cross. There are divides of honour and fealty and devotion. There are some acts so ruthless, some deeds so unpalatable, that only the Vlka Fenryka are capable of undertaking them. It’s what we were bred for. It’s the way we were designed. Without qualm or sentiment, without hesitation or whimsy. We take pride in being the only Astartes who will never, under any circumstances, refuse to strike on the Allfather’s behalf, no matter what the target, no matter what the cause."
...
"We are not feral savages. It’s just that two centuries of doing things that other Legions find distasteful have earned us that reputation. The other Legions think we are untamed, untrained dogs, but the truth is that we are the most harshly trained of all."

More on Legion specializaiton and the Wolves as the Emperor's hatchetmen. I have to say that while I'm not totally sold on Abnett's take of the wolves, this actually does make alot of sense. Mind you, without the Emperor or Russ around to direct them, they do more or less degenerate into bloodthirsty berserkers. Which leads to things like 'Battle of hte Fang'. Its nice to know that in latter millenia they've toned that down.



Page 261

"No, I mean that was beyond my skill-set. Way beyond my skill-set. It was an abuse of my power. I don’t have anything like that level of control, which is why I damaged my mouth trying to do it. Besides, Enuncia shouldn’t be used for harm."

"What’s “Enuncia”, Navid?"

Abnett brings 'Enuncia' back as a form of sorcery. Given what we learn later, it seems Chaos knows and makes use of it, somehow.



Page 285

For all of the forty-week voyage, he considered those twelve minutes.

Forty weeks from the Quietude to Nikaea.


Page 298

He was looking straight down on Terra in all its magnificence. He could see the night side and the constellation pattern of hive lights in the darkness behind the chasing terminator, he could see the sunlit blue of oceans and the whipped-cream swirl of clouds, and, below, he could see the glittering light points of the superorbital plate Rodinia gliding majestically under the one he was aboard, which was…

Terra has oceans again in the Crusade era (rather than being boiled off) and mention of the orbital plates again.


Page 302-303

"You are a civilised man, and you’ve come to study us, like a magos biologis observing some primitive tribe of throwbacks. We live like animals, and we follow shamans. And yet… Great Terra! Could it be that our shamans have real gifts? Genuine powers? Could it be that they are more than just bone-rattling, bead-jangling gothi, out of their heads on mushrooms, howling at the sky?"

"Psionics," whispered Hawser.

"Psionics," Aun Helwintr echoed, smiling. He used his real voice.

"I had heard that some of the Legions actually had psyker contingents," said Hawser.

"Most of them have," replied Helwintr.
...
"The psyker mutation is a priceless asset to our species," said Helwintr. "Without it, we would be condemned to captivity on Terra. The Great Houses of the Navigators allow us to expand our reach. The astrotelepaths allow us to communicate over the gulfs. But caution must always be exercised. Control."

"Why?"

"Because when you gaze out with your mind, you never know what will stare back."
...
"You come from a society that accepts and uses psykers, skjald. On Old Terra, they walked amongst you on a daily basis. Did you recognise them all? On Fenris, could you tell a ranting shaman from a man who truly has the sight?"
...
"The truth of it all is that your colleague probably wasn’t a psyker. He had found a crude shortcut to something else. And that is the point. That is the lesson. Psyker ability is not a thing of itself. It allows us to draw on a greater power. It is just another path to that same something else. The best path. The safest path. Even then, it’s not without its pitfalls. If you’d care to, you may define maleficarum as any sorcery that is not performed under the most stringent application of psyker control."

an interesting comment on using the Warp in the Imperium and the importance of psykers. The knowledge of the Rune Priests kinda throws the comments of Othere Wyrdmake in Thousand Sons into a new perspective in a way (although I'm still convinced they're sort of hypocrites for this view.)

We also get an inkling of the importance of control to the Wolves, which will be discussed later vs Thousand Sons.

And lastly, we get a contrast between psykers and sorcerers.. different paths, same result. Although innate talent seems to be far safer than sorcery.



Page 306-307

The landing pits, and the tunnels that led away from them into the core of the planet, had been clean cut on a massive scale, as if with industrial meltas.
..
There was an odd disconnection between the temporary and the permanent too: someone had commanded enough power and resources to bore holes and chambers out of the solid rock of a supervolcano, and to install a zone of safe environment on an inimical world, both of them monumental feats of physical engineering.

Yet Hawser had the distinct feeling that once the intended business here, whatever it was, was done, the whole site would be abandoned.

Imperial Geo-engineering at work once more. And again for trivial, one time purposes.


PAge 319

"They’re blanks. Untouchables. Psyker-inert. Got the pariah gene in them. Nothing on Nikaea can see us or hear our minds while we’re in here with them."

sisters of Silence on nikaea.


Page 322

The chamber had been set up as a command post. On top of the metal decking plates set up on the heat-levelled floor, portable power units were running cogitator sets and deep-gain voxcasters.

There were lighting rigs and, Hawser noted, automated sentry guns and field generators at the outer exits. This was a strongpoint.

More interesting and portable technical/military tidbits.



Page 323

They were Custodes, the praetorian bodyguards of High Terra. Their accelerated post-human nature had been derived by yet another different principle to those which had produced the Astartes and the primarchs, and they fitted in magnitude between the two: far fewer in number yet greater in faculty than the Astartes.

Custodians - somewhere between Primarch and Astartes in the scale of things.


Page 334

"Whoever was running you had to pull the trigger, in that small window, or run the risk of losing all control over an agent they had spent upwards of five decades developing"
...
"No one spends that long grooming and deploying an agent."
...
"The main institutions of the Imperium wouldn’t think twice about procuring agents at birth and arranging deployments that saw out their lifetimes. Most of these things are done without the agents in question even knowing."
...
"We’d all do it," said Valdor bluntly. "The business of intelligence is vital."
...
"Predictions may be made," said Aun Helwintr. "Wyrd may be parsed. A man’s character may be analysed, and that analysis extrapolated to foresee what career he might take, and where he might find himself at certain points in his life. An experienced diviner can chart a man’s life, and train him like a plant, tend him, make him grow in a specific direction for a specific purpose."

A bit on Imperial intelligence operation and scale and scope.



Page 344

"Sanction is the only reason he permits the feral and monstrous Sixth to endure. The only way he can justify their creation and continued existence is as his ultimate deterrent."

Again you have to ask - why would the Imperium tolerate this?


Page 350

"What I especially admire," said the Thousand Sons Equerry, "is your hypocrisy. You hound us and harass us over our so-called sorcery, yet you do not shrink from using it, shaman."
...
"There is a vast gulf between what I employ for the good of the Rout and what you practise, warlock," Helwintr replied, "and the chief part of that gulf is control. Only the naive would think that mankind could survive in the cosmos without some measure of craft and cunning to protect him, but there is a limit. A limit. We must know what we can master and what we cannot, and we must never allow ourselves to step beyond that line. Tell me, how many steps have you taken? One? Three? A dozen? A thousand?"

I'm still inclined to think hypocrisy in the Wolves for their view, but the idea of reaching too far definitely has merit, and the Sons are at least guilty of that (as Magnus demonstrates when he breaks the wards on Terra.)



PAge 354-355

The Wolf caught it neatly in his right hand, knelt down over the Equerry, and hacked the mark of aversion into his chest plating.

The Equerry of the Thousand Sons screamed. He thrashed and convulsed with demented fury and threw Bear backwards. His fists and feet hammered the floor in an insane blur, and his screams turned to choking gulps as blood and plasmic matter sprayed from his mouth. As his convulsions reached a pitch, a torus of sizzling, foul-smelling energy blasted out of him, soiling the air with streaks of sooty smoke.

Runes of aversion have tangible effect. I'm not entirely sure it wasn't because of the nature of the 'Equerry' (It was a daemon I think) but it does show a possible reason why the Wolves are as they are, and what makes them so effective/resilient against hte Warp. They are alot like Orks in their approach and outlook - they are very simple/straightfroward, uncomplicated, anbd generally without fear. That which makes them great executioners can also make them quite resistant (or even safe) from the warp and its manipulations. Indeed, its the sort of thing that can tap strongly into the 'belief-based' aspects of the warp for enhancements, 'miracles' or similar (again like the Orks.) It would also greatly explain their ideas on 'magic' (why some, like Wyrdmake and the chief Rune Priest in Battle of the Fang did not view their use of psyker powers as such.)



Page 363

It had been a twenty-six week translation from Nikaea to Thardia...

Again we have a duration but no distance.



PAge 376

A thin, searing beam of light squealed across the glade and exploded the ground underneath the almost-wolf. As it tried to recover, a second beam hit it squarely in the chest and threw it backwards. It demolished two large tuber trees as it went tumbling over. The dry boles burst like ripe seed cases and filled the air with a choking blizzard of string vegetable pulp. Broken, parts of the canopy foliage came crashing down.
...
Smoke rose from the terrible plasma weapon wound that scorched Eada’s chest.

Assuming a 50x50 cm chest area, and third degree burns (50 j per sq cm) we're talking 125 kj for flash burns. Call it hundreds of kj.



Page 380

Ogvai drew his bolt pistol, pressed the muzzle up under Eada’s chin, and vaporised his head with a single mass-reactive round.

bolt pistol head-splodes Astartes skull.


Page 381

Hundreds of thousands of ratings, thralls and servitors worked to status-sweep the colossal ship from its last translation and prep it for the next immaterial transfer. Deck plates and interior struts were being examined and reinforced. Powerlines were being tested. In some stretches of companionway, inspection plates had been lifted in forty- or fifty- metre long trenches. In the lofty arming chambers, cathedrals of war, automated hoists raised payloads of void munitions from the armoured magazines to delivery points where gunnery trains coiled like sea-orms, waiting to thread the service arteries of the ship and deliver the titanic warheads to the Hrafnkel’s batteries.

Scope of the Hrafnkel's thrall population, as well as the loading systems for the guns (again automated.)


Page 395

I had my axe, and a displacer field unit, and I had been given a short-form laspistol of excellent manufacture.

Hawsers weapons for the Prospero battle.


Page 396

A full Legion to punish a full Legion. The fleet components that had assembled at Thardia translated to three further assembly points, gathering strength as they went. Amongst them were forces of the Silent Sisterhood and the Custodes, bequeathed by the Allfather himself to strengthen our cause.

Well we learn that they go to some palce named Thardia but we have no clue where that is, as far as I am aware. (yet). So we can't really measure distances to Prospero.

We *might* assume the Custodes and Sisterhood came from Terra, but we dont really know where they came from. If from Terra to Prospero we're talking maybe 20-60K LY (depending on sources and context). We do know from 'Outcast Dead' tha tthe bulk of the Custodes had been absent from Terra because of the Prospero Sanction (or at least thats what Atharva believed) We also know it was 26 weeks from Nikaea to Thardia, and it took 'weeks' to reach Prospero (at least a few weeks) so we might say between 2 and 30 weeks to reach the destination. That gives us btween tens and hundreds of thousands of c.


Page 398

But all the jarls had opened their weaponariums, and Ogvai had shared out devices amongst men in his company who were willing and skilled to operate them.
...
Some Wolves had enhancements that turned their armoured gauntlets into huge wrecking fists, or even industrial talons. Others prepared enormous melta-weapons with armoured feeder cables, ornately engraved lascannons, or colossal assault cannons with rotating barrels that seemed barely man-portable.

Its stated the bulk are blades and bolters, but a description of the various weapons the Wolves had. Seems like there was no real standardization amongst the Wolf Lords.


Page 399

I had therefore undertaken an elective procedure to replace my right eye with an augmetic copy that was also an optical recording device. My real eye, surgically removed, is being held in stasis in the clinic’s organ banks, ready to be replanted on my return.

More fun surgical stuff.


Page 401

Moreover, Prospero was their home world. A Legion is always strongest at its base. The fortress homes of the Allfather’s eighteen Legions Astartes are the most formidable and impregnable sites in the new Imperium.

Astartes homeworlds are (supposedly) the best defneded places in the Imperium, at least at the time of the Heresy/Crsuade


Page 401

The grids were down from outer orbital to close surface. Individual cities were screened, but that was standard operation and not a response to the approaching threat. There were signs that civilian ships had fled or were fleeing the planet and the system in considerable numbers.

I'm not sure if 'screen' means shielded, but probably does.. which suggests city-scale shields are fairly common and this is standard practice - at least for AStartes homeworlds. also mention of civilian ships.


Page 402

"The main batteries are drawing power," he replied. "We have begun the orbital bombardment."
...

Firestorms, burning air, crystal cities where the Thousand Sons waited for us with flame-light reflecting off their casement glass.

Hints of the orbital bombardment to follow


Page 404

Below, the world burned too. The fleet’s bombardment had torched Prospero, and ignited the atmosphere. Spiral patterns of soot and particulated debris thousands of leagues across cycled like hurricanes. Giant columns of plasma energy had roasted all vegetation and wildlife, and turned the seas into scalding banks of steam and toxic gas. Vast las bombardments from the heavy batteries had evaporated river deltas and flash-thawed ice-caps. Kinetic munitions and gravity bombs had fallen like Helwinter hail, and planted new forests of bright liquid flame that sprouted and grew, spread and died back, all in a few minutes. Shoals of targeted missiles, silver-swift as midsummer fish running from a catcher’s net, delivered warheads that blasted the soil into the sky and thickened the air into poisonous soup. Magma bombs and atomics, the godhammers, had altered the geography itself. Mountains had been levelled, plains split, valleys thrown up into new hills of rubble and spoil. Prospero’s crust had fractured. We saw the throbbing, glowing tracks of its mortal wounds, brand new canyons of fire that split entire continents. This was the grand alchemy of war. Heat and light, and energy and fission had transformed water into steam, rock into dust, sand into glass, bone into gas. Swirling mushroom clouds, as tall as our Aett on Fenris, punctuated the horizon we rushed towards.

The bombardment of Prospero. Events pretty much follow the pattern of A thousand sons, and pretty much fills it out. Its implied the bobmardment lasts 'minutes' in at least some cases which fits with 'a few minutes' for the kinetic bombardment. At worst, the 'bombardment begins at dawn' in A thousand sons but the ground war is still happening as night falls, suggesting no more than a 12 hour timeframe (less actually.)

We also dont know 100% sure how big the Space wolf fleet is, except that 'scores' of ships are mentioned in Prospero burns. Given the probable size sof other fleets (EG Word Bearers) we're probably not talking more than a few hundred for the Wolves directly. Probably less than thousands.

And then there's the quantifying. It all sounds pretty nasty.. bodies of water all vaporized, crust/continents shattered, levelled mountains. Maybe gigatons/tT for the continent or mountain devastation or punching holes in the cturst (although we dont know how many shots to do it.) Global firestorms ant atmospheric heating is perhaps higher, although the ocean vaping is the most significant. Prospero is vaguely Earthlike as I recall (its got oceans) so we're talking somewhere in the e26-e27 range or thereabouts (order of magnitude calc) which is enough to establisha *rough* magnitude.

In any case if we figure the yield should be be well into the billions of megatons range anyhow for 1000 ships over 12 hours we're talking 40-50 MT/s.. which isn't exactly *trivial* firepower wise but I'm lowballing it clearly (1000 isn't 'likely to be 'scores', and you're not boiling much water at a billion megatons) If we assume 100 or so ships in 12 hours at e26-27 watts (hundreds of billions of megatons perhaps) we'd be talking the mid to high gigatons. minutes and scores of ships would be well inot the DREADED TERATONS range. so really not much beyond the usual mangitude of things, either megatons/gigatons or gigatons/teratons range dependin on preference. It'd be rather hard to argue this as mere 'kilotons' though.

Of course this is also just orbital bombardment 'yields' - and how this translates to typical ship to ship yields is not neccesarily the same The use of atomics as a significant part of this could argue away from 'teratons' or very high in the gigatons of course (especially if its fission.)

Another things of interest: we know from Thousand sons that the Sons were maintianing a kine shield around Tizca so it survived the bombardment, but the other cities apparently died. So if they were 'screened' (shielded) this may mean that the bombardment overwhlemed the conventional shields but not the combination of screens + kine shield, but that is conjectural.



Page 407

The hammering shock of the bombardment, as well as several munition strikes, had shattered most of the glass off the buildings around us, exposing their superstructures and girderwork. Some burned furiously. The air wobbled with heat distortion.

...
Penetrating warheads had blown titanic holes in the rockcrete ground, revealing some of the service tunnels below, the hidden network of arteries that invisibly maintained the city’s needs.

The cities (for whatever reason) - or Tizca at least - received a less severe magnitude of bombardment. Why they didnt just plaster it after the shield dropped I dont know. Maybe they ran out of planet killing munitions or firepower? Kinda hard to believe since it wouldnt take much more than megatons to wipe out after. It could be it was either some personal desire for 'close up' killing, or


Page 407

The daylight had turned an odd, murky colour, a violet hue that suggested the blue sky had contracted some kind of disease.

At least a little sunlight is getting through, suggesting not a great deal of debris got blasted up into the air (at least with the sorts associated with impact events.) How this might limit yields for energy weapons and nukes we don't know, but it could be a potential limitation.

also its still daytime.


PAge 408

Two las-rounds had struck my displacer field, and been dissipated in crackling balls of energy. The shooter was directly ahead of me, six spans away, beside the gantry rail.
...
He was aiming his lasweapon and yelling at me. He fired again, and the shot crackled off my bodyshield.

Spireguard lasrifle. Seems to be a different kind of displacer field than we're used to


Page 408-409

The pistol from Ur was in my right hand. I didn’t even think about it.
..
The only thing that betrayed my novice status, the only thing that gave me away as a combat virgin, was the fact that I employed overkill. Godsmote had taught me to aim and shoot. I could pull a gun and hit a target at twenty spans. My first shot went into his chest and would have been entirely sufficient. But he was shooting at me, and he’d have killed me already had it not been for the displacer field, so I kept the trigger squeezed.

The pistol from Ur put three more rounds into his belly, and the sheer force of impact doubled him up so the next two shots punched into the side of his neck and the top of his head.
...
My shots had killed him three or four times over. Blood from the rupturing torso wounds was streaming out of his corpse and spattering down through the deck grille into the darkness below. There was a huge, scorched puncture mark in the crown of his polished silver helmet as though a blacksmith had hammered a sooty augur through it. A steam of blood vapour wafted out of it from his cooked braincase.

Laspistol vs Spireguard. Armour may be a factor but we dont know ot what extent. The laspistol blows large holes of unkonw size in the target, but not big enough to explode head or amputate limbs or blow the chest out. Significant thermal damage ('cooked braincase.') At least first degree burns. Assuming significant internal scorching of the head we migth figure at least several tens of kj for third degree brurns at least. That's for a single shot. Some vaporization might be occuring (blood vapour) suggesting at least the wound channels reached boiling point at least (also suggesting rather inefficient steam explosion), albeit with partial cauterization at best.

60 spans is ~ 540 inches, which works out to 13 meters roughly


Page 411

The Spireguard had ballistic armour woven into their distinctive red coats, but this could not withstand the mass-reactive devastation of bolter rounds. Some carried displacer fields or riot shields, but neither could cope with the withering ferocity of autocannons.

Their silvered helms, some plumed, all alloyed from plasteel, were unable to block the slicing edge of axes or frostblades.

Their gun-carriages and fighting vehicles were well plated and, in some cases, shielded, but all crumpled into mangled wreckage when struck by shoulder-launched missiles or conversion beamers, or burned like corpse-boxes on funeral pyres when caught by heavy flamers or melta effects.

spireguard armour and defenses - shields are unusually common (including emplacements) and body armour is incorporated into the uniform.


Page 411

For their part, the Spireguards’ lasguns and autoweapons barely scratched the marauding Rout. Minor injuries were taken. Only crewserved weapons and fighting vehicles offered any genuine hazard.

Army weapons vs Wolves.


Page 411

Once the Sixth’s armoured support began their advance, clanking and clattering up from the steam-haze of the seafront zones where their heavy landers had come in, even that small hope was extinguished.

There's still vaporized water steam in the air*


Page 416

Drop-pods rained down through the stained sky like meteor showers. The light was bad: not insufficient, I mean. The daylight had gone bad, like meat goes bad.

Still daytime, but the daylight seems obscured.


Page 417

There was an almost constant downpour of micro debris, and, with that, oily rain as the boiled oceans began to condense and fall back onto the persecuted land. War machines, soiled by smoke-wash, streaked by rainfall, rolled and clanked and strode through the rubble-wastes, their weapons banks flashing and spitting.

Particulate matter and water from the boiled (vaporized) oceans condensing.. at least Abnett acknowledged that I'll give him credit *grins*


Page 419

It was late in the day. The flame-light of the tortured world was keeping the encroaching gloom of evening at bay, but when night finally fell, as it must, I knew it would be eternal and no sunrise would ever dispel it

Afternoon/evening. Far less than 12 hours.. 8-9 hours tops maybe.


Page 439-440

Bloody rain was still falling as we regrouped. The sky was nightfall dark, black as a raven’s wing feathers, and underlit by the firestorms engulfing the glass city.

I guess firestorms, particularte matter, and water condensation is still going on.


Page 443

"Make sure of it. I won’t be around to watch over the Vlka Fenryka forever. When I’m gone, you’d better make sure they hear the stories."

I laugh, thinking he’s joking.

"You’ll never be gone, lord," I say.

"Never is a long time, skjald," he replies. ‘I’m tough, but I’m not that tough. Just because something’s never happened, it doesn’t mean it never will."
...
"The unprecedented. Like… Astartes fighting Astartes? Like the Rout being called to sanction another Legion?"

"That?" he answers. He laughs, but it is a sad sound. "Hjolda, no. That’s not unprecedented."

I am lost for a reply. I am never sure when he is joking.

Russ commenting that he may not be immortal, and that it's not the first time he's sanctioned a Legion. Possibly a hint at the fate of the other two, which has been suggested before.

[Vaporous]

I think the appearance of hypocrisy is intentional- Thousand Sons is from the sons perspective,and we're encouraged to sympathize with their view. that said, the wolves don't come out looking perfectly clean even after Prospero Burns.

I like the control aspect of the conflict between the Wolves and the Sons. It comes down to self awareness. The Wolves know exactly what they are for, and what they are capable of. They know how terrible what they do is. They restrain themselves because the reality of what they are is never lost on them. This lends itself towards discipline when it comes to use of psykers. It's also reflected in Russ- he understands exactly what he is and is at peace with it. He is there to kill his brothers if they have to be killed, and they know it. He doesn't have the luxury of self-deception in that regard.

That said, the Wolves "all or nothing" approach is still insane. Not every situation that calls for the Astartes calls for the kinds of devastation the Wolves inflict. As they are, it looks insane to use them at all except as the absolute last resort, when even other legions have failed. And maybe that's the point. The wolves are like a bottled version of that fear some of the Sapce Marines we've met elsewhere in the Hersey series have, that they are nothing more than killers who have no place or function in the galaxy outside the battlefield.

Meanwhile, the Sons are hubris writ large. The idea that they might be wrong, or that what they are doing might come back to bite them in the ass, never really seems to occur to them. The Legion is built on a lie- the survivors of the original legion know Magnus saved them, but not how. They assume it is a result of some knowledge or lore which can be reliably controlled. This becomes their salvation myth- Ahrimahn tells the rembrancer the story in that kind of style. And in the salvation myth, knowledge of the warp can solve every problem with little or no consequence! Everything is great forever. And so the sort of restraint that might have saved them is tossed out the window by the example of Magnus, who has never met a problem he couldn't solve with massive applications of psychic power.

I understand the bond between Magnus and Lorgar, given some of what Magnus does. He is proud and sensitive to the accusations made against him, and doubly so because some of them are true. So he desperately tries to prove to his brothers that his way works. I'm not sure whether his psychic bond with the Emperor helps or hurts. He obviously wants to impress Daddy like most of the other primarchs, but he also doesn't want to let him know about his dealings in the warp.

Which makes me wonder how the Emperor didn't figure it out to begin with. Did he trust Magnus? That seems unlikely, given the way the Emperor does business. Did he not look very hard? Why not? Maybe he thought he already understood Magnus and saw what he had to see. Once he thought he had all the facts, he stopped looking. That's the kind of mistake you'd expect the Emperor to make at this point- and it's also a nice parallel to Magnus himself. Foresight and unlimited psychic power don't actually solve all your problems. Like gene-father like clone-son.

[NeoGoomba]

If one does not mind this change in attitude (or at least if one is not biased against it like I am lol) the novel probably would be quite good. There is nothing inherently 'wrong' with the story or the writing itself - its still Abnett after all.

I think I'm a good example of this, as the only 40k novels I ever read were Grey Knights and the Gaunt's Ghosts stuff until the Horus Heresy series was already a few books in. Since I didn't have any preconceived notions of how the Heresy-era Legions should be portrayed, I found the Prospero Burns to be my favorite novel of the series so far. But I can certainly understand how, with so many years and editions layered on top of one another, characterizations and representations can change (sometimes drastically so) to the disappointment of fans and readers.

[Cykeisme]

Holy shit, I have to say, Vaporous, that last post of yours is awesome. That's really a very good analysis of the literature.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Part 2

Page 219

"When the Allfather sired His pups," said the priest, "He gave each one of them a different wyrd. Each one has a different life to make. One to be the heir to the Emperor’s throne. One to fortify the defences of the Imperium. One to guard the hearth. One to watch the distant perimeter. One to command the armies. One to control intelligences."

When you think about it, the specialization makes a lot of sense. Not just in the sense of Magnus being the only sorceror, but you have Guilliman as a statesmen and administator. Dorn as a defender. Horus as leader, Corax as ninja, etc. IT makes you wonder though who is the 'heir' - do they mean to rule the Imperium, or do they mean one to sit in the golden throne the way he does?

He has/had candidates for all of those roles as "heir to the throne/leadership" actually.

• Figurehead (Spiritual, moral role) ? Sanguinius or Lorgar.
  Golden Throne? Wasn't supposed to be needed, that need only arose due to the malfunction.
  Astronomicon/guiding light? If the Emperor was needed for the Astronomicon's function (I don't remember him being so, but I think I might be wrong, I remember some sort of quote about "The guiding light of the Emperor and the Astronomicon"...?). Baring that, Magnus or possibly Lorgar.
  Leader/ruler? Horus. (Or Sanguinius or Guilliman as a distant third option).

The wolves, btw, are the executioners. They're the ones who everyone else (even the other Astartes) are afraid of because they'll destroy them. Hence their feral/bestial nature. ENLIGHTENED.

They work much better in that role AFTER the Night Lords and World eaters aren't around. Both of them did that role far better. (The lords with fear, and the World eaters for mindless savage brutality).

Page 232-233

He evaded again, this time more aware of what he was doing, of how superhumanly fast his reactions were, how ridiculously instinctive. The wolf priests, geneweavers and fleshmakers of the Vlka Fenryka, had done so much more than repair his wounds and shave years off his life. They had given him so much more than the enhanced vision of a wolf.

They had accelerated him, his senses, his speed, his strength, his muscle power, his bone density. Even without any combat training, he had snapped the limbs of the G9K malcontents who had outnumbered him.

More on space wolf/Imperial medical and gene-engineereing tech. Makes youw onder why its not employed more often.

Well, most examples are given on people that were dear to the Primarchs, at their special request. It's likely that there is some level of augmentation to reach real Space marine levels of ability without the risk (as was the case with the Öld Wolfs, and their 80%? fatality) , but that something about it is excessively prohibitive - archaeotech makes the most sense.
Lesser augmentation is used quite a lot in the Imperium, the drawbacks are obvious though - extreme cost, lack of cost effectiveness (A space marine is cheaper, faster, and far superior; A Skitarii is cheaper, much much faster and mass producable. And guaranteed to be loyal.) , while we have augmentation given to Kalidus temple assasins and the like which makes them notably superior to Space marines (from the Night Lord's own lips), in a smaller package.

. it ranks up there with what was done to Luther and Kor Phaeron.

They're tricky examples - we don't see Kor in battle except when with the gifts of the Chaos gods augmenting him, and Luther seemed to have been augmented to Space marine levels. (I think? I couldn't stand any of the black templar HH books - boring as mollasses).

Page 243

"I told you this. A role for each primarch-son. A role for each primarch’s Legion. Defenders and champions, storm troops and praetorians… we all have our duties. Sixth Legion are the executioners. We are the last line. When all else fails, we are the ones expected to do whatever is necessary."
...
"There are lines that other Legions will not cross. There are divides of honour and fealty and devotion. There are some acts so ruthless, some deeds so unpalatable, that only the Vlka Fenryka are capable of undertaking them. It’s what we were bred for. It’s the way we were designed. Without qualm or sentiment, without hesitation or whimsy. We take pride in being the only Astartes who will never, under any circumstances, refuse to strike on the Allfather’s behalf, no matter what the target, no matter what the cause."
...
"We are not feral savages. It’s just that two centuries of doing things that other Legions find distasteful have earned us that reputation. The other Legions think we are untamed, untrained dogs, but the truth is that we are the most harshly trained of all."

More on Legion specializaiton and the Wolves as the Emperor's hatchetmen. I have to say that while I'm not totally sold on Abnett's take of the wolves, this actually does make alot of sense. Mind you, without the Emperor or Russ around to direct them, they do more or less degenerate into bloodthirsty berserkers. Which leads to things like 'Battle of hte Fang'. Its nice to know that in latter millenia they've toned that down.

Like I said, this actually makes less sense since after the heresy they don't have ~2 other legions competing for the role as "Feared ultimate deterrent even among other SM legions".

Page 334

"Whoever was running you had to pull the trigger, in that small window, or run the risk of losing all control over an agent they had spent upwards of five decades developing"
...
"No one spends that long grooming and deploying an agent."
...
"The main institutions of the Imperium wouldn’t think twice about procuring agents at birth and arranging deployments that saw out their lifetimes. Most of these things are done without the agents in question even knowing."
...
"We’d all do it," said Valdor bluntly. "The business of intelligence is vital."
...
"Predictions may be made," said Aun Helwintr. "Wyrd may be parsed. A man’s character may be analysed, and that analysis extrapolated to foresee what career he might take, and where he might find himself at certain points in his life. An experienced diviner can chart a man’s life, and train him like a plant, tend him, make him grow in a specific direction for a specific purpose."

A bit on Imperial intelligence operation and scale and scope.

I do like the old Short story about an assasin with a fully implanted personality. (Or the ship story with the implant holding a seperate, "Watching" personality). ["Let the Galaxy Burn"].
Damn useful tactic. (And frankly a lot faster to implement and reuse, as opposed to leaning on predictions Eldar style).

Page 350

"What I especially admire," said the Thousand Sons Equerry, "is your hypocrisy. You hound us and harass us over our so-called sorcery, yet you do not shrink from using it, shaman."
...
"There is a vast gulf between what I employ for the good of the Rout and what you practise, warlock," Helwintr replied, "and the chief part of that gulf is control. Only the naive would think that mankind could survive in the cosmos without some measure of craft and cunning to protect him, but there is a limit. A limit. We must know what we can master and what we cannot, and we must never allow ourselves to step beyond that line. Tell me, how many steps have you taken? One? Three? A dozen? A thousand?"

I'm still inclined to think hypocrisy in the Wolves for their view, but the idea of reaching too far definitely has merit, and the Sons are at least guilty of that (as Magnus demonstrates when he breaks the wards on Terra.)

Yup. The warp is not necessarily bad in moderation, the problem is how unbelievably easy it is for Bad Shit to happen when using it, and how slippery a slope it can be. (Ask Eisenhorn about that sometime. ).

PAge 354-355

The Wolf caught it neatly in his right hand, knelt down over the Equerry, and hacked the mark of aversion into his chest plating.

The Equerry of the Thousand Sons screamed. He thrashed and convulsed with demented fury and threw Bear backwards. His fists and feet hammered the floor in an insane blur, and his screams turned to choking gulps as blood and plasmic matter sprayed from his mouth. As his convulsions reached a pitch, a torus of sizzling, foul-smelling energy blasted out of him, soiling the air with streaks of sooty smoke.

Runes of aversion have tangible effect. I'm not entirely sure it wasn't because of the nature of the 'Equerry' (It was a daemon I think) but it does show a possible reason why the Wolves are as they are, and what makes them so effective/resilient against hte Warp. They are alot like Orks in their approach and outlook - they are very simple/straightfroward, uncomplicated, anbd generally without fear. That which makes them great executioners can also make them quite resistant (or even safe) from the warp and its manipulations.

It would also explain why Chaos took such a strong interest/feared them spreading out child legions.
(Some legions are just better than others. Ask the Thousand sons about that sometime ).

[Cykeisme]

The World Eaters and Night Lords might be awesome at committing brutal atrocities, butchering and scaring the shit out of general folks, and other stuff like that.. but that may not necessarily make them the best suited for fighting other Astartes Legions.
Pure conjecture here, but their unique traits and abilities might be somewhat diminished in effectiveness here. Crazy berzerking may not be the best approach to fighting Astartes opponents with equal physical abilities*, and scare tactics are diminished against foes that know no fear. In the Crusade era, I don't doubt they'll be at least as effective as most other Legions if set to the task of committing fratricide, but not exceptional at it.

* Post-Heresy, the average World Eater is buffed by their connection to their patron Chaos God. With the have so-called "Mark of Khorne", they may indeed be superior to the average Astartes (loyalist or traitor) when things get up close and personal. I'm ignoring the effects that Chaos had on shaping the Legions, because we're discussing the Emperor's pre-Heresy intentions when shaping the Primarchs and their Legions.

As an aside, (among the many other attributes they possess) the Crusade/Heresy-era Space Wolves are very well suited to deal with psychic fuckery, and the way events unfolded, that trait came into play. It's possible that this was by design and not by chance.

[Black Admiral]

The wolves, btw, are the executioners. They're the ones who everyone else (even the other Astartes) are afraid of because they'll destroy them. Hence their feral/bestial nature. ENLIGHTENED.

They work much better in that role AFTER the Night Lords and World eaters aren't around. Both of them did that role far better. (The lords with fear, and the World eaters for mindless savage brutality).

That's kind of the point, though - the World Eaters are mindless. The Wolves don't fight solely for the purposes of killing; they fight to achieve a specific objective. That alone makes them superior to the World Eaters as a weapon against the other Legions (and they've beaten the World Eaters by doing that at least once that we know of).

[Ahriman238]

As an aside, (among the many other attributes they possess) the Crusade/Heresy-era Space Wolves are very well suited to deal with psychic fuckery, and the way events unfolded, that trait came into play. It's possible that this was by design and not by chance.

Possible and quite likely. There was a bit in the First Heretic about how extraordinarily careful the Emperor has been to bury his true name so deep no sorcerer or daemon could ever find it. He has also been fairly careful with his blood/descendants to prevent being fucked with through them, and though half the Primarchs turn, none of them is lining up to do the rituals. Oh, and most of his important sites where he spends most of his time, the Palace, the lab where the Primarchs were created, have been warded out the wazoo with a Geller Field on top. He's clearly very aware of the possibility.

[Connor MacLeod]

Next up: HH Outcast Dead by Graham McNeill. OStensibly its a story that features (primarly) Astropaths, but it also features Thunder WArriors, Space Marines who aren't algned with Horus but also not with the Imperium (The Outcast Dead, whose purpose and origins I'm still not quite clear on) and prophecy. Much of the first half of the book deals with the AStropaths of the Crusde era, which is interesting becuase they're so rarely touched upon outside of one Shira calpurnia novel. This first half sets up the events for the second half - the hunt for the Outcast Dead and tracking down a prophecy that may tell the outcome of the Heresy. It sounds fairly epic and in a way it is, but it also has this undeniable feeling of.. filler. Not much really happens that impacts the greater scale of things, or those involved. Rather, it feels like another filler story (not as bad as Battle for the Abyss perhaps) simply because the book seems to exist more to set up future events than to deal with current ones.

Two part update, as usual:


Page 16

..he did not have Kartono encase him within its lacquered plates of bonded ceramite and adamantine weave.

Adamantine weave/bonded ceramite armour (basically space Samurai armor. lol)


Page 19-20

The presence of the thousand-strong choir of astropaths surrounding Ibn Khaldun ...
...
Their psychic presence was dormant for now, a deep reservoir of energy he would use to distil the incoming vision from its raw state of chaotic imagery to a coherent message that could be easily understood.
...
"We will know when the link is made. The astropaths of the Iron Hands are not subtle"

Astropathic communition. The main thing of importance is the number of AStorpaths and the implied realtime/near realtime link


Pag e20

Expeditionary fleets of Legiones Astartes, billions-strong armies of mortal soldiers and warfleets capable of planetary destruction were loose in the galaxy, and no one could be sure of their exact locations or to whom they owed their allegiance.

Capabilities of expeditionary fleets. We don't know if this means billions-strong armies in total for all the fleets, or per fleet, although if the latter and given there's some 4500-5000 fleets we're talking many trillions of troops. Also expedtionary fleets can 'destroy planets', albeit what in context this is (exterminatus munitions or what) we don't know.

Page 21

He understood the urgency of this communion, but took care to precisely enunciate his incubating mantras. Rushing to link with an astropath he didn’t know would be foolhardy beyond words, especially when they were halfway across the galaxy and hurtling through the warp.
En route to an unthinkable battle between warriors who had once stood shoulder to shoulder as brothers.
Not even the most prescient of the Vatic had seen that coming.

Vatic precog, and the distance from tErra to Isstvaan (distance forces have to travel, as well as the message distance.


Page 21-22

Ibn Khaldun’s heart rate increased as he sensed another mind enter the sealed chamber, a blaze of light too bright to look upon directly. The others sensed it at the same instant and every head turned to face the new arrival. This was an individual whose inner fire was like the blinding glare of a supernova captured at the first instant of detonation. Mercury-bright traceries filled his every limb, blood as light, flesh woven from incomprehensible energies and sheathed in layers of meat and muscle, skin and plate. Ibn Khaldun could see nothing of this individual’s face, for every molecule that made up his form was like a miniature galaxy swarming with incandescent stars.
Only one manner of being was fashioned with such exquisite beauty…
...
.., and his words were like bright streamers ejected from the corona of a volatile star. They lingered long after he spoke, and Ibn Khaldun felt their power ripple outwards through the awe-struck choir.
...
The majority of mortal minds simmered with mundane clutter close to the surface, but Rogal Dorn’s mind was an impregnable fortress, hard-edged and unyielding of its secrets. No one learned anything from Dorn he did not want them to know.

Primarchs from the psyker POV


Page 23

Fashioned in the form of a great amphitheatre the heart of the Whispering Tower, this chamber had been shaped by the ancient cognoscynths who first raised the City of Sight, many thousands of years ago. Their unrivalled knowledge of psychically-attuned architecture had been hard-won in a long-forgotten age of devastating psi-wars, but their arts were long dead, and the skill of crafting such resonant structures had died with them.

The Astra Telepathica seems to operate its astropaths out of some lost-tech building built by some ancient kind of psyker (super psyker) whose skills have long disappeared.



Page 23-25

A thousand high-ranking astropaths surrounded Ibn Khaldun, seated in ever-ascending tiers like the audience at some grotesque spectacle of dissection. Each telepath reclined in a contoured harness-throne, appearing as shimmering smears of light in Ibn Khaldun’s consciousness, and he sharpened his focus as a subtle change in the choir’s resonance tugged at the edge of his perceptions.
A message was being drawn towards the tower.
Whisper stones set within the ironclad walls shone with invisible light as they eased the passage of the incoming message, directing it towards the centre of the mindhall.
"He’s here," said Ibn Khaldun, as the presence of the sending astropath swelled to fill the chamber like a surge tide. The sending was raw and unfocussed, a distant shout straining for someone to listen, and Ibn Khaldun folded his mind around it.
Like strangers fumbling to shake hands in a darkened room, their thoughts slowly meshed, and Ibn Khaldun gasped as he felt the hard texture of another’s mind rasping against the boundaries of his own. Rough and sharp, blunt and pugnacious, this sending was typical of astropaths who spent prolonged periods assigned to the Iron Hands. Cipher codes flashed before him in a complex series of colours and numbers, a necessary synesthesia that confirmed the identity of both astropaths before communion could begin.
...
To grasp the thoughts of another mind from so far away demanded all his concentration. Fluctuations in the warp, random currents of aetheric energy, and the burbling chatter of a million overlapping echoes sought to break the link, but he held it firm.
...
"I have communion," he said, "but I won’t be able to hold it for long."
The spectral outline of somewhere far distant began to merge with Ibn Khaldun’s sensory interpretation of the mindhall, like a faulty picter broadcasting two separate images on the same screen. Ibn Khaldun recognised the hazy image of an astropath’s chamber aboard a starship, one that bore all the stripped-down aesthetic of the X Legion. Figures appeared around him, like faceless ghosts come to observe. They were mist-limned giants of burnished metal with flinty auras, angular lines and the cold taste of machines.
Yes, this was definitely a ship of the Iron Hands.
Ibn Khaldun ignored the additional presences and let the body of the message flow into him. It came in a rush of imagery, nonsensical and unintelligible, but that was only to be expected. The psychic song of the choir grew in concert with his efforts to process the message, and he drew upon the wellspring of energy they provided him. Will and mental fortitude could cohere simple messages sent from planetary distances, but one sent from so far away would need more power than any one individual could provide.
Khaldun was special, an astropath whose skills in metapsychic cognition could transform confused jumbles of obscure symbolism into a message that even a novitiate could decipher. As the raw, urgent thoughts of the expeditionary astropath spilled into his mindscape, his borrowed power smoothed their rough edges and let the substance of the message take shape.
Ibn Khaldun interpreted and extrapolated the images and sounds together, alloying astropathic shorthand with common allegorical references to extract the truth of the message. There was art in this, a beautiful mental ballet that was part intuition, part natural talent and part training. And just as no remembrancer of a creative mien could ever truly explain how they achieved mastery of their art, nor could Ibn Khaldun articulate how he brought sense from senselessness, meaning from chaos.
Words sprang from him, reformed from the encrypted symbolism in which they had been sent.
..
More of the message poured through, and Ibn Khaldun felt some of the astropaths in the tiers above him perish as their reserves of energy were expended.

The receiving of an Astropath message from 'half a galaxy away'. AGain it seems to be realtime/near realtime (The 'communion') which makes this the fastest sort of communcation but it does have limits. For one thing it sends data in an encrypted/highly symbolic manner, which requires intepretation. And this can only send certain kinds of messages and usually (probably) is of limited length (sentneces, to go by Space fleet.) And this took over a thousand astropaths assisting (and sacrificing their lives) to receive, so this isn't exactly a trivial or simple feat by their standards. Another obvious drawback is that some of those astropaths were lost in the reception.



Page 31

Vast swathes of subtropical forest had once flourished here, before ancient wars had destroyed almost everything living on the surface of the world. Oceans had boiled, continents burned and so much of what made this land special had been lost in those wars, but the world had endured. This particular forest had been dominated by the sarja, a tree favoured by an ancient god of a long dead empire that had once dominated the lands hereabouts.

Indication perhaps of the devastation wrought on the planet during the wars for unification and during the Age of STrife.


Page 34

Clad in loops of gleaming black carapace and bonded leather armour, they filled the interior of the skimmer with their augmented physiques. Castana was pre-eminent among the families of the Navis Nobilite and could easily afford the ruinous cost of Mechanicum enhancements for their security personnel. Their faces were invisible behind glossy black helm visors, and each was wired with crystalline psi-dampers – as was the skimmer itself – to shield them from psychic intrusion.

Navigator secruity troops. Rather interesting that Mechanicum 'enhancement' is so costly, given that bandits in Nemesis were able to have them.



Page 36

"Don’t touch me" said Kai. "Don’t you know anything about telepaths? Do you really want me to know all your dirty little secrets?"
"I’ve no talent for psychometry..."

Psychometry is some sort of touch based telepathy, I'd guess.
Page 44-45

he thug pawing at her belt suddenly spasmed as though a high voltage electric current was passing through him. Blood-flecked froth burst from behind his teeth and his eyes boiled to glutinous steam within their sockets. He screamed and rolled off Roxanne, clawing at his smoking skull and thrashing as though assaulted by a host of invisible attackers.
...
She fixed the frightened man with her gaze and, once again, did the very thing her tutors had always warned her never to do.
The man screamed and bright red blood squirted from his nose and ears. The life went out of him in an instant, and he slumped against the wall like a drunk...
...
Before the weapon cleared his overalls, he fell back with sizzling brain matter leaking from every orifice in his skull. Without a sound, he toppled sideways and his head caved in like an emptied air bladder as it hit the ground.

Effect of a Navigator's third eye.


PAge 46-47

Kai reached out with the tiniest measure of his psychic senses to determine exactly where he was. Thanks to his augmetic eyes, precision-fashioned ocular implants ground and crafted by Mechanicum adepts bonded to House Castana, he had little reason to employ his blindsight, and it took a moment for him to adjust his perceptions from visual to psychic.
He closed his eyes, feeling the weight of the nearby buildings and the aetheric bulk of the many high towers of psykers. It took a moment to orient himself, but in seconds he had shaped the surrounding architecture into ribbons of light and gleaming threads of colour. The skimmer was passing the Gallery of Mirrors, a vast, cathedral-like building through which successful initiates passed on their way to the awe-inspiring caverns beneath the city. Far beneath the palace, they would kneel before the Emperor and have the impossibly complex neural pathways of their mind agonisingly reshaped to better resist the dangers of the warp.

Astorpathic sight, and mention of Soul Binding actually messing with the neural pathways. This would tend to suggest that warp powers effects may be reduced or even nullified if the target has a different brain structure or construction than human, if true.


Page 52-53

With the treachery of the Warmaster and the departure of Rogal Dorn’s annihilation fleet, the astro-telepathic choirs were operating beyond capacity to satisfy the demands of waging a distant war against this rebellion.
...
Aetheric space was awash with telepathic communication, and messages were being hurled into the void that screamed for help or simply blared hatred. The trap chambers beneath the iron towers of the city were filled with psychic residue from the thousands of messages, and Gregoras’s cryptaesthesians could barely keep up with the brutal pace. In the face of treason, every message sent to Terra had to be carefully scrutinised, no matter how mundane it might appear. The Bleed was scoured for signs of encryption that might be a communication intended for embedded agents of the Warmaster.
Insane amounts of communication traffic was coming from the palace every day, and the City of Sight’s astropaths were burning out with greater rapidity than ever before. The captains of the Black Ships attempted to spread their nets ever wider for emergent psykers to replace these burn-outs, but the war had cut off many of the more promising systems.
New astropaths arrived every week, but the Imperium’s need was continually outstripping demand.

Strain imposed on the galactic astro-telepathic communications network by the Heresy. Also we get an introduction to the cryptaesthesians, who seem to be sort of the 'astrotelepathic security' defense forces. The Bleed, I think, is the residue of astrotelepathic message activity pulled in from the warp, sort of detritus or castoffs. Apparently it also has some value in a divinatory or informational manner, at least if assembled and collated with other peices.


Page 54-55

Gregoras sat at the crossroads of the Imperium, where lines of communication crossed and re-crossed. From here, expedition fleets were despatched, recalled or regrouped. The fate of tens of thousands of worlds was decided within the walls of the palace, and it all passed through the City of Sight. To sift through the vast quantity of psychic debris that was left in its wake was the task of the cryptaesthesians, a task few relished but which Evander Gregoras had made his life’s work.
Telepaths on every world of the Imperium had been sending their thoughts to Terra for nearly two centuries, and each one had eventually come to him in this chamber.

The Imperium, unsurprisingly, is the nexus of communication across the Imperium, and all that data comes here to be consolidated and analyzed.



Page 54-55

He had sifted the psychic waste of millions of astro-telepaths for over a hundred years, and uncovered all manner of hidden vice, greed and sedition in the detritus of transmitted messages. He had seen the very worst of people, the dark, petty, ridiculous, malicious subtexts hidden in a thousand different places in everything they said without ever realising.

No doubt the Custodes does as well, which might go a long way to explaining some of their abilities to ferret out trouble - evidently when your medium of communication is tied so heavily into thought and emotion it is easy to convey the sorts of data you might not normally want to convey (intentions, agendas, feelings, etc.) Also millions of psykers over unspecified time period.


page 55

For decades he had studied any Bleed that carried a tantalising hint of this emergent cohesion, learning more of its brilliant complexity with every scrap he uncovered. Perhaps only one in every hundred messages would contain a veiled reference to it, then one in a thousand, ten thousand. Each time, the truth of the message would be veiled in secrecy or lunacy, buried in subtextual codes so subtle that few would ever recognise it as a cipher – even the senders of such messages.

Again, a 'pattern' of sorts emerging from all the fragments and remains of astropathic transmissions. It seems this is tied into the ability of the warp to transcend time and space, and its divinatory qualities. A sort of scrying. Were I to guess the 'fragments' were residual bits of knowledge caught up in astorpathic transmissions (the intereference that makes long distance communication so difficult.)


Page 64

The curse of the Astropath was premature ageing, and Kai didn’t need Sarashina to tell him that he had lost the clean lines of his high cheekbones and his growth of fine, salt and pepper hair. Though he was in his late thirties, he had the appearance of a man in his fifties, at least. The face that looked back at him in the mirror – on those days he could face his reflection – was gaunt and hollow, with pinched cheeks and sunken eyes. Only the most expensive juvenat treatments could conceal the damage constant warp travel wreaked on a human being, and no astropath, even one of House Castana, was worth that indulgence of vanity.

Interesting given that Astropaths do not neccesarily die of old age any faster than humans (indeed one in this novel lived to 100) - they may burn out or be possessed, but old age doesn't seem to claim them as readily. The effect seems to be more cosmetic than anything - which would expalin the juvenat comment - we've known of astropaths (like in the Inquisition War) who were given juvenat to extend their lifespans, for example - and it would be odd that a single, minor planet could do what a powerful Navigator house could not.



Page 66

"There are books for those without eyes."
"I know, but I prefer to let the words come to me." said Kai. "There is more to the written word than lifting the words from the page with my fingertips. Language has visual beauty that touch-script can never match."

This could mean braille, or it may just mean lifting information directly from the boko through soem psychic sensory means - the latter has been encountered before.


Page 70

Instead, his almond shaped eyes were sewn shut, telling anyone who knew of such things that he had been blinded over a century ago when such techniques were common.

The Choirmaster - the leader of all the Astorpaths is over a century old.


PAge 70

Robed in white and with no thoughts of its own, it was a ghostly apparition, its presence visible as a blur of murky light in her mind. Elements of the servitor’s brain had been removed with gemynd-shears, and only the most rudimentary cognitive functions remained.

Servitor from an astropath POV.


Page 72-73

She smiled and rolled onto her front, letting Zhi-Meng massage her back and ease the tensions of yet another arduous day of passing increasingly desperate messages from the mindalls to the Conduit and onwards to their intended recipients.
...
"Tell me of the day’s messages," he asked.
"Why? You already know what’s passed through the tower today."
...
"We have been getting a lot of traffic from worlds demanding Army fleets to keep them safe from any rebel forces."
...
"Some Legions send daily for tasking orders, a few are beyond our reach and others appear to be acting autonomously."

This implies astropathic messages - sending and receiving - occurs many times within the space of a day. hours or minutes of lag time at most.



Page 79

He heard the suggestion of singing, like a choir in a far distant theatre. The tower’s astropaths were busy, but that was only to be expected in such turbulent times. A million sibilant voices filled the tower, but the whisper stones kept them separate. Kai dismissed any thoughts of the rebellion on the edge of Imperial space, picturing a soothing light enveloping his body in a protective sheath.

This might imply there's a population of a million in the tower.. a million astropaths perhaps? And they all seem to be involved in matters 'on the edge of Imperial space' pertaining ot the rebellion.


Page 79

In such a mental state, there was no such thing as up or down, but human perceptions couldn’t help but shape so formless a space. Each astropath entered a receptive state in their own way, some surrounding themselves with imagery relating to the telepath whose projections they were attempting to receive, others by focussing on the key symbolic elements common to most senders.
Kai employed neither method, preferring to create his own mental canvas upon which to imprint the sending telepath’s imagery. All too often, a message could be distorted by the mental architecture of the receiving mind, and such misinterpretations were the bane of every astropath. In all his years of service, Kai had never yet wrongly interpreted an incoming vision, but had heard – as had all students of the City of Sight – horror stories of telepaths who had misread desperate pleas for aid or despatched expeditionary fleets to destroy worlds whose inhabitants were loyal servants of the Throne.

the Individiuality in astropathic message sending and reception. This is probably what makes it less of a science and more of an art, and provides yet another one of those ways it can be dangerous. BEar in mind of course this is only one method of sending, there are at least several.


Page 81

"You were attached to the Ultramarines Legion aboard the Argo, a helot-crewed frigate en route to the Jovian shipyards for a structural refit prior to making the translation to Calth. Tell me about why you are here and not en route to Ultramar"

The ship the astropath was pulled from.


Page 94

...a holster containing a wide pistol that was surely too heavy for any normal man to fire without losing his arm to recoil

From what I think is a Thunder warrior. They aren't clear at this point


Page 94-95

Athena rose through the central spine of the Whispering Tower, carried aloft on the double helix of gravity-defiant particles. It made her skin itch abominably, and the scar tissue that capped her amputated thighs throbbed painfully in the flux
...
At last the stream of particles came to a diffuse end, and she used her manipulator arm to work the controls of her chair. It lurched as one repulsor field was exchanged for another..

We dont know if its electromagnetic or gravitic (in this novel it could be either) but its interestinge ither wya.


Page 99

"I felt its fall. Six million souls buried under the sands."
...
Athena had been aboard Lemurya, one of the great orbital plates circling Terra, when Kairos hive sank into the desert, but she had felt the aetheric aftershock of its doom...

6 million hive and orbital "plates' (stations?) Also astropaths are sensitive to the deaths of large numbers of people, which is a rather significant curse when you think about it.



Page 101

Everyone screamed, and went on screaming as they saw what the gunshot had done to Estaben.
It had destroyed him. Literally destroyed him.
The impact pulped his upper body, hurling it across the chamber and breaking it apart over the chest of the Vacant Angel. Ribbons of shredded meat drooled from the statue’s praying hands and sticky brain matter and fragments of skull decorated its featureless face.

Effect of the huge, recoil heavy pistol from before. Might be a bolt weapon or related type.


Page 108

Athena leaned forward in her chair, the electro-magnetics of its repulsor plates setting Kai’s teeth on edge.

EM repulsors. That puts a new context on those gravity defying particle lifts.


Page 110-111

At the heart of the web of towers within the City of Sight lay the Conduit, the nexus of all intergalactic communication. Carved by an army of blind servitors from the limestone of the mountains, these high-roofed chambers were filled by black-clad infocytes plugged into brass keyboards and arranged in hundreds of serried ranks. Once each telepathic message had been received and interpreted – and sifted by the cryptaesthesians – it was processed and passed on by the Conduit to the intended recipient by more conventional means. Looping pneumo-tubes descended from the shadowed ceilings like plastic vines, wheezing and rattling as they sped information cylinders to and from the clattering, clicking keystrikes of the infocytes.
..
Vesca Ordin drifted through the Conduit on his repulsor plate, information scrolling down the inside of his silver mask as his eyes darted from infocyte to infocyte. As his eye glided over each station, a noospheric halo appeared over its operator with a host of symbols indicating the nature of the message being relayed. Some were interplanetary communications, others were ship logs or regularly scheduled checks, but most were concerned with the rebellion of Horus Lupercal.
...
Vesca saw the glaring red symbol that indicated a more urgent communication, and he flicked his haptically-enabled gauntlets to bring a copy of the message up onto his visor. Another missive from Mars, where loyalist forces were struggling to gain a foothold in the Tharsis quadrangle after insurrection had all but destroyed the red planet’s infrastructure.

The Conduit, where messages received from the AStropaths get analyzed then routed. Note the Haptics nad noospherics.


Page 117

" The migou have no kings or ancestors," points out Kartono. "They are a gene-forged race of labourer creatures. They have no past to have had any kings."

The Imperium deliberately creates and employes 'gene forged' slave creatures in addition to servitors. That's our 'ENLIGHTENED' Imperium, ladies and gents. The only difference being is that they are better at pretending to be other than what they are: Space America with rockets and chainsaws. (And yes I'm exaggerating, but I can do that in some cases.)


Page 128

"I used to work on a starship, so I know how long it takes to get from one side of the galaxy to the other."
Arik smiled, and she tried to keep the truth of the matter from him. True, Isstvan was incredibly distant from Terra, but with fair tides and a steady course, the Warmaster’s forces could reach the heart of the Imperium within months.

Depending on how you interpret the context, you might read this as 'one side of the galaxy to the other' (or to Terra) within 'months' or it means from Isstvaan to Terra within months (which is merely 'half the galaxy'. And unless we're talking more than half a year (which sorta stretches the definition of months in this case) the time is going to be in the hundred thousand c plus range anyhow - its not a big difference.


Page 132

Kai descended the steps to the courtyard, his steps light and the black mood that had been his constant companion since the disaster on the Argo lightening by degrees.
...
Ten thousand deaths screaming in his head had unhinged his mind for a time, and he wasn’t entirely sure it had returned to him intact.

Crew of the ARgo frigate.


Page 138

It was a hopeless task. Days of constant telepathic communion with astropaths all over the Imperium had pushed them all to the end of their endurance. The Choirs were operating far beyond safe limits, and hundreds had burned out like quick-burning star shells fired over a midnight battlefield.

'days' of constnat communication over the Imperium, which tend to echo earlier sentiments about astorpathic 'lag' being hours or days tops over intergalactic distances.. we're talking tens or hundres of millions of c.


Page 140

"He wants to know why we didn’t see this coming. What am I supposed to tell him?"
"You tell him that the currents of the immaterium are always shifting, and that to think that you can use them to predict the future with anything other than best guesses is like shooting an arrow on a windy day and predicting which grain of sand it will hit."

difficulties of Imperial divination. OF course, Eldar do it a whole lot differently


Page 144

It was foolish to seek out the cryptaesthesians, for the towers of the astropaths were awash with dark rumours of their powers. Some said they could pluck secrets from the darkest parts of a person’s psyche, others that they could brainwash any individual into any act imaginable. Yet more told that they could read the minds of the dead.
Such talk was just that, talk, but Kai had no clear idea of how these most secret astro-telepaths worked. He suspected they were associated with the security of the City of Sight, assessing the messages that came to the towers for any warp-borne corruption. Where the Black Sentinels protected the physical aspects of the city, Kai believed the cryptaesthesians looked to its psychic defences.

The psychic security arm of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica.


Page 150

Halfway across the galaxy, two men met in a glittering cave, far beneath the paradise world they called home.

Prospero is supposed to be "halfway across the galaxY" form Terra


Page 151

Magnus had not moved in four days, his subtle body crossing the unremembered and unknown reaches of the immaterium en route to a fateful meeting.

Speed of MAgnus's travel via sorcery (through the webway, as I recall) 50-60K LY in 4 days. 4-5 millionc


Page 152

"...I presume you will have heard of the psi-wars?"
...
‘...little is known of those global wars with any certainty, just fragments culled from surviving records that escaped the purges of its aftermath. We believe they began, as all wars do, with ambition and greed, but it soon became clear that the warrior kings at each others throats were being directed by the will of power-mad individuals hidden in the shadows."
"The cognoscynths?"

Psi wars and some details on the Cognoscynths. More to follow


Page 152

"Psykers are an uncommon mutation. Perhaps one child in a million may be born with some latent power. And of those children, perhaps a tenth will have power worth harnessing. The gene-code for the cognoscynth is two orders of magnitude rarer. Now I want you to understand what that means, for it is not just a hyperbolic phrase. Cognoscynths are considerably rarer than any normal psyker, so to have so many arise on Old Earth at once was an event so singular as to demand its own named epoch."

We get comment on the rarity of psykers of any talent, 'useful' psykers (which I take to be astropaths and higher) and the Cognoscyths, whose rarity parallels that of Pariahs. I'm undecided as to whether they're supposed to be Alpha-class psykers - a kind of Alpha Class, or something else entirely. Certainly some of the feats attributed to them seem to be Alpha-class, anyhow..
Note as well how the oddity of so many Cognoscyths appearing on Earth is mentioned - coincidence?



Page 153-154

Kai had heard a bowdlerised version of the early years of the psi-wars, but his knowledge was sketchy at best. That period of psyker history was not well taught at the City of Sight. No one wanted to remember a time where psychic powers almost destroyed the world, least of all the psykers themselves.
"Eventually it came to light that the great states of the world were simply pawns for powerful individuals who set nation against nation for their own savage amusement. No normal telepath could have done this, only one with the unique power of a cognoscynth."
...
"You know the lure of psychic powers, Zulane. Despite the dangers, every astropath acquires a taste for using their powers. Once your mind touches the immaterium, it craves that wellspring of limitless potential like nothing else. Do you remember the first time you used your powers?"
"Yes," said Kai, "it was intoxicating."
"Mistress Diyos?"
"My mind could reach across the heavens, and I felt as though I was part of the fabric of the universe itself"
"‘Indeed, but no matter how many times you achieve communion after that first time, it is never quite the same,’ said Gregoras. ‘Every communion is dangerous, but you still willingly hurl your mind into a realm of terrible danger just to feel that rush of its power again"
..
"And if you stop trying…"
"You get psi-sick,’ finished Athena. ‘Your mind aches for what it once had."
..
"The cognoscynths could maintain that first sensation," said Gregoras. "Every time they touched the warp was like the first time. They became addicted to the power, and it is said they were virtually immune to the dangers of the warp. No immaterial creature could touch them, and without limits on their power and ambitions, the cognoscynths became obsessed with dominating lesser men, believing that they alone could control the destiny of the species. And they had the power to do it."

More on the Cognoscyths. I wonder if this was perhaps what Terra faced during the Age of Strife, and what was the cause of all the horrible wars and such.. and why the Emperor did his whole 'Unity' thing.

What I find more interesting is the 'addictive' nature of the Warp - it follows from what we know about the Warp, but there's an interesting angle to it - even though that first time can't be replicated, the 'addiction' forces them to keep doing it to try and do so - it pushes them to continue using the warp (and quite probalby to the utmost of their abilities) or suffer the 'psi-sickness' which seem to be stigmata-like physical ailments afflicting the body if the psyker refrains from using the Warp.
On one hand, imagine how Astartes Libriarans must suffer post Nikaea. On the other, the Cognoscyth's and how theye differ from other psykers. That 'always feeling the first time' has a double-edged effect. Given what is implied by the sensation of the first time, the psyker probably is at his most powerful then.. so a cognoscyth is always at that level. Indeed, given the belief-based nature of the warp that sort of thing might be enhnaced by such euphoria, which could in turn explain their powers. Another way to think of it is that most telepaths after the first time impose some sorts of mental "limits' knowingly or unknowingly on themselves, and this limits their powers for whatever reason. Cognoscyths have no such limiting factors. On the other hand, such restraint may very well be a self defense mechanism - tapping the wapr too strongly not only is addicting and physically harmful, but it can warp the mind. Again, parallels betwene Alpha-class and Cognoscyths emerge.

Whether Conogscythes are another name for alpha or alpha-plus class psykers, or something else entirely is up for debate. Given that I've been delving into much of the old fluff pertaining to 'Men of Iron/Men of Stone' and they mention a Golden Race as well, I wonder if that may have connections? The HH series has shown a penchant for delving into very old fluff like that. It may also have connections to the 'Perpetuals' we learn about later, such as John Grammaticus from Legion (who was a psyker.)


Page 154

"They could go into your mind and do anything at all," repeated Gregoras. "For example, I could no more compel you to throttle Mistress Diyos than I could have you slit your own throat with a sharp blade. Nor, I suspect, could I convince you of the dissonant beauty of Dada’s Antisymphony, no matter how hard I tried. Most people’s own innate sense of self-preservation and understanding of right and wrong are too ingrained to overcome, but a cognoscynth could make you his puppet with no more effort than breathing. He could compel you do perform unimaginable acts of horror and make you laugh as you did them. He could erase your memories, graft new ones in their place and make you see what he wanted you to see, feel what he wanted you to feel. Nothing of the spaces in your mind that make you who you are would beyond his reach."

Again parallels between alphas.. blah blah...


Page 155

"The legends say a great warrior with golden eyes arose, the only man whose will was strong enough to resist the influence of the cognoscynths. He rallied the armies of those few kingdoms left and trained a cadre of warriors like no other, stronger, faster and tougher than any of the great bands of old. One by one, they stormed the citadels of the cognoscynths on the backs of great silver flying machines. Not ever the most powerful cognoscynth could dominate the golden-eyed warrior, and every time he slew one of these psyker-devils, the enslaved armies were freed from bondage, and willingly joined the forces of the great warrior. It took another thirty years, but eventually his armies brought down the last cognoscynth, and the people of the world were free again."
"And what became of the warrior?" asked Kai.
"No one knows for sure. Some legends say he was killed in the battle with the last cognoscynth, others that he tried to take power himself and was killed by his men."
....
"Some even say the warrior still lives among us, waiting for the day when the power of the cognoscynths returns."
"But you don’t believe that?" asked Athena.
"No, of course not. To imagine that any such being could still exist is the stuff of children’s tales and foolish saga poets. No, that warrior, if he even existed as the legends recall, is long since dust and bones."

Basically the Emperor put them all down. Now I commented earlier on the coincidence of so many such powerful psykers arising on Earth as it was noted in the text. Part of me wondres if this was some sort of pre-Great Crusade/Heresy conflict between Chaos and the Emperor - either knowingly or unknowingly. It might be the sort of thing that fuels his hatred for religion, in any case.

What is also pretty hilarious is how many in the Imperium venerate and worship the Emperor with religious fervor (which is denied.) yet noone draws a parallel between these stories and the presence of an Emperor who just happens to be a great warrior perpetually shining golden (including his eyes) - much like what happened in Mechanicum really.

Of course, the other interesting thing is that these telepaths do not believe the Emperor - despite being a super-pskyer (or whatever they think he is) oculd possibly have survived to 'current' times (thousands of years? hundreds?) it sets limits on rejuv but also highlights how the truth of the Emperor's nature and such is a closely guarded secret (but again he's a giant glowing man.. you'd think people might draw some parallels. Perhaps it's a testament to the Emperor's powers as a psyker that they don't.)

[Connor MacLeod]

Page 160-161

.. she spent a morning digesting the latest red-flagged communications passing through the City of Sight. In the wake of the Dropsite Massacre, as many were taking to calling it, the Imperium’s armed forces were reeling, still on the back foot as Legion expeditions and Army groups attempted to reorganise their battle-lines and sort friend from foe.
...
A message from the very edges of the Isstvan system.
Garbled and fragmentary, but bearing all the synesthesia codes of the XVIII Legion.
The Salamanders.
..
Abir Ibn Khaldun was already in place, surrounded by the Choir Primus. Only the lambent glow of dimmed lumens cast light around the chamber, its ironclad walls coffered and deaf to the psychic white noise that filled it.
Two thousand astropaths of the Choir Primus reclined in their contoured harnesses, each struggling to distil a message hurled from the outskirts of the Isstvan system. Abir Ibn Khaldun sat in the centre of the chamber, wrestling with the confused allegorical concepts and baffling symbolism they were sending him.
...
Synesthesia confirmed that the message had originated with an astropath of the Salamanders Legion, but beyond its identity, nothing of its contents made sense.

Astropathic message from the Salamanders. Again seems (nearly?) realtime albeit abstract over the vast distance (halfway across the galaxy, again) and large numbers of Astorpaths are needed to receive it (This brings the minimum total in the tower to 3000, incidentally)


Page 164

Mobs of lunatics bearing cudgels and brickbats laid siege to columned palaces and clashed with other mobs for no reason any one person could adequately explain.
...
Those on the dark side of the world suffered nightmares the like of which had not been seen since the bleakest watches of Old Night.
...
Entire cities of Terra awoke screaming and millions died by their own hand as their minds fragmented in the face of such psychic assault. Others awoke with their minds altered in fundamental ways that rendered them into entirely new individuals. Fathers, wives and children forgot one another as mental pathways were erased or rewritten in vulgar ways that wiped entire families from existence.
In places where the barrier between the material realm and the warp was already thin, manifestations of dreams and nightmares stalked the landscape. Black-furred wolves with burning lights for eyes descended from the mountains to devastate entire communities, and no weapon could slay them. Entire populations vanished as their towns and burgs were swallowed whole by catastrophic overspills of warp energy, leaving nothing but eerily empty buildings in their aftermath.
All over the globe, the people of Terra suffered for Magnus’s hubris, but nowhere felt the shockwave of his return more powerfully than the City of Sight.

Good job, Magnus. It tends to put things that happened after this in more perspective, methinks.


Page 165

When the permeable wall between realities was torn aside by a starship’s warp engines, every psyker within ten light years would feel a measure of discomfort.

Range of astropath detection (at least potential detection) of approaching starships. Fleets would be detectable from much further out. In practical terms it means that ships from an adjacent system can at least be potentially detected. This also renders the notion that you can 'sneak up' on an enemy pretty moot, given an enemy is bound to have hours (days?) of warning usually barring some fancy psychic trickery or sorcery.
Also any fleet close to arrival you might use this to estimate warp speed. If they are hours away (2-20 say) - thousands to tens of thousands of c. If they are days away - thousands to hundreds.
There might be some 'minutes' away but I can't really remember. That would be tens/hundreds of thousands of c probably (A few million c if its a few minutes) but that's rather unlikely and probably rare


Page 166

Yet even as the astropaths died, they fulfilled their last duty. The surging, killing brightness of the psychic energy fuelled their powers to unimaginable heights for the briefest instant, making them – for a last shining moment – the greatest astropaths in the history of the galaxy.
Like madmen and prophets, the dead and the dying, they tapped deeper into the well of infinite knowledge contained in the warp. To the shape of things that had been, and were yet to come to pass. What a radical adept of Mars had sought to harness through technology, they broke open with the very power that was killing them.

At death an Astorpath's pwoer can be its greatest, not unlike its first time. This points to an interesting point we know about from things like the Astronomican - the Astropath can boost its power by risking burning out or killing itself.
It's also a refrence to the events and the Akashic Reader in Mechancium, I suspect.'


Page 172

"Of course Magnus the primarch, who else could unleash such powerful psychic force?"
"How can he be on Terra? He’s halfway across the galaxy."

Again Magnus is 'halfway across the galaxy'


Page 175

Golovko shrugged and pressed the activation thumb-switch on the detonator box.
Kai had been expecting a thunderous detonation and had his ears covered, but the melta charges simply glowed a fiery blue-white, and the only sound was the hiss of metal flashing to superheated liquid in seconds. Gobbets of molten metal drooled down the carven face of the door as the charges burned through the lock.

Meltabombs on door. We dont know how thick a lock, how many charges, or how big a door (or rather the lock) so its hard to calc. Assuming a 10x10 cm diameter hole some half metre thick and iron it would take 47 MJ to melt through. ASsuming 10 charges over 3 seconds, thats 1.6 MW of sustained output per melta charge.


Page 179

Gregoras began chanting the words of banishment, words taught only to the highest ranking members of the Telepathica, for to use them was to know the powers of the creatures of the warp, and such knowledge was not taught lightly.

Yep knowledge control is a fundamental cornerstone of the Imperium even back then. And whats even more hilarious is Gregoras apparently knows something that Horus wasn't fully informed on (but Corax was!). Gah, as if we needed more evidence the 'Imperial Truth' was a joke.


Page 179-180

"I am not here to hurt him, Evander," said Sarashina, the words sounding as though the woman who spoke them was falling farther and farther away with every passing second.
"Then why are you here?"
"To give him a warning."
"Warn him of what?"
"A warning he must pass on to another."
...
"Is it the pattern? Tell me, Aniq, is it the pattern?"
"Yes, Evander, it is,’ replied Sarashina, "but it is so much bigger than you ever knew. Or ever will. Not even the Emperor knows it all."

Reelvant for the next quote, but it establishes that the message/intention is (largely) benevolent, it stems form the collective psychic actions fuelled by the death of hundreds (thousands?) of psykers in the aftermath of Magnus' lil fuckup, and that its beyond the Emperor's knowing (EG he isn't directly involved or manipulating events. And if he isn', its unlikely Magnus is.)
Page 184

"Sarashina touched you, a powerful telepath who was, if not possessed, then at least acting as a conduit for high level warp intelligences using her Vatic abilities. Whatever passed through her is now inside you, and we are going to find out what it is."

Interesting in that the messenger above is basically a conduit for a higher power - or so it is believed. A sort of possession. It probably isn't daemonic, its unlikely it is Magnus (although this IS hinted) and it almost certainly isn't the Emperor (although he has some awareness that there is/will be a message, as he meets with Kai before events occur.)
The question of course is, who is the 'high level warp intelligence' spoken of ? some other God?


Page 191

A starship hangs motionless above this mausoleum city. Its pristine blue paint been burned away, and only the pearlescent stubs of its master’s insignia remain to indicate that it was once a vessel of the XIII Legion. The ship’s name is etched into its hull in letters hundreds of metres high, the curling script hammered onto its adamantium hull in the shipyards of Calth.
The Argo.

That would probably suggest the ship is close to or over a kilometre long, depending on what percentage of hull height the letters take up. The name length should be at least 2-3x the heigh. If the height of the hull is 2-3x the length, we might figure on a 400-600 m tall ship, which at 3-5x length to height ratio points to a 1200-3000 m long 'frigate'. I'm leaning more towards the lower end of the scale, all told,



Page 196

The thought made Uttam turn to glance at the procession of veteran soldiers following him. Chosen from the most professional regiments based on Terra, they were armed with a collection of strange weapons, ranging from web-guns, plasma nets, iso-capacitors and mass-crushers to more commonplace melta-guns and hellguns.

exotic weapons of Imperial army troops stationed on terra and requisitioned for garrison duty.


PAge 216

It had been months since Yasu Nagasena had come for them, and in that time the captive warriors of the Crusader Host had seen no one but the two Custodians and their woefully inadequate company of mortal soldiers.

Months pasing since the Host's cpature... Kai's events (and the events on Prospero) happen far within this timeframe.


Page 220

"Nanofabric programmed to remain a fixed position and distance from my body at all times."

Imperial high tech fashion fabrics!


Page 220

One of the woman’s protectors knelt beside Kai and offered him a plastic tube he detached from the shoulder of his armour. A droplet of moisture beaded the end of the tube, and Kai gratefully sucked cool liquid from the trooper’s recyc-pack. That the water was reconstituted from the man’s sweat and bodily waste did not bother Kai one iota. He felt it flowing through his body, along his limbs and revitalising him like a stimm shot.
Instantly, his thoughts sharpened and the sickness that plagued him abated.
...
"That wasn’t water," said Kai, indicating the trooper as he snapped the clear plastic pipe back to his shoulder plate.

Useful little device. Wonder if it was Guard issue at all, even if its higher tier equipment.



Page 225

Magnus himself had manifested on Terra from half a galaxy away, and Evander Gregoras could not even begin to imagine what an expenditure of power such a feat had cost him.
...
Magnus was a primarch, true, but even a god-like being with such mastery of the psychic arts surely had limits. No psychic discipline of which Gregoras was aware could transport the physical body of an individual over so great a distance, so how had he done it? Legends told that the cognoscynths could open gateways through space and time, but even the most outlandish tales only spoke of travel from one side of the planet to another. To travel between worlds would require the greatest mind the galaxy had ever seen…
Gregoras had told Zulane that the cognoscynths were all gone, but might the Emperor have created another in the form of Magnus? Had that been the figure Zulane had met in his dream?
But to travel from Prospero to Terra!

speculation on Magnus being a Cognosycnth. Possibly another parallel to the sort sof power they weild, as well as a hint of Magnus' power.



PAge 226

The Bleed roared and seethed like an atmospheric superstorm, raging with the distilled nightmares and collected visions of thousands of traumatised astro-telepaths. Hundreds had been killed in the psychic shockwave that still echoed in the planet’s aether, and hundreds more would never regain full use of their abilities

Again scale of the astropaths on TErra


Page 230

..a veteran sergeant of the Gitanen Outriders, an elite unit of flyers based in the Baikonur crater aeries.

Flyer regiment. Planes, skimmers or gunships dont know. OF course this is Army days so things were more integrated.



Page 231

Uttam despised Tagore, he had killed three hundred and fifty nine men before he had been subdued, and that made him almost as dangerous as a Custodian.

World eater vs custodian



Page 233

A blast of superheated air sounded like the crack of a whip, and Uttam spun on his heel. Natraj of the Uralian Stormlords held his plasma gun pulled in tight to his shoulder, the vents along its barrel drooling exhaust gasses.
Custodian Sumant Giri Phalguni Tirtha fell to his knees with a smoking hole burned through the centre of his stomach.

Custodian armour penetrated by plasma blast.. and kills the Custodian


Page 236

Uttam’s guardian spear spat a bolt from the weapon beneath the blade and the man’s body blew apart into vaporised blood and bone shrapnel. Two of the nearest soldiers went down with the force of the explosion...

Guardian spear bolter.


Page 237

Uralian Stormlord with a hellgun. Minimal threat.
Two Vitruvian Commissars, one with an ion breaker the other with a grenade launcher. Moderate threat.
Three Crimson Dragoons: webber, plasma carbine and a mass crusher. Immediate threat.

More prison guard weapons and commentary on their danger levels.


Page 247

Taking a deep breath, Atharva cowled himself in the crudest of kine shields and stepped from the cell. A storm of shells battered him, enough to saw through an entire company of Imperial Army troopers in an instant, but the shield held firm for now. It seemed as though every gun on the cavern walls was aimed right at him, and Atharva knew he would not have much time to make this work.

Thousand Son Kine shield durability.


Page 265

Only two bodies had escaped the attention of the butchers that had made a ruin of more than a dozen men in a few seconds. These two soldiers had been armed with large-calibre energy weapons, and both were headless, their necks ending in cauterised stumps.

Plasma weapon. Leaves cauterised stumps. High KJ to low MJ maybe?


Page 266

"They are heading to Prospero," said Atharva. "If they are not there already."
"Prospero?" said Kiron. "Why?"
"To slay my primarch."

The retribution fleet took weeks or months to reach Prospero, or less.


Page 267

Where men with guns filled the passages with fire, Kiron would drop them with pinpoint shots that boiled brains within skulls before bursting them like overfilled balloons of blood and brain matter.

Plasma bolt.. assuming a 1.4 kg brain we're talking maybe 400 kj at least to boil. IF "boil" meant steam explosion type stuff it couldb e up to several MJ. Somewhere in there, at least. Weapon is later identified as a plasma carbine.


Page 267

...Gythua would wade through hails of gunfire to batter them down, shrugging off the shots of his enemies as though they were of no more consequence than insect bites. Dried blood slathered the Death Guard’s chest, and a charred crater the size of Kai’s fist had been bored in his side.

We dont know what kind of weapon ddi it. Hellgun possibly, since they're the least powerful weapons here. at least several tens of kj assuming a fairly severe burning (hundreds of j per square cm)


Page 271-272

"Bearing two-seven-nine, one hundred and sixty-seven kilometres out, altitude one thousand metres."
...
Moshar and Falk acknowledged his command with a click on the vox and Requer turned his attention to the countdown unfolding on the ranging scope. When the number reached zero, he pulled back on the stick and pulled the Firelance into a steep climb. Their closure rate would put them in missile range inside two minutes, but Requer wasn’t about to launch until he had a visual on the fleeing cutter.

Firelance interceptors. Assuming 1 km/s closing range (~mach 3) and ignoring the target's own velocity we'd be tlaking about 50 km possible range. This isn't definite, but tens of km range for missiles should at least be possible.



Page 282-283

"He has the synesthesia codes for our highest tiers of communication. If he sends that information to traitors in service to Horus Lupercal then our entire network is compromised."
...
"Can’t you just change the codes?" asks Kartono.
"Do you have any idea what that involves?" snaps Zhi-Meng. "Developing new ciphers for a galaxy-wide network requires decades of preparation and attempting such a task in the midst of a rebellion would be madness. No, we must find Kai Zulane before the traitor Space Marines wring the information from him."

Astropathic data security and the dangers a captive Astropath poses. One has to wonder why they don't consider it likely Horus already has this, considering his fleet had (still has?) astropaths. Maybe he didnt have any that high ranking?



Page 284

"The Emperor has pronounced judgement on the Thousand Sons and its Primarch," says Saturnalia. "Even now, my fellow Custodians draw near Prospero in the company of Russ and his warriors. Primarch Magnus is to be brought to Terra in chains."

At this point, the Wolves are near Prospero.



Page 291

"Really? The Crimson King told you of me?"
"He did," agreed Atharva. "How else did I know to come for you?"

Not sure if Magnus really did have a hand, or if he was playing a role alone or what... was he working for Chaos or the Emperor? It's kinda confusing at this point in time. We know Magnus didn't intentionally plan to fuck up the Emperor's plans, or turn to Chaos, and Artharva doesn't seem to be a Traitor either. So what plan (if any) Magnus was playing here remains a mystery.


Page 297

.. a hand-finished assault rifle crafted in one of the first manufactories to produce such weapons. It bore a carven eagle upon its barrel, and though it was much larger than the pistol borne by Ghota, it clearly belonged to the same class of firearm.
It was a boltgun, but no warrior of the Legiones Astartes had borne a weapon of such brutal, archaic design since the union of Terra and Mars.

Old style bolt gun, called an 'assault rifle'. This confirms that the weapon that blew apart Esteban earlier was indeed a bolt weapon.



Page 301

Atharva dismissed it for now and turned his thoughts to Kai Zulane. He let his body of light drift into the upper reaches of the astropath’s mind, sifting through the clutter of his waking thoughts and the panic and fear of his last few weeks. The savage scarring left by the neurolocutors angered him, and Kai shifted in his dreams as that anger bled into his thoughts.

The events of Kai's imprisonment (shortly after Magnus' lil escapade) According to the 5th edition map Propsero is some 15-20K LY away.. which isn't quite 'half a galaxy away' but eh. If its literally 'half the galaxy' it might be over a millionc. If we go with 15-20K LY we have 260-390 thousand c.



Page 306

Knowledge is power, the Mechanicum know this, and my Legion knows it too.

Yet another Blood Raven hinting, methinks.



Page 326

The walls were hung with bundles of dried herbs, mouldering shanks of salted meat and curling sheets of paper depicting chemical structures and anatomical references. A number of tables sagged under the weight of heavy books and trays of rusting surgical equipment. Cupboards with cracked glass fronts contained hundreds of unmarked bottles of fluids, powders and crushed tablets. A bank of bio-monitors sat in the corner next to a petrochemical generator, though Atharva doubted any of them still worked.

Poor city med tech. Note the generator.



Page 331-332

"For starters, this wound here looks like its ruptured his heart, and I think both his lungs have collapsed. And I don’t even recognise the organ this wound’s damaged. He’s been shot by energy weapons and there’s enough bullets in him to equip an entire squad of Army grunts."

Again we dont know what kinds of weapons did this but they did have hellguns as well as others. I doubt anything like a plasma weapon hit him, oddly ehough.



Page 341

Thudding recoil and enormous muzzle flare obscured Atharva’s view for the briefest second, but in its wake he saw three men cut virtually in two by Tagore’s point-blank discharge.

Thunder WARrior bolt rifle. Seems more like a shotgun.



Page 341

Argentus Kiron loosed relentless bursts of plasma from a position of cover in the ruined façade, incinerating heads with every shot and taking cover from the desultory return fire coming his way.

Incinerating can mean severe burning (double or triple digit KJ assuming flash burns) to something like partial or total cremation (MJ)


Page 355

Battles had lasted weeks on end, with body counts in the millions and duels of titanic warlords that sundered mountains and split continents. Those victories were now dismissed as lurid hyperbole, and historians now refused to believe that such clashes of arms could possibly have been fought.

Battles from the Unity. What kinds of weapons were employed to do that we dont know, but it's not impossible - atomics were used over a prolonged period of time and great ecological devastation wrought on earth. It could also be hyperbole, but it seems unlikely since such is flat out contested in the quote.



PAge 358

"No, they are the next step in the evolution of the superwarrior, it is we who are pale shadows of what they are. Yes, we are stronger and hardier than them, but our genetic legacy was never meant to last. Old Night may be over, but for us a new night is falling. We were not built to live beyond Unity, did you know that?"
...
"Our genes were always flawed but I cannot decide whether that was deliberate or simply ignorance. I hope for the latter, but I suspect the former. This world’s master is careless with his creations, and I wonder if his primarchs know that when their task is done they will be cast aside in favour of the mortals in whose name they fight. Like the angels of old, I fear they will not take the idea of such rejection well."

An interesting passage with ominous implications. REcall that one of the underlying themes of the Heresy was that that those who rebelled feared (from the outset) that the Emperor would cast aside the Astartes in favor of humans and bureacracy and all that other stuff they opposed as well as other vairous lies. This seems to imply there might have been an ulterior motive, and that the same might apply to the Marines. This isn't definite since its a POV belief, but it is still unsettling for the implications.

For my part I kind of doubt it is as stated. The Emperor as we have seen genuinely loves the Primarchs, and even his Space Marine 'grandchildren' as well as other humans. He can be cold and pragmatic but he does not deliberately 'cast aside' what he can save. What he would have replaced the Great Crusade with, we dont know, and it probably would have been different than what the Space Marines believed, but it probably wouldn't have had them cast aside.

As for the Thunder Warriors? Hard to say. They may be a different story.

In any event, there's an interesting implication here in that the progenoids/gene-seed is a key element to the stability and (possible) longevity/immortality of an Astartes implants and enhancements. Thunder Warriors seem to have elements of the Astartes DNA, but they lack the progenoid glands to keep them 'stable'. For that they are also stronger and tougher.
This does a good job of explaining why there aren't any Thunder Warriors still.. no point in creating them if they are unstable. They were a necessity early on, I suppose, but the Marines supplanted them.


Page 362

...brass shell casings that are large enough to have been ejected from a bolter, which makes them far older models than are used today.

some models of (older) bolt weapons used casings.


Page 373

Rumours had come from the Eastern Fringe of a cowardly ambush sprung on the XIII Legion around Calth, and two score astropaths had gone mad attempting to make contact with the sanguinary Legions of the Blood Angels. What monstrous fate had befallen the scions of Baal, and why could no word penetrate the Signus Cluster without dreams of madness and slaughter afflicting those who made such attempts?

timing of events while Kai is still gone.. seems like the stuff near Prospero as well as what strikes the Blood Angels and Ultramarines occurs within a short span of each other.



PAge 396-397

Through the scope of his rifle he can see there are no escape routes from the structure, its statue-covered façade presenting the only obvious way in or out. Hundreds of people are gathered before the building, and they have brought their dead with them. Nagasena understands the need to cling onto the lost, to honour their memory and ensure they are not forgotten, but the idea of praying to them or expecting that they will pass onto another realm of existence is alien to him.
The advanced optics on Nagasena’s scope, obtained at ruinous cost from the Mechanicum of Mars, penetrates the marble frontage, displaying a coloured thermal scan of the building’s interior. Through a fine copper-jacketed wire, that image is displayed on Kartono’s slate.
Perhaps sixty people are inside the temple, and the Legiones Astartes are immediately apparent in their heat signatures as well as their size. It is impossible to pick out which of these people might be Kai Zulane. As Antioch had said, there are five of them, and they are gathered around a much smaller individual. Their heat signatures blur. Something behind their overlarge bodies is scattering the readings from his optics, wreathing the entire image in a grainy static that makes Nagasena’s eyes itch.
"So much for those expensive bio-filters," grunts Kartono, slapping a palm against the side of the slate. The image quality does not improve, but they have enough information to mount an assault on the building with a high degree of success.

High tech AdMech gun scope.


Page 406

If what the warrior was saying was true, then he and all his kind had been cast aside by the Emperor in favour of the Legiones Astartes gene-template. Yet Babu Dhakal appeared to bear his creator no ill-will for this monstrous betrayal.
...
Its one and only purpose was to extract a fallen Space Marine’s gene-seed.
"I want you to help me live," said Babu Dhakal.

Again gene-seed seems to have a stabilizing factor on the Astartes body.



Page 407

Smoke and expanding banks of smoke rolled through the temple, but such obstacles to sight were no barrier to an astropath’s blindsight. He saw soldiers fan into the temple, gunning down anyone they encountered with ruthlessly efficient bursts of fire.

blindsight is immune to visual obstructions like smoke and such



Page 407

A man toppled to his knees before Kai, his chest blown out and his head burned by a las-blast.

This seems to imply a las-shot (from the Black Sentinels assaulting) blew out his chest (but not totally apart) and severely burned the head. We dont know the size of the chest wound (single double digit KJ at least for anything less than total blowing apart) but burning the head would imply at least second or third degree flash burns (Severeity) which is definitely going to suggest at least double digit kj. Indeed if the head got burned as part of the same blast that burst the chest, it probably means double/triple digit kj damage. Of course what kind of lasweapons the Sentinels have (lasguns or hellguns) is up for debate.
It is possible a projectile weapon did this (the Sentinesl had those) but they didn't have bolters as far as we were told.


Page 417

A blinding spear of blue white light flashes past Nagasena, the heat of it burning the skin beneath his robes. He is momentarily blinded, but hears the wet drool of blood pouring from a broken body and smells the ripe, repulsive stench of seared human flesh. As his sight returns after the flash, he sees that Tagore has been eviscerated by the close range blast of a plasma weapon of some sort.
Tagore drops to his knees, a gaping crater scorched through his body. His face is contorted in agony that not even Legiones Astartes training and genetics can bea

Plasma rifle shot. Drops World Eater.



Page 425

Before Atharva could wonder what that meant, a rippling series of metallic plates rose up from the warrior’s neck. As though growing organically at high speed, curved sections of chromed metal unfolded to encase the pariah’s head in a bulbous helm of gold and silver. A tubular device extruded the side of the pariah’s newly-formed headgear, and lenses tinted with unfathomable colours slotted into place over one eye.

This Culexus, at least, carries its Animus Speculum with him.



PAge 446

"You brought the Argo from the warp," said Kai, moving a silver piece forward.
"Are you asking me a question?"
Kai shook his head. "No. I don’t want to know. The truth only spoils things."

We know the Emperor can exert active influence over warp travel to potentially speed it up, so rendering this assistance is not impossible either, especially close to Terra. This would be another example of the Astronomican and the Emperor taking a more active role in FTL than just providing a fixed reference point.



Page 447

"Truly? Even you can’t change it?" said Kai, willingly taking the bait.
The figure shrugged, as though they discussed something trivial. "Some things need to happen, Kai. Even the most terrible things you can imagine sometimes need to happen."
...
The figure spread his hands in an empty gesture of apology. "I know some people think me omnipotent, but there is a catch with being all powerful and all knowing."
"Which is?"
"You can’t be both at the same time," said the figure with a wry smile.

I included this passage because it shows a rather interesting sort of fatalism to the Emperor, and perhaps helps to explain his attitudes in things (being kind and benevolent one moment, then doing horrid and harsh and even stupid things the next.) This passage (including the stuff I omitted not to spoil it too much) tend to cast him as something of a prisoner of his own destiny. We're so used to thinkinf of him being the huge, glowing omnipotent being we forget that he's also a man (god?) trying to do whats best for his race and steer a course through things only he can see or act to prevent. It's a lonely, and frightening place to be, and he does not get anyone to lean on, or second chances, or anything like that. There's an immense burden to that sort of activity, and it makes him seem more human when you consider that he might actually be capable of making mistakes despite having such powerful farseeing/precog.

Indeed, it seems that there is a tradeoff - he can know things, or he can do powerful things, but not both at the same time. This could suggest that his failing precog (esp pertaining to future events) stems from the fact he must use more and more of his power to sustain the Imperium (the Astronomican, to keep the webway protal closed, etc.)



Page 452

Rogal Dorn’s weapon fired with a deafening roar.
Anger touched Kai as he watched Atharva fall, the back of his head a smouldering ruin of blackened meat and skull fragments. The warrior of the Thousand Sons toppled to the temple floor, dead before he hit the ground.

Rogal Dorn's gun. What kind I dont know.

[Connor MacLeod]

Next HH novel is Deliverance lost, by Gav Thorpe. I liked it overall, because I rather like the Raven guard. Corax comes off as likeable and sympathetic, and the story deals primarily with the aftermath of the Dropsite massacre and the Raven Guard's efforts to rebuild and fight the war. Pointless Cameo by Alpha legion, and some hints about the emperor's genetic projects.

Two part update

Part 1

Page 19

More than seventy-five thousand of his Legion had been killed by the traitors, many of them by the berserk legionaries rushing towards him.
...
"I came to Isstvan with eighty thousand warriors," the primarch reminded them. "I leave with less than three thousand."

Size of the Raven Guard pre-Isstvan, and survivors of the Massacre.


Page 21

Ninety-eight days had washed away his confidence. Nearly a hundred days of staying one step ahead of his pursuers. Nearly a hundred days of being hunted by his fellow primarchs. Ninety-eight days of constant movement, of attack and retreat, of counter-assault and withdrawal.

Time Corax has been present on Isstvan V since the Drop Site Massacre.


Page 23

The Avenger, which Corax had last seen in orbit of Deliverance, was now here at Isstvan, against all expectation, a sight that lifted his spirits. Bombardment cannon turrets jutted from dorsal ridge of the ship, pointed at the world below. The weapons batteries were showing, deck upon deck of massed missile launchers and cannons bared like the fangs of a hound.

In the short story Raven's Flight the Avenger travelled from Deliverance to Isstvan to rescue Corax. Valerian spent at least 30 days at Deliverance before departing, and based on the short story 'faces of treachery' from Age of Darkness. Corax and the Raven Guard survivors spent 98 days on planet. So we're talking some 60 days passage tops, possibly less (we dont know if Valerian delayed between the thirty days and preparations for leaving and when he convinced Branne to depart.) For a 80-100K LY distance (50-60K LY for Isstvan being half a galaxy awy from Terra, and Deliverance also being 30-40K LY from Terra or so, which corresponds to the distances mentioned in Horus Heresy Betrayal and the 5th edition rulebook map.) we're probably looking at somewhere between 480,000-600,000c warp travel time for the Avenger and the Therian regiments. Again this is a convoy so arguably warships without convoys would be faster. Esp Astartes warships.


Page 25-26

"They’ve withdrawn to a hundred thousand kilometres," Branne replied. "They don’t look as if they’ll try to attack again."

upper limit on World Eaters battle barge weapons range (Against the Avenger, at least, which may be due to its stealth capbilities) and range at which reflex shields can be effective.



Page 27

Corax commanded the Avenger to make for Isstvan IV, both to confuse pursuit and with a hope of linking up with a small fleet of Therion ships Branne had despatched to that world several days earlier to misdirect the Traitor blockade of Isstvan.

'several days' between Isstvan IV and V. Maybe 1 gee for half an AU, 2 Gee for 1 AU. .003C to .0057c (900-1700 km/s)



Page 27-28

An innovation from the planet of Kiavahr, orbited by the home-moon of the Raven Guard, the reflex shield was a modified version of the void shields that protected most Imperial warships and installations.
A void shield worked by using the power of the warp itself to displace incoming projectiles and high-energy attacks. The reflex shield changed the modulation of the warpcores that powered the void shields, calibrating them to a much higher tolerance and turning them inwards, so that matter and energy generated by the ship was redirected instead; all forms of radiation emitted by the Raven Guard’s ships could be displaced, rendering them undetectable to scanning equipment.
The advantages of the reflex shield technology fitted well with Corax’s ethos of war, allowing Raven Guard ships to approach their targets unseen, striking swiftly and decisively before withdrawing. The low energy requirement meant that such stealth could be maintained almost indefinitely. There was, however, a serious downside to their use. By employing its void shield generators for the reflex shields, a Raven Guard vessel had no defence against physical attack and it took time to power the generators from one state to the other, leaving a ship vulnerable for several minutes with neither its cloaking field nor its energy defence fully operational, hence the swift exit from orbit.
To the augurs and scanning arrays of the Traitor bases and ships throughout the Isstvan system, the three Raven Guard ships seemed to melt away into the stars. To the naked eye they would have appeared to shimmer for a while, as the reflex shields engaged and shifted away the light reflecting from the ships’ surfaces, until eventually all such energy was being dampened and the vessels were rendered invisible.
One other problem with the reflex shield, one that Corax had unsuccessfully laboured to overcome for many years, was the low energy threshold for which it could compensate. Reactors could only be run at half power without generating too much energy to be displaced, in turn reducing top speed and blinkering the ship’s sensor capabilities. So it was that slowly, half-blind, the Avenger slipped away from Isstvan V, tracing an arc around the world until it came to its chosen heading.

First: Void shields described again as some sort of warp field displacing attacks.
Second: Reflex shields in a rathre (lengthy) discussion. The interesting things about them as a stealth/cloaking system is that a.) they allow engines and passive sensors to be used and they don't block visual light coming in - they're strictly one way. Things can come in but they cna't go out. This also includes visual cloaking which is highly useful.
The ability to use engines is particularly odd and interesting, since it suggests that the warp-based void shields do not transfer momentum. for them to absorb matter (which I presume means engine exhaust, since they can make changes and turns without giving off emissions) it means that the shields cannot be transferring momentum (else the net benefit of the thrust would be lost as it hits the reflex shields This isn't neccesarily a bad thing, but it can contradict with certain other depictions of voids - so obviously void shields are a category of devies that may work on related but distinct effects (some are warp based, others may be more traditional 'forcefields' - absorbing or deflecitng weapons fire and may transmit momentum.) They may work together or separately.
The limits to Reflex shields also bear commentary - the effect isn't 100% efficient (some emissions can leak through) so its more a reduction measure than 100% perfect invisibility. And this is apparently tied to reactor power - 50% power at max, and that won't neccesarily be used because reactor power increases the odds of detection even below the threshold (50% represents minimum safe detection ratings or something probably.) And it deprives them of their own voids (which means that they're far more vulnerable to injuery) The reduced engine power also means reduced manuverability, and they can't use their weapons without lowering the reflex sheilds. And they take minutes to switch from one defense to another.
The upside is, this isn't a particularily intense modificaiton to make to a ship, so its possible this, or something like it, was the basis of 'running silent' tactics as outlined in Battlefleet gothic.
The last 'interesting' detail is how the reflex shields offer no protection against 'physical' attack - this is probably more due to the 'one way' nature of things (if radiation or other stuff can pass in, so can weapons fire) but the reflex shields can absorb up to half the reactor output of the engines (which will run into many megatons or gigatons/sec at least, going by Rogue Trader RPG stats.)


Page 29

The ship did not make directly for Isstvan IV, it being a doctrine of the Legion to always approach a target by an indirect route, but instead took a circuitous, zigzagging path, using a timing and distance formula devised by Corax to maximise the damping effect of the reflex shields, enough to throw off any pursuer or sensor that might somehow detect them.
...
It would be several days before the Avenger would bring Isstvan IV within range of its reduced sensor screen..

The path to Isstvan IV wasn't straight line, which makes the slow speeds a bit more understandable. and again several days to reach Isstvan IV at reduced power. This could be at least 2 but probably less than 4.


Page 29

Including Branne’s companies, he had a little fewer than four thousand legionaries of varying ranks and specialisations.

4,000 Raven Guard.


Page 29

Two days out from Isstvan V, Corax called a council of his four commanders and explained the reorganisation and reassignments that would be made once the Legion was gathered again at Deliverance.

Like I said, at least two days to Istvaan IV.


PAge 30

The screens were dull slabs of lifeless grey at the moment, their keypads and emitters dormant while silent running protocols were in effect; every watt of energy saved might prove the difference between escape and detection.

Power conservation seems important with reflex shields running. It seems unlikely it's because of the power-intensive nature of reflex shields, but it could be because of emissions (radiating too much energy can still risk giving them away even with the reflex shields.)


Page 33

"I received their stand-to and distress broadcasts when the Traitors opened fire. It was cut off within minutes, too soon for the reflex shields to have been raised, and against such numbers that would have been the only defence."

Time to raise reflex shields.


Page 33

Even the Avenger’s internal vox frequencies had been suspended to conserve energy usage, so that a number of the fittest serfs and crew were employed as runners to convey orders and messages around the battle-barge.

Internal vox even represents a risk apparently. Or this may just be Raven Guard 'take no chances' sorts of things, but even then there has to be a SMALL chance of 40K sensors picking shit like that up even with the Reflex shields.


Page 33

"Forgive the intrusion, lord, masters, but Controller Ephrenia sends word that we are within nominal scanning range of Isstvan IV" the messenger reported.
‘Very good,’ said Corax. "Tell Ephrenia to divert twenty per cent reactor capacity from engines to the surveyor arrays. I will join her shortly."

20% of current reactor capacity (which is probably less than 10% of the max top given the 50% limit earlier) given to sensors. That means snesors not only consume a non-trivial percentage of starship power, but Given minimal power described later this represented a large percentage of the engine power they'd used to get to Isstvan. Top acceleration perhaps is.. 10x or so greater?


Page 38-39

was a risk to stay in the Isstvan system any longer than was absolutely required, and even more of a risk to come so close to Isstvan IV, where a large part of Horus’s armada was mustering.
...
The Avenger ghosted towards Isstvan IV on minimal engine power, nothing more than a smear of background radiation on the screens of the enemy fleet.
...
There were dozens of ships, perhaps even hundreds. They belonged to the Sons of Horus, the Word Bearers, the World Eaters, the Iron Warriors, and others who had, for reasons Corax would never understand, turned on the Emperor.

dozens/hundreds of ships represnets 'a large part' of Horus's Isstvaan force. Also more on the stealth mode.. they're on 'minimal engine power'



Page 41

He understood gravity, and if asked could have written out many long equations regarding the calculation of its strength and effect, but it was just one fragment of information tossed haphazardly across his mind...
...
There was quite a lot of nitrogen in the air.
How did he know that? He took another deep breath, and came to the same conclusion. He just knew it to be true, just as he also detected a higher concentration of carbon dioxide. Both of these facts hovered in his thoughts before a connection was made and a conclusion surfaced.
An artificial atmosphere.\
It was by no means a definitive conclusion, but seemed a safe assumption given the other environmental factors his body had been steadily assessing since in the few moments since he had awoken in this dark place.
There was definitely a generator close by; he could sense the electromagnetic disturbance emitted from its coils.
The source of the light strobed at a particular frequency that resonated with the generator coils. That was how he knew the light was electrically generated, which was confirmed by his analysis of the spectrum of light falling onto his enhanced retinas.

The mind of a Primarch (or rather Corax.) gives some insight into their mental processes and sensory capabilities.


Page 42

He knew seven thousand, six hundred and forty-one languages, dialects, argots and cants from across the Old Empire.

Number of Languages Corax speaks.


PAge 45

"A little background echo on the Therion frequencies, but nothing less than five days old"

no more than 5 days have passed since the resuce attempt in Istvaan V (as outlined in Age of Darkness) That means no more than 2-3 days for the Istvaan force AND the Avenger to do all that.


Page 45

"That makes it thirty-eight vessels detected in proximity to Isstvan IV."

A more accurate estimate on traitor ship numbers near Isstvan IV.


PAge 46

"‘Masking is at ninety-nine point three per cent, lord."

Reflex shields have an efficiency rating, again they aren't perfectly efficient. They cna reduce things greatly but not totally. IT gives a bit of an idea about. It might even hint at their heat dissipation efficiencies, if any such technologies were related to stealth (unsubstantiated, but not impossible)


Page 46

"A little more speed will serve us better than complete masking. When we are two hundred thousand kilometres from the enemy, increase speed by twenty per cent. We should be at the translation point in seven days."

7 Days to the warp point over an unknown distance, speed 20% faster. Assuming the earlier 900-1700 kps I estimated we're talking btween 540,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 km for the jump point from Isstvan V.


Page 59

With a hiss of disengaging cables and crackle of detaching power conduits, his backpack was lifted from his armour, turned one hundred and eighty degrees and plugged into a recharging port at the back of the alcove, linked to the Alpha’s energy grid.

Alpha Legion power armour (Primarch armour really) operating off some sort of rechargable backpack power source. Why they aren't using a reactor, I dont know. Stealth purpsoes maybe.


Page 63

TheAvengerwas only two days from reaching translation point, far enough away from the gravitic pull of Isstvan’s star to make a safe warp jump. For the last three days the net thrown up by the traitor ships had been closing in, but this was the closest they had come, only a few hundred thousand kilometres away.

time from jump point, distance of Chaos ships and gravity messing with warp jumps.


Page 63-64

"We will have to make a dash for the translation point. Shut down all auxiliary systems, impose blacklight protocols, divert power savings to the engines."
...
" Ensure all support systems are at minimal output. Pass the word to Solaro and Aloni to enforce the blacklight protocols." The primarch raised his voice. "I want full energy balance in ten minutes, no later."
...
"Save three per cent of energy output for manoeuvring, just in case,’ said Corax. ‘All personnel to attend to battle stations.’
"Weapons, Lord Corax?" asked Ephrenia. Her expression was as calm as ever, but the primarch detected the slightest hint of tension in her voice. "Shall we reserve any output for the weapons batteries?"
"No," replied the primarch after a moment’s thought. "We won’t be able to fight our way out of this one if we are discovered."
"And the void shield transformers, Lord Corax? Shall I have them running on standby?"

"No," Corax said. "All power to reflex shields and engines, nothing else. If they hit us, it will be too late anyway."

Taking the shield transformers offline would add almost four minutes to the time required for the reflex shields to revert to defensive void shields; extra minutes during which untold damage might be incurred by the Avenger.

Energy allocation setups for the ship under reflex shields... implies that voids and weapons can consume a useful fraction of overall engine power. Also taking voids off completely adds 'minutes' to restoring and powering them up. Manuvering thrusters (at reduced output) are 3%, suggesting manuvering engine power is within 1-2 orders of magnitude of max main engine power.


Page 64-65

"Picket ships are firing torpedoes, wide dispersal."
...
"Crossing pattern," Ephrenia replied. "Even at our increased speed they will pass ahead of us."
...
They were two hundred and fifty thousand kilometres from the Traitor picket. Seven more vessels had been picked up by the low-band sensor screen, creating three layers of defence between the battle-barge and the safe translation point. If there was even a momentary blip in the reflex shields, or one of the torpedoes caught the Avenger in its blast, the primarch’s ship would quickly find itself surrounded by enemies.

Torpedo ranges of 300,000-250,000 km away or so (a few hundred thousand km) Torpedoes are implied to cross that distance in a fairly short period of time - implying at least a torpedo velocit yo ftens (probably hundreds of km/s - its doubtful it took days to strike (They let off multiple salvos in that time easily - minutes is more likely).


Page 65

Blacklight protocols meant the complete shutdown of all non-essential systems. One by one, life support, lighting, heating and other environmental systems powered down to their minimum levels; just enough for the human crew to survive. Even the artificial gravity was lessened to one-half Terran normal, freeing up valuable power for the plasma drives.

Blacklight protocol. Interesting the gravity reduces, but given the 'half max' power issue not surprising.


Page 66

"You know what blacklight means," continued Aloni. "Power to minimal. Do you realise what kind of energy signature one and a half thousand power armoured legionaries are going to give off? Everybody pay attention! Everything is to be set to minimum output, lowest cycle. Rebreathing, moisture recycling, locomotion. Everything. No communications, no external address, no movement."

Again this could be Raven Guard paranoia/caution, or it may actually suggest that sensors could pick up on these sorts of things.


Page 67

His face was still sore from the grafting surgery, particularly where the implanted flesh of his new face met his original skin at the base of his neck and around his throat. The bone beneath had been remoulded and ached, while tendons and muscles that had been shortened or lengthened felt raw beneath his stolen skin.
...
And the memories lurked inside his mind too. He knew a little about the legionary whose persona he had taken. He had taken in the meat of the fallen Raven Guard, allowing his omophagea to dissect and absorb the information about his prey. Bolstered by the abilities of the Librarians – abilities forbidden by the Decree at Nikaea but still widely practised by the Alpha Legion – he had gathered what fragments he could of the dead legionary’s life.

Alpha Legion surgical and psychic procedures for infiltration.


Page 68

All of that seemed to be poised on the verge of pointlessness now, as he sat immobile over a reactor that would turn into a small star the moment it was breached, aboard a warship ghosting through an enemy fleet protected by nothing more than a few metres of bonded plasteel and adamantium. One lucky hit and he would be incinerated, along with the rest of those aboard the Avenger

Volatile reactors and hull thickness. I wonder if 'few metres' is an estimate, or it reflects that Raven Guard ships use thinner hulls/armour, perhaps to save on mass.


Page 69

It would be such a pointless way to die, he thought, as the sound of a detonation echoed dully through the hull.

"Nova cannon shell," reported Ephrenia. "Six thousand kilometres, starboard bow."

Corax did not react immediately. Two cruisers had joined the destroyers, the growing enemy flotilla saturating the intervening gulf of space with torpedoes, missiles and plasma blasts in an attempt to catch the Avenger in a blanket of fire.

Nova cannon shell. Has enough effect (blaast) to strike the ship noticably (but not move it) but no damage. Also the flotills are using other weapons (missiles and plasma weapons - eg broadside weapons) as well as torpedoes.


Page 69-70

"Decline by fifty thousand metres, three degrees starboard."
"Navigational shields absorbing plasma residuals and debris." announced another crewman. "Nearing reflex shield tolerance levels."
Corax gritted his teeth. The low-power navigational shields were usually in place to ward away micro-asteroids and other space-borne debris, but now the nova cannon blast was swamping them with more than they were intended to handle. If he increased power to prevent any of the shockwave reaching the Avenger, the energy spike would reveal their position.

50 km drop within minutes.. less than an hour (as we learn later) Assuming between 120-1800 seconds we'd be talking roughly single/double digit gees.
Also the Nav shields seem to be tied into the reflex/void shields. Given my earlier comments about reflex shields sucking up engine outputs, that tells you something about the energy absorbed from the nova cannon by the reflex shields (again megatons to gigatons and that's a fraction of the total yield from god knows how many kilometres off.) It also demonstrates that the reflex shields (like voids) have 'limits', which apaprently ties into the efficiency.


Page 70

It was not an eventuality Corax had expected – the nova cannon was still considered highly experimental by most Imperial forces, and few commanders would allow one to be mounted on their vessel.
..
"Just detecting a third line-class ship, Lord Corax," the strategium controller replied. "Probably a grand cruiser. Approaching from almost directly astern, broadcasting Iron Warriors identifiers"

Grand Cruisers are 'third line' vessels even in the Heresy era, and nova cannons are a new innovation at this point.


Page 70-71

"Detecting another nova cannon launch," warned Ephrenia.
..
There was no way a warning could be given to the crew without giving away the battle-barge’s position, and if the nova cannon scored an unlikely direct hit, no amount of bracing and preparation would save lives.

...
"Passing to port, fifteen thousand kilometres and increasing, Lord Corax," Ephrenia said, smiling slightly and relaxing her grip. "Detonation detected. Seventy thousand kilometres away."

~70,000 km in seconds. gives an approximate idea of nova cannon yields. Also note that a direct hit would destroy the Avenger.


Page 71

It seemed likely the Iron Warriors were using a firing formula to calculate their target points. Three or four more detonations would allow Corax to calculate the formula in retrospect and take appropriate action to decrease the odds of another close call.

Corax's predictive/mathematical abilities.


Page 71

The Avenger continued on, dipping and rising, zigzagging its way towards the translation point, cutting an elusive path through the net of Traitor ships. At times Corax headed directly towards the enemy, passing within ten thousand kilometres of battle cruisers and frigates, trusting the reflex shields to mask any emission that would betray their presence.

Again multiple evasions. Also able to get within 10K km of the enemy fleet without being detected whislt under blacklight and reflex shields.


Page 71-72

They were less than half a day from the translation point. It was tempting to make the warp jump now and take the risk of gravimetric interference, but he stayed patient.
There had been some close calls: torpedoes unleashing their warheads a few thousand kilometres from the Avenger, last moment changes in direction to avoid enemy scans, nova cannon detonations that had pushed the navigational shields to the limit, random reactor spikes that had brought the battle-barge to a virtual halt to compensate for the energy flare-ups.

Half a day from the warp point. At the aforementioned speeds we're talking 40-80 million km or so. Gravity still makes warp jumps risky out at this distance in this system
Also torpedoes unleashing their 'warheads' thousands of km form the Avenger. Like in most Gav Thorpe novels, they're MIRVs.


Page 76

All it would take was one warhead to find the Avenger and they would all be killed. Valerius was certain of it; the reflex shields provided no defence against a dozen megatonnes of atomic destruction. The walls vibrated with the shockwaves of distant detonations – thousands of kilometres away, yet all too close for the praefector’s liking.

12 megaton 'atomic' warheads, and it would 'kill' everyone on the ship. Conservatively speaking this means the ship is destroyed, but for all we know it simply means that it hits the bridge and destroys the crew. There's also the nature of the warhead to consider. Whether thats RL atomic or made up 40K atomics (which can be much weirder) we don't know, although the shockwaves would bea giveaway. Are they omnidirectional, or shaped (40K uses both)? The question is also what the warheads are. They could be missiles or 'plasma' (both weapons mentioned earlier) as well as the MIRV torpedoes. Indeed based on the prior quote warheads would refer to the mIRV torps. It COULD be a nova cannon shell, but then you would think they would call it a shell (which they do repeatedly) rather than a warhead.
There is also the not-so-minor fact that, as a rule, 40K starships tend to be as 'variable' as everything else. The nature of defenses could be up to thick armour, magic forcefields, or a combination of both. If the Avenger normalyl relies on magic forcefields (powerfield or other structural reinforcement as well as voids, for example) then then with the stealth measures down they'd be MUCH more vulnerable.
Now that said, what kind of MIRV is up for debate. The short story preceding this one mentioned ones with 'hundreds'. Other sources (like BFg, etc.) have mentioned anything from dozens to just a mere half dozen. So we could figure something like 70 MT torpedoes to upwards of 400x12 4.8 gigaton torpedo warheads.
There's also the fact he considers detonations 'thousands of kilometres' away to be too close (nevermind again the shockwaves) cannot be discounted either, since 'real' nukes would not scratch the paint of a normal warship from much beyond a kilometre away either.


Page 76

The bombardment had started less than half an hour ago. He had been sent from the strategium by Corax as the first nova cannon shells had erupted, far from the battle-barge yet too close for comfort. As he had hurried down the corridors and descended seemingly endless stairwells, he had felt the ship vibrating beneath his tread, the metal of the handrails quivering under his fingers.

Half hour bobmardment, with multiple shell strikes. Not only does it show another case where nova cannon load times are much shorter than half an hour, but it puts another cap on the timeframe for the 50 km course change I guesstimated at earlier.

Page 76

He was Imperial Army, a Therion, and he was used to fighting an enemy he could see, his life entrusted to power fields or tank armour or the metres-thick walls of a bunker. He had endured artillery duels and orbital attacks...

The Imperial army makes use of powerfield defenses, as well as 'metres thick' bunker walls.


Page 78

That was a little too close." remarked Branne as a nova cannon shell blossomed into nuclear life a few thousand kilometres off the starboard bow.
"Too close is a hit," replied Agapito. "Anything we survive is far enough away for me."

Nova cannon detonation 'several thousand km' away is considered 'too close'. also a 'nuclear' detonation, but also described as a shell rather than a warhead.. We dont quite know the effects, but we know that starships can survive in and close to the corona of stars, meaning that megawatts per square metre at least. Going by that the nova cannon shell (if its really 'nuclear' and releasing radiation) is somewhere in the double or triple digit gigatons (depending on the exact distance and the wattage per square meter. I figured somewhere around 10 MW per square meter) That's not far off from estimated masses and velocities for the KE of the round from the Rogue Trader RPG or Warriors of Ultramar.


Page 80-81

"Almost on top of us, two thousand kilometres to port."
...
"Weapons batteries are powering up. Void shields at full potential."

"Mask energy signature and get me a firm location. Brace for impact."
...
On the screen, the enemy battle-barge came into view, dangerously close, black against the distant pale glimmer of Isstvan’s star. Moments later the space around the vessel swirled with power, a writhing rainbow of energy engulfing the ship from stem to stern.
...
The Raven Guard ship disappeared, swallowed by the warp translation point it had opened. The warp hole roiled wider and wider, washing over the Valediction. Danask felt the flow of warp energy moving through him, a pressure inside his head accompanied by a violent lurching of the cruiser.

"We’re caught in her wake."

Word Bearer vessel cauhg tin wake of warp translation from 2000 km off. Shows one fo the dangers of close proximity to a starship, and echoes cases like the Dominus Astra detonating its warp drives.



Page 82

A detached part of his brain marvelled at what had happened. To engage warp engines close enough to drag the Valediction into the immaterium yet far enough away not to destroy the cruiser was an incredibly difficult thing to do. He wondered what manner of man could do such a thing.

Again they got sucked into the warp, to be destroyed. That shows how dangerous warp translations are and probably a good reason why they dont happen close to planets even if closer emergence is possible.


Page 83

As safe as the warp could ever be, though the Avenger’s Navigators had complained about a roiling tempest as soon as they had translated. The Astronomican, the light that guided them through the immaterial aether, was all but obscured by storms of immense proportions.

Warp conditions. For the most part, they're hardly ideal for fast travel.


Page 85

"Only months ago ago we still unleashed our fury in the name of Enlightenment. We brought war to the galaxy in the name of the Imperial Truth. Those days have finished. The Great Crusade has been brought to an end by the treachery of those we now call foes."

Months passing since horus' betrayal and the Drop site massacre. Tens or hundreds of thousands of c to go halfway across the galaxy at least. 60-70 thousand c at low end.


Page 88

Binalt and his fellow Techmarines devised a way to reinforce the armour they had created, using the molecular bonding studs usually employed for affixing armour and ablative plates to Rhinos and Predators. This gave the suits a particular appearance, the shoulder guards sealed with rows of large rivets that looked like nodules or blisters.

Molecular bonding studs - the stuff that explains the 'riveted' appearance of alot of Imperial tech - including some battleships I imagine. Dunno how the magic works, but it evidently does (EG MArs class hull taking a hit from an Ork shell that makes it fly three metres back.)


Page 89

He had secured himself a small space between two of the starboard gun towers, a noisy little chamber that reverberated with the clank of the auto-loaders and drummed with the feet of the crew as they performed their gun drills, ever ready for battle.

gun deck autoloaders of some kind.


Page 90

. TheAvengerhad translated from Isstvan seventy days ago and the warp storms were making progress slow.

70 days so far into their trip to Terra.. the warp storms are slowing it down . Again hardly ideal travel conditions.



Page 92-93

The squad had paired off, armed only with their monomolecular-edged combat blades.
..
....thrusting and parrying, trying to find the weak points in each other’s armour, probing for the flexible joint seals, reinforced eye lenses and the gaps between armour plates.

Mono-edged Astartes combat blades. and yet even with 'magically shapr knives' they still need to look for weak points to guarantee penetration against Power armor.


Page 95

They stood at long trestle tables – chairs were another scarce commodity on board – and diligently ate from platters laden with synthetic meat and dry soybread. The fare was tasteless, but rich in the proteins and carbohydrates the legionaries needed to sustain themselves. Nutrient supplements were imbibed in the form of fortified water drunk straight from crude jugs turned out by the serfs in the lower deck workshops.
...
"The Avenger was stocked for a full three-year tour, more than enough for our current needs."

Space Marine shipboard fare. Battle barge carries 3 year supply, which gives a rough idea of Raven Guard operational durations, at least.


Page 96

"The Navigators are reporting the same difficulties as before," added Branne. "It’ll be at least another forty days until we reach the Sol system. They have requested that we make another realspace drop to confirm our location."
"They are guessing," said Corax, sighing. "The rising warp storms almost blot out the Astronomican. We’ve translated three times already, and every time we have been at least five light years off course."

More on the difficulties of Warp navigation to Terra. They've made 3 separate warp jumps - gotten off course each time, and need at least another one it seems. Not only is travel slower due to the warp turbulence, but the accuracy of the jumps is hampered, which only further slows them down. So far they're projecting a 110 days to reach Sol at least. Assuming a 50-60 thousand LY travel (Isstvan stated multiple times in the series to be halfway across the galaxy from TErra, such as in Outcast Dead) - 165,000-200,000c for a straight line course, which it of course isn't.


Page 97

"The warp, the Navigators, the astropaths and even the Emperor are linked together. They derive their powers from its energy, and so the storm cover might shield the Emperor’s far-seeing gaze as much as it blinds the Navigators to the route to Terra."

Corax comments on the internconnected 'network' of the Astronomican, warp, Astropaths and Navigators.. apparently there's a hwole sort of active and passive interplay betwene all elements (and the Emperor of course) which facilitates a constant (But not neccesarily instantaneous) flow of information across the galaxy. As well as the Emperor (as well as navigators, astorpaths, etc.) having 'sight' across the galaxy through one way or another. Probably one of those useful traits that helped keep the Pre-Heresy Imperium so coherent. Once he's been stuck in the Golden Toilet, communicating with the rest of the Imperium became exponentially harder.


Page 104

One hundred and thirty-three days after departing from Isstvan, theAvengerfinally reached the Sol system, heart of the Imperium, birthplace of mankind.

Actual time to reach Terra. again asusming 50-60K LY we're talking between 137,000-165,000c. Which is not terribly fast by Imperium standards, for all the wapr storms. But with all the warp storm activity flaring up this is actually damn impressive.


Page 104

The sensor reports were also flooding in, bringing with them a picture of a star system in considerable turmoil. Dozens of warships, haulers and transports were moving back and forth from the Lunar bases and Terra, navigating their way through layer after layer of minefields, orbital defence platforms and out-system heavy monitors. More still were arriving; there was not an hour that passed without at least two or three ships breaking from warp.

Activity around terra. The defenses are interesting in their own way, although the 'hourly' arrival of ships is telling in its own way (several ships per hour works out to a good 15-25K ships per year.)


Page 105

Word was spreading across the Imperium. The warp storms that had so hampered the Raven Guard on their journey also disrupted astrotelepathic communication. Even in the best of conditions it took many weeks, sometimes several months, for messages to be relayed from the heart of the Imperium to its outer reaches. Add to this the violence of the warp tempest and it could still be many months before some systems were even aware of the Warmaster’s treachery.

Astropathic activity. To send a message from Terra to the fringes in weeks (again call it 50-60K LY or so) in several weeks or several months is 200-250,000c at the worst, to 1-1.5 million c. Hundreds of thousands to millions of c message propogation times, and this too is under far from ideal conditions (the warp storms) meaning that in normal conditions the transit time should be considerably faster. Bear in midn this can depend on the method the signal is sent - as many sources (6th edition rules, Rogue Trader, etc.) indicate, tehre are different ways of sending astropathic signals. Point to point astropathic relay, for example, is slower but also more reliable.


PAge 105

Dozens of ships would become hundreds, thousands perhaps. For the moment Horus had the element of surprise, but the behemoth that was the Imperium was being roused to confront this new threat. The resources of the Emperor were vast, but ponderous; but once they had achieved a critical momentum they would be unstoppable

Usual Imperial response. The one thing I wonder at, is he talking about resources called to Terra?


Page 105

...the Raven Guard found themselves being insistently hailed by theWrathful Vanguard, a strike cruiser of the Imperial Fists Legion. Captain Noriz was threatening all manner of violence if they did not identify themselves.
...
There was a delay before the Imperial Fists communication returned. Even with audio-only exchanges, there was a noticeable time lag between message and response, indicating that theWrathful Vanguardwas several hundred thousand kilometres away.
"You are not authorised to proceed. Power down your shields and prepare to receive a boarding party. Failure to comply will be treated as an act of aggression and you will be destroyed."
...
"All non-sanctioned vessels are to be inspected. If you have not noticed, one legionary’s word to another doesn’t count for much anymore. We will board and if you refuse, your vessel will be destroyed.’"

Implied attack range of strike cruiser (weapons) as being a few hundred thousand km against a battle barge. Woudl mesh with other sources (Execution Hour, Nightbringer, etc.)


Page 113

How’s it possible he ages five times faster than any other folk?

Corax aged 5x faster than a normal person


Pgae 119

The journey from the translation point to Terra would take eleven days..

11 day transit time across the system. We dont know Terra's position relative to the battle barge's emergence point, or the exact emergence point from the novel. We do know from 'Nemesis' and 'Flight of the Eisenstein' that ships tended to emerge from the warp in or around the Kuiper belt, and in either case they seem to be far outside pluto's orbit. CAll it 40-50 AU. For 40 AU its 4.2% of c max velocity and an average accel od 2.7 gees. 3.4 gees and 5.3% of c at 50 AU. That also doesn't factor in the fact there are probably delays and such due to all the security, and it may not even be a max-power burn.


Page 122

Jaghatai Khan and his White Scars were presumably en route to Terra, having been recalled from Chondax by Dorn himself, but no other communication had been received from them for some time. The First Legion, the Dark Angels under Lion El’Jonson, had not been heard from and were likely unaware of the recent treachery of Horus. Leman Russ and his Space Wolves were equally incommunicado, having been despatched by the Emperor to deal with the problem of the Thousand Sons and their continuing sorceries many months before. The Ultramarines, largest of the Legions, had been sent to the opposite side of the galaxy by Horus prior to the massacre, and were unlikely to be able to intervene any time soon.

Status of the other Legions and such. If we knew some more data (perhaps in future novels) this could become useful


Page 123

The preparations for Terra’s defence became more evident as theAvengermoved in-system towards Terra. The Sol battlefleet, the largest single armada in the Imperium, was gathering in strength. Dozens of warships blockaded Mars, while hundreds of other vessels took station in orbital positions over the other planets, their sensors turned outwards in readiness for the arrival of Horus’s fleet.
...
As they neared their destination, the Raven Guard encountered increasing numbers of security screens. Warship patrols hailed them frequently, while massive star forts locked their guns upon the arriving vessel, keeping watch until it had passed out of range. Passing further and further into the heart of the Sol system, theAvengerwas subjected to constant scrutiny, though its passage was never barred outright.

More on Terra's defenses.


PAge 128-129

It seemed to stretch on and on, a gilded construction shaped like an eagle with outstretched wings, bedecked with fortified gun towers, lance batteries, missile tubes and bombardment cannons. So vast was the orbiting station, its faint shadow could be seen on the cloud layer wreathing Terra. The flicker of void shields surrounded the immense floating edifice, dappling the gold of its heavily-buttressed superstructure with purple and red. Smaller ships – some of them mighty battleships in their own right – were dwarfed by its presence, its turret-encrusted docks large enough for cruisers several kilometres long.
..
Of more interest to the Alpha Legionnaire was a golden-hulled cruiser rising out of the dock neighbouring the Avenger. Though he was not sure, it looked like a vessel belonging to the Legio Custodes, the Emperor’s elite protectors

Phalanx, and aa Custodes ship. also crusiers 'several kilometres long.'



Page 130

He had made dozens of combat drops during his long years of service, but seeing the immense barrels of the orbital defence cannons and the flicker of power fields, he knew that whichever Legion ultimately had the task of securing Lion’s Gate would suffer heavy casualtie
..
His eye caught the telltale capacitors and conduits of power field generators, while he calculated the zones of fire of the smaller rings of protective pillboxes and automated lascannon mounts.

Palace gate defenses.


Page 131

In height and size, they were the match of the Legiones Astartes, if not bigger, though Corax was taller still. Every warrior of the Custodian Guard was armoured uniquely, their heavy gorgets decorated with eagle devices, winged skulls and other icons, their high, conical helms topped with flowing scarlet crests. Clusters of studded red leather pteruges hung from their belts and high shoulder guards, tipped with pointed gold weights, and their wide greaves and heavy vambraces were chased with intricate designs that matched the rest of their armour. They held guardian spears with red power field-clad blades held across their chests, carried behind tall shields emblazoned with designs of the Imperial aquila and laurel-crowned skulls

Custodians.


PAge 135-136

"Forgive my vagueness, but I am not at liberty to discuss the Emperor’s plans, nor am I in a position to fully comprehend them. It would be indiscreet, a betrayal of my position as regent, if I were to furnish you with information that the Emperor has not chosen fit to share with you himself."
What Malcador was saying unsettled Corax greatly. Ever since his return to Terra after the victory at Ullanor, the Emperor had shrouded himself in secrets, when once he had walked freely amongst his sons and shared his plans and visions. Malcador spoke with such a reverent tone that Corax was left in no doubt that the Emperor’s current campaign was indeed very important, but the Sigillite’s assurances that it was more worthy of attention than Horus’s treachery rang hollow. The Imperium, the spreading of Enlightenment, had been the Emperor’s great scheme, and now it was all for nothing. Surely he would have to emerge from his cloistered endeavours to lead those still loyal to him?

Again we see some of the hypocrisy in the Emperor's plans and how it lead to the current fiasco. He champion sa supposed cause of enlightenment and truth, yet it is a 'Truth' promulgated as a fanatical ideology by skilled rhetorical manipulators (the Iterators) and backed up by naked military aggression and not so subtle intimidation (The Space Marines). And yet the Emperor hides a great many secrets about a great many things - from his astartes, from his advisors and assistants, even from his own genetic sons. And what he does tell them is sufficiently vague to cause doubt (or is at most half truths.) Which is what precisely sets the stage that enabled Chaos to ensnare the Word Bearers, and then fro both of them to snare Horus. The half truths proved to be the anchor that enabled Chaos to turn them all.



PAge 136-137

The scale of the endeavour was vast, larger than anything Corax had witnessed before, and he had seen the rebuilding of worlds shattered by his Legion.

The mountains themselves were being shaped into great bastions, carved by explosive charges and monolithic machines into buttresses and keeps, curtain walls and towers. The shadows of the ornithopters flitted over many-tracked cargo haulers in convoys kilometres long, bringing loads of ferrocrete and adamantium, ceramite and thermaglas, plasteel and diamatite. With them came cranes with booms half a kilometre long, and shovel-fronted earth movers the size of tenement blocks.

Snaking multi-compartment crawlers edged along newly laid roadways, their cargo more workers to join the hundreds of thousands already labouring on the upper slopes.
...
Peaks were being toppled, the material thus created used to erect walls closing off the passes and valleys between. Huge lifters powered by dozens of rotors and thrusters hovered over the vales, carrying generators and building-sized capacitors to new defence laser silos. The barrels of these weapons were transported on flat-beds a hundred metres long, over bridges and through tunnels carved from naked rock.

The construction on tErra and its comparison to rbuilding worlds. Imagine how much could be created if this could be turned to other nonmilitar puproses!


Page 137-138

Peaks were being toppled, the material thus created used to erect walls closing off the passes and valleys between. Huge lifters powered by dozens of rotors and thrusters hovered over the vales, carrying generators and building-sized capacitors to new defence laser silos. The barrels of these weapons were transported on flat-beds a hundred metres long, over bridges and through tunnels carved from naked rock.
...
One of the floating sky platforms had been brought down to dock, a thirty kilometre-wide city jutting from the side of the mountain like a balcony, resting on a maze of piles and girders stretched between two summits

Wind farms and a 'sky platform'. Also notice the size of the defense lasers.. 100m barrels.. they must be effing huge.


Page 146
[qutoe] He was a commander, not a governor, and if he had no more battles to fight, he could have happily spent his remaining years, however many hundreds or perhaps thousands that might be, in comfortable retirement; perhaps compiling a treatise on the political lessons he had learned from his mentors on Lycaeus.[/quote]
Corax contemplates his 'retirement.' funny thing is he doesnt think he's immortal, despite hints that the AStartes might be.


Page 150

"It will only take a few minutes to get there."

They said nothing further to each other as the elevator continued to descend, dropping several kilometres into the heart of Terra. Eventually the conveyance slowed and Corax estimated that they were some distance below sea level.

A few minutes to cover at least a few km.


Page 151-152

On the left door, the woman held a babe in the crook of one arm and a sword in her hand, her hair flowing like a waterfall, mingling with a billowing dress that in turn merged with the long grass at her feet. On the right, the man, dressed in a worker’s overalls, a chain with the crossed lightning bolt of Unification hanging around his neck, had a wrench in one hand and a pistol in the other, looking to the skies. Between them burned a stylised star, surrounded by other pinpricks in the sky.
Ornate scrollwork held a caption across the heavens, in one of the Terran languages of old. Corax had not been much of a scholar and had studied little of pre-Imperial Terran culture, unlike many of his brothers. He had felt little interest in the past, preferring to concentrate his thoughts and actions on the proper shaping of the future. Despite that, he could instinctively decipher the emblazoned message, crudely translating it as "People of Earth, Together."
...
Given the name of the place, Corax had expected to see lines of battle honours and banners, displays of armour and weapons lining the walls. Instead there were many glass cabinets varying from those small enough to fit in Corax’s palm to some the size of battle tanks, arranged in rows across the hall, each containing an object from across the galaxy and dating back centuries, millennia, tens of millennia.
..
Enclosed within was a small circuit board, its function unknown. On the stand below, a small steel plate etched with plain text revealed its importance:
Navigational Circuit from the first warp-capable starship
Corax stepped back in surprise. Intrigued, he turned around and found himself looking at the skeletal form of a wheeled vehicle, barely large enough for a normal man to sit inside. Its balloon tyres made up the greater part of its bulk. Corax stepped up to examine the title plate.
Titan Rover

I like this scene both for its optimism and for one of those rare cases in 40K where the 'galaxy is nothing but war' shit can be ignored in favor of something more upbeat and inspiring. For all his secrecy and general dickishness, the Emperor could find the right sorts of things to cherish. He is among all other things a historian. If he could only trust more..

[Connor MacLeod]

Part 2

Page 153

"What manner of victories are celebrated?"
"The most important kind," said the Sigillite, joining Corax beside the shattered bowl. He pointed with a skeletal finger at the contents of the cabinet. "One of the first pieces of pottery ever made by human hand. Hundreds of thousands of years old."
"It doesn’t seem like much of an achievement, compared to some of the things in here," said Corax. "It’s so simple, a child could make it."
"And yet perhaps one of the most important advances in our entire history, Corax," said Malcador. "Without this bowl, without the mind that devised it and the hands that shaped it, the rest of the hall would be empty. We have come a long, long way since one of our ancestors noticed a certain type of mud hardening in the sun and decided to make something, but without a first step, no journey is ever begun."
"All of these are technological achievements? First steps into new epochs of human history?’
"Most are technological or scientific, a few are cultural,"

Again a bit of those scenes that are rare but quite good in 40K.



Page 157

"The Wolves of Fenris were over-zealous. They have destroyed Prospero and wiped out the Thousand Sons."

"What would you expect, unleashing the Wolf King like that?"

I agree with Corax, and we've had it hammerd home again and again that the Wolves are, at heart, destroyers and ravagers. Psychological terror weapons and executioners of the most extreme kind, even of their own brothers. It gets back to that little 'hypocrisy' thing again.


Page 162

The Emperor reached out a hand and Corax felt hot fingers upon his brow. Energy flowed through the primarch, knitting his shattered bones, stemming his pouring blood, healing wounded muscles and organs. The primarch gasped, filled with love and adoration.

The Emperor heals Corax of his injuire.s This is another scene - meeting of Primarch and Emperor, that I like.. and it does make the Emperor more of a sympathetic character.


Page 163

"Is this your true face?" asked Corax.

"I have no such thing," replied the Emperor. "I have worn a million faces over the millennia, according to need or whim."
"I remember this one," said Corax, dimly recalling a dream he had glimpsed when overcome by his wounds in the crashing Thunderhawk. "This was how you appeared to me when I was born within my pod."
"Yes, it is strange that you should remember that."

another interetsing passage since its a hint at his nature. On one hand it might suggest he simply is either very good at shapechanging or illusion, but on another it might suggest his true nature/form is something other than human.. not alien.. just... evolved perhaps. He is the most powerful psyker ever, which can mean the rules pertaning to normal humans, evne psychic ones, cease applying to him. Indeed in alot of ways he has more in common with daemons or daemon princes than actual humans.
The first thing that crossed my mind when Ir ead this was parallels with the Vorlons, and the whole 'people see what they were taught/conditioned to see' thing



Page 164

For an eternity Corax was overwhelmed by the mind of the Emperor. An existence that had spanned more than thirty millennia tried to crowd into the primarch’s thoughts, sending pain searing through him.

Estimaed age of the Emperor. Off by at least 10K I think


Page 164-165

There was still much to do. The physical bodies were being nourished, their superhuman forms each developing over the genetic matrix inlaid inside each chamber. They were only empty shells though, and the greatest part of the project was yet to come. Their nascent brains were ripe for the template integration.
Even as he had these thoughts, Corax did not understand them. More arcane and technical phrases came to him, their meaning lost in the translation to his mind. Yet for all their complexity, the primarch felt on the verge of recognition.
Like his brothers, Corax’s intellect was as enhanced as his body and his brain was a vast repository of knowledge, both military and technical. There was something new in there as well, placed at the same time as the memories. In his mind’s eye he saw genetic splicing and hybridisation calculations, and understood now that the Mendelian eukaryotic genesis formula was the first ever successfully cloned human gene-code.
He understood the mechanics behind his own creation and marvelled at the ingenuity of the mind that had conceived of them. There were areas that were left blank though, intentionally he assumed. Details of the parts of the Emperor’s own genetic strand that were employed in the creation of the primarchs. Obviously the Emperor did not trust Corax that much.

This is, I think a memory of the Primarch creation. What really strikes me is the.. frankenstein like nature of it.. each part is treated as some separate 'component'.. like some biomechanical machine.. you plug in a brain.. rather than grow it. Again this echoes the Space Marines too, the way they get organs implanted rather than grown in.


PAge 165

"You have given me the secrets of the primarch project?" said Corax, his voice a whisper of amazement.

"The parts that were relevant to the creation of the Legions, yes."

Again the AStartes/Primarch parallels.


Page 166

"A portal into the warp, of sorts,"[WEbway] said the Emperor. "This is my great endeavour. Beyond the veil of reality, the forces of the Imperium wage war with a foe just as deadly as the Legions of Horus. Daemons."
Corax knew the word, but did not understand why the Emperor had used it.
"Daemons?" said Corax. "Insubstantial creatures of nightmare? I thought they were a fiction."

"No, in truth they do exist," said the Emperor. "The warp, the other-realm we use to travel, is their home, their world. Horus’s treachery is greater than you imagine. He has aligned himself to the powers of the warp, the so-called “Gods of Chaos”. The daemons are now his allies and they seek to breach the Imperial Palace from within. My warriors fight to hold back the incursion, lest Terra be overrun with a tide of Chaos."

The Emperor talks about the webway and Chaos. You have to wonder why he's telling it now, when he could have and should have revealed this to the Primarcsh before. Would it not have averted a great many problems? although given Emo-Lorgar, maybe not. would have spared Horus at least, methinks.


Page 167

"I not only give you the gift of these memories and this technology, I place upon you the burden of its protection. You will have the power to create armies as I once did, and that in itself would be reason enough to jealously guard its existence. More than that, the gene-store contains the means to destroy what it created. That which I bound within the fibre of every Space Marine can be undone, unravelling their strength and purpose at a stroke."
...
"Swear to me that should our enemies learn of its existence, you will destroy it, and everything created by it. It is too dangerous to keep if there is even the possibility that Horus might take it. With its power he could unleash devastation even greater than you can imagine, and raise up such a force that no defence Rogal might build could withstand it. "

The Empeor seems to consider cloning Astartes to be a great danger. In a way it makes me suspect he may have deliberately engineered safeguards into the AStartes to make quick and easy replication harder, as well as to control their expansions and their numbers. Given the individual superiority they have, this may actually make some sense. Billions or Trillions of space Marines would be powerful, but also hard to control and potentially backfire.


Page 173

Amongst a populace that contained vat-grown slaves, half-machine servitors and the augmetically-enchanced, Omegon’s size would not be worthy of remark

Servitors and augmetic and even vat grown 'workers' seem to be able to reach Astartes sizes. Ogryn stock? Or maybe more of those migou?


Page 175

He turned and looked out of the metres-thick plasglass at the ship tethered alongside the viewing gallery.

Another metres-thick window out in space


Page 176

His new command, it was nothing more than a messenger cutter, smaller than a destroyer, but still large enough to boast a warp-capable engine.
...
"I spoke with one of the crew of the Namedian Star, which arrived this morning. The warp storms have been continuing. I thought it better to prepare for a long journey. Even before the storms, it would have taken us forty days or more to reach Therion."

Messenger ship size, and the time to reach Therion. Which we don't know where it is. It's a world brought into compliance by the Ravne Guard, and probably fairly early in their career, so I'd guess its MAYBE close to there but we really dont know. Assuming its outside Segmentum Solar (likely) and somewhere close to Deliverance we could be talking 10-20 thousand LY we're talking 90-180 thousand c at that speed,


Page 180

Corax nodded grimly. "The likes of Curze and Angron were broken from the start. You know the ultimate sanction open to the Emperor. He could have–"
Dorn raised a hand before he could finish.

Another probable hint to the fate of the two missing Primarchs.


Page 213

"Switch to thermal."
Alpharius did so, a film of red falling over his vision as his armour’s auto-senses tracked through the frequencies to the infra-red end of the spectrum. Behind the panel Lukar had pointed at he could see a tracery of brighter lines.

Infrared vision.


Page 215

The heat from the power packs of the following legionaries was building up, distorting the air with a haze. To Alpharius’s thermal vision the vents on the backpacks of the other legionaries were bright white.
"Commander, we are giving off a high heat signature," said Alpharius. "The primarch said that the defence systems had thermal registers."
"Good point," replied Agapito. "All squads, set cooling systems to minimum. Reduce heat signatures."

AStartes backpacks seem to represent considerable thermal signatures. Whether they are running reactors or some sort of battery we don't know. I also don't know if the vents are to dispose of waste heat, or their emitting heat is a byproduct of their function, but given they say reduce cooling systems (EG the amount of heat being given off) I'm guessing they do radiate the waste heat. Which seems to be part of their stelath measures (again the blacklight stuff mentioned before.)


Page 219

"You will have forty-three seconds to cross that bridge."
..."Blind grenades," replied Corax. ‘They will disable the units for twenty seconds."
"Still not enough time, lord," said Dor. "The gorge must be at least two hundred and fifty metres wide."
"Sprint, sergeant."

Gives an idea of Astarts walking/sprinting speeds. Call it 250 metres or so (a bit more) in 20-40 seconds we're talking between 6 and 13 m/s Depends on how close to 250m the distance actually is and whether or not the fac tthere are sentry guns that have to be taken out affects things, but it should be approximately right.


Page 221-222

He bent forwards into a full sprint as the blind grenade erupted into life at the far end of the bridge, forming a whirling cloud of silvery particles and swirling forks of electromagnetic energy.
...
The blind cloud raged around him, blotting out all of the data being fed through his armour’s auto-senses. In
silence and blackness, Alpharius leapt, powering himself into the air.
...
The blind cloud was already collapsing, the chaff and distortive energies fluttering into the darkness.

Blind grenade. Seems to affect power armour systems as well. Rather interesting how its a persistant effect.


Page 231

"Your warriors see the hardest fighting because they are the best under my command. You and your men have abilities even above those of my legionaries and so it is against the toughest challenges you have been pitched. "

Corax thinks the Custodians are superior (individually perhaps) to Astartes. AS noted in Frist Heretic, this may not make them overall superior, as they lack the ability to coordinate or work in teams the way AStartes do.


Page 238

A large device sat at the heart of the room, dormant for the moment but riddled with energy cables and pipes, not dissimilar to the machinery Corax had thought he had glimpsed around the Emperor’s Golden Throne

Does this mean that there was some of the golden throne tech (Necron tech?) Tied into the creation of the Primarchs?


Page 240

The tower rumbled as immense turrets moved into position, targeting their mass drivers towards the incoming vessel.

Mass driver turret defenses


PAge 241

He fancied he could still see the aftermath of the atomic detonations unleashed by the mining charges his forces had dropped down the gravity well to the import station below, but it was just a fancy.

Atomic weapons used in mining on Deliverance.


Page 244-245

Confused, Corvus directed his attention to the man descending the landing ramp. He seemed unremarkable. In fact, he seemed so unremarkable that Corvus could not discern a single distinguishing feature about him. He was of average height, with dark hair and moderately tanned skin. In build he was neither bulky nor slight, but of normal proportion, slightly larger than the malnourished men who now abased themselves before him. He was dressed in a robe of white linen, free of ornamentation except for a necklace of gold on which hung a pendant fashioned in the shape of an eagle with outspread wings, a lightning bolt in its claws.
The man’s eyes were as indistinct as the rest of him, neither blue nor green nor grey nor brown, but a flecked mixture of all. Yet there was something in those eyes that reached into Corvus and touched upon his inner self. There was wisdom and kindness there, and antiquity that was very humbling but also disconcerting.
And at the same time as Corvus saw this, he also witnessed the arrival of a demigod, wreathed in golden light and dressed in white finery that burned with its own light. He saw a stern face set with two golden orbs for eyes, piercing in their intensity, searing into the core of his being. The stranger seemed to tower over the kneeling men, borne forwards upon a carpet of undulating flames.
It was impossible to reconcile the two images. The supreme, grandiose king of men approached Corvus, but all the while the slight, unimposing man flickered within. Finally Corvus’s mind could fight no longer against the glamour and he saw the new arrival as his followers did, and was filled by an overwhelming urge to pay obeisance to this stranger.
...
He fixed the rebel leader with a stare, his eyes now permanently golden like bottomless wells of light. There was a glow of power beneath his skin, as if the stranger’s flesh were embers masked behind thin paper. Corvus experienced a momentary fluttering in his breast and a knot of anxiety in his gut, a fraction of the effect the man was having on his warriors. "I am the Emperor of Mankind. I created you."
Hearing these words was like a veil lifting from Corvus’s eyes. He saw the Emperor as he had seen him before, watching the growing infant through the canopy of an incubator. His face had been distorted by curved plates of glass, but the features were unmistakeable.

Corax meets the Emperor. The interesting bit is how he seems to be two men at once... one is an average, unassuming type and the other is the glowing radiant giant we're used to hearing about or seeing in pictures. This would tend to suggest the Emperor uses perhaps some sort of illusion, or it may be Corax is 'seeing' the various forms/persona the Emperor can assume. The question is, which one is the real one?
My gut says that the 'unassuming' form is his true one - most people see the glowing giant after all, and we knwo from certain stories (EG The last church) the Emperor can go around as a normal person if he wished.
Also like magnus, Corax was able to remember the Emperor from his birth.


Page 247

"Yes, you have brothers," said the Emperor, smiling at his son’s delight. "Seventeen of them. You are the primarchs, my finest creations."
"Seventeen?" Corvus asked, confused. "I remember that I was number nineteen. How can that be so?"
The Emperor’s expression grew bleak, filled with deep sorrow. He looked away as he replied.
"The other two," he said. "That is a conversation for another day."

More hints about the fate of the missing Primarchs. It seems they were gone by the time Corax was discovered.

Page 252

"Such sublime beauty encoded into the structure, yet imbued with endless potential."
...
"‘New life from old life. Millions of years of evolution extracted, distilled and improved. It is the key."

Hints about the creation of the Primarchs and through them the Astartes.


Page 254-255

"An untainted source of gene-seed, but more than just that. If the magos and I can unlock its secrets, we can combine its potential with that of the Raven Guard gene-code. The primarchs were created from birth, while a legionary must wait until adolescence before implantation can begin. Imagine a generation of Raven Guard that combines the code of both, the superior growth of a primarch enmeshed with the abilities of a legionary. What would normally take a generation could be accomplished in months."
...
"At present, only the smallest percentage of candidates are suitable for gene-seed implantation. If we can use the primarch material properly, that will no longer be the case. We could take any child, from the earliest age, and accelerate their development, as mine was hastened. Any child. Our recruitment pool would expand from a few tens of thousands to millions."
...
"The tech-priest will aid me in isolating those strands of the material we require, and we will then improve the Raven Guard gene-seed with that information. A blend of primarch and Legiones Astartes: a warrior superior to a legionary, yet produced on an unprecedented scale.’"

Corax's plans. AStartes MK2. Ambitions and rather frightening, and not unlike what happened in the second blood angels duology when Fabius Bile got involved (My how he'd love this!) Makes you wonder why the Emperor didn't do it? They even comment on this and Corax thinks the Emperor must have had a good reason to deliberately limit the Gene-seed.

PAge 273

Rad-fires flickered blue at the heart of the mangled city, turning the ruddy sky purple with their blaze. The ruins stretched for dozens of kilometres, silhouettes like broken teeth jutting against the glow. For nearly a century the fires had burned, a warning to Kiavahr not to return to its despicable past. The impact site was a cratered bowl of glass, levelled in an instant by the atomic mining charges the rebels had dropped down the gravity well. The stump of the orbital elevator remained as a twisted upthrust of solidified slurry that pointed accusingly at Lycaeus above.
Further out the buildings had survived, though some were little more than molten piles of rubble and slag.

Result of atomic/nuclear bombardment. We dont know the iyelds or whatever.


PAge 275

Radiation detectors in Alpharius’s suit flashed from green to a warning amber for a moment as they passed along the road to the building: a rad-pocket. He had no concerns for his safety. Even without his armour, his modified body was capable of withstanding the levels of nuclear pollution in the area.

AStartes resistance to radiation.


PAge 280-281

Agapito hefted the bolter up and aimed. With the cough of the launching charge, he fired, the bolt-round flaring into life for a second as it raced down the hall. It struck the left shoulder pad of the empty suit. There was another detonation, the crack echoing back down to the two Space Marines. Shards of ceramite scattered across the firing range, but as the dust cleared, the shoulder pad was shown to be mostly intact.
"That is one of our standard rounds, against Mark IV armour," said Binalt. "As you can see, the effect is limited.."
...
He had felt helpless, the rounds from his bolt pistol barely scratching the armour of the traitors while their weapons cut through the Raven Guard without mercy. "I recovered pieces, fragments of the ammunition used by the enemy, from the armour of legionaries who withdrew successfully."
...
"I was also able to procure a few experimental rounds our brothers in the Imperial Fists secured from Mars before it was embroiled by division. We haven’t got the facilities to replicate them here, but I think I have devised a close approximation."
...
Agapito sighted again and fired. This time, the other shoulder pad of the armour erupted into spinning fragments and droplets of molten ceramite.
"Vengeance…"
...
"We are not without countermeasures. Please fire at the central suit."
The middle stand held one of the suits that had been modified by Binalt’s multi-plate, reinforced shoulder pads. This time, Agapito’s shot caught the armour’s shoulder guard flush on the rim. As with the last shot there was a great explosion of debris, but as the ringing died down, both Raven Guard could clearly see that only the outer layer of armour had been shredded; the inner plating was intact.

Bolter demonstrateions against power armour. Regular round aren't really designed to penetrate power armour, so they need special rounds to do more damage. Vengeance rounds are the ideal one (incendiary/thermal effect?) but the modified rounds Binalt made seem to work fiarly well (maybe half as effective?)


Page 292-293

"The Emperor did something to streamline the primarch material to create the Legiones Astartes template, but the possible permutations are too numerous to investigate. My mathematical analysis suggests it would take at least five years of continual study to narrow down our options to a number more suitable for physical experimentation."
...
"The primarch genetic coding is vastly more complex than standard Raven Guard gene-seed," the Apothecary explained. "The Emperor extracted only a few elements of the original data to create the Legiones Astartes strain, and about a dozen more in the Legio Custodes data we retrieved from the Terran vault. To isolate the rapid maturation and cell cloning abilities you desire, and graft them onto our own gene-seed, we have to retroactively engineer the Raven Guard gene-seed with the appropriate sequence. There are millions of sequences that might be applied, even from a single primarch strand, and there are twenty unique primarch codes to choose from."
...
"We have managed to identify at least six unique sub-complexes and protein strands geared towards physical durability, above and beyond that found in the others. In the same sample, there is a dearth of certain enhanced genes that, in our estimation, boost the cytoarchetectonic structure responsible for the development of nociceptors and proprioceptory function. The deficiency seems to be deliberate. In subject six there is a whole suite of genetic encoding derived from a non-human source, possibly canine. In subject twenty, a whole suite of growth boosting augmentations is absent. "
...
Rather than create twenty superhuman warriors, he could create thousands, hundreds of thousands of next-generation soldiers. Each would have a fraction of the power of the primarchs, it was true, but their numbers would more than make up for the difference.

More on the differences betwene Astartes, Custodes, and Primarch genetics. They seem related, but still quite distinct in various ways. WE also get some idea of the sorts of enhacnements the genetics do (EG durability) - as well as a humorous bit of actual animal (canine) DNA used in Primarchs (Space wovles probably, given the 6.). Subject 20 must be Alpharius and the lack of growth boosting explains their lack of size. Legion 4 (Iron Warriors) seems to suggest they have a lack of pain receptors (sensory) and generally reduced kinsethetic senses, if I am understanding the comments right (making them ideal garrison and siege troops, I guess?)


Page 296

"...direct cloning must be considered only as a final option if there is no other solution. Magos, there is good reason why the Emperor did not directly clone his new Legions from a single template cell. The resultant legionaries would be identical. Without the random mutation present in the wider human genetic structure, there is no possibility for variation. The Legiones Astartes are successful because we are similar, but not identical. Qualities such as leadership, intellect and aptitude for different disciplines allow us to be flexible and to fulfil many roles."

"Even the primarchs were not created equal in all measures. The Emperor understood the importance of variation. Beyond that, there is another consideration. The Legiones Astartes are humanity’s warriors, separated and superior in many ways, but always raised up from amongst those they lead and protect. A legionary may be a neo-human, but he was once human. A legionary is the incarnation of the Emperor’s plan, a perfect symbol and example for mankind to aspire to, not simply a tool of war. It is humanity that the Emperor will lead in the conquest of the galaxy, not some new species made to order in a laboratory."

Corax offers a little speech explaining why cloning Astartes is a no no (at least one of the reasons) Considering how obsesed about purity they get post Heresy, this is a bit funny. Also you think the things he's saying argue against cloning would not be hampered by cloning - you could still have those things crop up in your recruits, but those who don't measure up could still be cloned to provide large numbers of cannon fodder, and given Astartes attrition this would actually make sense.
Of course we know there are toher problems with cloning Space Marines, so...
Also we get ite explained that the Astartes are, at their core, symbols and champions, and they serve a valuable psychologicla (psychic? Tapping into the unconcious power of the warp) by their nature. Or, magic pixie dust stuff makes them seem practical.


Page 298

Navar was equally dismissive of these claims; he knew he was an able fighter and physically superior to most of Deliverance’s youth, but at ten Terran years old he and many of the others were simply too young to begin the enhancement process yet.

There is such a thing as too young for Astartes implantation.


Page 301

It looked like a snub-nosed pistol, two gas canisters where the magazine would have been. Thumbing the valve open, Omegon pressed the trigger and a white-hot flame erupted from the muzzle. Reaching above him, the primarch turned on the spot, slicing an almost complete circle in the metal decking above him.

Hand flamer cutting torch thingy.


Page 302

There followed a few seconds of static as the connection was established with the tiny stealth-fielded satellite that Omegon had left in orbit over Deliverance. It was no larger than a fist, just a piece of debris, but the cryptoduct device was capable of detecting, decoding and recording any signal within a narrow range of frequencies, frequencies known only to the Alpha Legion. He was also able to implant messages onto the cryptoduct for access by others. It was the perfect go-between, ensuring that both sender and receiver were anonymous and since it could be accessed from anywhere within several hundred thousand miles, their locations would remain unknown.

Alpha Legion stealth satellite thingy.


PAge 307-308

" Eighty hours to turn a boy into a legionary? Well, in body at least."
"Not just physiologically, commander," said Sixx, now becoming more enthusiastic. "Our recruits will emerge from the process with mental and physical aptitudes beyond anything we’ve seen before. They’ll be quick learners too. A little bonus of the primarch material. Our new legionaries will be primed and ready from the outset."

The intended results of Corax's little project.


Page 309

The recruits dashed to the crates at the centre of the hall and took up simple automatic rifles from within. These were training weapons duplicating the weight and bulk of a bolter to a full-fledged legionary; without gene-seed enhancement even a full-grown man could not train with a proper Legiones Astartes bolter.

More super-sied astartes bolters.


Page 319

"They have every enhanced organ you possess, commander," said Orlandriaz, emerging from behind the group of giant post-humans. "The black carapace must still be implanted as before, it being a mostly artificial construct."

The Black Carapace is supposedly a 'mostly artificial' construct, though I'm pretty sure I recall reading that they do grow it.


Page 328-329

It looked instantly familiar, at first glance little different from the Mark IV armour he wore. On closer inspection, the Raven Guard commander could see the subtle differences in panel shape and bonding, the thicker material of the flexible joints, the solid greaves covering the knees. Most obvious was the bolt-reinforced left shoulder plate and the helmet design
...
"Most of the improvements your Legion suggested were implemented." said Noriz, almost wistfully. "Protection is no better than the Mark IV, but the internal systems are far more efficient. The external cabling you see is supplemented by back-ups within the armour plate itself without compromising defence or adding excessive weight. Auto-senses have also been improved. In particular, auditory and olfactory pick-ups are much more sensitive. You will, no doubt, be pleased to hear that the stealth capabilities of this suit exceed that of any other variant."
...
" In the absence of reliable Legion supply lines, the Mechanicum have designated all non-standard or stop-gap designs as Mark V. Many of the improvisations made by your armourium after the dropsite massacre are being passed on to other Legions in the absence of replacement parts for Mark IV. Your legionaries already have Mark V, commander."

MArk VI power armour described. Note the stealth functions.


Page 330

"In your assessment, how many of your Legion are defending Terra?"
"When I left, there were more than forty thousand Imperial Fists stationed at the palace."

Lower limit on the number of Imperial Fists in the Legion. There are probably more.


Page 335

He lunged, attempting to grab Kaddian’s left wrist, but the recruit was two steps away within a heartbeat, Alpharius’s grapple missing badly.

Astartes takes two steps in a 'heartbeat'. Assuming this is a walking pace, we might figure on a good 3-5 m/s walking speed at least.


Page 340-341

The door had lifted no more than half a metre from the ground when a hail of bullets erupted from beyond it, ripping through knees and shins. More than twenty men and women fell screaming, clutching at their ruined legs.
...
She lay on her right side, left leg pulled up, her foot hanging off by a few scraps of sinew.
...
A second later, another hail of bullets thudded into her body, tearing off half her face and punching great holes through the rest of her body.
...
The shotgun roared in Corvus’s hand, ripping through the protective vest of the closest guard.
...
The guard frantically pulled the trigger, sending bullets bouncing off Corvus’s chest. The gun clicked empty several times and the man’s face fell in horror. A hail of shot tore through his arm and shoulder, sending him spinning to the ground in a fountain of ruddy droplets.

Tripod heavy stubber, and shotguns effects. Not sure if Corax is really bulletproof or not, at least against pistols bullets.


Page 346-347

"While the warp storms are still raging, turbulence around the Narsis system is much reduced. Given the world’s proximity to several forge-worlds, as well as the resources of Agrapha, Chopix and Spartus, I believe that Narsis will be used by the rebels as a staging post to attack the sector."
...
"Who can say how long it will take us to get there. Fifteen days at least given the warp conditions"

In current warp conditions 15 days to cover a sector/subsector level distances 20-200 LY or therabouts 500 ti 5000 c roughly.
Also multiple forge worlds (industrial worlds) in the same sector.


Page 348

The bleeping of the rad-detector was insistent but steady, low enough that his suit had not yet started pumping counteractive agents into his bloodstream. The recycled air he breathed was growing a little stale, but was far from intolerable despite the antiseptic tinge.

Power armour radiation countermeasures.


PAge 349

There was a small but insistent pressure at the base of his skull, nestled next to the vertebrae in the gap where one of his progenoid glands had been removed.

Alpha Legionnaire had progenoids removed already and he's still alive.


Page 353

The bark of bolters intensified, joined by the thunderous beat of the squad’s rotary autocannon, wielded by Kavin. The heavier shells of the autocannon ripped out chunks of plascrete from the wall.

Rotary barrel autocannon with rounds of higher calibre than bolter rounds.


Page 356

The roof of the compound was twenty-three metres below, a distance that posed little problem to a fully armoured legionary even in normal gravity, and that of Cruciax’s moon was two-thirds Terran standard.

Power armoured troops can endure 75 foot drop in 2/3 or 1 gravity.


PAge 356

"Meltas!" said Dor, pulling one of the charges from his belt. Alpharius did the same, slapping the melta bomb onto the roof in front of him and setting the timer for three seconds.
He stepped back half a dozen paces and readied his bolter in one hand while arming a frag grenade in the other. With a white-hot detonation, the melta charge blasted through the rockcrete, creating a hole just over a metre across. Dor’s bomb went off half a second later, widening the gap.

Meltabomb creates a meter wide hole in wall of unknown thickness. Assuming cratering TNT I'd guess we're talking 200 grams for rock, at least.


PAge 357

His first blast ripped into the backpack of the closest. The second was aimed higher and crashed into the Word Bearer’s sculpted helmet.
...
What Alpharius had taken as an ornate helm was no such thing – the Word Bearer’s head was misshapen, a small horn protruding from his brow, canine teeth jutting down to his chin. His skin was bronze-coloured and the blood that pumped from the hole in his skull was black and thick.
Alpharius fired again with a shout of disgust, pulverising the Word Bearer’s misshapen head. The other legionary spun around and fired, his burst catching Alpharius in the gut.

Multiple bolt rounds to pulverize mutant Word Bearer haead.


Page 359

Without hesitation, the Raptors piled into the hall from behind Alpharius. The first was taken off his feet by a plasma bolt that melted through his chest plate and incinerated his innards.

Plasma gun melts through Space Marine chestplate and incinerates 'innards') - at least several MJ to badly burn (nevermind cremation of internal body, and probably at least another megajoule or more to melt through ceramite, depending on thickness and injury diameter (assume 10 cm diameter crater)


Page 361

Alpharius imagined the Alpha Legion descending on Terra with fifty thousand such warriors, hardened by previous battles, with the canniness and guile they would learn from the primarch.

Implied scale of the Alpha Legion. Might only be a lower limit though.


Page 381-382

"The virus is a common variety, harmless on its own"
...
"It is merely a vehicle to introduce the corruptive element."
"And what corruptive element have you used?"
...
It is warp-based in origin, the stuff of the immaterial rendered into solid form.”
...
“Warp tech? It’s notoriously fickle.”
...
“Not so much warp technology as something more primordial, primarch,” said Unithrax. “The viral agent uses modified daemon blood.”
...
“A near-synthetic compound utilising trace amounts,” said Unithrax, unperturbed by the primarch’s outburst. “Daemons do not have blood, as such, it is merely a useful euphemism. It contains minimal daemonic power in itself, but its presence is a powerful mutagen. If it was correctly mixed with the gene-template, there will be corruption.”

Daemonic mutagenic viral weapon. Also suggests Daemons have wraithbone0like body forms (although less substantial.)


Page 383

To his right, Turret Four pounded out a steady stream of macro-cannon shells, the buildings in the distance blazing with detonations that set alight gas pockets and carved fifty metre-wide craters in the heaped rubble.

Macro cannon blowing 50 metre wide craters in ground. To blast a crater in rock erquires some 22.6 tons of TNT. According to the Schwerer Gustav Wiki entry here gives a 10x10 meter crater for 700 kilos of TNT.


Page 385

The squad reformed without any need for command, laying down a curtain of fire into the rubble of the ruined building, leaving contrails in the ruddy miasma and fist-sized holes in the rockcrete walls.

Bolter fire on walls.


PAge 386

An arc of lightning erupted from a stairwell leading down to a basement level, earthing into the lead Raptor. His armour and body exploded, sending bloody fragments of bone and ceramite thudding into the legionaries around him. Navar had never heard mention of anything like it during the training exercises.

“Emperor’s oath, that’s a stormcannon.”

Stormcannon. Apparently a pre-Imperium weapon used by the former rulers of the planet before Corax overthrew them.


Page 394-395

”We know that there are elements of non-human structures within the primarch data. Similar strands are encoded into every gene-seed. The Legiones Astartes make-up owes a small part to characteristics found in other species, introduced by the Emperor into the gene-seed. The scales, horns and other growths may be indicative of these traits being accelerated, out of step with the rest of the adaptation. Whatever was holding them in check, maintaining the balance, has deteriorated. “

More of the Primarch creation. As noted before they apparently had canine and other DNA, but it seems like the Emperor spliced in genetics of other species as well. Something tells me that without magic (The Warp) this wouldn’t be quite possible, which in turn suggests a certain amount of truth that the warp was involved in creating the Primarchs (as alleged in First Heretic, although as noted there, the Warp being involved does not mean Chaos Gods were.)
Page 401

It was at least ninety metres tall, its right arm a massive multi-barrelled cannon, the left another immense weapon that gleamed with the blue sheen of plasma generators. Its armoured carapace was packed with turrets that streaked laser and shell fire into the city: an Imperator-class Titan!

Oh dear. This makes what, the third different Imperator titan scaling in the Horus heresy novels alone?


Page 401

There were transports and tanks, flanked by three armoured walkers, each twenty metres tall. One of the Warhounds – the walkers were clearly scout-class Titans – was enveloped by a shimmering dome of purple and black as its void shields collapsed from the initial macro-cannon bombardment.

Warhound titan height. Also macro cannon fire collapses the voids.. which we quantified (roughly) Ealrier.


Page 401

The words had barely sunk in when the macro-cannon above Alpharius opened fire. The shockwave from its twin muzzles hit the Alpha Legionnaire, his suit warning icons flashing amber and red as the concussive blast enveloped him. Two shells the size of battle tanks screamed into the distance, exploding kilometres away. Just as the noise of the shell detonations reached Alpharius

The shells are 'tank sized' which I'd guess means 30-70 tonnes depending on the 'tank' you're talking about. They also reach 'kilometers' in a fairly short period of time, suggesting a supersonic velocity.


Page 403

..dropping the primed grenade.
Dor caught it out of instinct. A slow second passed as he realised what he had done, the grenade falling from his fingers, but too late. The grenade exploded, hurling the sergeant from his feet, razor-edged shrapnel cracking against his armour. Alpharius knew that a single grenade would not be enough to take down a legionary and vaulted over the rail,

Raven Guard marine can take a point blank grenade detonation relatively unscathed


Page 404

Here and there, soldiers in reflective bodysuits herded the crowd away from the fighting, urging them out of their lines of fire with their rifles. Praetorian servitors – half-human war machines even larger than Omegon – watched over the exodus with chainguns, lascannons and sonic disruptors.

mechanicus troops. Praetorians we know.. I think the bodysuitted troop might be skitarii


Page 406

He was met at the next landing by a squad of Raptors, who were assembling a multi-laser on its tripod.

MULTI-LAZORS.


Page 409

His companion turned in surprise, weapon lifting towards Alpharius. Before he could fire, a ball of plasma screamed through the doorway, exploding against his left side, incinerating half of his body in an instant.

Assuming it penetates the armour before incinerating and we're talking flash burns we're porobably talking hundreds of kilojoules to several MJ depending on exact dimensions. Cremation is messier. and whether or not there is significant damage to the armour is another story.


Page 415

"...Wing One have loaded five atomic charges into drop-shuttles. "

The atomic devastation created earlier in teh book? 5 nukes.


Page 416

"Tell the guilders that over centuries of subjugation, they stockpiled one thousand three hundred and twenty atomic charges on Lycaeus. I have only used five"

Number of nukes on planet when Corax leads his rebellion prior to being found.


Page 417

"‘Because I am aboard the Avenger and have four cyclotronic torpedoes loaded and aimed at Ravendelve, lord."

Tactical use of cyclonics again


Page 420

The skitarii corps consisted of two thousand cybernetically enhanced warriors travelling in eight slab-sided Dominator mobile fortresses, another five hundred marching alongside. Around the armoured behemoths were several more of the small recon crawlers, hidden behind a rag-tag assortment of tanks that had been gathered together to provide further protection: Imperial Army Leman Russ battle tanks and Falchions, Predators that had been destined for the Raven Guard and three Iron Angel-class heavy walkers that stomped along on four legs, their hulls bristling with anti-personnel weapons.
...
Each was as large as a legionary or bigger, vat-grown for the purpose, and each of the dozen combat servitors was armed with an assortment of chainguns, rocket pods and multi-lasers. Some weapons were carried on armoured harnesses, others replaced limbs or were riveted and welded into the artificial flesh of the praetorians.
Alongside them strode the herakli, more vat-grown giants clad in thick robes and cowls covered in Mechanicum sigils, chests and shoulders protected by plates of ceramite. They hefted multi-barrelled cannons and heavy lasers as easily as a skitarii carried his lasgun. One of the herakli stopped beside Orlandriaz’s crawler, staring up at him with his face hidden by the shadow of his hood. This caused the others to pause and gaze at the magos.

Mechanicus vat grown troops and various combat vehicles used in the Crusade era by both Army and Mechanicum.


Page 422

Ort and Solaro scoured the archive databases, copying thousands of files onto crystal chips while Ort used Sixx’s key to access the gene-template sanctum.
..
..slipping a data crystal from its slot in the main archive bank..

Crystalline data storage mediums. Optical computer tech?


Page 424

Blood pumped from a poorly cauterised gash in his chest, soaking his white robe.

Power weapon wound.


Page 426

Navar’s shot hit a moment earlier, punching through the grille of the legionary’s mask before detonating inside his helm. An instant later, pain screamed through Navar’s side as the counter-shot tore a chunk from his chest, sending fragments of white-hot metal into his fused ribs.
Navar stumbled back and was caught by Myka and Tandrad. He looked down at the wound, a fist-sized hole just beneath his pectoral on the left side.

Bolter damage. note the shrapnel.


Page 429

The residual atomic fallout was interfering with Balsar’s auto-senses, leaving him half-blind in the thick fog, unable to use thermal or wide-spectrum scanning.

Atomic fallout screws with sensors.


Page 430

Balsar was still not sure what had happened next. He had definitely felt a connection with the psychic locks placed upon the door, intricately beautiful and impenetrable. It had been an urge from within to engage his psychic powers, and had Balsar ever wanted to discuss the event with another, he would have claimed he had been guided by the Emperor. It certainly had felt as if an outside agent had been controlling his thoughts for those few moments, and remembering the complexity of the seals placed on the door, Balsar was sure he would not have been able to dismantle them on his own.

Given the gold aura of his eyes, the fact only the Emperor could open it, and the fact he's probably too busy with the golden throne to directly intervene, this seems a likely occurance. It also demonstrates he can apparently act through any (loyal) psyker he has a bond with in some manner.


Page 436-437

He stood with one foot on an octagonal box that had a thick metal grip-handle running around its circumference. Lights winked in sequence on a small display beside the Raven Guard’s foot.
...
"You never fought for Deliverance, Solaro," said Agapito, tapping his foot on the box beneath his boot. He pointed the lascannon at the device. "But I’m surprised you don’t recognise an atomic charge when you see it. Five hundred kilotons: more than enough to wipe out Ravendelve and every traitor in it. You can’t escape with the gene-tech. I’ll level this whole place if you try"

Atomic charge. Possibly a mining charge. Its small enough that it can be easily carried (probably by humans as well as Astartes) and about foot sized (its far smaller than the astartes himself or his lasweapon.) By contrast a W88 nuclear warhead is over a metre long, half ameter in diamter and weighs an estimated hundreds of kilograms. This suggests the 40K atomics are many times more compact, lighter and thus probably many times more efficient/powerful than what is possible with modern weapons. It's not dfinite, but it would definteily be close to RL theoretical maximums at the very least.
If that isn't precise enough consider the following: The charge is definitely smalle than an Astartes - in fact its small enough he can apparently put his foot on it without having it raised too high and its unliekly to be bigger or heavier than he is.. That suggest its far less than a meter on each side, more probably half a meter or less (say a quarter metre). At half a metre it is more than half the volume of a W88. At .25 meters it is 15-16 times smaller than a W88.
another wy to consider is to compare said charge to a 'tank sized' macro cannon or starship shell. assuming a Leman russ type volume (~140 m^3) vs a half metre each side nuke, the macro shell is 1,100x larger than the nuke. If that did scale up linearly we'd be talking a Macro shell packing in 550 megatons of explosive force. If we were talking .25 m per side, we'd be talking 8800x bigger/more powerful - which is 4.4 gigatons per shell.
That siad the extrapolations may or may not be correct, but at the very least the fact that they can make compact 500 kiloton nukes like that shows that your average starship shell should be far more destructive (even if it were atomics, nevermind some other munitions type) - in the megaton range at least, which is consistent with the Atlas class nukes we know from the James Swallow novels.


Page 450

"This is Apothecary Fabius.."
...
Alpharius tossed the data crystal to Fabius, who caught the glittering shard and looked down at it with a covetous smile.

Fabius did get his hands on the data... oh dear.


Page 451-452

It had been a tortuous journey from Therion, negotiating the storms that still raged across the warp. Several ships had been lost entirely and more than a dozen more had been waylaid or forced to translate, scattering the fleet over light years of space. Despite the problems, Valerius had managed to hold the vanguard intact, and as per Corax’s instructions had redirected while en route to Deliverance to rendezvous with the Raven Guard in Taurion, a system neighbouring Narsis.
...
While Valerius needed his contingent of advisors and adjutants to keep everything in order, Corax was able to control the whole council with nothing more than a few notes on a data-slab. The dispositions of dozens of ships and thousands of warriors, their armaments and their commanders were all locked inside the primarch’s mind and even the smallest detail was retrieved effortlessly.
...
"I have three battleship-class vessels, lord, each quite capable of eliminating any ground defences. "

Scope of the Therion ships and their Raven Guard allies. He had at least 14-15 ships, and that probably was far less than half (dozens) which they scraped up to deliver the cohort, including the 3 battleship-class vessels. Which is a pretty impressive display of firepower for a local world, if you think about it. I wonder how common such forces are? There'd probably be at least one similar 'regimantal' force per world - hundreds or thousands perhaps.


Page 454

"You will land under cover of night, though do not expect that to be much of an advantage because the enemy will have scanners and thermal imaging.’"

The Emperor's Children had night detection gear at their fortress, at least. although this might be referencing the Astartes directly.


Page 459

A lascannon blast burst through the edge of the balcony, obliterating the man to Valerius’s right. Showered with dust and blood, the sub-Caesari crawled back from the parapet to hunker down in the ruins of the window behind.

Lascannon shot explodes a entire human. Whether by flash burns (400 J per square cm) or comparison to a grenade we're probably talking high kj to low (single digit) MJ at least for this particular instance.


Page 461

Calorium pushed the heavy pack aside and dropped the receiver. He flinched as another las-blast tore into the sculpted architrave above them, melting through the relief of a war chariot charging against a horde of barbarians.

Lascannon is a thermal weapon here.. melting rather than exploding.


Page 465

The rest of your Cohort will be arriving, nearly five hundred thousand men. The Legio Vindictus has already departed from Kiavahr with a dozen Titans. Other Imperial Army elements are also on their way, nearly a million more soldiers.

Size of the Therian Cohort regiment. Again its impressive the amount of forces they can amass for fighting.