LaurieJGoulding

This brings to mind two quotes. The first is EVERY SINGLE unpleasant person you could ever meet in your life, the kind of person who says "I just tell it like it is, if you don't like it then that's your problem!" Because these people have NO FRIENDS, and everyone wishes they would go away because they are vacuums of enthusiasm and politeness. The second quote is from me. I've been trying to get it some more traction by bringing it up every so often in online "discussions": 'If you didn't BUY a thing with your own money, and you didn't READ/WATCH/LISTEN TO the whole thing first, then you don't get to COMMENT on the thing.' Amazon and eBay has tricked the audiences for books, movies and music into thinking that they are all critics whose opinions deserve to be heard, in as unvarnished and direct a manner as possible.

CDs are typically 70+ minutes. I don't think BL has ever released a standalone CD with only 40 minutes of content. Or are you listening on 1.5x to make it more efficient?

Tymell is correct - the watch-packs were sent secretly, by *Malcador*, at the same time that Russ was sent to bring Magnus back. By the time of Isstvan III, the traitors' cover was blown. Also, remember that Horus WASN'T definitely a traitor when Magnus contacted the Emperor. Re-visit 'False Gods' for more on that timing. On an unrelated note, I find it hard to believe that Russ would have been in personal communication with Horus (re: going harder on Magnus) and for a watch-pack NOT to have been sent to him as well. I wonder if we'll ever find out any more about those poor guys... Which one? 'Shattered Legions'? No, I think my name is on one more anthology, and I commissioned or planned everything to the end of the series. 'Tallarn' was all commissioned by me, but I didn't read the compiled edition. The last books I read (and officially provided feedback as the editor) were 'The Crimson King' for HH, and 'Lorgar' for the Primarchs series. I directly commissioned 'Ruinstorm', 'Old Earth', 'Fulgrim', 'Ferrus Manus' and about three more after that, too... but they weren't finished until after I left BL. I'm still answering lore questions and Skyping any author who wants to tap my brain-knowledge. I still attend the HH meetings at GW, too.

There is nothing concrete to suggest that any of the primarchs had a place in the Emperor's intended new order for mankind, in however many thousands or millions of years. They were to be retired to Terra, if they survived the Great Crusade - we've seen several indications of this, in several different sources. They weren't intended to "evolve" into a final form that could sit alongside a psychic mankind. I actually question whether or not the Emperor himself (in his physical form) saw himself ruling in the same way... The primarchs were a tool intended to achieve a purpose. They were designed with conquest of the galaxy in mind. They are no different in their intended purpose than the Thunder Warriors - created with the best materials to hand, to do one thing. After that, they are just an unexpected bonus. My SUPREMELY cynical side wants part of the Emperor's plan to have always been that a war between the Legions was necessary in order to thin their numbers down after the Crusade was complete. Maybe he just didn't anticipate Chaos intervening and turning it into such a catastrophe? Or... maybe he did?

It's interesting, because (to bring it back on topic) there are some implications for Tallarn and other theatres of the war, based on the Space Wolves watch-packs and whether or not we know what happened to them... we don't know whether they ever reached their assigned primarch, or were simply killed once they did. Dark Angels - unknown Emperor's Children - unknown Iron Warriors - unknown White Scars - unknown (good luck! No one really knew where the Khan was at that point, even the majority of his own Legion) Space Wolves - not applicable Imperial Fists - the Howl of the Hearthworld are presumably on Terra Night Lords - killed by Curze's followers, one of them was returned to Terra as a message Blood Angels - killed by Amit during Signus Prime Iron Hands - unknown World Eaters - unknown Ultramarines - serving at Guilliman's side on Macragge Death Guard - unknown Thousand Sons - not applicable Sons of Horus - unknown Word Bearers - unknown Salamanders - unknown Raven Guard - killed by Navar Hef and his Raptor contingent, before they could find Corax Alpha Legion - killed by "Alpharius" even after they thought they had killed him The secrecy of the watch-packs' mission seems to be what made them so difficult to keep track of. Interestingly, the White Scars and the Imperial Fists both have *some* presence at Tallarn by the end of the war, there.

Don't worry, everyone - I know that no one at BL ever believed Andrey speaks for the fan community as a whole.

Oh, it definitely didn't CAUSE the events of PoD. It's just a prelude. It clearly comes first, and might have had some behind-the-scenes shift in what later happened... were the events of the novel what the AL always planned, or did they change because of TET? We won't ever know for sure. Not everything is "THE PIVOTAL EVENT WHERE THIS THING WAS DECIDED". Often, the best stories are the ones that you only find out later as part of the overall saga. Like 'Hunter's Moon', for example. That tale means nothing to the fishermen on Pelago, but when you know the context of the watch-packs it becomes loaded with additional meaning. In fact, even knowing that there IS in fact a war in the heavens between the star-giants, that changes the importance of the telling. It's all context, like real life.

Oh the timeline given in the limited edition covers the entire war on Tallarn, not just the events of 'Executioner'. It's fully date-stamped, so it's a good road map for better understanding of the whole thing - John, Alan Bligh and I planned all this out in advance... before the novella was written, actually. Same as with the Siege of Terra, the idea being that it will pay off by making the whole thing easier to manage later. Fingers crossed! The fall of the Eagle's Talon transporter doesn't really bring any kind of victory, though. It simply denies the traitors a win in a local (unnamed) battle on the surface which looked like it was going to go their way, and might have enabled them to start landing more armour onto the surface. In fact, in the direct follow-on 'Iron Corpses', it says that this resulted in HUGE loss of life on both sides (and among the non-combatant civilian survivors below ground, too?) just as Gammus and Theophon feared. It's bleak, because it provides nothing like victory for the loyalists in spite of the great sacrifice. In 'Witness', it is also heavily implied that not even the Imperial commanders really knew why they "won" Tallarn. Certainly by that point there was virtually nothing left of the world to claim as a prize, but for all intents and purposes the Iron Warriors simply stopped contesting it. Which, as we now know, was because Horus recalled Perturabo. Linking back to Andrey's questions, the Alpha Legion thought they had Tallarn all sorted before the IV Legion showed up and bombed the place. Alpharius and his lads had been priming the local government for years, presumably for some kind of uprising, and Perturabo upset those plans massively.

You are wrong.

Are you actually joking, Andrey? That's the Alpha Legion. This guy is reporting to Alpharius. He has literally just said "Hey, the Imperial Fists might be worth looking at again, because we've maybe misjudged them before now."

You should tell him that, on Twitter and Facebook, once or more every day. Enlist your friends, too.

We don't repeat stories within the numbered series. 'Black Oculus' was deliberately put into a previous anthology, because it originally featured in one of the non-numbered event-exclusive books. John French requested this. BL is not evil, or stupid, or whatever else. 'The Eagle's Talon' and 'Iron Corpses' are set DURING the events of Tallarn (and they feature in the timeline from the 'Tallarn: Executioner' limited edition) but they are not really linked to the core events of this collection. They are two standalone stories that tie together. Also, putting in ONE story by another author would change the point of the 'Tallarn' book completely. It's John's core Tallarn arc. (For anyone who was paying attention, it's quite obvious that 'The Eagle's Talon' is actually the prelude to 'Praetorian of Dorn', not 'Tallarn'...)

The hrud are not migrating through space, but time. The Imperium encounters the same creatures, over and over again, throughout history. Guy and I couldn't decide if the were heading forwards in time, skipping the Imperium's brief stint in the galactic spotlight, or if they were fleeing backwards into the past to escape some horrible event that was still to come, or some other menace that the Imperium hasn't encountered yet. I know where my head-canon is at, though... Now go back and look again. Sooooo many clues as to what Guy thinks is happening, too.

You've hit the nail on the head. The actual behind-the-scenes series line at the start of the project was "Each of these books must focus on a single primarch, and it must be a definitive tale of their character - why they are the way they are, and why their Legions are the way they are". You're not always going to get an origins story, because a lot of the time we've already seen those, or they are not as interesting as other tales from the Primarch's life. There might well be a book/books set during the Horus Heresy, or after it. As long as it shows the primarch in questions acting EXACTLY as they should, it is fair game for the series. One thing you will not get is a story which you HAVE to read in order to understand the Horus Heresy series, or in order to understand any other Primarchs novel. They are linked, but completely standalone.

"FORGET NUANCE, I WANT SPACE FIGHTS." Andrey, never change.