Help Re: Locating 40K short story involving Blood Ravnes...

[Connor MacLeod]

Specifically I hear it involved the actual destruction of the planet Cyrene, had mass driver rounds shaped like the Emperor, so on and so forth. Ring a bell with anyone and would they know where it appeared? And what it was named? Even the name would help.

Edit: nevermind. WR helped me locate it. This can be deleted if a mod/Admin wants

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I would be also interested in reading about it?

[Bob the Gunslinger]

As would I. Would you mind sharing the information, please, Connor?

[Connor MacLeod]

not gonna do any good (at least it wont for me now)

WR helped me locate it with his fantastic memory. It was a short story done by Lucian Soulban called "Altar of Cyrene" and it was in the last issue of Inferno! Magazine (#45.) Which, unfortunately seems rather unlikely to grab. (at least my googling hasnt uncovered it, yet.)

[Connor MacLeod]

amusingly I know some people must've read it, because its the place where oyu get mass driver rounds shaped like the Emperor bombarding a planet.. it might also be where the numbers for the ships come from (I've heard of a handful of ships, but never had a source.)

[Falkenhayn]

Inferno? Jesus. I didn't know that was still published. Or maybe it isn't, and this is why its so hard to find.

Should I be rubbing my hands together in anticipation of new calcs?

[Connor MacLeod]

nope. Inferno aint being published and I dont have any of them... so no calcs unless someone is kind enough to gimme the stories from the magazines they do have

As it is, its likely much of the stories that did show up in Inferno got published in the existing anthology books, and I have virtually all of those (I missed one I uncovered in the process of doing this) I don't even know how many stories they did per issue really.

[Shroom Man 777]

Mass driver rounds shaped like the Emperor? Holy shit. I bet those are sanctified, in case they had to destroy planets that have been totally warped by Chaos!

[white_rabbit]

If I'm remembering things correctly, the gist of the story is basically that Cyrene, the world Gabriel Angelos is recruited from, is rebelling, lots of nasty psykers and shit. Gabe's Dad even turns out to be a major, if not the major bad guy.

The Inquisition and Blood Ravens are there to fuck the place up, so we've got Grey Knights on the ground using nerve gas to kill off the populace, presumably in some interation of " We have to see them die" which comes up as a rationalisation of why the Imperium feels the need to "personally" murder the fuck out of someone when they are planning on nuking the shit out of their general location anyway.

Connor suggested an interesting point, that with the high density of psykers apparently on Cyrene, they didn't want to kill them off all at once. I only vaguely recall what Gabe was doing, but he basically goes down and gets an Angst refill from his dad, whom he probably shoots.

Whilst this is going on, the fleet in orbit is slowly bombarding the planet, using the semi-famous 3 tonne carved Emperor statues as mass driver rounds. Basically they hold position and fire as the planet orbits, pounding every square metre to dust whilst ground troops murder people.

Then they blast it with exterminatus munitions. just in case.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Connor suggested an interesting point, that with the high density of psykers apparently on Cyrene, they didn't want to kill them off all at once. I only vaguely recall what Gabe was doing, but he basically goes down and gets an Angst refill from his dad, whom he probably shoots.

They scream too loudly in the warp and attract the random Khornate?

[white_rabbit]

Its not unprecedented that killing on a grand scale can cause problems.

Its been the plot hook for several chaotic plots. in Obvious Tactics, the entire rebellion was orchestrated around getting the Imperium to punitively destroy several evacuated major cities, including the capital, then the Nurglite leaders would use the death energies of the vaped citizens, who were actually hiding in giant underground bunkers, to their own ends (usual stuff, new major warp rift, summon daemon princes etc)

Similarly a short story featuring the Red Corsairs has a little plot point in which Huron intended to kill billions in a single night, then its implied by his fruitcake sorcerer that he'll summon an army of Daemons/open a major warp rift.

Given that one psyker can cause something like this, its possible to rationalise it as simple caution when dealing with a high concentration of psykers, even though entire Hive worlds have been destroyed without negative side effects.

[Connor MacLeod]

some of the chaos oriented sources did this (The recent Chaos Daemons codex did I believe) - lots of high emotion/high activity, highly charged events like warfare can draw daemons (so can plagues, or chaos, or whatever.) - warfare is just the most common since you get lots of freshly killed souls (food for daemons) as well as all sorts of emotions (esp for Khornate daemons.) Slaanesh's awakening is another good example, albeit one in a more permanant case.

Basically, almost any sort of nasty shit you can get Chaos ro the Chaos cults doing will somehow generate psychic energy which will draw or attract daemonic attention (remember humanity is linked to the warp like alot of major races) - its like crows to carrion basically. That energy can be used to achieve lots of different effects (intentionally or unintenitonally) - I remember mention warfare often resulting in warp storms being created, or even attempts to open a rift in the warp in or around the planet (a rather common trick.. think of Traitor's HAnd.) Hell I remember reading in the Chaos Daemon codex that such things can become self perpetuating (one reason the Eye of Terror apparently lingers is ou get so much fucked up Chaotic shit going on that it keeps perpetuating itself.

I also remember reading somewhere that nasty psychic events (or truamatic ones) can have a destructive effect on the fabric between realspace and the warp - and that really extreme cases can tear it permanantly (something that gets the Malleus shitting its pants.) One thing coming ot mind is reading that Horus's using virus warheads on the Istvaaan planets udring the Horus Heresy caused such a psychic shockwave it blocked out the astronomican, albeit briefly.

Anyhow, the only way to end that stuff is, ironically, exterminatus (kill off everyone on the planet, and they can't perpetuate it.) But if I'm remembering everything right, if you kill off too many too quickly (or at least the wrong types in the wrong circumstances) then you also fuck things up badly (as in potentially opening up a rift into the warp.)

Cyrene is going to be a bad case all around because its a population of highly psychic individuals.... and psykers are more "active" in a warp sense, and thus more likely to act as a portal/breach into realspace. Letting them linger isn't going to help, because it just feeds Chaos. Killing them off all at once would be bad though because... it'll probably feed Chaos too. In a different way but likely just as bad. So you're left with doing a controlled killing to eliminate much of the psyker presence (think of it as giving the planet time to bleed off whatever psychic crap its accumulated before reaching the "we're fucked" point.) Once its gone, then you can fuck up the rest of the planet to ensure nothing comes back. Salting the ground, so to speak.

That's probably why it also took a week according ot Graham McNeill's Blood Ravens codex - they needed to drag it out deliberately to avoid fucking over the planet too rapidly and to give the ground forces time to do their job.

Another possibility for the ground forces is politics. Reemmber that Exterminatus is a serious action and the High Lords view using it without good cause as grounds for elimination (wasting a valuable planet) - Inquisitor Kryptmann is one such example. The Ground forces may have been employed as a token measure to try to "re-take" the planet before simply burning it out. It can be considered, after all, a valuable world (to the Astartes at least.) and the Inquisition may not have wanted complications with an Astartes Chapter over torching one of its recruiting worlds.

[Cykeisme]

Another possibility for the ground forces is politics. Reemmber that Exterminatus is a serious action and the High Lords view using it without good cause as grounds for elimination (wasting a valuable planet) - Inquisitor Kryptmann is one such example. The Ground forces may have been employed as a token measure to try to "re-take" the planet before simply burning it out. It can be considered, after all, a valuable world (to the Astartes at least.) and the Inquisition may not have wanted complications with an Astartes Chapter over torching one of its recruiting worlds.

Your first hypothesis sounds good, and much more likely.
In this case, Angelos himself called in the Inquisition instead of trying to have his company do any attempts to retake Cyrene.. so it's probably his idea to have the planet burned.
From his references to Cyrene in DoW, it sounds like he ordered or at least agreed with the plan for complete destruction, and it weighs on his conscience though it was, ultimately, neccessary.

[Connor MacLeod]

Angelos is only a company leader, and IIRC a relatively junior one at the point of time Cyrene is torched. Just because he's a Space Marine doesnt' neccearily mean that the rest of the Chapter will buy his story or his decision. for all we know it would have pissed off the rest of the Chapter since that ws a major recruiting world. The Astartes and Inquisition play politics as much as everyone else in the Imperium.

[Darksider]

Angelos' exact comment in DOW1 is that Cyrene's destruction was "my failure." This could easily be taken to mean that he feels guilty that he couldn't drive Chaos back and that the exterminatus had to be carried out.

[Teleros]

First off, Connor see my PM about this. As for the other issues raised in this thread about the story...

Angelos is only a company leader, and IIRC a relatively junior one at the point of time Cyrene is torched. Just because he's a Space Marine doesnt' neccearily mean that the rest of the Chapter will buy his story or his decision. for all we know it would have pissed off the rest of the Chapter since that ws a major recruiting world. The Astartes and Inquisition play politics as much as everyone else in the Imperium.

He's a company leader and supported by Isador, who claims that the Blood Ravens stand with him. Might apply only to his company though.

In this case, Angelos himself called in the Inquisition instead of trying to have his company do any attempts to retake Cyrene.. so it's probably his idea to have the planet burned.
From his references to Cyrene in DoW, it sounds like he ordered or at least agreed with the plan for complete destruction, and it weighs on his conscience though it was, ultimately, neccessary.

During a fight, Gabriel claims that he called the Inquisition along to Cyrene, and, coupled with various comments about how widespread the heresy was, it's likely he ordered its destruction as well.

Whilst this is going on, the fleet in orbit is slowly bombarding the planet, using the semi-famous 3 tonne carved Emperor statues as mass driver rounds. Basically they hold position and fire as the planet orbits, pounding every square metre to dust whilst ground troops murder people.

Then they blast it with exterminatus munitions.

The mass driver rounds were "fashioned to look like ten tonne metallic statues of the Emperor". No mention of warheads (if any), just the design. The fleet was stationary in space, letting the planet's own rotation bring new regions into the range of their guns, although I didn't see any use of Exterminatus weapons after (just a "mere" broadside), although the opening paragraph mentions:

Each bomb was... another hammer fall in the Exterminatus and destruction absolute of Cyrene's every living citizen

The "bombs" may well refer to the mass driver rounds above, possibly implying warheads of some kind, but they do give us a lower limit on how Exterminatus operations are conducted (that is, slower, with no cyclonic torpedoes etc mentioned, etc etc etc). The idea of avoiding mass murder to avoid messing with the Warp might explain why, as mentioned above.

[Connor MacLeod]

First off, Connor see my PM about this. As for the other issues raised in this thread about the story...

Thanks.

He's a company leader and supported by Isador, who claims that the Blood Ravens stand with him. Might apply only to his company though.

Thats pretty much what I was thinking. He's supposed to be pretty important IIRC, but its still possible that anything he does will piss off the other Blood Ravens if he decided unilaterally. But even if we (and he) knows the Blood Ravens will support him fully, its possible that outsiders (EG the Inquisition) might fear his actions could have repercussions and seek to moderate that (or at least give the appearance of trying.) After all, we know that rampant extermination of planets is frownd upon by the high Lords (even when Inquisitors do it - see the Kryptmann example.) The Astartes HAVE to be political to a certain extent becase the rse of the Imperium is, but its likely that not many outsiders actually realize how different Space Marines are (the Inquisiton may assume, for example, that the Space Marines are as contentions as they themselves are.)

In this case, Angelos himself called in the Inquisition instead of trying to have his company do any attempts to retake Cyrene.. so it's probably his idea to have the planet burned.
From his references to Cyrene in DoW, it sounds like he ordered or at least agreed with the plan for complete destruction, and it weighs on his conscience though it was, ultimately, neccessary.

In hindsight we know he didnt seem to get his ass kicked for it (save for his own whinging) but thats not something any of the people involved (Particularily the Inquisition) could know for sure.

During a fight, Gabriel claims that he called the Inquisition along to Cyrene, and, coupled with various comments about how widespread the heresy was, it's likely he ordered its destruction as well.

Which may very well reinforce the political angle, as it could be seen that the Inquisition is doing this, not Gabriel. While in theory the Inquisition is all powerful, its still accountable to others (the High Lords) and it has to play politics like everyone else. Burning the major world of a Space Marine Chapter has to be a pretty politically tricky move to do, Chaos or no Chaos.

[Cykeisme]

During a fight, Gabriel claims that he called the Inquisition along to Cyrene, and, coupled with various comments about how widespread the heresy was, it's likely he ordered its destruction as well.

Angelos probably didn't actually order the Exterminatus per se, but by dutifully reporting his observations (whatever they were) to the Inquisition, he basically damned the world.

As Connor pointed out, the Inquisition might also be a bit hesitant to initiate Exterminatus on a world known to be affiliated with an Astartes Chapter. However, with a representative of selfsame Chapter on hand to give the thumbs-up, they went ahead and blew it to hell.
That only puts more of the proverbial blood on Angelos' hands, even if it was completely justified.

In the end, though, I admit it amounts to much the same thing.. Cyrene's fate was in his hands, and it burned but good.

Angelos is only a company leader, and IIRC a relatively junior one at the point of time Cyrene is torched.

There isn't really such a thing as a relatively junior Captain; from what I know a Chapter has only ten Brother-Captains, and considering he's Captain of one of the Battle Companies (Companies II through V), he's no slouch.
Also, if the world was really in a horrible situation, even the rest of the Chapter (as loyal servants of the Emperor) would have to accept that his actions were correct.

[Lord Revan]

that may be true, but he could still get into "trouble" for letting things go that bad, if Dawn of War 2 is anything to go by Blood ravens had only 4-5 recruitment worlds including Cyrene (FYI:I don't own the game I got my info from a youtube LP so it might be questionble).

[bobnik]

Each bomb was... another hammer fall in the Exterminatus and destruction absolute of Cyrene's every living citizen

Somewhat off topic, I had always thought that Exterminatus was the code-word for "destroy the biosphere totally" regardless of the method actually used.