Death Korps of Krieg HH novel?

[Knockagh]

Yip, if authors can put personality into space marines, death Korps soldiers would be easy.

[bluntblade]

He was actually arguing that Kriegers are more depersonalised than Astartes. The latter are warriors more than soldiers, so it makes sense that in many of them, some individual merits are expected and promoted.

[MegaVolt87]

HH novel about Vostoryn Firstborn would be interesting. I think they refused to join the war when RG called on them. Could be expanded with regiments shipping out anyway with no insignia to fight for and against the Imperium. 

[infyrana]

Did they do a campaign on Barbarus ?  Curious minds want to know more :)

[Tyriks]

Comissars are sourced from outside Krieg, and are more for mediating between the Kriegers and non-Kriegers than anything. The Commissar main character in what I think was Dead Men Walking notes that every single officer that replaced a deceased one acted in exactly the same way, and their generals were pretty much the same to.

The buggers wouldn't even take their assigned shore leave, something the Commissar despairs of, electing to spend tbe whole time training instead.

A civilian in Dead Men Walking also notes that the DKoK are as inhuman and uncaring as the Necrons, which seems silly but it does show how extreme their conditioning/mindset is. But writing from the perspective of the attached Commisar like they did in Dead Men Walking would work for future novels, I think.

[Beren]

There is a touch of, not exactly emotion persay, but an ideal? Largely when one of the Krieg officers points out that every one of his men is ready to lay down their lives for the emperor and to fight for millions across the galaxy, why should the locals be not be willing to do the same for their very home? Odd moment like that which are not exactly displays of individual emotion, but gives insight into what drives the Death Korps as a whole.

[Knockagh]

 

Comissars are sourced from outside Krieg, and are more for mediating between the Kriegers and non-Kriegers than anything. The Commissar main character in what I think was Dead Men Walking notes that every single officer that replaced a deceased one acted in exactly the same way, and their generals were pretty much the same to.

The buggers wouldn't even take their assigned shore leave, something the Commissar despairs of, electing to spend tbe whole time training instead.

A civilian in Dead Men Walking also notes that the DKoK are as inhuman and uncaring as the Necrons, which seems silly but it does show how extreme their conditioning/mindset is. But writing from the perspective of the attached Commisar like they did in Dead Men Walking would work for future novels, I think.

You make an excellent suggestion. I still believe Korps members will have personality that would make excellent fiction but perhaps an outside in perspective would work best. Like ADB did brilliantly in spears of the emperor.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Yep, an external viewpoint could work, but the internal just doesn't. Grimaldus may have the personal interaction skills of a rock, but he has martial pride. He has his honour. The DKoK do not have that. They don't care about grand speeches, or duelling that warlord in glorious hand-to-hand combat to honour the Emperor. They have their orders. That's it.

If they are told to advance, they will advance, through the fire and fury of their own artillery if need be. If told to fix bayonets and charge, they'll fix bayonets and charge, against the worst Hellspawn the Cicatrix Maledictum can vomit forth. They'll do all of this without question, because they don't matter. They know are as important as the lasguns they bear. Individually weak, near indistinguishable from their counterparts, able to be replaced with a moments notice. They are a cog in the unstoppable machine that is the Astra Militarum, and cogs may break but the machine rolls ever onwards, crushing the foes of Mankind. 

[Knockagh]

I don’t buy it. Humans are not marines, they do know fear and every other emotion. If the imperium had cracked removing emotion and replacing it with duty the kreig scheme would have been rolled out across the empire.

I still believe it’s all a front, yes it helps create a culture of duty and perhaps bravery but under the mask, under the conditioning they are still people

[bluntblade]

The Krieg scheme is notably extreme, enough so that I doubt the Imperium would impose it even if it could.

 

And if you have these people raised within this structure from birth and basically zero outside interaction, I think that would affect how they develop.

 

Also, "but underneath they're basically normal, relatable humans" doesn't strike me as very Grimdark.

Edited November 28, 2019 by bluntblade

[Knockagh]

Also, "but underneath they're basically normal, relatable humans" doesn't strike me as very Grimdark.

Sorry I didn’t mean they were in anyway normal. I would say they are mental basket cases. The strain of the conditioning would scar any human. Korps members aren’t designed for old age so I doubt mental trauma is top of their troop welfare concerns. I think emotionally manipulated, mentally scarred cannon fodder is about as grimdark as it gets. I just don’t buy into them being unfeeling zombie robots. They are human and humans are creatures rules by emotion or spirit or whatever you want to call it. I think that’s a large part of what makes us human. It’s not removable.

[Beren]

A: They did it to themselves as a consquence of their history, which involved a nuclear civil war which devestated their planet.

 

B: The comissars assigned to them are downright uncomfortable with the way they act.

 

So no, it's not likely to be rolled out en masse.

Edited November 28, 2019 by Beren

[Lord_Caerolion]

Except that we're outright told that it's not a front. I get that you don't like it, but this is the equivalent of saying "guys, I think that Marines actually DO feel fear, because they're still human, and everyone feels fear. In fact, some probably have Orkaphobia, I mean those things have got to be terrifying!" The canon outright states that yes, the DKoK are just this messed up, psychologically. They have nothing but love for the Emperor, and a desire to atone in death through the sins their forefathers committed against Him. 

 

But hey, at least that's one more thing in their motivations than the Sisters of Battle have. 

[bluntblade]

I feel it says something that they plunged their own world into a Dr Strangelove situation to purify it of heresy, and thousands of years of bending every sinew towards fighting for the Emperor they still don't think the stain has been scrubbed off.

[Lord_Caerolion]

"Kill them all" is for wimps. "Kill everyone, including myself and the unborn generations hence in the most inhospitable warzones physically possible", now we're talking!

[Xisor]

 

It would be kinda hard to do a novel where the central character has no personality whatsoever. They don't even really have names, just identification numbers, as their whole culture is built around the idea that the individual doesn't matter, that they exist solely to expunge the stain on their worlds honour in the eyes of the Emperor.

Of course they have personality. They are human it’s not possible to be human and have no personality. We are a pretty diverse lot. The mask is just a mask it creates a look of uniformity but underneath they are still men. Even the genetic tinkering won’t eradicate personality. They aren’t robots or animals.

@bluntbalde, the people of kreigs treatment of their women is extremely fitting for the 40k galaxy. The 40k galaxy is unkind, uncaring and throughly nasty. Human rights have been swept away with all progress, there are only chinks of honour and goodness left. That’s what makes good stories the little beams of light in the dark. I’m totally opposed to inserting our 21st century rights and equalities into the 40k galaxy, it’s ridiculous. The whole galaxy is oppressive the empire survives because it oppresses and uses people as disposable commodities. It ain’t supposed to be pretty. Grimdark

I've read (and praised, where seen in prose) this very approach in many pieces - authors writing fairly orthodox Adeptus Mechanicus characters seem to talk about it the most. Peter Fehervari's entry in the big shorts anthology for example.

 

It's very possible to do faceless oppression of the individual - and even to do it really well - where they still have distinct and endearing personalities...

 

But good god it sounds like hard work. Impossibly hard work, at that - especially to sustain for more than a short story's worth of material.

 

I thought Rob Sanders did an ace job in his Ad Mech stuff, by leaning into the vividly weird bits of it - but even that must have been a monumental effort. (Perhaps not so distinctive for Rob, as he talks about agonising over word choices, let alone plot points - I'd imagine anything he outputs is a monumental [if skilled & worthwhile!] effort.)

 

But I think "work smart not hard" attitudes prevail hereabouts - and perhaps rightly so - so the sensible thing even with Steve Lyon's Dead Men Walking, was to have the two main characters be non-Krieg-y Commissars, and the enemy to be (for the time) a "garrulous" Necron.

 

Writing faceless mooks with faces is difficult, and probably wssy to get wrong.

 

I can appreciate why authors spend their valuable time not doing it.

[Moonreaper666]

Maybe it would be better to have the POVs be the various enemy forces that fight Krieg Guardsmen?

 

Have Orks and Eldar be unnerved by them

[grailkeeper]

Orks are unlikely to be unnerved by them and eldar probablyfind them hard to tell from pther humans. Human secessionist or Tau maybe.

[Beren]

I believe that a Death Korps short story (written by the same author as Dead Men Walking) is from the perspective of a former Imperial citizen forced to man artillery by Chaos cultists.

[Moonreaper666]

Orks are unlikely to be unnerved by them and eldar probablyfind them hard to tell from pther humans. Human secessionist or Tau maybe.

The DG stand out from most humans. They make the Mechanicus human and cordial in comparison