TCF reads the Soul Drinkers series by Ben Counter

Captain Orsai · May 18, 2015

Of weird tattoos, some Chaos cults have a technique to burning cult symbols into bone without marring the skin.

The Curious Fan · May 18, 2015

Captain Orsai said:
Even an idiot like Tsouras wouldn't touch the archives of a First Founding Chapter. They tend to take quite notable (that is, with a powerfist) offence at uninvited guests trying to destroy their shit.

What about if they asked nicely and left if they were told to go away?

Captain Orsai said:
The Imperial Palace wasn't built in one go; it's been built over ten thousand years by at a conservative estimate hundreds of thousands of architects and tens of millions of labourers, parts of it have been damaged, or the archives describing them have been lost, or hastily converted to various things without time to record it, or any number of other things. Look at London; there's all sorts beneath its streets, and little of it well mapped, and London would fit comfortably into one of the Imperial Palace's audience halls.

Fair point.

Captain Orsai said:
Contemporary sources meaning ones contemporary to those events, mate.

In which case I'm not sure why they'd think the Soul Drinkers are spreading heresy at this time.

Entropy Judge said:
I don't suppose he said where his Chapter's records say the Soul Drinkers were?

No the Imperial Fist has limited his commentary to just griping about his records and the Soul Drinkers' records not matching up in this case.

Ugolino said:
Well, it's Chaos. Consistency in its daemons is one thing that always bugged me, and for all his many, many faults as a writer Counter is fairly good at making his daemons eldritch.

Good point.

Ironanvil1 said:
We can do that now.

Huh. I did not know that.

It seems like it'd be rather painful to get stabbed in the eye for a tattoo.

The Curious Fan · May 22, 2015

I've really been lagging behind on updating this.

Also, I've decided, next up is Jojo's Bizarre Adventure rather than the Word Bears trilogy, I need a break from 40k books.

Anyways, on to part 3, this one starts in 322.M36 with the ship Scintillating Death that the Soul Drinkers think that the Imperial Fists gave to them after the Second Founding (the IF commentator goes No. No. No! at this) with Daenyathos walking down it's haunted corridors. The ship was lost in the warp but turned up five years later haunted by the ghosts of the slaughtered crew.

If true, is this not the root of the Soul Drinkers' corruption?

Probably not, but I think that they should have had the haunted ship scuttled.

After a bit of walking Daenyathos makes it to the bridge.

Upon the throne sat a ghost. It still wore an Astartes's armour, inlaid with gilded images of battle and surrounded by the voluminous robes of a king. The golden chalice covered one shoulder pad, the rubies around its rim red eyes winking in the dark. The face was a brutal knot of muscle and scar, the jaw and brow distorted, the eyes points of light.

'Who claims audience?' bellowed the ghost, his gauntlets gripping the armrests of the throne. His finger bones could be seen through the transparent armour.

Apparently the ghosts can still have conversation since after this Daenyathos and the Commander named Macellis have a talk and Daenyathos asks what makes the Soul Drinkers weak before providing his own answer.

Daenyathos looked around at the Astartes ghosts. 'You,' he said, pointing to one with the jump pack and markings of an assault squad. 'You are Assault-Captain Hestias. A thousand heads you promised to take from heretics in revenge for the Chapter's losses at Magnacarum. You took eight hundred and nine when you died on this ship.' Daenyathos addressed another, this one still tinted rust-coloured in the red armour of a Techmarine. 'And you are Forge Master Arunden. You sought to commune with the machine-spirit of the Scintillating Death, to master it and bring its intellect into the Emperor's service. But you died, and the ship with you, before you could succeed. You ask me what makes you weak. It is the same thing that makes me weak - the same as any Soul Drinker, as any Astartes! It is fear!'

The ghosts don't take it well but Daenyathos then clarifies that he means that he's talking about the fear of a duty left undone (I think I remember something like that in his quotes).

After this, Daenyathos heads back to the Glory and gets accepted into the Chaplaincy while the IF complains about them having a statue of Rogal Dorn around.

Gorosius stood just in front of the pulpit from which he lectured the novices who were cloistered nearby. His armour was jet-black, typical of an Astartes Chaplain, with the Chapter colours restricted to one shoulder pad. He did not wear the skull-mask that was also a badge of his office, and the fact Daenyathos was addressing the Reclusiarch to his face was significant in itself. Gorosius's skin was the colour of burnt wood, his eyes small and dark, his jaw full and brutal. A metal panel set into one side of his forehead was inscribed with the name of every engagement in which the Reclusiarch had fought. Soon, there would be no more room for the flowing script.

The drawbacks of carving your victories onto yourself.

'I shall write,' he said.

'Write?' replied Gorosius.

'I have... I have many thoughts,' said Daenyathos. 'And they make a pattern in my mind. But I wish to straighten them out and put them in a form my brothers can understand. I shall write them all down, and from them craft a means to inspire and illuminate my brethren.'

And with this Daenyathos starts his writing career, his works will be prolific but only appreciated by a small audience.

Once he returns to his cell (which is once again that of a novice) he starts writing and chooses to call his first book Catechisms Martial.

This part ends with a quote from the Catechisms Martial, a really rough drawing of a space marine (I can't tell much more but he seems to have a breathing apparatus but no helm) and a drawing of one of the ghosts (the Apothecary with the missing skull by the looks of it).

How can we learn the qualities of the human, from whom we were created?

By regarding, my brother, the greatest of them.

The warrior Fidelion was the finest soldier to ever take up a lasgun. At the gates of Terra Herself he fought, and through the tides of death he never fell nor faltered. The men who witnessed him marvelled that such prowess and valour could be contained within one man.

Let us consider Fidelion, and what made him stand apart from his fellow men. Though he understood fear, he was never commanded by it, instead accepting it and setting it aside as unworthy. He was always mindful that to flee invites death more readily than to stand and fight. When faced with fell and monstrous foes he fought them not through terror of death but through a calm detachment which treated them as puzzles to be solved. The other man looked upon him with awe, for these were the marks of someone more than human, as alien to them as the very foes they faced.

Now let us take Fidelion, and stand him against an Astartes.

What quality did Fidelion possess that an Astartes does not? An Astartes knows no fear. He doubts no victory. Even when surrounded on all sides by foes without number, he sees not failure but a task to be completed, a duty to be done even in the moments of death. What would Fidelion be among Astartes?

And so we come to an answer. How can we understand the nature of a man? The answer, brother, is to remember always that the greatest of men is the equal of the weediest Astartes, of the lowliest novice at the very best.

More likely he would be found wanting even as this, and no Chapter would permit him to darken its cloisters.

Mankind's best are but children compared to the might of the Astartes.

The conclusion of our first lesson naturally follows from such a revelation. An Astartes must stand apart from the human race. He is not human. He is something more.

So it is we begin to see the true nature of a Soul Drinker's duty to his Imperium.

Part 4 starts 22 years later in 344.M36 on the planet Khaal.

The black dawn of Khaal broke overhead, the radioactive mass of the sun breaching the high horizon. The sunrise was in reverse, as the corrupted nature of the sun caused it to drink in the light that shone from its weaker twin and so dawn brought with it a supernatural darkness. The dense layers of the atmosphere distorted the horizon such that it rose up, bowl-shaped towards the sky, so everywhere on the blighted planet seemed to exist at the bottom of a vast crater.

The darkness bled across the forests of strange fleshy trees crowned with masses of brain-like foliage, over the rivers of greasy sludge and the spongy bleeding earth. Life teemed everywhere, billions of insects flitting on their way through their minutes-long life cycle. Larger predators fell from seed pods on the trees, maturing in moments into sabre-toothed lizards which lasted a few hours before the planet's accelerated life cycles claimed them, too, and they rotted away into the mantle of decay. Few creatures could live for long under the black sun's glare and so life had evolved to mature, grow old and die before the radiation could kill it.

Here and there were splintered trees, their brain matter crushed and smeared across the earth in rotting stains. Footprints like meteor craters punctuated the paths of destruction. It seemed impossible that anything so large could have evolved on Khaal, but life was a cunning and relentless thing. It always found a way.

It sounds like an interesting place, and it turns out that humans also lived there on Khaal in spite of the radiation.

After te Soul Drinkers land there's a picture of Daenyathos in his Chaplain armour with the stylised mace shaped like a cup with a skull on it and a skull on the other end. They're hunting someone named Ascenian and thinking about how as long as he lives the Age of Apostasy isn't over. There's also a statue with a representation of the Emperor vs Horus with Horus being a multi-headed snake.

Some said the Great Crusade, when the Emperor had conquered the galaxy to unite its human worlds as the Imperium, had never ended, either, and that it was still being fought by the Imperial Guard and Navy every day. Some said the Horus Heresy was still going on, and that every time one man turned a gun on another it was an echo of that great treachery. To say the Apostasy was still going on required no such abstraction. The chaos of Vandire's reign had been too profound to end with his death.

Whole swathes of the Imperium were still cut off, or without Imperial presence. Some had rebelled by default when, with no aid or contact from the Imperium, they had set up their own governments and churches. A few had fallen prey to opportunistic aliens. Some, the worst off of all, had been fodder for men like Croivas Ascenian.

With the Ecclesiarchy no longer under Vandire's thumb, thousands of Imperial missionaries had scattered from the Imperium's holier worlds to refound the Imperial faith among those who had lost it. Plenty met grievous ends, as had been the lot of missionaries since the Great Crusade - boiled by natives, decapitated by the priests of heathen religions or picked off by the many dangers that accompanied any space travel. But a greater threat lay among them. In the upheaval of the Imperial Creed, some took up the eagle banner and rosarius of the missionary without being properly examined for their purity of faith. Some of these were charlatans hoping to acquire free passage on a spacecraft, and whatever else they could grift from gullible pilgrims. But some took the opportunity to commit far worse crimes.

Croivas Ascenian had journeyed with a shipload of pilgrims along the galaxy's eastern edge, where the Astronomican was dim and, even by the standards of Apostasy, few Imperial adepts could be spared to monitor the countless worlds there. Laden with gifts from pilgrims too poor to afford them, he had alighted on a forested world where a few human kingdoms, reduced to a medieval existence by centuries of isolation, warred with each other from wood-walled fortresses on the slopes of vast flinty peaks. He had come as a prophet, promising them deliverance from their unenlightened ways.

A Chartist trader had stopped off at the world four years later, quite by chance. They found one of the royal families imprisoned in their palace, flayed of their skins and hooked up to an archeotech machine that randomly stimulated their nervous systems so they were trapped in an endless dance of pain. The people of their city-state were hooked up to the same machine, their minds scrubbed away so they could act only in response to the haphazard edicts the machine divined from the agonised movements of the king and his court. It was an experiment, with its goals lying somewhere in the understanding of power, but seen through a monstrously distorting lens. The scientist in charge had butchered or tormented a planet's worth of innocents, purely to see what would happen.

The hunt for Croivas Ascenian had begun.

By the time Ascenian had been tracked to Khaal, it had become clear his experiments were becoming more and more dangerous. A whole city had been marched into a darkened valley to hear the words of the prophet Ascenian, and then had their minds torn away and crammed into the skulls of half a dozen specially selected psyker children. The resulting creatures were psychic nightmares, their destructive powers vastly amplified and unleashed at random by the thousands of conflicting minds boiling inside each one. On another world twenty thousand souls had been sewn together into one immense fleshy thing in an attempt to forge from them a single lifeform - the failed experiment had begun to decay in its pit by the time an Arbites cruiser had reached the planet.

And so Ascenian flitted from planet to planet, keeping ahead of the few Imperial authorities with the mobility to catch him. His movements, like his motivation, were random, and the only pattern among his experiments was their escalation in the lives destroyed and ruined. He had become more than a heretic. He was a moral threat now, a threat that could corrupt others by his mere presence. He was the worst kind of human being there was. And wherever he went, this brilliant charlatan, this charismatic madman, convinced the people he had come as a saviour.

He sounds like a charming fellow.

After this there's a note about how this world doesn't appear in the Imperial Fists' own records (those records seem to be full of holes in this, but I suppose it's natural for the names of soldiers and planets to be forgotten over thousands of years).

Back in the present Daenyathos and the others fight some giant beasts that come at them, the picture they have indicates that they have a lot of tentacle eyes, sharp teeth and tusks.

The first part he saw of the beast were its tusks - enormous flat shovels spreading forwards from a jaw as square and solid as a front-line bunker. Above the jaw, taking up its whole head, were hundreds of fleshy tubes each as long as an Astartes was tall, trailing dribbles of greenish spores. Its shoulders were bigger still, reaching the height of the tallest trees as it knocked them aside and trod them flat under feet the size of tanks. Daenyathos calculated the whole thing was ninety metres long and perhaps fifty wide at the shoulders, covered in a combination of scales and shaggy hair. It had six legs and a tail almost as long as its body, tipped in a club covered with spiked scales that knocked down whatever trees had survived its feet.

Its mouth opened, showing a tooth-studded tunnel of a throat that shuddered as it roared a monstrous deep gale. Somewhere among the spore-tubes, eyes focused on the purple-armoured Astartes gathering ahead of it.

It's basically big enough to be called a bio-titan, and there are apparently several of these coming at a squad or two of Soul Drinkers. Wildlife in 40k is quite dangerous.

Wounds along its flanks drooled spurts of purplish blood. It had been goaded here. It was not just a natural predator of Khaal. It was a weapon, deployed to kill the intruders.

Daenyathos dissected its movements in his mind. It could kill all of the Soul Drinkers, easily, if they were but a collection of statistics and probabilities. Even the combined strength of Daenyathos and Squad Yelt could not strike a killing blow. There were not enough chainblades in the whole Chapter to carve it apart and reach some vital spot before the beast killed them.

But they were not mere soldiers, to be moved around on a map and dismissed as fodder for the beast. They were Astartes. Failure was never an option. Somewhere among the hurricane of muscle and tusk lay victory.

Well Daenyathos is acting like a proper Chaplain for now.

Daenyathos counters it by baiting it with him while Squad Yelt get on top with jump packs and start hacking away.

In orbit Reclosiarch Gorosius thinks about his plan to scour the forests for Ascenian by dividing it into sections and searching them with a squad each.

After the battle with the beast Gorosius and Daenyathos have a talk about the Catechisms Martial, Gorosius liked most of the book but noticed a worrying implication in one part of the Catechisms martial.

'In that I agree. What concerns me is the light in which the Imperium's other citizens are cast,' said Gorosius. 'You describe them as cattle.'

'It was not meant as an insult,' said Daenyathos. 'Indeed, it illustrates the importance of the Imperium's citizens. Without them the Imperium is meaningless. Their role is to be herded and led by their betters, so their exploitation may make the existence of the Imperium possible. That was the intention of the simile.'

'There is not much I would argue with in that alone,' said Gorosius. 'But what concerns me is the exceptions you make. The Astartes are included, as are a few of humanity's more exalted specimens. This is as it should be. But there are some exceptions not made. The High Lords of Terra, when they form the Senatorum Imperialis, are surely above the common man? Yet you do not mark them out as exalted, and hence, what conclusion can be drawn other than that they are cattle? Those who rule in the Emperor's name, the custodians of the Golden Throne, are they but mere cattle, too?'

Daenyathos was silent for a moment. Behind the skull of his helmet, he was thinking. 'I had not considered such an interpretation.'

'That does not mean it was not intended by you,' said Gorosius. 'Sometimes our purposes can be obscure even to ourselves.'

'I shall think upon it,' said Daenyathos. 'TheCatechismsshall never be truly finished while I still live. The document lives, as our Chapter does.'

'More conclusions must naturally follow from such a reading,' continued Gorosius. 'If the lords of mankind are cattle, and cattle are to be led, then what can be said of those who are led by them? Do not we answer, when the Lords of Terra call forth a Great Crusade, or declare an enemy of humanity to be eradicated? We may not heed every word of the Adeptus Terra, but do our objectives and those of the Imperium's rulers not broadly coincide? And yet we cannot be cattle, too, for we are Astartes, the shepherds of humanity.'

'A paradox, then,' said Daenyathos, 'An unfortunate conclusion in such a work as mine. I shall write an addendum, I think, to be included in a volume of commentaries, to address this issue.'

'But it is not a paradox,' continued Gorosius, 'if it is brought to its conclusion. That conclusion is the Soul Drinkers should not obey Terra at all. They should exist outside Imperial authority. Indeed, given the roles ascribed to the Astartes and to the masses of the Imperium, it would seem becoming renegades from the Imperium is a natural and inevitable step for the Soul Drinkers. Would you not say this avoids the paradox? And given how devoted many of your battle-brothers are to the Catechisms Martial, if such an interpretation were to become widespread the Chapter's split with the Imperium would surely occur in reality.'

I feel like I should be proud of myself for noticing the worrying attitude of "screw regular people" in Daenyathos' writings before this story pointed it out.

After this Daenyathos brings up a location where he thinks that Ascenian could be hiding and recommends that the assault of that section be done quickly and with their best, Gorosius agress and leads the assault there.

Daenyathos saluted and walked back towards the Soul Drinkers position. Gorosius turned back to the battlefield. The river fork would indeed make for an excellent defensive position, covered on two sides by the river, with fortifications easily made from the brain trees to cover the third. Gorosius weighed his crozius arcanum in his hand - a very old weapon, it contained a sliver of the sword once wielded by Sigismund, the Imperial Fists commander who had become the first Black Templar and from whose personal guard the Soul Drinkers had been created during the Third Founding. It had taken the lives of many heretics in its long life. In the hands of Reclusiarch Gorosius, it would take one more.

The Soul Drinkers aren't quite sure when they were founded apparently.

It turns out that the fork that Gorosius is assaulting is where they keep their beasts/bio-titans. Gorosius puts up a good fight but falls in the end after being swallowed whole.

Then Father Ascenian left for the sky, as he had told them he would with a promise to return. The invaders appeared everywhere in the forest, and many savages were lost to their swords and guns. But it did not matter. The dark ones had come, and Father Ascenian had eluded them. The lives of the savages meant nothing compared to that.

It was all for nothing.

After that it turns out that Gorosius wasn't dead after all and fights his way out of the beast's stomach, heavily wounded but alive.

Another armoured warrior approached. This one wore black armour, like the leader, and like him wore a skull on his face. This warrior was alone. The two armoured men exchanged words, and it seemed the leader was angered.

The second warrior drew his gun and shot the leader twice through the head. He paused for a moment, regarding the man he had just killed. Then he hauled the body back through the wound in the beast's side, and left him there.

Ah, Daenyathos is a traitor already.

After this Daenyathos delivers an apparently decent sermon to mark Gorosius' passing.

'Reclusiarch Gorosius was lost in the pursuit of a worthy goal,' said Daenyathos, the tone of his voice darkening. 'The persecution of the heretic Croivas Ascenian. It is our duty, not just to honour our fallen brother, but to acknowledge the great shame that falls upon us by our failure. Gorosius lies on his slab in the Chambers of Repose, and Ascenian is free. This is a stain upon our honour, on the honour of the human race! It cannot stand!' Daenyathos gripped the lectern with his black-gauntleted hands. 'As I take up the mantle of Reclusiarch, I swear this day that Ascenian shall be brought to justice. It is by the Soul Drinkers he shall be found and defeated! It is by the hand of the Reclusiam that his head shall be taken! In the name of Gorosius and of Rogal Dorn, I make this oath!'

With that I suppose that Ascenian will be the final antagonist.

His actions on Khaal had been a risk, of course. Gorosius could have survived, even if Daenyathos's plan to send him to the beast caves of Khaal suggested he would not. It had been a strange instinct that had initially stopped Daenyathos from announcing his discovery of the bark map showing where Ascenian's savages kept the beasts they used as weapons. Perhaps it was a sort of foresight, one step short of warp-craft, a voice of wisdom and experience that told him to keep the information in reserve in ease he needed it.

The greater risk had been Gorosius recognising Daenyathos's change of plan for what it was - a hasty measure to send Gorosius to his death before he could spread the idea that theCatechisms Martialcontained within it a hidden message. Daenyathos had intended every word of that message, but he had not intended for anyone to uncover it so soon, least of all Gorosius. He had underestimated the Reclusiarch's mental agility.

Daenyathos corrected that last thought. Gorosius was not the Reclusiarch. Daenyathos was.

Daenyathos has a foresight he doesn't quite understand, unsurprising considering how much he knew of what was going on in Phalanx without having had much time to catch up on things with Iktinos.

With this and a note about how there was no chance of Gorosius passing up the chance for more glory since he was a Soul Drinker, part 4 ends.

The Curious Fan · May 23, 2015

Where have the commentators gone?

Part 5 starts a century and a half later in 481.M36 with Daenyathos waking up in what he thought was cold water and finding that he can't move anything but his head and that his eyes are gummed up with dried blood.

Then there's some exposition about the ship he's on, it was a Mechanicus explorator ship looking for new warp routes lost a few thousand years ago, now a space hulk that the Soul Drinkers attacked, the IF commentator notes that records from this time are in dispute by Imperial scholars) before someone comes along and scrapes the blood blocking his eyes away.

He was in a Verispex suite, a laboratory used by theTalon'sMechanicus crew to examine samples. Several lab benches held brass-cased microscopes and centrifuges. Lab servitors were mounted on the ceiling, their human torsos augmented by folding metal limbs now curled up underneath them. The walls, faced in the rust-red and bronze of the Mechanicus, were inscribed with machine-code prayers. The place was relatively intact, albeit covered with a patina of corrosion suggesting its age. Unlike most of the hulk, it had not been twisted by the ship's time in the warp.

The man who had picked the blood from Daenyathos's eyes was standing over him. It was Croivas Ascenian.

Daenyathos was certain of the man's identity even though no one had given a reliable description of him for well over a century. There was something in the stature - too tall for a human, yet hunched over - that spoke of the decades of malice Ascenian had perpetrated. His robes were still those of an Imperial missionary, a brown cassock tied at the waist with a length of golden rope hung with icons Ascenian had stolen from places of worship. There were gilded finger bones and skulls of saints, delicately painted icons on panels of wood taken from primitive altars, jewel-studded aquilae taken from the croziers of Imperial clergymen. On Ascenian's shoulders lay a heavy mantle of cracked leather, and his face was half-hidden under its hood.

No one knew what Ascenian's first face had looked like. It had been rebuilt and repaired so many times it looked like no natural face ever could. It resembled a mechanical device made from body parts. The jaw was a single piece, the skin stretched over it in an approximation of reality. The cheeks hung over it, hinged at the cheekbones to allow for an imitation of facial expression. The eye sockets were wide and raw, and the eyes - biological, and of different colours suggesting more than one donor - sat in them like meteors in impact craters.

The hands Ascenian used to prise the blood from Daenyathos's face were mechanical, too. They made no pretence at realism. They were slender metal armatures that ended in spreads of slim fingers, like spiders' legs. The cassock shifted with more shoulders and elbows than a human should have, suggesting many more limbs were folded up under there. The cassock reached the ground but Daenyathos noted the way Ascenian moved suggested he had no feet. Perhaps he hovered, or had many small lower limbs to move him along like an insect.

Time for some fun experiments with Ascenian I suppose.

After this there's a picture of Ascenian and Daenyathos starts thinking about him and his situation.

Ascenian's apprehension had become a matter of pride for the Soul Drinkers. Ascenian had bested them and, as far as the rest of the Chapter was concerned, killed Reclusiarch Gorosius. Daenyathos had known the truth of what happened to Gorosius, but still he had dedicated himself to hunting Ascenian as completely as any Soul Drinker. This was not just to conceal his part in Gorosius's death. He genuinely despised Ascenian. The corrupted missionary was an upstart, a pretender to the ranks of those who decided human destiny. His experiments into human nature, crude and gory as they were, suggested he aspired to a greater understanding of his species. His was a crime of arrogance, and no one could match their arrogance to that of the Soul Drinkers.

The Soul Drinkers must be some seriously arrogant pricks.

He also looks around a bit more and sees the corpse of a Raven Guard and that his limbs have been cut off from his nervous system.

Daenyathos's veins had filled up with ice. He was Astartes, and he knew no fear - but he could still feel horror, that blank white obscenity that filled a man's mind. Daenyathos had never felt more human than in that moment. Ascenian had stolen from him the use of his arms and legs. He was nothing any more. He could not fight. He could not even run. He was Ascenian's possession. Everything he was, everything he had earned as a Soul Drinker, had gone.

Helplessness hits space marines quite hard.

'Do you know what this is?' said Ascenian. A mechadendrite, an articulated cable that ended in a three-fingered claw, snaked out from his robes to pick something up from the lab bench and hold it up in front of Daenyathos. It was a lump of meat, a fist-sized knot of muscle.

'It's a heart,' said Daenyathos. He had a dim awareness that he should keep Ascenian talking.

Ascenian smiled. Two more mechadendrites reached out, from his shoulders this time, uncoiling from beneath the mantle of his habit. They removed the bolts that held the two halves of Daenyathos's breastplate together under the shoulder joints. The breastplate lifted away.

'Think again,' Ascenian said.

Daenyathos looked down. His chest and abdomen had suffered the same treatment as his limbs. A deep, ragged Y-shaped incision, such as might be made in a corpse to harvest the organs, ran from his shoulders to his solar plexus and then down beneath his navel. Tubes and wires snaked from the wound, the edges of which were held together by clamps and steel sutures. He could see red stripes under the skin where his ribs had been cracked so his chest could be levered open, and then shut again.

Daenyathos felt a bilious terror rising in him. It was something he had never felt before. He was going to die here.

I have to wonder how Daenyathos is going to get out of this situation.

After a bit of coaxing and some abuse of the fact that he controls Daenyathos' nervous system, Ascenian gets Daenyathos to explain the omophagea and then feeds him the partially rotten brain of the Raven Guard.

His back-brain flooded with the primitive thoughts from the Raven Guard's mind. A grim desire for death, a sense of persecution and anger, a bleak hatred of life the Raven Guard instilled in their recruits. That was how the Raven Guard thought - the galaxy was a cruel place and they had to be crueller. Life was an aberration and ending it was a sacred duty. They were a dark brotherhood, seekers of oblivion. They could not have been more different to the Soul Drinkers and still call themselves Astartes.

This doesn't really sound like the Raven Guard (or maybe I just haven't read enough of their stuff).

After this, Daenyathos feeds Ascenian a line of bullshit about the gene-seed.

'Every Astartes carries within him the genetic blueprint of his primarch. That is what regulates our augmentations.' Daenyathos's mind raced. The concoction he was coming up with had to grab Ascenian's attention quickly and completely.

'The Emperor created the primarchs,' began Daenyathos, 'in His own image. But they were not enough to conquer the galaxy on their own. There were twenty primarchs, but two of them the others despised.'

'Good,' said Ascenian, rapt. 'When my story is told, your part shall be greater than most. Go on, Astartes. Go on!'

'The primarchs,' said Daenyathos, 'killed these two, and cut them up into thousands of pieces. Each piece was implanted in a warrior, and it transformed them into the first Space Marines. Whenever one of us falls, our battle-brothers will risk their lives to reclaim the body, for the gene-seed we each carry is the same that was taken from the Emperor's murdered sons.'

Ascenian's face broke open in delight. The panels of skin could barely hold the expression. 'The Emperor's own blood! The flesh of the lost primarchs themselves! This is contained within every Astartes?'

'It is,' said Daenyathos. 'In the progenoid. It is within us all.'

'So... could it be that here, in this creature hanging before me, I could look upon the flesh of the Emperor Himself?'

'The primarchs were born of the Emperor's own flesh,' said Daenyathos. 'They are His brothers as much as His sons.'

As the IF commentator notes, this is a load of bullshit, still, it gets Ascenian in close to take the gene-seed, close enough that Daenyathos clamps down on his still organic throat and all but beheads him.

Part 5 ends with Daenyathos resigning himself to death with his duty complete and Ascenian dead.

Part 6 starts in the same year and begins with some exposition about how Daenyathos has started to subvert the Chaplains of the chapter and where the first three he picked Apollonios, Aciar and Themiskon came from, it's not relevant or interesting so I won't quote it here.

Themiskon led the squad of Soul Drinkers that penetrated into the depths of theTalon of Marsin search of Daenyathos. The Reclusiarch had been lost in the first assault on the space hulk and was assumed captured or incapacitated. None dared believe he could actually have been killed by Ascenian's cowardly, crude array of booby traps. And true enough, Themiskon found Daenyathos alive beside the body of the heretic Croivas Ascenian.

But Daenyathos was mutilated beyond any hope of repair. His limbs useless, his organs scattered, he had no hope of recovery. He would die of the injuries Ascenian had inflicted, as surely as Ascenian himself was dead. In great sorrow Themiskon took the dying Daenyathos back to the Soul Drinkers fleet, and there laid him in state in the Apothecarion.

So that's how he got put into the Dreadnought.

And it was Aciar who did not give up hope. The task force sent to the Talon of Mars returned to the main fleet, and Aciar immediately disappeared into the Scintillating Death. He had served his penance on the ghost ship before being accepted into the ranks of the Chaplains, and a few rumoured that he had returned there many times to commune with the angry spirits of the Chapter's fallen. Indeed, Aciar had been there several times, but at the behest of Daenyathos, who had secured a truce with the restless ghosts there and established a base of operations on the Scintillating Death that none outside the Reclusiam suspected.

Aciar summoned the other Chaplains to the Scintillating Death, and bade them bring Daenyathos with them.

The ghost ship returns and it has a dreadnought inside of it.

The IF commentator then chimes in with "See? How can his word be trusted when he can't even keep straight the number of Dreadnoughts his chapter possesses?"

After he wakes up in the Dreadnought he leads the chapter down to go the safes on the ship and wakes a man up.

Fidelion closed his eyes and lay back, as if trying to force himself into sleep so this could be proven nothing more than a dream. The Imperial Guard tattoos were still visible on his chest, faded blueish outlines of a double-headed eagle and a long tally of kill-marks.

'How...' croaked Fidelion. 'How old?' His voice was barely audible.

'You are one hundred and ninety-eight years old,' said Daenyathos.

Fidelion sighed. 'Why have you woken me?'

'It is time for you to serve your purpose,' said Daenyathos.

'My lord Reclusiarch,' said Aciar. 'Is this the same man you wrote of? Fidelion, the hero of Terra?'

'It is,' said Daenyathos. 'There is much that has not been written in theCatechisms Martial. Much that I must pass on to you. It was on Terra I first came to understand the purpose to which I must devote myself, and with me, the Soul Drinkers Chapter. It is this purpose that you will in turn fulfil, and the Chapter with you, hidden from the battle-brothers until the time is right for it to be revealed. I have a plan, my brothers, for the galaxy. Everything I have seen as an Astartes has convinced me of its rightness. Now I have seen how close death has come to me, I must place this burden on you, my brethren, and retire from this age of the Imperium until your future brothers come to find me.'

'What will you have us do?' asked Themiskon.

'First,' said Daenyathos, 'I must know for sure that my purpose is true. Fidelion, I have kept you here so that when the final details of my task are determined, I can be sure they will fulfil my purpose. Listen, Fidelion, hero of Terra.'

Fidelion did not show fear. Rather, he seemed accepting of whatever fate was about to befall him.

Huh, I figured he wouldn't show up again.

Daenyathos explained, at great length and intricate detail, just what he planned to do with the Soul Drinkers Chapter. He described the means he would use to manipulate the Chapter, and how theCatechisms Martialhad planted in the minds of his battle-brothers a desire to break from Imperial authority that would lead to them reneging from the Imperium. Perhaps it would happen in a hundred years, perhaps thousands, but it would happen. He explained how the Chaplains would guide this renegade Chapter subtly towards the fulfilment of their purpose, which could only be achieved if the Soul Drinkers were seen as the enemies of the Imperium.

How the hell was this not brought up at the trial if they had it available? You'd think "your chapter has been manipulated for thousands of years to go renegade" would be one of the first things mentioned.

The IF commentator then chips in with "Their damnation is assured".

After hearing Daenyathos' story Fidelion begs to be allowed to die so that he doesn't see this come to pass and is quickly slain.

'I must leave you now,' said Daenyathos. 'The Chapter must come to think the lessons of the Catechisms Martial come not from me, but from within themselves. The world of Selaaca, in the Veiled Region, was visited by the Chapter in ages past. None now recall it, and during my time as Reclusiarch I have removed all reference to it from the Chapter archives. I will be safe there. Leave clues so the Chaplains who follow can find me.'

'We can take you there,' said Themiskon. 'I shall claim to accept responsibility for your death, and that some failure of mine led to your loss on the Talon of Mars. I shall go on a pilgrimage, seeking forgiveness and redemption. It will be within my character to do such a thing, for I have laboured long under the sins that fate has cast upon me. I shall bring you with me, and go to Selaaca.'

The Chapter is currently on route to Selaaca to retrieve Daenyathos so that he may stand trial alongside his fallen brethren.

Wait, if they knew about this how were they surprised by the fact that the found Daenyathos.

After this the two chaplains go back and tell everyone that Daenyathos is dead.

Eventually, there was no one left in the Chapter who had served when Daenyathos still lived. Daenyathos ceased to be a figure of the Chapter's history and became a spiritual ancestor, akin to Rogal Dorn and even the Emperor Himself (IF commentator: Never!!). His spirit, it was said, had never died, for it lived in the soul of every Astartes who read theCatechisms Martialand treated it, as every Soul Drinker did, as a sacred text. The way they fought, the way they prayed, every thought, was in some way shaped by this legend of the Chapter.

Daenyathos the man was forgotten, to be replaced by Daenyathos the idea.

And Daenyathos the warrior-philosopher passed from that age of the Imperium.

With this and a picture of a Soul Drinkers chainsword, Daenyathos ends.

Ugolino · May 23, 2015

2/10 would not follow into damnation and heresy

What's the verdict on the Soul Drinkers now that you've read absolutely everything about them?

Captain Orsai · May 23, 2015

The Curious Fan said:
This doesn't really sound like the Raven Guard (or maybe I just haven't read enough of their stuff).

It's not; mostly I put it down to Daenyathos not getting people who aren't raging egomaniacs.

How the hell was this not brought up at the trial if they had it available? You'd think "your chapter has been manipulated for thousands of years to go renegade" would be one of the first things mentioned.

I'm not too sure that the Fists would treat that as exculpatory, or, to be honest, strictly relevant. Not to mention that they couldn't be sure of the text's reliability, and it's fairly clear that Pugh doesn't intend on admitting evidence that is at best rather dubious in provenance.

Wait, if they knew about this how were they surprised by the fact that the found Daenyathos.

It's quite possible that they weren't sure what they were going to find. Sure, this text says Daenyathos is there, but until proven, well. It's just the ramblings of a grandstanding egomaniac.

After this the two chaplains go back and tell everyone that Daenyathos is dead.

With this and a picture of a Soul Drinkers chainsword, Daenyathos ends.

And you have noticed the black and terrible ego of the fellow, in claiming of Daenyathos stature equivalent to Rogal Dorn's or the Emperor's.

The Curious Fan · May 23, 2015

Ugolino said:
What's the verdict on the Soul Drinkers now that you've read absolutely everything about them?

The series itself I quite liked, it was a lot better than I expected it to be.

As for the Soul Drinkers themselves, at first their tendency to destroy Imperial assets (such as the planet with the star fort where they went renegade) and their idiocy were incredibly annoying to deal with, leaving the non-Soul Drinkers as the best parts of the books, this came to a head with them allying with the Chaos DE in Crimson Tears for a time, after Crimson Tears however they seemed to get the right idea with Sarpedon doing his best to avoid destroying Imperial assets and doing his best to avoid making idiotic decisions as he led his dwindling chapter, it helps that around this time the various Soul Drinkers also got more noticable personalities. As of the end of Phalanx I'd say that I consider them to have been a bunch of well intentioned but easily manipulated idiots.

Wade Garrett · May 23, 2015

Captain Orsai said:
It's not; mostly I put it down to Daenyathos not getting people who aren't raging egomaniacs.

Agreed. The mindset he describes sounds much more like the Raven Guard's successor Chapter, the Carcharadons, although how the Chaos zealot would have stumbled over one of them, and how Daenyathos would have mistaken Carcharadon heraldry and insignia for their parent Chapters don't make it an easy fix to this plothole.

Ugolino · May 23, 2015

Maybe that Raven Guard's memories were a)damaged from brain decay, b)he was suffering from his Primarch's curse?

Or Daenyathos could just be an idiot, that works too.

Captain Orsai · May 23, 2015

Wade Garrett said:
Agreed. The mindset he describes sounds much more like the Raven Guard's successor Chapter, the Carcharadons, although how the Chaos zealot would have stumbled over one of them, and how Daenyathos would have mistaken Carcharadon heraldry and insignia for their parent Chapters don't make it an easy fix to this plothole.

Well, more importantly, how said Chaos zealot would have gotten hold of one of the Carcharadons Astra and not come down with terminal, rapid-onset Chainaxe-To-The-Face.

Ugolino · May 23, 2015

Captain Orsai said:
Well, more importantly, how said Chaos zealot would have gotten hold of one of the Carcharadons Astra and not come down with terminal, rapid-onset Chainaxe-To-The-Face.

Booby traps work on the Raven Guard's less sociable cousins too.

The Curious Fan · May 23, 2015

Swarming them with close combat servitors is a lot less likely to be effective than it was on this guy though.

Also, their armours are different colours (and different marks).

The Curious Fan · May 25, 2015

Time for my opinion on the Soul Drinkers series as a whole.

The general writing for the series as a whole was good, the character dialogue was rarely dull and with time most characters became easily distinguishable as I've said before, the long talks about various topics also tended to be a highlight.

Of course, the writing is something I generally struggle to talk about in detail so let's move on to talking about the characters over the series, starting in Soul Drinker the Soul Drinkers were incredibly easy to dislike due to their lacks of personalities and their utter idiocy regarding their mutations and the name "Architect of Fate", the other characters barring Gorgoleon weren't much better but I suppose that that was intention as part of the justification for why the Soul Drinkers betrayed the Imperium and also to provoke some sympathy for them. Ve'Meth's form as 800 distinct bodies and Vorp human the Chaos champion were both alright due to originality, Abraxes also got a decent buildup thanks to Koraloth's sublot before getting dealt with near-instantly.

Then came The Bleeding Chalice, the Soul Drinkers are still struggling to be likable as protagonists as they go around trying to save themselves and destroying large amounts of Imperial assets along the way except this time there are likable side characters in the form of Aescarion, Kolgo and Thaddeus and I find my enjoyment of chapters is proportional to how much those three feature in them. Teturact needed some work other than just being a psychic mutant with a god complex.

Crimson Tears however had the Soul Drinkers had the Soul Drinkers start showing some interesting personalities with Luko showing that he hates war rather than revelling in it and the introduction of Eumenes. General Xarius was a great character who sadly didn't return for the finale and got screwed thanks to the planet nearly becoming a daemon world. The villains of the piece however were terrible, the Dark Eldar in charge was forgettable (as you can tell by how I've forgotten his name), the supporting villains were dragged down by terrible names (the bitch-queen) and Tellos didn't have any presence in the plot after kicking things off until the end where he and his followers stuck around for 13 days on a world marked for Exterminatus despite having both the means and motive to escape.

Next came Chapter War which was amazing in comparison to the three previous books in terms of characters, the Soul Drinkers under Sarpedon were at their most likable in comparison to previous books (not destroying anything that didn't come after them first helped) and started showing more distinct personalities as they clashed with each other (though Eumenes turned into an incredibly smug prick), Iktinos going off and doing his own thing was also a bit of a surprise even with his thoughts in Crimson Tears, Thaddeus was as likable as ever before his tragic death, Varr was a good look into the Penal Legions, the Howling Griffons were heroic if misguided for the book and the countess was a reasonably competent individual. The nameless Ork was pretty much there to start the plot rather than being important or interesting.

After this was Hellforged, where the Soul Drinkers continued to become more likable by being stuck up against someone even worse in the form of the Necrons, Sarpedon actually develops some leadership skills for this, Dyrmida was good and the Necrons were dull.

Phalanx was a mixed bag of characters, the Soul Drinkers themselves were at their most sympathetic as they died in various fashions over the course of the novel, Pugh and Lysander manage to be surprisingly reasonable, Kolgo is as good as ever, Reinez and Borganor both got turned into characters that just despise Sarpedon in this book but Borganor was able to keep it under control while Reinez seemed to redeem himself in the end, Kolgo was good like he was in The Bleeding Chalice and made a few good points in his talks at various points, Varnica was surprisingly interesting for a Doom Eagle, N'Kalo's insecurities about his disfigured face wasn't something that I was expecting to see any space marine express, Daenyathos still seems like an arrogant prick broken by questions about life to me but I have to wonder what I'd think of him after a reread.

And then finally in Daenyathos where the titular character was the only one who was really relevant barring Ascenian, his arc was alright and I was surprised that I didn't catch him already being a traitor before he shot the Reclusiarch.

In short I like most of the characters in the series but there are a few exceptions that I just can't stand.

As for my opinion of the Soul Drinkers themselves, I consider them to be a bunch of well-intentioned but easily manipulated idiots that managed to break their strings and do good in the end.

I don't have anywhere near as much to say about the plots of the books as I do about the characters, Soul Drinker was carried by the Soul Drinkers being idiots, The Bleeding Chalice is just everyone going around looking for clues while I wonder what is going on for most of it, Crimson Tears has that idiotic temporary alliance with Chaos, Chapter War was sinple enough with a civil war story complicated by the Howling Griffons, Hellforged was just a bunch of weird Necrons being taken down in a contrived fashion and Phalanx was a decent capstone to the series barring a few contrived bits.

Overall I'd recommend this series if you can tolerate the Soul Drinkers being idiots.

And that's my attempt at doing a large review post done, I'd try to include some stuff about the themes but I'm generally terrible at noticing that sort of thing, I hope I'll see at least a few of you in the Jojo IWIW, I'll post a link here when I start it.

A special thanks to @Connor MacLeod whose posts helped me look at the series in a new way.

Cyrus 21 · May 25, 2015

Nice summation. I did enjoy your review series, and can't wait to see more from you.

Connor MacLeod · May 25, 2015

I've been busy devoting time I had to other stuff (including catching up on my own 40K stuff, where i'm lagging behind.)

The Curious Fan · May 27, 2015

The IWIW for Jojo is now up.

http://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/in-which-i-watch-jojos-bizarre-adventure.18522/

Connor MacLeod · May 27, 2015

One of the hilarious things about Daenyathos is that it is framed as a 'quest for knowledge' but when you combine it with what really happend in Phalanx and consider Daenyathos himself as presented (not as he was idolized by the Soul drinkers) he's really just a dude looking to enslave his mind to whatever authority can provide him comforting answers. He's terrified of freedom and the burdens/responsibilities it brings,, and he thinks the 'answer' for everyone else is to deprive them of that 'burden' also. It's not unusual thinking amongst Chaos Space Marines and Renegades (and one of the ways they get entrapped by Chaos.. although chaos is usually sneakier than what was used for the Soul Drinkers.)

The funny thing is that when I covered Daenyathos three years back, I was MUCH more Harsh on it than I was.. even though my 'last' revised viewpoint was reflecting a much more moderate view of the Soul Drinkers series as a whole compared to my past. I think there's an interesting lesson in that how sharply my attitudes 'then' and 'now' could change. Admittedly much of my analysis is tech focused so I tend to skip over alot of narrative/thematic detail too, but not always.

The Curious Fan said:
I suppose that this Imperial Fist has forgotten about Tsouras' order of erasure a decade prior to this in his rush to condemn the Soul Drinkers.

It's actually interesting, because this is one of those 'could go other way' things in 40K. The deletion order means that the Imperial Fists records MAY have been purged without their knowing. Despite the fact they are often independent and secretive (able to keep them even from the Inquisition) just like the AdMech they can be reached. But its not impossible. So you could argue it as 'lies, because the Imperial Fists Records probably weren't touched.' or 'the Fists didn't know the records had been purged because of the order'

By extension this leads you to wonder how much (if any) of Daenyathos' writing is true. It could be all true, partly true.. or a complete fabrication. As we learn he's not the most honest and sane of individuals.

Oh and the dude with the tatoos? You missed the awesome part where the Vandire-era 'Frateris' were effectively Ecclsesiarchal Skitarii (the one in the book had a built in shield AND arm replaced by a lasblaster. LOL) And those weren't even Vandire's elite (imagine how the Brides migth have been at that time!)

Addendum: For what it's worth, the 2nd edition SoB codex DOES mention the Soul Drinkers present on Terra. So you might argue Daenyathos is true and the Imperial Fists either are ignorant or the Soul Drinkers presence was ignored

Why build something that big if you're not going to have a map for it or maintain it properly?

Knowledge is power. If you don't make maps to something for other people to use, they can't use it against you if there is conflict. It makes invasions or sieges harder.

The Soul Drinkers apparently don't train their scouts the normal way.

The way described above sounds alot like Black Templars (another Imperial Fists Successor, of course.) BT's take Neophytes (basically BT scouts who aren't Scouts) aren't stuck in a single company but are assigned to a senior Battle Brother for instruction/training. They even do that same 'attending' stuff.

Before the battle Daenyathos goes to talk to a famous soldier from the regiment they're fighting alongside called Fidelion.

I like him in his own way and I get the feeling that this is question is going to pop up some more from here on in.

After this the guardsmen get sent in to die by their thousands tying up the Fraeteris and the Brides of the Emperor so the Soul Drinkers can charge in relatively unmolested and there's a half done pencil sketch of a space marine. There's a page describing the guardsmen getting horribly massacred before a picture of a techpriest with what appears to be a crane coming out of his back (it looks too fragile to be a servo-arm). There's another space marine sketch, this time showing the MK VI armour (the only one I recognise out of the lot, I'm not familiar enough with SM armour to pick out any but the ones with beaks).

Part 1 of this ends with Daenyathos killing a Bride who uses her final words to declare that they will not break or run since defending is the Emperor's will.

I actually found the first part of the book against Vandire to be the best/most interesting part. Part of that is just the hilarity of a SPACE MARINE learning from a freaking Guardsmen, which is like the complete opposite of the way the pecking order is supposed to go (SPACE MARINES R BETTUR!!!) IT's also a interesting bit of deception: on the surface it looks like a 'truly humble' Battle Brother learning Valuable Lessons from a Simple but Unexpected source. But given what we know of Daenyathos now (and can expect) he's actually a twit terrified of making choices and wants someone to remove that necessity from him (basically, enslave and guide him. The same way he did to Iktinos and intended to do to everyone else.) I mean Fidelios doesn't really sound humble when you think about it, he sounds indoctrinated and perhaps even broken (whether he was recruited broken, or broken by his service in the Guard we don't know.) - that lends a more ominous spin when you consider this dude was probably the genesis of Daenyathos' plans for the Galaxy.

The fact he ends up experiencing the Brides of the Emperor (mor indoctrinated/blinkered tools who had been manipulated and deceived) I suspect only reinforces that.

It is kind of hilarious to also think Daenyathos Master Plan was basically inspired by Departmento Munitorum attempts to 'standardize' the Imperial Guard. And its even more hilarious to imagine it would work about as well!

Interesting.

There's some more exposition about how without Mechanicus oversight the universities of Archangelsk's moons got curious, started research and found daemons.

You also overlooked the crazy Exterminatus process as 'interesting.' Its like, fucking over the top. Blowing out huge quantities of matter from a Gas Giant requires ludicrous amounts of energy (upwards of e29-e30 joules perhaps, but even on the lower end we're talking many tens of billions of megatons bare minimum probably) and this was all carried in a fuckhuge amount of antimatter deployed from a single Strike Cruiser. Prior to 6th edition and the 'Imperial Navy blasting planets with conventional firepower' this was one of the more crazier Exterminatus attemps they'd made

Those contemporary sources are probably just a bit biased.

The Soul Drinkers are here since the Inquisition needs someone to take out the orbital defence platforms surrounding the gas giant so they can perform Exterminatus.

It could be true though. This is like the 'Soul Drinkers on Terra' bit and its presented in a way that is equally plausible one way or another. I mean you can hardly argue that the Imperial Fists have MORE extensive knowledge than the administratum, Inquisition, or AdMech (they're just one chapter, however powerful) and the Inquisition itself is a secretive organization known for destroying information as readily as hoarding it. Sometimes at the same time.

They got screwed if all they got from several million sacrifices was one measly Bloodletter.

I can't say this is neccesarily 'bad', since I dont remember earlier codex stuff, but we did get 'higher tier' Bloodletters (the Heralds are high end Bloodletters) so you can't say there isn't variation regardless of what the game mechanics may imply. There may be other factors involved as well (I'm not sure simply sacrificing stuff will neccesarily draw Khorne anyhow. AS much as he likes bloodshed of any kind he's really drawn to the big, messy, violent wars. I dont think that was what happened in this case, so Khorne may not have felt the sacrifice was worth the effort (he's going to look at more than just the sacrificies anyhow to how much bloodshed potential there is.) Again though, whether this is 'screwed' or not depends on the context

After the battle is over Daenyathos checks in with the apothecary named Gorallis to se how he's doing and finds out that his arm is too damaged for bionics and that they'll need to check that he has no brain damge from head wounds. Overall it's not looking good for Sothelin.

This also starts Daenyatho's process of becoming Darth Vader/Honor Harrington, depending on how you want to interpret things

Then an Inquisitor named Kayeda walks into the roon and he gets his own picture as well and a picture of him and Daenyathos.

They then have a talk about how Chaos was allowed to act unchecked and about how Chaos isn't the real enemy and how humanity itself is the greatest threat to the Imperium.

This sounds rather close to being heresy.

PLOT POINT! IT could be heresy, but that wouldn't neccesarily be inconsistent from an Inquisitor. AFter all the Inquisition can't even agree on what its OWN policy is apart from 'fight with each other and whoever wins is right.' One person's Inquisitorial Heretic is another's visionary, after all. IF you ask any Inquisitor (no matter how radical or puritanical) they would all say they are doiung what is right/what is in the Imperium's best interests.

The irony here, perhaps, is Daenyathos again taking things too literally (Space Marines are rather literal and singleminded, and Counter in the first Ominbius notes they're prone to extremes like obsessions such as over honour and duty.) and it's clear Daenyathos is taking stuff to literally/obsessively. Given his own internal discord and ongoing struggle to find THE TRUTH this is again not a good sign of things to come.

And now Daenyathos starts thinking the thoughts that will lead him to betray the Imperium.

This is 1/3 done.

I think it's interesting how Daenyathos effectively fixates on the wrong thing. He's not really 'analyzing' or thinking it over, he's basically doing the mental equivalent of throwing shit at the wall with his eyes closed and seeing if it sticks. I mean you can argue 'suffering' is a weapon of humanity, but it is not neccesarily the Imperium's weapon. Rather, the suffering is a byproduct of the Imperium's struggles to survive and its own often-harsh policies.. but it's not as if the High Lords twirl their mustaches cackling in glee at the thought of the rest of humanity suffering. It's a tragic byproduct of a bunch of conflicting views and beliefs (often at odds with each other) and the consequences of all those myriad decisions and actions.

Now, by contrast, you CAN say there are agents out there who deliberately want, benefit, and enjoy/encourage suffering as a tool (not just a weapon), and that's the Chaos Gods. Humanity is a 'source' that sustains them, and they need to use humans (and human qualities) to tap that source, and suffering is one of the many 'weapons' they can employ. In fact, because that predatory relationship represents a threat, it makes the side effects of the Imperium's own policies that much worse (which in turn, benefits Chaos.) It's actually ironic because you might say the Imperium goes for LEAST suffering, to minimize the predations of Chaos on humanity, as if the Imperium wasn't there controlling shit (however brutal it is)... it could be much, much worse.

Counter actually discusses this a bit in the first Omnibus intro, and how he likes the Imperium for those contrasting views and even says he considred that a major theme of the Soul Drinkers novels. I should maybe try to type out some passage sfrom the first omnibus (never grabbed the second, as I started picking up novels by then.) It might be interesting to see Counter's perspective on such issues.

I'll cover the next ones separately.

The Curious Fan said:
How exactly are you supposed to put a tattoo on someone's eye?

They could be electoos. Some of those can be just cosmetic.

Ugolino said:
Well, it's Chaos. Consistency in its daemons is one thing that always bugged me, and for all his many, many faults as a writer Counter is fairly good at making his daemons eldritch.

Except that alot of Daemonic entities are a byproduct of the thought and emotions of living things. Especially humans, and humans are only chaotic to a point. We actually HATE chaos and inconsistency and ambiguity and crave for stability and order and structure on some level (even if we have to filter down and oversimplify the world to achieve it, which leads to a great many problems.) Since many Daemons are going to be based on mostly human thinking, that limits how much 'chaos' they can actually have, and the nature of human thought/emotions and the way the warp interacts with such stuff is going to guarantee a certain amount of structure. A Daemon, heck a Chaos God, by nature is a concentration of thought and emotion and soul given a highly specific structure and consciousness, which is why so many of the Chaos Gods are so highly focused - they only come into being because all those like thougths/emotions are drawn together and concentrate until they reach a certain 'critical mass' - and then a Chaos God is born.

By contrast, if Chaos were truly 'chaotic' we wouldn't have any functional, stable Chaos Gods - such 'entities' would be formless and ephemeral.. only coming into being when the currents and eddies of the Warp bring them together for indefinite periods to coalesce... only to break apart at some later date by those same unpredictable currents/eddies.

Personally I've long believed that the Old Ones fucking around with the Warp during their war with the Necrons/C'tan lead to the current fucked up state of the galaxy. Not only can we attribute psyker creation as we know it to them (they did it with the Orks and Eldar, so it seems likely they fucked with humanity) but also the creation of 'Gods' (or as the Eldar call them 'racial souls'. Which makes sense as Ork Gods are basically like that anyhow, and the Orks were engineered specifically by the Old Ones to be the way they were.. as weapons.) I also suspect alot of the Warp-based xenos life (such as Enslavers and psychneuin) have their origins in the Old Ones (warp based bioweapons maybe?) - even if they didn't create them directly their messing about could have lead to the conditions where they evolve and then cause problems.

krinsbez · May 27, 2015

Just out of curiosity, is it ever explained why the Soul Drinkers thought they were Sons of Dorn in the first place?

Night_stalker · May 27, 2015

krinsbez said:
Just out of curiosity, is it ever explained why the Soul Drinkers thought they were Sons of Dorn in the first place?

Besides them being idiots?

Connor MacLeod · May 27, 2015

krinsbez said:
Just out of curiosity, is it ever explained why the Soul Drinkers thought they were Sons of Dorn in the first place?

Not that I'm aware of, although we can surmise that if the long range plan of Daenyathos (if not Chaos) was predicated on the fiction of them being descendants of Rogal Dorn, it makes sense as a deception. After all, the best way to manipulate the Imperial Fists (and get inside the Phalanx) is by orcehstrating something like this that pretty much plays on the pride and honour/arrogance of the Imperial Fists. And what better way to do that then having a so called 'Chapter' descended from Dorn turn traitor and possibly fall to Chaos?

I know its tempting to just leave it at 'idiots' but that's not really explaining why, any more than saying 'Will of God' or 'Rule of Cool' or whatever pithy phrase we might concoct.

Since TCf seemed disappointed at not having more commentary, I'll touch on the last two parts of Daenyathos and his summary, but I don't want to infodump it all at once either, because there's still a fair bit to dissect if we're going at it from a thematic standpoint.

krinsbez · May 27, 2015

Connor MacLeod said:
Not that I'm aware of, although we can surmise that if the long range plan of Daenyathos (if not Chaos) was predicated on the fiction of them being descendants of Rogal Dorn, it makes sense as a deception.

Perhaps I misread, but I got the impression they thought they were IF successors in Daenyathos' time as well?

BTW, anyone else having some trouble figuring out how to pronounce Daenyathos? Is the first syllable Dayn, Den, Dan, or just Da followed by En? Is the "Y" part of the first syllable or the second? Etc.

Captain Orsai · May 27, 2015

Well, personally, I've always pronounced it Day-en-ya-thos. I don't know if that's the canonical one, but *shrugs* I'm not sure there is one.

The Curious Fan · May 27, 2015

Connor MacLeod said:
Oh and the dude with the tatoos? You missed the awesome part where the Vandire-era 'Frateris' were effectively Ecclsesiarchal Skitarii (the one in the book had a built in shield AND arm replaced by a lasblaster. LOL) And those weren't even Vandire's elite (imagine how the Brides migth have been at that time!)

I noticed, I just couldn't think of a good comment or observation to make about it.

Connor MacLeod said:
You also overlooked the crazy Exterminatus process as 'interesting.' Its like, fucking over the top. Blowing out huge quantities of matter from a Gas Giant requires ludicrous amounts of energy (upwards of e29-e30 joules perhaps, but even on the lower end we're talking many tens of billions of megatons bare minimum probably) and this was all carried in a fuckhuge amount of antimatter deployed from a single Strike Cruiser. Prior to 6th edition and the 'Imperial Navy blasting planets with conventional firepower' this was one of the more crazier Exterminatus attemps they'd made

I couldn't think of anything better to say than interesting at the time.

Connor MacLeod said:
Counter actually discusses this a bit in the first Omnibus intro, and how he likes the Imperium for those contrasting views and even says he considred that a major theme of the Soul Drinkers novels. I should maybe try to type out some passage sfrom the first omnibus (never grabbed the second, as I started picking up novels by then.) It might be interesting to see Counter's perspective on such issues.

Please post them.

krinsbez said:
Just out of curiosity, is it ever explained why the Soul Drinkers thought they were Sons of Dorn in the first place?

They thought it since before Daenyathos was in charge according to this so we can rule that out, I suppose it could be due to them just getting their Primarchs mixed up, it has happened in canon after all.

Connor MacLeod · May 29, 2015

Well fuck. I lost all my replies so much for that. I will have to wait until I get some time to respond (I'm still way behind on stuff I've been meaning and wanting to do, and I'm falling more behind due ot various needs and duties.)

But I did type up nearly all of the (relevant) bits of the Soul drinkers Omnibus intro:

The Soul Drinkers start out as ignorant and driven by pride. And, perhaps, that is how they finish, too - driven to the edge of destruction not by the enemies that surround them, but by their own refusal to back down while the Emperor's work is still to be done. They do not have obstacles thrown in their way, and they do not simply have deadly foes appear from nowhere. Everything that befalls them is their own doing. That is why they fight - because ultimately, they have chosen to.
...
The Space Marines were tempting for a writer, because they were both very popular, and larger than life (literally - they top out at over two metres tall.) in a way that made them suitable for the epic myth-making and tales of spectacular derring-do. They were also difficult to write, because they are one step away from human. They do not feel fear, at least not in the way that a 'normal' man does, and they can endure stupendous amounts of punishment and horror. In another sense, they feel more than 'normal' humans - they have senses of duty, brotherhood and righteous hatred that go beyond what most people can experience. No one can hold a grudge, obsess about honour or makes spectacular sacrifices like a Space Marine. THey are difficult to get right, but when it all clicks they earn their place at the top of th 41st Millenium's food chain.

It was inevitable, then, than my novel proposal to the Black Library would be based around Space Marines. I used the name 'Soul drinkers' because it was the collest Chapter name I had read, and because the Chapter was nothing more than a name and had no histroy or other background to get in the way of my making it all up. Similarly, the story I would tell was obvious to me, inspired by some of the colour text in the old Realm of Chaos rulebooks for Warhammer, which described the fall of two noble heroes into the clutches of corruption and Chaos. The Soul Drinkers would not just be an Imperial Space Marine Chpater who battle evil and win the day. They would gradually become corrupted by pride and hatred, be seduced by the Dark Gods, and end up a rage-filled, damned and utterly despicable Chapter of Chaos Marines. The Dark Gods would deceive them into pledging themselves to Chaos, and the Soul Drinkers would enter an eternity of damnation!

That, of course, was not how the Soul Drinkers turned out. The original proposal was pored over by Marc Gascoigne and Lindsey Priestley at the Black Library, and we sat down for a meeting at Game Workshop HQ. The proposal was picked apart, chopped up and reassembled, and what emerged was something very different. The Soul drinkers owuld have their close encounter with the corruptive forces of Chaos, but they would not end up Chaos warriors covered in skulls and spiky bits. Instead, they would renounce the Imperium and Chaos alike, going on their own way, and the first novel would detail the painful and extremely bloody process by which the Soul Drinkers would throw off the shackles of the Imperium.

The Soul Drinkers represent a sort of 'third way' between slavish obedience to the Imperium, and the hellish corruption of Chaos. This meant that they were opposed to the Imperium as ewll as dark forces of the galaxy, and that I could explore the Imperium as an enemy. This is perhaps the real reason the Soul Drinkers ended up the way they did - because the Imperium is such a wonderful bad guy.

The Imperium is my favourite aspect of Warhammer 40,000, because it is not just a heroic human empire valiantly defending itself from hostile outsiders. It is not even a deeply flawed but ultimately just empire that does grim things to survive. The Imperium is a ruthless tyranny, inspired by the worst excesses of real world history and ramped up to such levels of darkness and hatred that it barely fits on the page.

These were themes that I was able to explore as Sarpedon (with the help of some Chaotic meddling) realised how hypocritical and corrupt the Imperium really was. And yet, the Imperium is not just an evil empire to be destroyed, because without the structure of the Imperium and the ruthless way it crushes heretics and rebels, the human race would surely fall apart and be devoured. It is this cruel irony, central to the Warhammer 40,000 universe, that Sarpedon and his Soul Drinkers have to contend with as they try to find their way in the universe. Is it possible to help humanity and do the will of hte Emperor, while opposing the structures of the Imperium itself? Sarpedon thinks so, and this belief has all but led his Chapter to destruction.

Soul Drinker was written, rewritten, hammered into shape and published. When it came to the sequel, The Bleeding Chalice, the Soul Drinkers were out on their own and trying to cure the blight left on them by their close brush with Chaos in the previous book. THe Imperium was now actively hunting them, and Sarpedon had to face not only old fashioned enemies who wanted humanity's destruction, but also human foes who believed as strongly in the Emperor's will as he did. The third in the series, Crimson Tears, saw the Soul Drinkers tangling with the piratical dark eldar as well as their brother Space Marines of the Crimson Fists. The real enemy in Crimson Tears, however, was one of their own, twisted and driven mad by the events Sarpedon set in motion. Crimson Tears perhaps tells the real truth about the Soul Drinkers - that no matter how many aliens, Chaotic hordes and Imperial armies they come up against, the Soul Drinkers' greatest threats come from within. The Chapter is trapped in no-man's land between all the forces of te galaxy, and eventually it must surely tear itself apart.

The Soul Drinkers are fighting a losing battle. Their numbers dwindle and they are hunted by the Inquisition and the vengeful forces of Chaos alike, all the while they are trying to do the Emperor's work and defend humanity. The cracks are starting to show and Srpedon's ability to hold the Soul Drinkers together is far from certain. But ultimately, they are not about winning. They are free, perhaps the only Space Marine Chapter to truly throw off the Imperial yoke without falling to some corruption in the process. If they are destroyed, then they will die free, which is more than almost anyone in the Imperium could ever say. Even if only one Soul Drinkers remains, there will be some freedom in a galaxy smothered by the Imperium and corrupted by Chaos. That is perhaps the victory Sarpedon is seeking - avictory that only a Space Marine, with his depth of honour and refusal to despair, could ever really win.
Until that time, the Soul Drinkers will fight on, cold and fast just as the Catechisms Martial says, and somewhere in the galaxy the Emperor's work will be done.

TCF reads the Soul Drinkers series by Ben Counter

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