More blood Angels. We move onto Red Fury next. Single update for entire novel. Black Tide will be a tad slower. But we're almost done and then I can move onto other stuff (again.)
Page 7
Eritaen was such a thing. An urbanised sprawl-planet, too far off the axis of the Imperium’s prime trade routes to be thought of as a hive-world, it had at one time thrived in its own, limited manner.
Which i take to mean is pretty heavily populated, but not built up or populous enough to be a "hive" world. Proto-hive, I guess.
Page 8
Rafen dallied beneath the arching hood of an ornate atrium, the entrance to a public kinema. Shattered glass lay in drifts around the ticket vendor kiosk and the flame-blackened stanchions. Broken displays advertising pict-dramas and out-of-date newsreels glittered in the dimness.
Movie theatres. Used for news and entertainment.
Page 9
Like most of Eritaen’s municipalities, this conurbation was built on a grid of kilometre-long roads that crosshatched the landscape of the planet. The buildings that sprouted from each city block were sheer-sided and narrow, rising fifty to seventy levels high.
...
...by and large, they had the uniform cast of buildings thrown up by the dogged and uninspired colonial administrators of the Munitorum.
The scope of the urbanization.. seems to be standard Imperial, at least in this region. Possibly implies kilomre-long blocks, with buildings 150-200 metres tall (assuming 1 storey = 3 metres)
Page 10
“Atomics.” Brother Corvus was the last to emerge, panning his bolter back and forth in a wary arc. “Residual radiation from airburst detonations. It’ll fog everything out beyond a half-kilometre.”
Someone used atomic warheads on the planet.
Page 11
The young Astartes was still finding his feet; only a scant few weeks ago, Kayne had been a Scout in the tenth company, and his promotion to the rank of full battle-brother was still fresh in his manner. The Mark VIII Imperator power armour he wore was new to him, and to the trained eye of a line warrior, it showed.
...
...in all truth the sergeant would have preferred to spend more time drilling and training his unit so that they meshed like finely-machined gears before they embarked on this sortie.
...
Commander Dante had given him his orders, and he had left the home world the very same day, his small concerns paying no coin against the word of his sworn lord, the master of the Blood Angels. There had been time aboard the frigate that brought them to Eritaen, but not enough.
A few weeks since they left Baal on their mission on a frigate . We don't (yet) know where the planet is, although implications throughout the novel imply it might be well on the fringes of the galaxy somewhere.. so possibly thousands, if not tens of thousands of light years crossed in a few weeks.
Page 13
The Space Marine imagined the component parts of the collision
separating, mentally tracking them backward to their points of origin.
“The highway governance system’s machine-spirit died,” said Corvus, clearly thinking along the same lines. “The vehicles collided at high speed.”
Part of me wants to think this is high tech, but I suspect he's talking about traffic lights
PAge 15
The dissenter movement on Eritaen was not a product of that world alone. If anything, the Companitas were one of many minor factions that crawled and hid in the cracks of the Imperium’s monolithic culture. Rafen knew only the surface details about them, only the information that was of tactical value. Outwardly the Companitas preached unity, freedom and comradeship between all men; behind closed doors they were said to engage in acts of wantonness that most decent folk would think shameful, if not utterly repugnant. The hand of Chaos was at their backs; Rafen did not doubt it. Perhaps not in the rank and file of misguided fools like these, but certainly elsewhere, in their upper echelons.
A heretic/chaos movment which spans many worlds and can apparently coordinate between them. Naturally its a coven of Chaos cultts.
Page 17
They had been prowling the streets of this maze for days.
Days on planet.
Page 19
There were a few vehicles, mostly of the boxy, utilitarian kind pressed from the same Standard Template Construct pattern used on thousands of human worlds.
even mundane, civilian ground cars are based on well known STC designs. I wonder how much this limits variety.
Page 19
Ahead of them, sitting cross-legged atop the bonnet of a low-slung cargo flatbed, was a figure
partially clad in what appeared to be scraps of Imperial Guard-issue armour.
...
“He does not register…” said Corvus. “I read no organic traces from him.”
A person is there, but he does not register on a (biological) sensor, which I gather to be organic traces
Page 20
Kayne’s gun discharged and the flat bang of the shot echoed around them. The laughing man was slammed backward, his neck ending in a haze of pink mist.
Bolt round blowing apart a head. Note that the thing with the Blood Angels novels and this is that for whatever reason Swallow never seems to give the Blood Angels explosive bullets - they're always kinetic rounds - apparently large calibre and made from very dense metal (like tungsten)
Page 21
Puluo unleashed the heavy bolter, and inside the confines of the vehicle park the noise of the weapon’s discharge was a metallic bellow. A crucifix of muzzle flare split from the barrel as bullets the size of candlepins ripped into the advancing horde. Some of them were killed instantly as shots punched through the middle of their torsos, shattering them through hydrostatic shock; others lost limbs or hanks of flesh, spinning about as if they were taking part in some idiot dance.
The ones that did not die immediately showed no signs of fear, not the slightest jot of concern for their lives. They simply laughed and screamed, the meat of their faces bulging, puffed up with the surge of the dark fluid from the injectors.
They had poor weapons, but many of them. Stubber rifles, mostly, along with clubs of all kinds and countless blades. Ballistic rounds rattled off Rafen’s chest plate, chipping at the red ceramite but gaining no purchase. He used his bolter to place single, pinpoint rounds into the head of any target that came his way.
The ones that had limbs blown out from under them did not appear to care. Rafen witnessed them reach for the ampules on their vests and fire fresh doses into their stomachs or necks. The Blood Angel was no stranger to combat drugs, although for the most part, his Chapter eschewed the used of chemical alterants to enhance battlefield ability, preferring to rely on the raw power of the bloodline of their primarch. But whatever it was that these rebels were using on themselves, it went beyond the scope of such things. The fluid was some kind of mutagen; he could actually see it altering the density of flesh or staunching the torrents of blood.
Heavy bolter vs probable zombies. A "candlepin" I gather from the net can be several inches in diameter and nearly a foot long.. that is an insanely large bullet if size means volume. Weight isn't much better either (pounds. I'm guessing it means diameter only, because a bolt round several inches across is huge enough. (50-75mm..) both it and heavy bolters are pretty easy at amuptating limbs.
Another mention of stubber rifles (which I take to mean semiautomatic rifles) which have no effect on Rafen's armour
Also discussion of combat drugs of some kind... although this is the chaos magic mutagen types that turn them into virtual immortals.
Page 27
“Orbital observation drones spotted your men entering the tower,” added Roan.
Flesh tearers using orbital observation drones (or maybe satellites)
page 28
...the days of aimless wandering in search of the Flesh Tearer forward command post..
Again days wandering on planet. This suggests slightly less than sevreal weeks in warp transit (1-1.5 weeks maybe)
Page 29
A massive, headless humanoid form pressed itself out of the ruins. The wailing
became screaming, the screaming became the maddened laughter they had heard inside the parking structure.
Rafen blinked through the smoke and saw the monstrosity clearly for the first time. It was no one being, but a mass of them. The form was an amalgam of the Companitas, hundreds of bodies all collected together, held in place by some arcane power; and all of them were hooting and chattering with their madness.
An amalgated chaos mass of hundreds of bodies into a super-zombie.
Page 29-30
“Grenades! Impact set!” He grabbed at the drumshaped
krak grenades clipped to his waist and thumbed the trigger from safe to armed, dialling the munitions to detonate when they struck their target.
...
A rain of the small bombs arced through the air and struck the Companitas amalgam in the centre of its mass, a chain-fire of explosions rippling through it. The fusion-body screamed louder and tore itself apart, falling into smaller pieces, corpses tumbling away.
Squads worth of krak grenades blasts apart hundreds of bodies in super-zombie body. that would imply at least scores of people per grenade blasted apart (Rafen has like.. 6 men I believe.)
Page 36
There was one other Astartes in the tent, his face lit from below by the colours of a hololithic chart table. Rafen glimpsed a tactical plot of the city, with shifting arrows floating in the air above it. The live feed from the orbital scrying drones mentioned by Noxx’s second.
(realtime?) Tactical plot receiving feeds from orbit, and probably from other units.
Page 37
"I find it hard to believe that Lord Dante would send a warrior out here, all the way from Baal to the edge of nowhere, and have him be little more than an ignorant errand boy.”
...
And once more, the voice at the back of Rafen’s thoughts spoke the mantra that had kept him in line these past few weeks.
Again implication that they traveled to the edge of the Imperium (somewhere.. some edge) in a couple of weeks or less.
Page 41-42
"Even now as we speak, battle-brothers of my Chapter range to the
points of the etheric compass, carrying the same message to the Masters of the Angels Encarmine, the Blood Drinkers… To each Chapter that holds a lineage to the Great Angel.”
This implies Blood angels have traveled all over the galaxy, in roughly a similar timeframe, given Rafen gets back towards the end.
Page 42
“As you know, we have a ship in deep orbit, the Tycho. It is ready to accept you, lord, and your party for our return voyage to Baal.”
..
"Eritaen may be at the arse-end of the Emperor’s Sight, but it is still an Imperial world and still subject to Imperial law!”
Again, seems to be on the edge of the Impeirum, whichever edge that is.
Page 45
...Rafen watched as Eritaen turned and fell away to port as the ship broke orbit. Above and to starboard, the dark dagger of the strike cruiser Brutus watched them leave, the saw-tooth disc of silver across her flank catching the blue of the local star. Laser pennants on the other vessel flared briefly in salute; a marked contrast to the sullen disinterest the vessel’s crew had shown on Tycho’s arrival a few days earlier.
They've spent a few days on planet.
Also "laser pennants"
Page 46
“I also have word from the bridge. The shipmaster informs me our Navigators are in harness and preparing to make space for Baal. Much of what he said to me is beyond my ken, I will admit, but the gist is that the etheric currents this far out along the galactic plane are less cluttered than in toward the coreward planets. Once we enter the warp, we should make swift time to the home world.”
Assuming I am not misinterpeting this and the mention of the "galactic plane" and reference to coreward planets suggests that they're actually out beyond the galactic disc and the core area, which fits with the "edge of the galaxy" thing above. I'm not sure WHERE exactly they are, but I'd guess not very close to Baal, so again thousdsn or tens of thousands of LY.. perhaps even halfway across the galaxy or more.
PAge 48
He had been here once before, soon after the wounded battle-barge Europae had made orbit, returning to lick her wounds at the orbital dock in the aftermath of the battle at the shrineworld, Sabien. On that day, he had felt a conflicted mix of emotion; anger and sadness, fear and elation, a torrent of senses that still echoed in his heart all these months later.
Implies less than a year has passed since the events in the first tow Blood Angels novels.
Page 50
“The psi-wards are in place, my lord. What we say and do in the room will not be sensed by any agent of the warp.”
Psi wards to block psychic detection or observation (partiuclarily from the warp - eG daemons)
Page 51
Not since the grim times of the Horus Heresy had brother turned against brother, and yet in recent months the Blood Angels had been pushed to the very brink of a civil war within their Chapter. It began on the cemetery world of Cybele...
Again "months" since the last novel.
Page 53
“These events have depleted our numbers beyond anything we have previously faced.” Dante stepped off the stage and came toward Lothan. “Did you not sense it, brother-captain? On your return from campaign, on your arrival this day?”
...
“To maintain the illusion of normality, we have sent senior battle-brothers to wargrounds all across the galaxy,” explained Mephiston. “The Imperium at large will see nothing unusual. For the moment, we may show the outside world a face that seems unchanged. But that mask will decay in time.”
Dante has dispatched forces "Across the galaxy" - presumably since Sabien.. meaning less than a year (again) Considering that we're talking at least halfway across the galaxy in some places (to across the galaxy in others) - a good 50-100,000 LY We must be talking a good 100,000c or more, and more probably hundreds of thousands of c
PAge 54
Since the rise of the gene-curse in the Sons of Sanguinius, there had always been priests whose sole purpose had been to study the complex skeins of genetic material that made the Astartes who they were.
...
Caecus worked at the Vitalis Citadel, a medicae complex hundreds of
kilometres away...
...
...the priest was over two hundred years into his service toward finding a
cure.
Sanguinary priests engage in (forbidden) research to cure their genetic curse.
Page 55
“There is a method, a technology that will allow us to recoup the losses to our Chapter in less than a solar year, if enough effort can be applied to it.”
...
"After the treachery of the Arch-traitor, the Emperor’s light forsake him,
the primarch Corax needed to swiftly rebuild his legion. I believe that the manner in which he did it can be opened to us.”
EG cloning.
PAge 56
"It is said that the Lord of the Ravenspire went to books of ancient knowledge from the Age of Strife, intent on gleaning wisdom from the Emperor’s own hand on the matter of the creation of Space Marines.”
...
Every Astartes knew of the legacy they shared, from the very first of their kind created by the Emperor’s gene-smiths to forge the army that united Terra and led it out of Old Night. Those warriors were the precursors to the Astartes of the Great Crusade and every generation that had followed.
Some reputed backhistory on the cloning issue. I wonder how this will mesh up with the HH series. It certainly implies the Emperor might have used cloning in the creation of his warriors.
Page 56
“Corax saw a way to repopulate his forces in these tomes,” Caecus went on. “Not through the process of induction, training and elevation that we practise in these times, but through a mastery of genetic duplication.”
“You speak of the old art of replicae,” said Corbulo. “The science that man called cloning.”
...
The ways of the magos biologis were beyond him, but even he knew that the creation of a life from a synthetic mass of genetic matter seemed… somehow improper. It was said by some that beings spawned in such manner could not be considered human at all, that they were born without souls.
...
“I believe these methods could be called upon to forge new additions to our ranks, my lord.” Caecus addressed Dante directly, a thread of passion building beneath his words. “Blood Angels, cut from the whole cloth of our legion, brought to maturity in a cycle of months instead of years.”
40K, as usual, tries using exotic terms for mundane sci fi (auspex instead of sensor, vox instead of comms.. or replicae instead of cloning.) It implies the cloning capability can produce troops in months instead of years, although the creation of living, intelligent creatures (I'd imagine) is not easy (prone to failures), althoguh we know they can do alot of vat grown bodies (for servitors) or body parts. The brain and other parts I would guess, are the hard part.
Page 57
“Corax did indeed use the way of replicae to bring his legion back from the brink of
dissolution,” said Argastes, “but the road to it was not a smooth one."
...
"Things more beast than man. Throwbacks. Monstrous aberrations spawned in error by the very process you suggest we now employ.”
“Mutants?”
...
“This is true. But that was ten millennia ago. The Imperium’s grasp upon such sciences is stronger, now. And I would warrant that no Chapter beneath the Emperor’s eternal gaze knows the nature of its own blood better than ours, Argastes! Corax was too hasty. He was unprepared. We are not. We can learn from the mistakes of the Raven Guard!”
...
"If mighty Corax, a primarch, a sibling of our liege-lord and a son of the Emperor, could not undertake this arcane art without error, then I ask you this, Caecus. What makes you think that you can succeed where he failed?”
The problems with replicae. Rather interesting that the Sanguinary priest thinks they cna top the Emperor - have they progressed technology and research wise truly? On the other hand Dante uses the 40K stnadard response (those in the past are better than us, how can we top them?)e
Page 58
"..you would not have brought this to us unless you had already made some attempt to echo Corax’s work. What have you accomplished?”
...
“I have had only limited success to date.”
Or rather he failed. Many times.
Page 58
"indeed, not even within the boundaries of the worlds that orbit our red sun. We must go further, across the galaxy if need be, to find the solution elsewhere.”
...
"We are not the Ultramarines. There are those who will simply ignore such a summons. Others lost to distance that we may never reach in time."
Lothan rubbed his chin, thinking. “We’ll gather all that we can.”
...
“First Captain? You will liaise with the shipmasters at the orbit dock and the astropaths. Have a deployment plan prepared for the Chapter Master by morning.”
Hence, the conclave. Implies they may have pulled in Blood Angel successors from across the galaxy. Also note the comment (derogatory?) about how rules-bound the Ultramsurfs are.
Page 63
Dozens of warships ranging in size from small corvettes to massive grand cruisers lay in lines of stately repose, at high anchor over the desert world’s equator. Each craft had its own packet of space to surround it, each ship positioned in the same orbital plane so that no one vessel was seen to be above or below the others, in order to satisfy protocol. Only one group of craft drifted higher, near the dry docks at cislunar positions; the warcraft of the Blood Angels themselves.
"dozens of ships" of the Blood Angels successor chapters and the blood angels. It would imply (probably) at least a dozen or so blood angels ships.
Page 73
Fenn’s ability to anticipate his master’s thoughts was
one of the reasons that Caecus had kept him in his service for so long, even to the point of granting the man juvenat treatments so that the serf might share in some small measure of a Blood Angel’s longevity.
Rejuv only seems to allow for a fraction of a Blood Angel's lifespan.. not really easy to say what fraction or how old a Blood Angel can get, so..
PAge 73
..their labours were largely ignored, the plaudits going instead to those who engaged in the many battles under the Blood Angels banner. There would never be honours given and portraits painted of the Apothecaries who toiled in this place. There were no decorations for discovering a new thread of research that might cure the Rage, no award for breaking ground on a theory that could one day stem the Thirst.
Sanguinary priest objecting to the way Blood Angels favor combat orver research.. although it shows that there are those who engage in pursuits beyond mere warfare (like Commanders, Techmarines, etc.)
Page 74
For a moment, his mind drifted; he recalled the stories he had heard of a successor Chapter from the Twenty-first Founding, the Lamenters. It was said that they had found a way to expunge the gene-flaws from their shared bloodline. If it were true… Caecus would have given much to meet such men and glean wisdom from them; but the Lamenters had not been heard of in decades, not since a tyranid force had decimated their numbers, and every messenger sent to find them returned empty-handed.
The Cursed founding. They dont know if they are alive, but suspect they're more or less gone, due to the Tyranids. Ships sent to locate them (multiple messengers) I assume to recall them fro the conclave couldn't find them. Considering they were on the edge of the Eastern Fringe where the Tyranids were when they vanished, this probably means the messengers crossed across the whole of Segmentum Ultima in a good few weeks to a few months - a few hundred thousand c.
Page 76
She looked up, the sharp lines of her face
accented by the night-black hair bunched in a tight fist upon her head. Discreet mechadendrite cords trailed from a line of brass sockets that began at her temple and ended at the nape of her neck. Like Fenn, she wore a simple duty robe of bleached cloth; unlike him, however, on her it miraculously accented the firm and well-muscled shape of her body.
Supposed Magos biologis.
Page 77
She had been here for months now. She never seemed to leave the laboratorium, always there when Fenn arrived after a rest period, always there when he left again to take sleep or sustenance.
...
He comforted himself with a thought; if she did turn out to have another agenda other than the
course of pure research she claimed, her life would be forfeit in moments.
Magos biologis (without much tech enhancement) present on planet for months now. Blood Angels aren't concerned over killing a Magos.
Page 78
“Series eight, iteration twelve,” noted the woman. “If you will observe?”
Fenn immediately frowned. “That one is still immature.”
“Quite so,” Nyniq allowed, “but it is far enough along to illustrate my point.”
...
Inside the tank, the milky fluid cleared to reveal a naked male, of similar proportion to a young Baalite tribal but lacking the pallid flesh and wiry build. The figure in the tank had skin toned a tanned red, with planes of hard muscle beneath. He would not have looked out of place in the armour of a Scout.
Looks good, but its a mutant. Also implie they might have made as few as 8 or as many as 96, depending on how you interpret the quote.
Page 79
“Despite our every effort, my lord, errors continue to creep into the
structure of the gene-matrix. With each iteration they become more pronounced. The replication
protocols are flawed at a level so primal, so inherent, that nothing we do can correct them.”
The cloning method they use is flawed, unsurprisingly.
Page 80
“But this is not the first impediment, lord. Not the second, not the tenth or the fiftieth.”
...
“Semantics,” said Nyniq. “I doubt he will be pleased to learn we went on regardless for all these months.”
Implying that this event has been going on since before Rafen left. at least fifty clones in a matter of a couple of months.
Page 80
“We know that Corax of the Raven Guard took decades over this process, and even then his yield was one success for every hundred stillborn failures!”
decades? He must have continued after the Heresy for some time before fleeing.
also the 1 in 100 success rate.
Page 85
The legacy of Sanguinius was laid out in this room, with representatives of nigh on every Chapter that paid fealty to the Great Angel’s bloodline gathered under one roof.
...
There, the Blood Legion, in diagonal tiger-stripes of red and lightning
blue; the Angels Encarmine, mirrors of Rafen’s own colours except for a blunt trim of cold black; the Red Wings in their panels of pale snow and ruby; the Blood Swords ashine in glossy crimson..
almost every chapter is present.. including some of their names.
Page 87
For a brief instant, Rafen lost himself in the sight of the armoured figure,
his memory caught on another moment, months before in a basement on the forge-world of Shenlong, a moment when the image of another golden warrior had stood before him. He blinked and shook his head slightly, pushing the reverie away. Rafen focused and found Mephiston looking at him, a hint of curiosity on his face.
Rafen seeing Dante decked out in his Sanguinius costume. Again months ago since the second novel.
Page 90
Nyniq bowed slightly and the stranger bent to place a chaste kiss upon the top of her head. He was far taller than a normal man.
...
“Haran Serpens, I presume?” said Caecus.
He got a shallow bow in return. “Indeed, majoris. I thank you for your gracious invitation.”
“How did you get here with such speed?” Fenn said the words before he’d even thought about them, earning himself a sideways look from his master.
Serpens seemed unconcerned. “We have our ways, Omnissiah be praised.” He tapped the Adeptus Mechanicus symbol of cogwheel and skull that fastened his cloak across his broad shoulders. “Fortune allowed that I was close by when Nyniq’s machine-call reached me. I found the content of her code-summons to be most interesting.”
Its interesting that they don't question this. Also I wonder what "machien call" means, since it would be FTL obviously. Some sort of astropath? But why "machine call?"
Page 91
“Where is your ship? It is important that your presence here be kept clandestine, for the interim. It would not do to have one of the other successor Chapter craft in orbit make issue with your vessel.”
...
“My transportation has made itself scarce. No one but those in this chamber knows of my arrival here on Baal.”
Again none question this. This Space Marine is not terribly bright due to his desire to "fix" the blood angels.
Page 92
Beneath a thick winter coat of dun-coloured animal hide, Serpens wore a peculiar over-suit that seemed somewhere between the design of Adeptus Arbites combat armour and the restraining straps of a straightjacket.
He was bedecked with overlapping waistcoats of varying cuts, each alike only in the numerous sealpockets across them. The magos scientist had a mane of straw-coloured hair that sat over his skull in tightly braided rows, extending away down his back in a snaking coil. But it was the size of the man that held his attention; Fenn had met members of the magos biologis and others of the Adeptus Mechanicus on several occasions, and never in all those times come across someone with this man’s stature.
Serpens depicted. Unlike other examples of supertall humans, they at least question him about his height.
Page 92
“You’re the size of an Astartes.” He nodded toward Caecus, and saw that his master was dwelling on the same thought.
...
“Throughout my life I have attempted to model myself in small ways
upon the Emperor’s most perfect children, the Space Marines.” He glanced down at his own hands, gloved in black leather. “I hope the majoris will forgive a mortal’s hubris, but I have modified my flesh in many ways to share a fraction of the greatness you were gifted with.”
again, interesting that they do not doubt this. That suggetss it might be possible.
Page 94
Fenn stiffened at the tech-lord’s words. He had heard them once before, only a few months ago, in a meeting that progressed in much the same way that this one had.
..
He stared at Nyniq. Those words had come from her lips, the dull echo of them now sounding once more in the serfs memories.
A "few months" since Nyniq arrived.
Page 95
The libraria of LXD-9768 were so vast that they covered three-fifths of the nondescript planet’s
surface.
...
Those satellites were gone now, mined to fragments by the Adeptus Mechanicus,
used to build the endless lines of blockhouses that went from horizon to horizon; chamber after chamber, annexe after annexe, each storage facility housing millions of books, scrolls, picts and other forms of data storage. Whole island continents were given over to certain kinds of media, even down to millennia-old devices of magnetic tape, encoded discs and solid-state memory rods.
Worlds like LXD-9768 were dotted across the breadth of the galactic disc, planets chosen for their sheer inertness, locations far distant from any suns approaching their death cycle, alien borders or other sources of potential harm. Many of them duplicated each other’s records, with multiple redundant copies scattered a thousand fold over the light years; but they were not all the same. Since Old Night and the loss of Mankind’s great technologies, the millennia that followed had seen in part a series of struggles to recover what was once known by all. The Adeptus Terra, in its infinite wisdom and incalculable patience, had decreed that such a fall to darkness was never to be permitted
again.
Thus, the libraria. Planets given over to file stores as big as cities, duplicating and protecting information so that the loss of any one of them would not mean the destruction of humanity’s knowledge base. Every fact recovered from the past, and every piece of data generated since, had a place here. Nothing was to be lost again.
But the reality did not marry with the vision. In the 41st millennium, true information retained the same power it had in earlier ages, and those who had it hoarded it like precious gems. Instead of the libraria becoming the home of all learning, they had turned into great dusty canyons of worthless data, collected by a bureaucracy that collated everything as if it were of the greatest import, no matter how trivial, how pointless. LXD-9768’s stacks could not tell a man what words the Emperor said upon his assent to the Golden Throne; but it could give chapter and verse about the migratory patterns of extinct breeds of rodents in the underlevels of hive cities, from worlds that had not existed for centuries.
The libraria cranked on, gathering and assembling information as a cetacean might strain ocean waters for krill through its baleen. And sometimes, by pure chance, they took in data that actually had value.
Interestiing forethought involved in actually setting up multiple, redundant libraries in secure locatiosn storing massive amounts fo knowledge against data loss. given how often "priceless" data or technology may be lost when a given world is lost or destroyed, or blown up... It makes sense. although it sounds like not everything is useful.
Page 96
It had taken Fenn six days to locate the correct annexe, in endless rounds of quibbling and arguments with the quillans and savants who stood as gatekeepers to the great oceans of data locked up in the libraria’s stores. Finally, the correct permissions had been provided, on a fanfold of greasy cardboard stamped with a dozen signets and consent indents. The books were close by, in a subbasement.
...
He had not taken food nor sleep since they departed Baal, he had said little to the
serf during the voyage aboard the transport ship and the shuttle flight to the surface of LXD-9768.
...
Ever since he had returned to the
Vitalis Citadel from his meeting with Lord Dante, he had been withdrawn.
...
The tomes had eventually come to LXD-9768, rescued from the obliteration of a
valetudinarium station somewhere in the Ultima Segmentum.
Caecus showed the first signs of interest in weeks; but when they reached the annexe...
Scanning the archives. given the implied scope of the data, finding references in a matter of days this is damn impressive.
Page 97
Nyniq was there, reading the Monedus papers with a repellor-field tool that let her turn the pages
without actually touching them.
Intresting reading implement. Applied force field/AG tech I bet.
Page 103
He gestured at the mix of displays that crowded the walls. There were paintings in various media, sculptures of stone and carved woods, tapestries and fine pieces of worked metal. Many were devotional items fashioned to show the Emperor or Sanguinius in reverent aspect, others abstract things made for the sheer pleasure of it, or representative works depicting landscapes from a dozen worlds.
...
“These are the works of our battle-brothers,” said Kayne. “Each one was crafted by the hand of a
Blood Angel."
Blood Angel artwork.
Page 110
To an observer caught up in the pitch and moment of the duel, Noxx’s blows would have seemed random, without order; but they were far from that. The correct application of force in the right places, even through the protective sub-dermal sheath of a Space Marine’s black carapace, could be enough to deaden nerves, to slow a fighting response. And if one were trained well enough, the right blow, no matter if it were struck with an edge-less training blade, would cause a seizure.
Flesh tearers know about nerve centers/pressure points. Black carapace no protection against that. Note as well that the Blcak Carapace here is indicated AS protection.
Page 121
“You have come here to take part in a rescue, cousins. To save the lives of
hundreds of your fellow Astartes, whose future hangs in the balance.”
"Hundreds" of Blood angels alive... and yet Dante feels a need to call some sort of enclave to beg recruits and gene-seed from other Chapters? WTF? THis is hardly the first time the Blood Angels have been decimated (Space Hulk 3rd edition is recent AND shows this.) and they never suffered before! Hell the Space Wolves have been nearly decimated 3 times in the past and have recovered...
Page 129
“But science is quest for knowledge, serf. If we allow ignorance to blind us, we willingly set ourselves toward a return to the Age of Strife and the darkness of Old Night!”
This from a supposed Magos Biologis (probably was) said to an Blood Angels Apothecary and his servants. The Servant is doubtful, and the Apothecary is an ass, but it's worth noting that the simple fact SCIENCE was mentioned was not an immediate cause for purging and burning. Of course, it's not the radicals who do that sort of thing right off the bat, and the AdMech has their own share of both radicals and puritans.
Of course this particulra Sanguinary priest is both stupid and desperate, so maybe he can be viewd as a radical
Page 133
“We cannot disband a First Founding Chapter!” Orloc was aghast.
“We know the history of the Astartes. It has happened before,” insisted Seth, “we can take the men among the successors, spread equally. As you said, Lord Orloc, we are all kindred beneath the armour…”
Dante looked around him and saw the spread of emotion, clear on the faces of Seth and Armis, hidden under Sentikan’s hood and behind the immobile mask of Daggan’s sculpted facia; and a dozen other points across the spectrum in the manners of the men of the Angels Encarmine, the Red Wings, the Flesh Eaters and all the others assembled.
Really? A first founding chapter has been disbanded? Which one pray tell?
And also at least a dozen or so successor chapters present.
Page 135
“He has the mind of a newborn, in many respects,” said Serpens, smiling like a proud parent. “Much of what he is remains locked in his brain through chains of genetic-memory. With the right stimuli, he will re-learn what he already knows.” He glanced away. “Give me a month of indoctrination and hypnocordia, and you’ll have a Space Marine fit for line duty.”
Not unlike Ork memorry I guess. I wonder if genetic memory really works that way, or if its weird psyker magic shit like the Akashic Reader.
Page 140
When the serf’s suspicions of Nyniq and Serpens had finally crystallised, it was to that man that Fenn went, bribing him with minor drugs from the medicae stores to see that an extra query was included in the machine-call message stack sent out toward the sector capital.
He had not expected to get a reply so soon....
...
“The Tech-Lord Haran Serpens is listed in the rolls of the Adeptus Terra as missing presumed dead. His craft was reported lost in the deeps of the Segmentum Pacificus, beyond the Thoth system.”
Machine call message to sector capital. I guess that is another way ofs aying astropathic communication.
Page 147
“The ability to recoup losses in months instead of years,” mused Orloc. “It would be a tacticaladvantage worth having.”
again "months" to grow troops instead of years. Frankly you have to wonder - if they can use it for servitors, why not make a shit ton more combat servitors? Or, for that matter, why not clone guardsmen? It's been hinted they virtually do that for Krieg Guardsmen as it is.
Page 152
"More than a hundred Blood Angels, alive and dead, have their DNA expressed within his physiology. I believe that with the correct stimuli, the clone will be able to assimilate the muscle-recall and genetic memory of each one of them!”
Again grain of truth or pure magic? I have no idea.
Page 153
“The replicae process duplicates many of the implants within the first budding of the modified zygote,” insisted the Apothecae. “Oolitic kidney, occulobe, multi-lung, bicopea, the secondary heart organ, all of these are naturally occurring structures...”
the clone has its own inherent, grown organs. Rather interesting since the multi-lung has been called bionic.
Page 156
Without hesitation, Rafen marched the contents of the gun’s sickle magazine up the Bloodchild’s body, ripping it into pieces in a welter of crimson. The remains of the clone sagged to the stones, twitching and dying.
Empying the clip inside the Astartes clone more or less blasts it apart. For a sickle clip 30 shots.
Page 167
“Forgive me if you find this method of communication alarming, but it is the only way open to us at the moment.” It was Nyniq’s tortured vocal chords forming the words, but the manner, the pace and meter of them, they were all those of Haran Serpens. “The girl has been altered by me. She can function in this manner for a short time, although it is harmful to her.”
Caecus nodded, grotesquely fascinated. Blood was trickling from Nyniq’s eyes in pink tears.
The analytical part of his thought process wondered after how such a thing was possible. A vox device implanted in her brainstem, perhaps? Or some form of psyker conditioning?
Forgive him? It's perhaps one of the most fucked up and brutal ways of communicating by using an unwilling host as a communicator. Did she know?
Also its a measure of Caecus (the Sanguinary Priest's ) stupidity that he's not tipped off by THIS either.
Page 171
Inlaid with mosaics of ruby and white gold, the decoration was protected from the abrasive storms of Baal by a molecule-thin layer of synthetic
diamond.
"molecule thin" synthetic diamond.
Page 171
Only the guardians remained, the two machine helots-at-arms in the
alcoves at the northern and southern ends of the chamber. Each of them rested down upon one knee, bowing toward the centre of the open space. They were fabricated from metal and ceramite, a thickset approximation of a man-shape cut to resemble an angel at rest. Steel wings of razored feathers were eternally folded at their backs. Their heads were the hollowed-out stone faces of old statues, within them remnants of brain meat and delicate mechanics programmed to ceaselessly watch over the chapel environs.
The Red Grail is protected by two Servitors that, appropriately enough, look like angels.
Page 172
Upon the death of their liege-lord, the sanguinary high priests of the Blood Angels had taken on the holy duty of ensuring that his vitae would never be allowed to perish along with him. His blood kept safe in their very flesh, for ten thousand years the priests had ritually injected and returned the blood of Sanguinius in an endless cycle, bolstering it, never letting it fade.
The Red Grail was the very chalice that had captured the first drops of the primarch’s spilled blood, and it was said that it still retained some untouched elements of that first spilling by some arcane manner of technology lost to the ages. It was no lie to say that a measure of Sanguinius
would remain captured in that sacred cup for all eternity.
Legends and practices of the Sanguinary Priests, especially pertaining to the Red Grail.
PAge 184
...and here, on this level, strewn casings from bolter rounds, the tarnished electrum glittering dully. He bent and chose one of them at random, sniffing at it. The cordite stink was still strong. This
shot had been discharged recently. He rolled it between his fingers. It was a pistol-gauge round, not the kind of shell a gun-servitor would have carried in its ammunition hoppers.
Electrum bolt casings?? What is brass not god enough? Anyhow the rounds use cordite (rather than fyceline or anything else) I'd say its an odd choice for rocket propellant.. except that he's sniffing casings. So the ammo was cased. I'm just going to be nice and assume Blood Angel bolters use cased and rocket propelled ammo and leave it at that.
Also the rounds are "pistol gauge" suggesting Blood Angel bolters have different calibre ammo for pistol and boltguns. Not surprising since the heavy bolter is implied to have something like 50mm rounds or bigger.
Page 185-186
From the deep shadows behind the fractionator columns came a thin thread of red, the targeting
laser dancing as it settled upon a point between Caecus’ eyes.
...
At once the targeting beam dropped away.
(visible) targeting laser beam for a bolt pistol.
PAge 189
...there were two distorted discs of metal, resembling the caps of fungal growths. The Apothecae nudged one with his finger. It steamed slightly, still warm with the heat of passage through the mutant’s flesh. Caecus had a flash of memory from his service as a battlefield medicae. He had seen the same thing many times when called upon to extract spent rounds from his injured brethren, the distended heads of bullets flattened by impact with dense flesh.
Bolt pistol rounds vomited up by Bloodchild mutant. They did not explode. They mushroom and expand on impact like hollowpoints.
Page 189
The thrusters flaring at maximum output, the Thunderhawk plunged toward the ice fields at near hypersonic velocity, speed bleeding off in a cherry glow about the wings as the transport aircraft entered the terminal phase of its suborbital flight from the fortress-monastery.
Sub orbital flight would imply they are up at 100 km or so... and near hypersonic velocity suggests Mach 4.5-5 at that height, which isn't unreasonable or unusual.
Page 194
“You are a scientist, Caecus. Cause and effect, reason and process, these are all things at the cornerstone of your self."
Again SCIENCE!.
Page 198
His helmet’s optical array set to preysight mode, he searched and found no heat sources save for the thermal exchanger pipes across the walls and ceiling. He returned his vision to normal..
Blood angel helmets have preysight mode for thermal viewing.
Page 204
“The Vitalis Citadel is built upon a geothermal vent,” explained Corvus. “A mineral aquifer
heated by a magma chamber kilometres below the surface.” He pointed at the exchanger pipes
across the walls. “Channelled by the works of the Mechanicus, it provides warmth and power for the whole facility. The terminatus chamber contains a governance system that will disengage the vent’s regulator.”
Yet another geothermal power source with a doomsday self destruct. Although this one actually isn't explosive.
Page 205
Corvus produced his auspex and held it up. On the screen, a wire-frame map showed a skeletal model of the complex’s layout
This Auspex has a mapping mode.
Page 209
“A teleportarium?”
“On this very tier, lord, used for the transit of delicate genetic samples,” said the Space Marine.
He frowned. “There are dozens of starships in orbit—”
How the hell did they get a telleporter for a research lab?
Page 212
Fabius eschewed the rituals of activation and the tiresome litanies of thanks to the Machine-God
that the teleporter’s drone-mind demanded. Instead, the chirurgeon upon his back extended a needlearm and injected a euphoric poison into the mechanism’s braincase, letting it drown in pleasure. So released, he was free to impose a new set of target coordinates and set the matter-energy conversion process to begin accumulating power for a transit.
Because he's a scientist, get it? Well that he's a chaos type. apparently the machine spirit does have organic components because you can poison/drug it. Note that the teleporter involves a "matter-energy" conversion process in its power generation.
Page 214
The Blood Angel’s world narrowed to the back of Noxx in front of him, the sergeant’s fusion-pack bobbing as they ran to reach the upper levels.
Flesh tearer armour has fusion power source.
Page 215
In quick succession he ran through the different modes of vision open to an Astartes in power
armour—electrochemical, ultraviolet, and infrared. Only when he turned to preysight mode did he
catch it, and by reflex the Blood Angel batted at the shape that suddenly appeared in the air.
Visual modes in RAfen's helm. Once again preysight, (infraread) as well as UV and others.
Page 219
The teleportation flux tore the air from his lungs in the shattering moment of transition. The Flesh
Tearer felt every atom of his body become fluid and ghostly, for one horrible millisecond existing as nothing but a mass of free particles in a sea of seething non-matter; and then suddenly Brother Roan was whole once again, the equilibrium of being restored as quickly as it had been taken.
The shocking transition was not new to him. Roan had taken part in teleport assaults on more
than one occasion, but it was not something that he relished. He had seen brothers twisted inside by perturbations in the flux, and worse still the warpings of flesh and ceramite that resulted from an incorrect reintegration, that had to be put down like diseased animals.
It "sounds" like its more of a "matter energy conversion" type teleporter than "shoot them through the warp" teleporter, but Mephiston still can sense and detect those things. So I dont fucking know what to think. Maybe it converts the target into a matter/energy stream and then shoots it through the warp.
Page 222
One of Lothan’s men, the honour guard Garyth, told Argastes of the energy-seers that had screamed as they detected the formation of a teleport bubble above the monastery. The elaborate sense-servitors were the fortress’ early warning system, but even their panicked reactions were not fast enough.
"energy seers" detected the teleport arrival of the unfortunate flesh tearer. They're sensor serivtors of some kind, and attuned to psychic emissions I guess.
Page 230-231
The Thunderhawk was on fire as it fell from the sky. The thrusters, pushed to a point beyond their
safe limits, began to consume themselves. Sun-hot fusion flame distorted and buckled the engine
manifolds, and great black trains of smoke marked the gunship’s downward passage. White sparks of broken metal fell in their wake, like spent tracer.
...
In order to convince the pilot-serf to take the Thunderhawk on a suicidal suborbital dive, the sergeant had dispatched the youth to the cockpit to provide some encouragement with his bolter. The plan had worked, and their return flight had taken a fraction of the time of their outward sortie; the only problem was the cost. This ship would never fly again; at best, the Techmarines would use it for scrap.
And that is if we can make it the last few kilometres without coming apart in mid-air, Rafen
thought grimly.
Thunderhawk engines can push past "safe limits" but not without estroying themselves. "fusion flame" as well. The fact thtat the craft made another suboribtal transit at a muc higher speed in a "fraction of the time suggests it was many many times its previous "near hypersonic" speed... mach 10 or mach 20 maybe.
Page 236
“contact Lord Sentikan aboard the battle cruiser
Unseen."
...
“Tell Sentikan that he has authority to stand as acting commander of all warships in Baal orbit.”
...
“Tell him to have lance cannons trained upon the planet, to this location. If we fail to stop these creatures, Mount Seraph is to be destroyed. We will not suffer abominations to live.”
Lance bombardment to destroy Mountain.
Page 239
Overhead, the walls vanished toward a curved roof covered with elaborate frescoes that showed spacescapes and the arc of the galactic arm. Picked out in clusters of gemstones and precious metals were the locations of Terra, Ophelia, Sabien, Signus and dozens other significant systems from the Chapter’s history, arranged as if glimpsed from the surface of Baal on a clear night. But there had not been a clear night on Baal since the War of the Burning that scourged the planet with nuclear fire;
Comment on the nuclear devastation that had devastated Baal during the DAoT.
Page 242
“A gate to the Eye of Terror opened, a warp tunnel forced through our spirit-wards and
defences,” hissed Mephiston. “Yes, it is clear to me now. He fled Baal and left this disorder in his
wake.”
Mephiston detects Bile's escape into the Eye via warp gate.. which is intresting since this means he's hauling ass across a good many tens of thousands of light years and two segmentums in a rather short period of time.
Page 243
“The Spear of Telesto?” The name escaped Rafen’s lips and he glanced at Mephiston.
The psyker shook his head. “The Spear would not end these brutes, brother. Its brilliant fires are
gene-locked by some manner of science from the Dark Age of Technology. Any Blood Angel who
falls beneath it emerges untouched.”
“And the Bloodfiends are alike to us on a genetic level,” Argastes frowned, understanding. “The
flames would be turned from them.”
The spear's magic flame and its genetic protections. Probably useful for melees, but I'm betting Sarpie wished the soulspear had a similar safeguard.
PAge 249
..for every two that attacked with claws or teeth or club-like fist, there was one with a looted weapon and the innate skill to use it. The clones carried the formation of an omophagea organ in the structure of their flesh. Almost identical to the function of the implant in the bodies of the Space Marines, the complex knots of nerve-sheath and organic bioprocessor keyed to viable elements of genetic memory in any ingested matter. The blood they consumed, still warm and raw from men drained dry, awakened locked muscle-recall and conditioned responses. The more they fed, the more they became.
But it also opened doors to fractured pieces of self, caught by the vagaries of evolution.
Fragments of memories from the hundred-fold donors whose DNA formed Caecus’ zygote code
emerged, conflicting, strident and unstoppable.
The Bloodfiends adapt. Again the magic "genetic memory" thing.
Page 251
A hissing crackle escaped Daggan’s vox-coder and he swung his ponderous mass toward the
towering Blood-fiend, blocking its path toward the great mausoleum. His palette of sensing devices cast x-ray, preysight and sonic energies over the clone’s body, instantly pouring information to the twisted clump of meat and brain tissue that was all that remained of Lord Daggan’s flesh.
Dreadnought sensing systems.
PAge 258-259
Emerging from the monolith were two huge extended angel’s wings, curving up and
around to form a protective cowl. The individual feathers were made of steel and silver and brass,
each one etched with words of remembrance. So the Chapter’s chronicles said, many of them were cut from the hull metal of loyalist starships that fought during the time of the Heresy, given in
tribute by brother primarchs such as Guilliman, Dorn and Khan, by the Legio Custodes, even the
admirals and generals of forces that had fought in the shadow of Sanguinius and counted themselves in his debt.
And between the wings; amid them a single giant hoop of spun copper burnished to the colour of
Baal’s red giant star, suspended there upon rods of milky crystal that intersected the ring like the
points of a compass, in echo of the design upon the floor of the Grand Annex.
Inside the copper halo lay the glowing heart, living and yet dead, forever in motion but always
still. The Golden Sarcophagus was not a casket in any conventional sense of the word. It was a sphere of molten gold, rippling and flowing, pendant in an invisible stasis envelope generated by
unknowable technologies buried beneath the stonework. In the ebb and flow of the fluid form, one
might imagine they could see brief conjunctions of motion that suggested a face, a countenance of most pure and handsome aspect.
Contained within a globe of suspended time, the mantle of liquid metal had never been allowed
to cool and solidify, not once in ten thousand years; for beneath it lay the flesh of the Emperor’s son, the Great Angel and Lord of the Blood, Master of the IX Legiones Astartes, primarch among
primarchs, the most noble Sanguinius.
The supposed resting place of Sanguinius, levitated in the air in a giant molten ball og fold. F ihs body isn't ash by now I'd be damned impressed.
PAge 262
The plasma gun stalled, the weapon’s machine-spirit refusing to release another shot until it
cooled for fear of an explosive burnout. Angered, the Flesh Tearer snarled and forced the weapon’s white-hot muzzle into the meat of the clone’s bare chest and held it there.
Flesh crisped and smoked, drawing a hooting cry from the mutant.
Plasma gun with "machine spirit and white hot (unmelted) muzzle.
Page 264
Puluo’s heavy cannon ate up bandoliers of ammunition in shining brass ribbons, the blazing muzzle sending rounds tearing through flesh and bone. At his side, Kayne sighted down the auto-sense targeting scope atop his bolter, carefully pacing bursts of three rounds into each mutant that came within range.
Autosense targeting scope on bolter, with three round bursts.
Page 265
It let out a very human sob of agony as the Blood Angel’s rounds hit one after the other, each bolt impact punching a red fist of discharge from the mutant’s
leathery skin.
Bolt rounds blowing fist sized holes in the enemy. Whether AStartes first sor human fists, I don't know. REmember that either way this is purely kinetic.
Page 268
Gravity pulled at Seth and he lost his grip; and in that moment the light of a punishing, vengeful
sun washed over him, a beam of blazing energy catching the wiry Bloodfiend in the fan of its full
power. The creature twisted and became fluid, corrupt flesh sloughing from blackened bones, then the bones themselves turning molten and then to vaporous ash. Seth reached up to bat the cinders away..
Dante's inferno gun.. cremates one of the Bloodfiends. Assuming Astartes proportions (150-200 kilos) we're talking at least a good 400-600 MJ, if not several GJ.
Page 271
Digging the flattened heads of bolt rounds from its undulating flesh, the creature came on
undaunted.
Once againb olt rounds flatten and expand on impact, rathe than blow apart.
As tempted as IO am to say brute force, I'm hard pressed to believe that Baal was literally reduced to a Primordial molten planet in order to do so. Something more likely is that they suffered combined virus and nuclear bombardment (although Virus weapons are supposed to be more recent things as I recall.)
Either way the Spear finally wises up and melts Arkio's gauntlets.