Confused about timeline: 8th to 9th

[General Strike]

So the Gathering Storm took place after the Indomitus Crusade, right? Because everyone has Primaris at that point, and Guilliman has already returned home to fight the DG. But now the 9th Edition box set which appears to be the culmination of the Gathering Storm, finding out about the Necrons and Silent Kings plans, but the marine force in the box is part of the Indomitus Crusade? I'm just not sure what happens when, I thought the Crusade was long finished by the time of Pariah?

[BluejayJunior]

Gathering Storm takes place before the Indomitus Crusade. That is the event that brought about the Great Rift. During Gathering Storm, Guilliman was resurrected and traveled to Terra.

Primaris weren't introduced until after Guilliman got back to Terra, after the Gathering Storm. 

Guilliman then organized the Indomitus Crusade. It set out and crusaded for 150-200 years. After that was over, Guilliman returned to Ultramar to fight the Death Guard invasion (the Plague Wars). 

Pariah (and all the Psychic Awakening books) take place during the Indomitus Crusade. They are all books to expand on events in the universe between the opening of the Great Rift and the current 40K date, during the Plague Wars (roughly, maybe after that). 

[General Strike]

Thank you, it makes sense to me time wise now, but it still seems like nothing huge will happen since we know what happens after.

[RandyB]

Yes. The Timeline has stopped again.

[Doctor Perils]

Is Vigilus concurrent with or after the plague wars? Pretty sure it was supposed to be after the Indomitus Crusade

[nanosquid]

Is Vigilus concurrent with or after the plague wars? Pretty sure it was supposed to be after the Indomitus Crusade

I'm thinking that we all assumed it was post-crusade, but obviously that can't be the case since Calgar was the first (public) successful Primaris surgery, and a lot of the new things we've seen include upgraded dudes. Perhaps they originally planned to keep barreling forward with the timeline but decided to scale it back and explore the new time period.

 

I'm actually quite happy about that decision. 40k needs a setting, not a plot. The plot is for you and your friends to create upon the galactic canvas.

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

It was established in Vigilus Defiant that the events of the campaign began a year after the opening of the Great Rift. The final battle took place 24 years after that. So it was very early in the Indomitus Crusade.

 

As for Calgar, he showed up on Vigilus four years post-Rift and was said to have recently undergone the Primaris process at that time.

[Arkhanist]

GW have also written themselves a bit of a get-out-of-jail-free card by saying the opening of the Cicatrix Maledictum has made travelling through the warp even more weird with regards  time, so systems now calculate time locally, using when they experienced the opening of the rift as the start point, rather than using Terra as the base calendar.

 

For example, in Devastation of Baal & Blood of Baal, the warp storm following the opening of the great rift wiped out all the tyranid bioships in orbit - but as the storm cleared, the Indomitus fleet with Guilliman had arrived. All the way on the other side of the rift, in the Dark Imperium, mere days after the opening of the rift. But "the chrono-idents were so corrupted that Baal’s logisticians could ascertain no fixed origin time." And if I remember correctly, Guilliman was headed back to Terra at the end, after making Dante regent of the Dark Imperium, so from Guilliman's perspective it must have been near the end of the Crusade.

 

Basically, any discrepencies in the timeline, accidentally, or in service of plot can now be waved away as warp-timey-wimey effects. But overall, it's gathering storm, opening of the great rift, indomitus crusade to put the imperium back together - ish - then plague wars.

Edited July 31, 2020 by Arkhanist

[Panzer]

Keep in mind that time flows different for different planets now as well. Especially ones close to the warp rift.

For example the Blood Angels were in the middle of defending Baal from the Tyranids when Gathering Storm happened. The rift swallowed a huge part of the Hivefleet (and brought Khorne Daemons with it) and right after it disappeared there was Guilliman with his Indomitus Crusade fleet to take care of the scattered remains of the Hivefleet on Baal.

From the BA perspective only a few days passed between Gathering Storm and Guilliman arriving, but from the Cawls perspective (lets go with him since he was on Cadia) it was a whole adventure from Cadia falling, the escape through the webway, resurrecting Guilliman, defending Ultramar, fighting their way through to Terra, Guilliman becoming the official leader of the Imperium, releasing the Primaris, organizing the whole Indomitus Crusade and then traveling to all the different planets helping them fight and delivering Primaris until they eventually made their way to Baal on the other side of the warp rift.

 

Edit: should have read Arkhanists post before. :D

Edited July 31, 2020 by Panzer

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

The warp shenanigans don't really amount to much, though. Aside from occasional lip service about a battle group or strike force re-syncing its clocks when it meets back up with its host fleet, the whole concept seemed to only have been invoked so that they could have the Devastation of Baal book end as it did while giving Guilliman time to show up, make his way to Terra, wake up the Primaris bois, and then plan and set out on the Indomitus Crusade. They clearly wanted that battle to be the catalyst for the Blood Angels and all of their successor chapters being in a state where they needed the Primaris injection to keep themselves going. So they couldn't just have the battle at the time it was originally set (concurrent with Cadia's fall) and just have Dante twiddling his thumbs for the next however-many years until Guilliman showed up. Nor would it work with their other plans to even make Baal an early stop on Guilliman's "Back from the Dead" tour. Vigilus was already planned and would be taking twenty-five years to wrap - if Dante's already sitting on a replenished force of Primaris marines and been named regent of Imperium Nihilus, why wouldn't he show up to help Calgar?

 

So they invoked warp weirdness, which is fine, but like I said - so far, it's really only in regards to Baal that it's actually made any impact on the timeline. All of the dates given for Vigulus should be fine.

[Ascanius]

The only real weirdness now is that Dark Imperium (the novel series and the 8th Edition boxed set) takes place at the end of the Indomitus Crusade, very explicitly, whereas Indomitus (the novel and the 9th Edition boxed set) takes place during the Indomitus Crusade.

 

So 9th Edition has basically jumped back several decades from 8th Edition, roughly speaking.

Edited August 10, 2020 by Ascanius

[Captain_Krash]

Back to 12 seconds to Midnight for a little while sort of thing.

 

Krash

[Ascanius]

Given that the Dawn of Fire novel series is explicitly the first time that the Studio and Black Library have worked on a cohesive narrative, it wouldn't surprise me if that's why things have jumped back - the idea of the Indomitus Crusade being too fertile a ground for such an effort to leave alone.

 

So, you jump back to the Indomitus Crusade and move forward from there, because in any case it's such a long and expansive effort that you could easily set several editions' worth of starter sets in different parts of it.

[BluejayJunior]

Given that the Dawn of Fire novel series is explicitly the first time that the Studio and Black Library have worked on a cohesive narrative, it wouldn't surprise me if that's why things have jumped back - the idea of the Indomitus Crusade being too fertile a ground for such an effort to leave alone.

 

So, you jump back to the Indomitus Crusade and move forward from there, because in any case it's such a long and expansive effort that you could easily set several editions' worth of starter sets in different parts of it.

I'm almost positive that is exactly why they did what they did. Jump the timeline forward a couple centuries and now you have this new era in which to tell stories and fill in the blanks about how it got there. 

[WrathOfTheLion]

I think that is what they did as well, and I don't really have a problem with it at all. The only issue I ever had with that was that it wasn't quite clear that's what they were doing in 8E.

Now that they've done that, I think they will probably continue to do that and jump the timeline again, perhaps at the end of 9E or something.

[Darnok]

I just hope we see the Plague Wars sooner rather than later. They were mentioned all the way back at the start of 8th, and there has yet to come anything other than the novels. Well, probably when Death Guard get their new book? Or another PA-style series towards the end of 9th?

[Felix Antipodes]

While I dislike the loss of timestamps within the setting I get the impression that it was a popular move with the creatives for some reason not explicitly stated. Now that the Studio and BL authors are coordinating I'll just be happy if they keep things straight with individual characters and warzones.

[Doctor Perils]

I like that they've gone back to fill us in on it, but I dislike that we already know that Guilliman wins in the end - it would have been far more compelling were we to still be in doubt whether guilliman might be defeated by chaos banding together, while ghazkull invaded Terra and the Necrons made a pact with the Eldar against the Tyranids.

[nanosquid]

I just hope we see the Plague Wars sooner rather than later. They were mentioned all the way back at the start of 8th, and there has yet to come anything other than the novels. Well, probably when Death Guard get their new book? Or another PA-style series towards the end of 9th?

I wouldn't get your hopes up. We know already what happens - Mortarion really makes Ultramar feel the pain for a while and sets up his territory in the Ghoul Stars, but then has to leave because the Great Game never ends and the other gods want to take over his new holdings.

 

So it's actually kind of a draw. Ultramar lost some planets but they'll be okay in the long run. Death Guard scored a forward operating base in the Imperium Sanctus, but they're being hassled by the other gods' daemons so they can't take full advantage of it. I don't think any more big revelations will come from that.

 

For my own taste, I don't care for those books as much as non-primarch stories. You lose a lot of the grandeur when you have players that big (both literally and figuratively) involved. Even space Marines can be overwhelmed by the sheer size of the worlds around them, and the baroque imagery that makes 40k special really bleeds away when you have demigods duelling. I couldn't picture plague war's fight scenes at all, as they just take place in a giant open mud field. At least the kinds of mud fields my iron warriors fight in have some barbed wire and craters to set the mood :P

[RedFurioso]

The problem with the timeline is, we have blingy models and bladeguard veterans in the Indomitus box, meanwhile all Space Marines in the 8th starter (150 years later) are plain looking like a fresh marines.

[nanosquid]

The problem with the timeline is, we have blingy models and bladeguard veterans in the Indomitus box, meanwhile all Space Marines in the 8th starter (150 years later) are plain looking like a fresh marines.

This is evidence that the decision about the timeline was made after 8e lore... Ahem, "feedback"

[WrathOfTheLion]

I'm fairly certain they pivoted in some manner from whatever their original plan with the timeline is. Thus why it is confusing, they played fast and loose with the timeline and are now attempting to go back and have it make sense.

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

The problem with the timeline is, we have blingy models and bladeguard veterans in the Indomitus box, meanwhile all Space Marines in the 8th starter (150 years later) are plain looking like a fresh marines.

Most of the 8th edition starter units shouldn't have that bling though, they aren't the vets.

[Darnok]

 

I just hope we see the Plague Wars sooner rather than later. They were mentioned all the way back at the start of 8th, and there has yet to come anything other than the novels. Well, probably when Death Guard get their new book? Or another PA-style series towards the end of 9th?

I wouldn't get your hopes up. We know already what happens - Mortarion really makes Ultramar feel the pain for a while and sets up his territory in the Ghoul Stars, but then has to leave because the Great Game never ends and the other gods want to take over his new holdings.

 

So it's actually kind of a draw. Ultramar lost some planets but they'll be okay in the long run. Death Guard scored a forward operating base in the Imperium Sanctus, but they're being hassled by the other gods' daemons so they can't take full advantage of it. I don't think any more big revelations will come from that.

Isn't that like all these kind of "events" go? Epic fights, very little change in the status quo.

 

To me this sounds like a scenario that could rasonably well cater to all Chaos factions, the Imperium (with Ultramarines in an obviously prominent role), plus some Xenos by virtue of being either near (Tau) or "warpLOL" (everybody else).

[General Strike]

It just makes me think this puts a squash on anymore Primarchs in 9th. Although maybe not, because the Silent King is returning in timeline before the 8th edition boxset happens, and no one seems worried about it.