Scouring Series - What Would You Like to See?

[Xisor]

I'd like a lot more of the politics and civil stuff. (Contrast Annandale's Arbites-focused TBA novel with his Calth novel.)

 

Imagine every author in the series encouraged to follow the general principle of Wraight's footsteps where The Carrion Throne and The Emperor's Legion were concerned.

 

It's my refrain for most of 40k - the battles are cool in a general sort of way, but I very rarely care for fight scenes - even one's done very well.

 

The Horus Heresy has a few exceptions, and those are more depictions of natural disasters [Know No Fear] than traditional fight scenes.

 

Keep it personal and character driven e.g. ADB's method of outright skipping past battles if they're mundane re: character.

 

Fight scenes, for my tastes, mostly benefit from being abbreviated.

 

And that's something the HH and The Beast Arises have bith struggled with.

 

---

 

As a list:

- the malign treatment of the Sisters of Silence

- the political jostling around the Second Founding (Forge worlds competing for contracts of supply & fealty, sectors trying to play up their peril to entice Chapters to settle)

- the politics of the High Lords

- the politics of the Segmentae

- rationale behind the Chapter Number system (I envisage a sprawling style where Dark Angels are #1, Scars #2, Wolves #3 etc, their immediate successors are #10-19 (Angels of Whatever) and #30 are the Wolf Brothers, and then there's a gap of #21-#29 as the Wolves only found once, but those are "in principle" set aside. #20, 21,22 etc would be the Rampagers/Storm Lords etc.

 

The Grey Knights being #666 is still a bit of an issue, as it'd imply they were (roughly) the 76th Blood Angel's Chapter.

 

Err, I digressed.

 

- formalisation of the Adeptus

- proper reinstitution of the Libraries of the Space Marines

- early Inquisition shenanigans (Promeus/Morianna/the other two from the opening of the Inquisitor Rulebook)

- attempts to declare the Emperor dead and have a succession

- reintegration of Mars & the Forge Worlds

 

 

Lots of stuff.

 

I'd love to see the build-up to I Am Slaughter, I suppose.

 

The race to take control of the Imperium, buy also the fallout of the Heresy - dissilusioned Legionaries, deserters coming home, lost Expeditions continuing to show up late to the party and so forth.

 

So much material, I just wouldn't want it to be...

 

Mostly battles and Space Marines Punching things.

[Knockagh]

I doubt I’m not the only one who skim reads fight scenes? Not every book but a fair portion of them. I’ve no real appetite currently for a scouring series but if the scouring happens I would love it to focus on the fall of the Emperors empire and the establishment of the High Lords, BL authors are incredibly capable and more than able to deliver something far more than just a massive battle series.

But a series like this would be far more than the scouring. As much as this would be nice I would still suggest leaving it a good while before it starts. Let the dust settling Terra. And let Forge World get all their campaign books out!!

[b1soul]

A Scouring series should definitely have a heavy focus on politicking. Would be even more fascinating than The Beast

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

A Scouring series should definitely have a heavy focus on politicking. Would be even more fascinating than The Beast

That's not a high bar

[Knockagh]

 

A Scouring series should definitely have a heavy focus on politicking. Would be even more fascinating than The Beast

That's not a high bar

Really? I found the political side of the Beast series wonderful. It was the first time we got to see the interactions between council members, the tensions at the top level of government on terra. I thought it was brilliant.

The Beast series had many many faults but the political intrigue was certainly for me the sunny side of it. And it left me mad keen for more.

[b1soul]

Yeah...generally didn't like the action in The Beast, but liked the political scheming

[bluntblade]

Personally, unless you put Sigismund in the hands of the prose equivalent of Gareth Evans, I'm not interested in a book on him where the action is the focus. However the implications of the Second Founding for many characters is fascinating as they are severed from their parent Legion and Primarch, at least to some extent. Sigismund is an ideal way to explore that.

 

Furthermore, I want a novel about the Silver Skulls, Death Eagles or another Chapter with likely Traitor origins - just the one case where it can be confirmed, so we see that Chapter wrestling with the censorship of their own history. They can't take pride in their old glories and claim to embody what their brothers have profaned, because it's been decided that that history cannot be seen to have ever been honourable. That's got to be difficult to bear.

Edited January 12, 2019 by bluntblade

[Xisor]

Silver Skulls rumoured traitor origins?

 

I don't recall any of that. Was that in Sarah's works, Jim's, or elsewhere?

[Kelborn]

Several sites consider them of IW origin.

Here are some:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NKk1ygMI70U

https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Silver_Skulls

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/320991-the-silver-skulls-conspiracy/

[Xisor]

Two of those are tantamount to "no evidence".

 

It's not even akin to the Black Dragons and Storm Giants being Salamanders successors (wherein there's actual allusions and in-universe speculation).

 

I haven't watched the video, but is there anything to it that's not also "people speculate because the symbol is similar".

[Beren]

I want the Myriad arc on Mars to be concluded. Whether it was destroyed, recaptured or played the part in Mars' liberation that it was implied to.

 

I'm also hoping that a one off mention, by John French of research being done for a story set on Zhao-Arkhad, will pan out into something eventually.

[mc warhammer]

i’d put little stock into YouTube theories and even less into 4chan

[carlisimo]

Honestly it's quite surprising that it's only in recent years that the fandom (and the FW/BL writers, in fairness) have woken up to the fact that legion recruitment simply must have continued during the heresy, even putting aside the stuff about the accelerated methods. Go back to some of the earlier heresy discussons online and it's very much a simplistic 'well, this legion lost X amount at Isstvaan, then another X during the war, so by 40k there is only a few thousand left'.

To be fair, the number of 2nd Founding chapters is a pretty big clue as to how many marines were left by the end of the Scouring. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that most of the loyalist legions are headed towards having a few thousand left.

 

Now that I think about it, the Scouring will have to be pretty intense for the legions to end up so small.

[MegaVolt87]

Yeah I think the bigger fight occurred in the Scouring. IF's lost most of the legion at the Iron Cage, NL lost many legionaries to the UM assault at Tsualga (?) etc. I agree 2nd founding chapters are a good indicator of the final loyalist legion strengths, UM's had what 32 successors in the second founding? Now we can have a 50+ book arc on the scouring, thats my dream. 

[bluntblade]

I think the trouble with the Scouring is that its arc is distinctly messy and rather directionless compared to the Heresy. Tales of the Scouring would work better than trying to do it Heresy-style.

[Kelborn]

^ This. The HH and the Siege have a large goal/ target at the end: Terra.

Everything's preparing or leading into that one conflict.

 

The Scouring happens throughout the galaxy, no end battle per se.

A formay like the Battles ot Conquest series might be more fitting than a "regular" series.

[DarkChaplain]

I think the trouble with the Scouring is that its arc is distinctly messy and rather directionless compared to the Heresy. Tales of the Scouring would work better than trying to do it Heresy-style.

 

That, and we already have plenty of stories set during that era, making a labeled Scouring series/setting rather silly.

[b1soul]

The Scouring would be great setting or series.

 

Frankly, the HH series is a huge mess with a number of gems.

 

With the experience of the HH series under its belt, BL might actually make a tidier Scouring series. It's a fascinating era heavy on political intrigue

[Knockagh]

The Scouring would be great setting or series.

 

Frankly, the HH series is a huge mess with a number of gems.

 

With the experience of the HH series under its belt, BL might actually make a tidier Scouring series. It's a fascinating era heavy on political intrigue

If the souring was not just a series of battle reports but included the formation of the imperium without the emperor It could indeed make for a fantastic series. Hopefully, as you say, the lessons learned from the mess that was the Heresy have been absorbed. I would be pretty confident that they have going by the effort put into the solar war.

[bluntblade]

I feel like you'd want different books for different things tbh.

[b1soul]

The Scouring setting or series would essentially cover the birth of the Imperium as we know it.

 

The early decades with loyalist primarchs recovering from the Emperor's death.

The Codex Astartes and the Second Founding and the conflict over that.

The Regency of Guilliman.

The departures/disappearances of the loyalist primarchs

The rise of the High Lords.

The rise of the Inquisition.

The rise of the Administratum.

The rise of the Ecclesiarchy.

 

Essentially, it covers how the Imperium transitions to governance by institutions run by mortals.

[bluntblade]

The best thing would be for authors to pick flashpoints. The Iron Cage is an obvious one, and I'd love a Wraight-written peek into Ianius and co's emergence. Edited June 14, 2019 by bluntblade

[b1soul]

That works too...treat it as a setting to play with

[DarkChaplain]

The Scouring setting or series would essentially cover the birth of the Imperium as we know it.

 

The early decades with loyalist primarchs recovering from the Emperor's death.

The Codex Astartes and the Second Founding and the conflict over that.

The Regency of Guilliman.

The departures/disappearances of the loyalist primarchs

The rise of the High Lords.

The rise of the Inquisition.

The rise of the Administratum.

The rise of the Ecclesiarchy.

 

Essentially, it covers how the Imperium transitions to governance by institutions run by mortals.

 

We already know of the departures of Russ and Corax. We already know of how Vulkan left and went out during the War of the Beast. A lot of the politics involving the Inquisition, with the splitting of the Ordos, was handled in The Beast Arises in general. Nevermind the High Lords....

And just imagine the mighty bitching online over yet more Guilliman in a power position - we got plenty of that via Haley's Dark Imperium as-is.

 

Frankly, we've had stuff like the loyalists reeling already handled in books here and there. The only things not specifically tackled yet are the Iron Cage and Dorn's grief, Guilliman vs "Alpharius", Caliban and the discussion on the Codex Astartes, or the departure of Jaghatai.

We've been shown the Blood Angels post-Siege/during the Codex Astartes decision via Smillie's Flesh Tearers stories, for example. And there's a lot of traitor material that covers the other side.

 

I'd rather one author or another tackle a key event in a meaningful way than force another setting / series for no apparent reason, which then has to either avoid or heavily retcon stuff we've already seen. I don't get the repeated begging for it.

[Wulfburk]

A novel focusing on Dorn before and after the third founding, and on his dissapearence, would be great imo.

 

In fact a trilogy of novels, the first focusing on Imperial Fists and Dorn post siege of terra as they start the scouring. The second on the iron cage. And the third on the third founding and his dissapearence, would be epic. But then any type of novels focusing on the 7th legion i'll insta buy anyway so im biased.