Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work

[SkimaskMohawk]

Yea but we knew there were tens of thousands from all the dark imperium fluff.

[Triszin]

I’ve read four chapters so far and it’s really, really good.

 

And first tidbit for me - Felix is primaris 10-079-983 implying there are many, many thousands of primaris marines

Not necessarily.

 

It could be.

Batch 10

Sub parts 79

Try # 798

 

Call names things like a mfging company.

 

He could be test # 800~. Of the batch that oblyn1 worked.

 

However felixs to me felt like he was a trial for greyknights

[b1soul]

The C'tan describe the Emperor as a weapon...which is really vague, but it kinda feeds the theory the Emperor could be an Old One or DAoT construct, or perhaps the Shaman gestalt being could be termed a weapon

[Huggtand]

Listen to half of the book now and it is a really good story! Good blend of history flash backs and present day.

 

A little nugget

Cawls first prototype, Alpha Primus, are stronger and faster than normal primaris and to boot also have psychic powers. He reviles that with him Calw aimed to high and thought he could do as good as the Emperor He failed and Alpha suffers every day for it with constant pain and nightmares.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Huggtand

[Sete]

I have read the spoilers and i am half interested in buying it.

Good that it expands on cawls backstory, but im disliking

 

his Mary Sue agent.

The bits about the Emps are delicious.
Peeps gonna lose their minds. Edited September 22, 2019 by Kelborn
added spoiler tags

[Izlude]

Just read chapter one. Love the elixir of life and how it is made...very grim dark. Off to a great start and looking forward to this one mostly for HH era stuff and Guilliman interactions.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

Well, it's already been stated that there were tens of thousands/hundred+thousand Primaris Marines as part of the Unnumbered Sons.

[Red_Shift]

It's quite a scary book. As a film, it would be fantastic. The dream manipulation stuff is probably going to effect my sleeping tonight!

[The Scythes]

Phew, usual Hayley prose and enjoyable; really tough reading for a long time fan - interesting threads being tied off. Glad Hayley treated my namesake Sebastion well, he's been passed on through three authors now. Couple big reveals and explanations, and this "secret" that left us hanging after Goulding left is being addressed.

Edited September 21, 2019 by The Scythes

[b1soul]

Really "tough" reading? How so?

[Apothecary Vaddon]

The C'tan describe the Emperor as a weapon...which is really vague, but it kinda feeds the theory the Emperor could be an Old One or DAoT construct, or perhaps the Shaman gestalt being could be termed a weapon

IMO it doesn't feed the DAoT construct at all, even acting actively against it. Zarhulash had no idea of what humans were, really, or of what had happened since it was imprisoned millions of years prior. Old One possibly, but the statement as you say is vague enough that Zarhulash could simply be providing a classification of the Emperor as a 'weapon', based on what knowledge it gleaned from Cawl's memories. All in all it kind of didn't swing the pendulum in any direction except, imo, against the DAoT construct theory, unless you try to work in that any uber psychic weapon created during the DAoT would mimic or be similar to uber psychic weapons created in ages past.

 

Alternatively and equally likely, Zarhulash was simply wrong in its statement, since it's definitively not all knowing.

[The Scythes]

Tough reading as in the fates of some long time characters. I've been a fan of the Scythes since 1997 and have followed their growing history and appearances. A few revelations to be found that raised my eyebrows.

[DarkChaplain]

I have read the spoilers and i am half interested in buying it.

 

Good that it expands on cawls backstory, but im disliking

 

his Mary Sue agent.

 

The bits about the Emps are delicious.

Peeps gonna lose their minds.

 

How is he a "Mary Sue" agent, exactly? Because he's significantly more powerful than a regular Primaris? Did you honestly expect the gene-tampering Archmagos not to experiment and create various prototypes along the way, before settling for a mass-reproducible way in Primaris? And it's not like Alpha Primus doesn't have flaws. His character is pretty telling there, as is the constant pain and drawbacks from imperfect genecraft.

 

The term Mary Sue has really gotten synonymous with "stronger than average character I don't like" these days, it seems. Heck, I even had an argument on BoLS when the new Gotrek model got its rules. That other person didn't know jack all about Gotrek & Felix and simply called the dwarf a Mary Sue. I wonder how many eyes Mary ever lost in her blind rampages, or how many families she had die on her...

Edited September 22, 2019 by Kelborn
added spoiler tags

[Sete]

Yes.

[Robbienw]

Wow that’s some interesting spoilers, will have to get this.

Alpha Primus is interesting, sounds like they are setting up the long term replacement for Primaris Marines already  

Edited September 22, 2019 by Kelborn
added spoiler tags

[DarkChaplain]

They really aren't. The book's pretty clear on him being a one-off that cannot be reproduced, and probably shouldn't be unless you want your armies to be in constant pain and maybe even more prone to fall to Slaanesh or Nurgle over it :')

Edited September 22, 2019 by Kelborn
added spoiler tags

[Robbienw]

Yeah, I’d expect that to conveniently change to Cawl suddenly finding a new technological way to perfect them in the future, when GW wants to sell you an even more new and improved marine :lol:

[Red_Shift]

Just finished it, didn’t disappoint at all. Haley is fast becoming black library’s premier author imo. Not just the quality and volume of work but answering questions about the setting raised by the sweeping events of global campaigns and new model additions.

[b1soul]

My impression was that even though Zartulash was imprisoned for millions of years, he's aware of human history, so he'd probably be aware of the DAoT. I was thinking the Emperor is an Old One-created weapon.

[Triszin]

Not sure I like the idea that Marines can be infected by genestealers and partially controlled by them.

Cause I would make a version of the grey knights that focus only on identifying genestealers infections of Marines and purging them.

At b1

If he is a weapon, it will be a merger of concepts. He was a thing made by massed shaman souls. Then at the height of daot he was altered into a weapon capable of killing gods.

And what happens when the god killer weapon becomes a god?

I would much prefer the old ones only have laid the base foundation of humans millions of years ago, and abandoned it. Then humans create something capable of killing the old ones and God's themselves.


A forgotten laboratory expirment


Extra tin foil hat

Daot humans realized gods we're interfering with humans. And got sick of it. Found the emperor altered him into a god killer.

Then he murdered all the human god pantheon's.

Twist the emperor stuck some deals/took parts of all the human goods he killed then later forged them into primarchs.

Edited September 22, 2019 by Kelborn
added spoiler tags

[Frater Antodeniel]

Well, i think i will buy it, i was cautious regarding Cawl fluff, but with the spoilers and reviews givens, i think it worth the money.

 

Regarding the Spoilers,

The C'tan revelations that have been spoiled, i think that it is important to remember that in the Lore, the C'tan are Godlike being that see the world from their Godlike point of view, and more important, that they are prideful to the extreme.

 

So the C'tan point of view about Humanity, Chaos and the Emperor may be flawed. It is good to remember that despite being all powerful beings none of the C'tan foresaw the betrayal of the Necrons that led the C'tan essences to be captured / fractured / enslaved.

 

This C'tan as powerful as it is, appears nonetheless to be a mere shadow of the being it was. This being may imagine being still among the most powerful that exist, but it may simply be hubris that blind it to the truth.

 

The only thing i think the whole space/time make appear would be that like the Chaos God, the C'tan and perhaps the Old Ones, are all Celestial beings who have transcended reality and see things from afar. (To picture simply, imagine that reality is an aquarium, you can see it from afar, but when you want, you can put your hand in the water and move objects as you want.)

 

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Secondly regarding the Emperor, one thing come to my mind from the Codex Adeptus Custodes (It is a long citation, to give context) :

 

During the Dark Age of Technology, the human race was almost annihilated by its own hubris. Though Mankind’s first steps away from its home world were faltering, natural adaptability and belligerence of spirit soon saw it flourish in the void. Science and technology advanced at a breathtaking pace, enabling the conquest of increasingly far-flung planets. The vast reaches of the galaxy shrank as Mankind’s capabilities grew, and alien races were driven back into the shadows by the fierce light of human progress.

 

Thinking machines and the development of ever more esoteric weapons and transportation technologies played their part, but the single greatest factor to drive this expansion was the ability – and the reckless will – to manipulate human genetics. Utterly certain of their own primacy, scientist-kings and techno-demagogues followed every strand of curiosity and exercised powers of creation that made them seem like gods. Ultimately, their hubris led them to catastrophe, and onwards to the very brink of extinction. Worlds were overrun by bloody uprisings within their own populations, much of which were mutated beyond sanity and recognition.

Gene-wars consumed entire star systems, while a psychic apocalypse drowned the stars in fire. The vast empire of Humanity was shattered amidst horror and anarchy, and the oppressive shroud of Old Night settled over all. At the heart of this galactic disaster lay Terra, transformed from a glittering jewel to an apocalyptic hellscape by forbidden weapons and biological atrocities. Yet though its people fell into darkness and ignorance, many of the technologies that had led them to ruin survived, sealed away in hidden bunkers and biomantic crypts. Sure enough, as Humanity clawed its way back from the brink beneath the lashes of cruel warlords, so those selfappointed rulers discovered the weapons of old and tried once
again to turn them upon one another. Terra faced the threat of a second apocalypse as gene-bred barbarians and ghastly fleshstitched ghouls made war at the behest of madmen, fanatics and techno-cannibalistic murderers.

Much of this lore is lost forever, destroyed or buried in the endless archives of Terra. Yet a few still know that this was the environment in which the Emperor rose to prominence, and that he – whether living deity or apex superhuman – was a worthy inheritor to the trove of genetomantic lore left behind by Mankind’s former rulers. It was this ancient and dangerous bounty, coupled with his own incredible and unfathomable powers, that allowed the Emperor to fashion warriors with which to unite a world.

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So the Emperor being a weapon, is like said before, an already established fact. Whether the Emperor is the pinacle of the Dark Age of Technology genetics manipulation or the psychic creation of the Shamans, the Emperor is Humanity weapon to progress into a new age of enlightement.

 

Also, an interresting fact about the C'tan perception of the Emperor as a weapon is interresting, since, from the point of view of a godlike C'tan, to designate something as a weapon is to recognize that it may dangerous. In the regard, it would appear that the C'tan acknowledge the Emperor as something dangerous, a weapon that could be used against the C'tan.

Edited September 22, 2019 by Kelborn
added spoiler tags

[Kelborn]

Added spoiler tags to some posts. Keep in mind that this novel was just recently released.

 

Spoilers (even the slightest hint) might be too much for other readers.

 

Please be aware of that. Spoiler tags don't prevent further discussion.

 

Thanks. :tu:

[Frater Antodeniel]

 

Added spoiler tags to some posts. Keep in mind that this novel was just recently released.

 

Spoilers (even the slightest hint) might be too much for other readers.

 

Please be aware of that. Spoiler tags don't prevent further discussion.

 

Thanks.

 

 

Ok, no problem, i wasn't sure myself if had to put the whole thing as spoilers since it did not truly revealed that much, but i wasn't sure in the end, so it is a question solved^^. =)

[b1soul]

The Emperor could be both, an ancient Perpetual/Shaman-Creation who then underwent DAoT experimentation to further enhance his abilities, and then boosted his powers yet again at Molech

[Red_Shift]

Over the course of the novel it is revealed that Cawl has successfully absorbed other personalities over the centuries and taken their learning for himself. It's led to his memories becoming fragmented and slightly confused and its implied when he kits up for the trip to Sotha that he can vary his personality and traits depending on who he is meeting. In the end its shown that the Cawl personality is pre eminent and successfully running the show.

It made me think of the old inquisitor trilogy, in which the emperor seemed to have split personalities and I wondered if Cawl is of a similar origin to the emperor, only the emperor is far, far older and more advanced. Further, towards the end cawl sends one of his mini-mes to meet with guilliman and I wondered if on some level cawl is a part of the emperor's consciousness, sent out to further his great work whilst the emperor is enthroned.

On a separate note, the scene where the Pharos replays the last stand of the Scythes of the Emperor really resonated with me, marines all singing a death hymn whilst they fight to the last. It's what marines are in the fluff and was awesome.