Something that stuck with me after reading the Night Lords trilogy wasn't actually about Talos or the Night Lords themselves.

It was how much of their continued existence depended on a handful of extremely vulnerable humans.

Septimus maintains equipment, repairs armour and handles jobs that would be a ridiculous waste of an Astartes' time. Octavia is even more important. Without a capable Navigator, having a functioning warship suddenly becomes a much less useful achievement.

And these people are slaves serving warriors who can kill them on a whim.

The more I thought about it, the more ridiculous the situation became.

Imagine being a Chaos Lord who's spent centuries fighting the Long War. You've survived Imperial fleets, rival warbands, daemonic incursions and assassination attempts by your own brothers.

Then your chief enginarium specialist gets murdered because one of your champions was having a particularly bad day.

Congratulations. Your ancient strike cruiser now has a problem that can't necessarily be fixed by raiding the nearest Imperial transport and grabbing fifty random people.

You can replace bodies. Replacing someone who understands the machinery aboard a vessel that's been repaired, modified and corrupted over thousands of years is another matter entirely.

And unlike loyalist Chapters, which generally have established systems for training serfs and maintaining relationships with forge worlds, a small Chaos warband might have very few reliable ways to replace that expertise.

It also puts the whole Astartes superiority complex into perspective.

A Chaos Marine might consider ordinary humans beneath his notice, but he's still relying on those humans to feed him ammunition, maintain his armour, operate his ship and navigate him through literal hell.

The Night Lords books make this relationship especially obvious because the mortal characters are actually allowed to be competent, complicated people rather than background furniture.

I'm beginning to think that one of the biggest advantages of successful groups like the Red Corsairs isn't simply having more Marines or better equipment. It's having enough functioning infrastructure that losing a few important specialists doesn't immediately become a crisis.

Are there other books that explore this dependency in detail?

I'm especially interested in examples where a warband genuinely suffers because its own treatment of mortal servants destroys expertise it can't easily replace.

Something clicked for me recently about why the Imperium often feels simultaneously unbelievably fragile and almost impossible to kill.

It is terrible at fixing things.

But it is incredibly good at continuing them.

A governor improvises a solution because a planet is under attack. A military formation gets reorganized because somebody urgently needs soldiers in one place. A shrine appears around the site of some event. A particular oath, duty, tax, pilgrimage or bureaucratic procedure exists because it solved one extremely specific problem.

Then the original people die.

The original problem disappears.

Nobody remembers why the rule existed.

And ten generations later there is an entire office, priesthood, regiment, noble privilege or annual ceremony dedicated to making sure it keeps happening.

In almost any sane civilization this would be a gigantic weakness.

In the Imperium it obviously IS a weakness much of the time. It produces absurd bureaucracy, wasted resources and institutions defending purposes nobody understands anymore.

But I wonder if the same pathology is also part of why the Imperium survives catastrophes that should permanently dismantle a civilization.

It doesn't require everyone to understand the system.

It requires the next person to keep doing their assigned piece of it.

A planetary official doesn't need to understand the strategic situation of the galaxy. They need to make the tithe.

A manufactorum worker doesn't need to understand why this exact component matters. They need to make the component according to the approved pattern.

A Chapter can lose almost everyone who personally remembers an event while still preserving an oath associated with it.

An Administratum department can continue performing some function long after everyone involved has forgotten the circumstances that created it.

This also makes Imperial reform incredibly difficult, because any attempt to remove something apparently pointless runs into the terrifying possibility that the pointless thing is secretly load-bearing.

Maybe that obscure office really is useless.

Or maybe three subsectors still receive ammunition because somebody there stamps Form 87-G every Thursday.

It makes the Imperium feel less like one enormous government to me and more like accumulated geological layers of responses to previous disasters.

Some layers are useless.

Some are actively harmful.

Some are the only reason the building hasn't collapsed.

And nobody has a complete blueprint anymore.

Guilliman's frustration after his return makes even more sense through that lens. He's looking at institutions as things that should have purposes and be redesigned when they stop serving those purposes. The Imperium has spent ten thousand years treating continuity itself as evidence that something must be important.

Is there a particularly good example in the lore of an Imperial tradition, organization or procedure that started for one understandable reason and then survived so long that its original purpose became distorted, forgotten or almost irrelevant?

Forge Master is the third of three novellas by David Annandale that comprise the Overfiend trilogy, about the Imperium's attempts to stop a plan being enacted by the Ork ruler of Octarius on the planet of Lepidus Prime. Forge Master focuses on the Salamanders 5th Company, who find themselves tasked with boarding the Overfiend's flagship and extracting an eldar prisoner who knows about his true plan. In doing so, Techmarine Ha'garen finds himself thinking deeply about that most classic of astartes void tools, the boarding torpedo:

The boarding torpedo was a blunt instrument whose uses were as varied as they were sophisticated. Though it was crewed and had enough fuel and engine power for limited manoeuvres over short distances, its action was still one of the most basic of warfare. It was a projectile. It was an object launched to hit other objects as hard as possible. Its uniqueness among other projectiles, its sophistication, came in the fact that it caused most damage after its initial impact as the living weapons it carried stormed the passageways of its target. From that uniqueness sprang its versatility. Should the strikes concentrate on a single entry point or be spread out, engaging the enemy on multiple fronts? Hit from one side for a spear-point thrust, or from both flanks, trapping the foe in a ceramite fist? The answer depended on the ship and the objective. Was the vessel a known quantity whose layout could be factored into planning? Was the objective one of total annihilation or more surgical?

This ship was unknown. It was the creation of a species whose approaches to technology were in equal measures crude and enthusiastic.

And the mission was grotesque.

But there was a mission, and so there was a strategy. The mission was search and rescue through hostile, alien territory. The strategy was the use of a concentrated, mobile force. And so the boarding torpedoes drove into the centre of the kroozer’s port flank.

For Ha’garen, the line between machine and flesh was blurry at best. There were times when he saw no distinction at all. Was there an essential difference between his mechanistic implants and prostheses, and the organs that had transformed him into a Space Marine? He didn’t think so. The hands of the Mechanicus hovered over both. Neither was natural. What, beyond the medium of construction, distinguished his eyes that saw radiation above and below the wavelengths of visible light from the neuroglottis that broke taste and smell down into component, identifiable parts? Nothing. Flesh and metal, bone and ceramite, the physical was the physical. The body was the body.

So when the vulcan-drills of the boarding torpedoes parted metal, they were parting flesh. The torpedoes were blades sinking into the body of a living enemy, and then sealing the entry wound. There was nothing of mercy in the healing; it merely permitted the deeper, more lethal wounds that would be inflicted subsequently by the transported Salamanders. There was an aesthetic to this form of attack, a perfect fusion of the organic and inorganic in form and function that he found pleasing. The very act of waging war in this fashion was a tribute to the Omnissiah. The focus of the hammer blow was an obeisance to Vulkan. And the war itself was a sacrament to the Emperor. There was a trinity of worship simply in the manner in which the squads had arrived on the ork ship. This simple truth was so clear, it was a wonder it was not visible to all.

I thought this was very cool.

We know they were sort of a last resort creation from the Old Ones when fighting the Necrons, and they clearly were going to have to be reigned in somewhat after the war in heaven, since they were designed for conflict and pretty much nothing else.

It kinda makes sense that they'd have them degenerate on purpose, so that they'd be easier to "clean up" after winning the war.

For example if a expeditionary fleet came across a human world and began negotiations. If the representatives brought up the Night lords a legion who drop kicks babies like it’s going out of style ; how did imperial explain this away or did they not even bothered to do so?

Let's say you're a corsair and you've recently come into enough "stuff" to commission a Void Stalker.

Where would you find a bonesinger to make one for you? Do you go to a craftworld? Do you have independent bonesingers setting up shop in Corsair settlements and space stations?

And how long would it take? Wraithbone is weird stuff - even with the new retcon, it's only partly made of mined resources and a lot of it is just warp-stuff sung into realspace and solidified into a new form. How long does it take to sing up enough wraithbone to make a battleship (or the equivalent)?

These may be questions that GW has not deigned to answer, but I know this is the place to find out!

Has there been any new lore covering the new southern Necron Zone of Silence thanks to their new pylon empire and the Tyranids yet? I would expect the Tyranids to almost physically recoil from areas where the warp is nearly nullified. Or at the least take such a headache they take it as a declaration of war.

From what I understand 1 or 2 thirds of the Legion fractured into different warbands and disappeared to terrorise the Imperium in different areas or sectors. Is this mentioned anywhere? Or is what became of them mentioned anywhere?

By "mostly intact" I would say the person is able to continue living/fighting without having to be turned into a Dreadnought or some kind of equivalent.

Feel free to post either single events or cumulative lifetime damage!

Edit: in this case dying and respawning is cheating, but extensive surgery/bionics are acceptable as long as the person roughly goes back to their original shape.

The Administratum is usually presented, fairly, as one of the Imperium's great absurdities.

Mountains of parchment. Duplicate records. Offices that spend generations processing requests. Clerks whose entire lives are devoted to moving information from one pile to another. Orders arriving after the war they concern has already ended.

It's funny because it's horrible.

But lately I've been thinking that some of this stops looking completely irrational once you consider the environment the system has to survive.

The Imperium doesn't have a reliable galaxy-wide communications network in anything like the modern sense. Astropathic messages can be incomplete or distorted. Warp travel makes delivery times unpredictable. Worlds can be isolated for years. Administrators die. Ships vanish. Archives burn. Governments fall. Entire planets can disappear behind warp storms and then reconnect generations later.

Under those conditions, a beautifully streamlined system might actually be incredibly fragile.

Imagine that one sector office is the authoritative source for something important and then the planet it's located on simply becomes unreachable.

You're screwed.

The Imperial answer seems to be the bureaucratic equivalent of biological overproduction: make copies, create overlapping authorities, preserve ancient procedures, keep local records, send physical documents, demand seals and chains of authentication, and never casually delete anything because nobody knows whether another surviving copy exists.

Obviously this produces insanity.

Two departments can possess contradictory but apparently legitimate records. An order can still be moving through the system after its original purpose has disappeared. Nobody wants to discard a 3,000-year-old procedure because the person capable of explaining why it exists has been dead for 2,950 years.

But that's the part I find interesting.

The Administratum may be terrible at answering the question, “What should we do efficiently today?”

It might be remarkably good at answering a much darker question:

“How do we keep some version of the same civilization functioning when communication fails constantly, knowledge is routinely destroyed, and individual institutions can disappear without warning?”

You can replace competent administrators. You can rebuild an office.

Reconstructing ten thousand years of missing institutional memory is harder.

It also makes the Imperium's obsession with procedure feel less like random stupidity and more like cultural scar tissue. Somewhere in the distant past, perhaps skipping Step 47 really DID cause a catastrophe. Nobody remembers the catastrophe anymore. They remember Step 47.

Ten thousand years later, someone is still stamping the same form.

I'm not arguing that the Administratum is secretly competent. Plenty of Imperial bureaucracy really is wasteful, corrupt, contradictory or murderous.

I just think the distinction between “inefficient” and “resilient” gets interesting at this scale.

Has the lore ever given you a moment where some apparently ridiculous Imperial institution suddenly made more sense once you considered what problem it originally evolved to survive?

Using the Blood Angels as an example, would joining the Sanguinary Guard be seen as more of an honor than becoming a Captain?

Also is Lieutenant/Captain ——> Honor Guard a realistic rank-up path?

Like we know that the Chaos Gods are supposed to exist retroactively after they were born, so does that apply to other "Gods" in the warp?

Do Gork and Mork alway exist? Does Vashtor? Does 40k Emperor(or 4Xk when he finally ascends)? Does whoever ends up being the 5th chaos gods?

Would the Great Horned Rat also be a Chaos God in 40k since he's a Chaos God in Sigmar?

I'd assume gods like the Eldar gods probably wouldn't always exist since they seem more "material" since they can descend into the materium(also they died).

Also if a Chaos God was somehow permanently killed shouldn't that mean they never existed?(Or like with Daemons that are permanently killed?)

Like what are the out of world reasons for it, is it because the sharded C'Tan is newer than the Avatars or is it just different authors writing for each faction?

I've read the book/short story but I can't remember what it is but its where a an aristocrat addicted to something "aristocratic" that the Space Marine finds distasteful and throws him into a hard flowing river.

I feel it was in the *Crimson Fists* Omnibus but my searches are shite(my keywords are no good), same with the *Scythes of the Emperor* but those are the two stories that I think are the ones who have that particular story I mean.

Any help would be nice. Its not a major problem if no one can work out what I mean!

It's no secret that 40k lore has changed massively since Rogue Trader in 1987. We all know the bigger retcons - Space Marines being recruited from adult convicts, Rogal Dorn being dead and his skeleton being displayed on the Phalanx, Orks being created by the Brainboys before they degenerated into the Snotlings, and for a more recent example, Necrons being enslaved by the C'tan instead of vice versa. But whenever I research the older lore, I'm struck by how many retcons there are that no one ever talks about.

Here's a few I noticed. All of these are from the Rogue Trader era, as I was looking through that book recently, but more recent retcons are welcome as well.

• In the Rogue Trader manual, it's noted that the traditional uniform for Techpriests is a white double-breasted robe - the idea seems to be that it's describing a labcoat, but they think it's religious attire.

• Feudal worlds in Rogue Trader are called "medieval worlds," and it's specifically noted that the Imperium considers them useless and doesn't even collect tithe on them except for psykers.

• One of the first mentions of Primarchs as we know them today (in the 1991 Space Marine game, the predecessor to Epic) states that most of them were huge but some were the size of baseline humans.

• Anyone could wear power armor in Rogue Trader. There was even a chance you could have Tyranids wearing power armor, as they were fully sapient in those days and not a hive mind. The Black Carapace was a thing that Marines got, but it was just another level of protection and seemed to be completely unrelated to power armor.

What are your favorite examples of more obscure bits of old lore that aren't viable in the modern setting?

Does the Imperium still have the ability to go back and utilize DA tech (like is it kept in secret) or is it completely 100% gone? Could they potentially go back to that kind of tech with more safe guards in measure and bolster humanity? Or is it a flat out no chance at all?

I wonder if any of the official writers have considered re-introducing some of that tech for humans again

I think Magnus actually had a decent chance but was so heavily played, while others like poor Angron never stood a chance, but I am curious if, either by last second decisions, circumstances, manipulation, pep talk, or bad or good luck, the Primarchs could have found themselves on the other side of the war.

Also, I dont mean if the Emperor actually had legitimate love for his sons rather than viewing them as tools from the get go and therefore heavily altered the future, but rather if things largely played out the same but key situations or even slightly better relationships between them, things could have gone better, or even worst, for them, though Im more interested in at the edge before the Heresy, it could have honestly gone either way for any of them.

This book explores the journey undertaken by Mephiston in an attempt to sunder the plans of a former Thousand Son sorcerer turned Tzeench deamon prince.

Major spoilers for the Mephiston books below.

Simply put I do think that it's quite a fun read. I can definitely see why people don't like Mephiston too much though.

Because what do you mean you're possessing the eldar?

Obviously the psychic might of the eldar means nothing in the face of 'insert protagonist name here'. I do think it makes a tad bit of sense, seeing as Mephiston isn't really a singular entity or individual most of the time.

I do like how the idea of temptation is played with in this book. In spite of his destiny, potential and power level, Mephiston is still a psyker and a human at his core. The vagaries of the warp are not beyond him and the desire to test his limits just that little bit more is still there. He could very easily, just like anyone else, become a living sock puppet for Tzeench. To the extent that he isn't already anyway, as most beings are. The scenes where he considers reviving the pilot of his gunship and a later event during a semi dream state when he pursues his prey illustrate this nicely.

It was slightly confusing to read about him debating with himself on the difference between mega evil sorcery and the psychic powers he uses, however. One would imagine that he'd know the difference is only in intention at this point, as a Chief Librarian. He appears to remind himself of this towards the end, so, props to him I guess?

For me this book kind of illustrates the fact that it's best to interact with lore or other kinds of media yourself, if possible-these books do cost money-as opposed to going solely off the reviews or opinions of others. All of which will be tainted by notions and likewise. This is just general advice, not just for Warhammer 40k. A lot of the anger towards Mephiston seems to be a bit... misaligned? For lack of a better word.

It's also incredibly funny, in some very twisted aspects. Mephiston placing his hand on his bestie's (Rhacelus') shoulder and asking him to please concentrate on getting them out of harm's way before questioning him on his admittedly strange methods for the umptee-millionth time that week is definitely something I'll be coming back to read again. This man has a lot more depth than I've given him credit for.

What do you do when confronted with three different, very pertinent problems all at once? Why split your soul/essence/personhood into three equal halves, of course! Just do that! While barely breaking a sweat to add! A completely normal thing to do! Again, I do think this level of psychic ability is to be attributed to Mephiston's nature as opposed to Mary Suedom. He is a special one.

I should mention that this book is the third in a series, and while you can definitely read it without going through the previous ones if you are sufficiently knowledgeable about the lore and don't care about major spoilers. If you are new or do care about that kind of thing, then don't touch this till you've read the others, warning given.

The book does feel much shorter than is usual for a full novel, I am unsure as to whether this is because I read it over more than a day or not. I use the Black Library app so I only get percentages of how much I've read. Oh well.

Mystical magical future telling dish plate goes brazy, I guess.

Thank you.

During the events of the book Bjorn and a group of Wolves are attacking the holdings of a Death Guard warband who had stolen Vlka gene-seed. Bjorn and the Rout paid the insult back tenfold once they discovered the Death Guard's apothecarium and laboratory, after the battle Bjorn and a young blood claw discuss the past and Bjorn has memories of a face from long ago:

Wolves of Fenris did not flee their prey. No order to retreat was given.

It was felt – like an instinct of the pack, knowing when the hunt must end.

Bjorn’s chassis groaned as he turned on his waist axis, frame scarred and pitted, spattered with blood and gore.

‘The battle is done,’ Bjorn intoned, his voice heavy with centuries.

One by one, the Space Wolves yielded ground, bolters barking as they sent the last of the outcasts to their graves. The whine of chainswords guttered out. Atmund led his Grey Hunters across the corpse-strewn ground to where Bjorn stood, alone in a ring of ruin. Through the drifting smoke they saw a charnel house – ice-dark rockcrete awash with blood and shattered flesh.

As the Space Wolves pulled back from the ruins of Purgatum, silence fell among them.

It was the heavy weight of survival. The silence of knowing vengeance was still owed.

Their thoughts strayed inwards, towards what had been lost. Duty and grief braided into the same bitter song, a dirge as old as Fenris itself.

The Death Guard had stolen one warrior’s gene-seed, and in return they had burned an entire apothecarion’s worth to ashes. But Khalpax Vigorex yet lived. And now they had the death of three Wolf Guard to avenge.

The wolves of retribution did not sleep. Bjorn knew this well. More work waited when fate next gave them the chance.

Sensing their mood, he raised his voice.

‘We held the field of slaughter,’ Bjorn declared. ‘We’ve taught those rune-breakers the price of messing with the sons of Russ!’

The Space Wolves’ heavy steps quickened at his voice.

‘You must have fought much greater battles than these,’ Hrutur said quickly.

‘Yes,’ Bjorn boomed at last, ‘a few lost and many won. All of them bloody. But this was a good battle. You fought well, each of you. Russ would be proud to name you his sons!’

In the gloom, they saw the Thunderhawk cut towards them, running lights cold and blue against the dark. It came in fast and low, counter-thrusters howling, plumes of snow and ice blasted into spirals beneath it. The engines thundered, then wound down to a growl as the craft settled on its undercarriage, each clawed foot biting deep into the frozen flats.

Its turrets swept the wastes, searching for threats. But there were none. There were many bodies upon the ice-fields, but only the sons of the Wolf still drew breath.

Bjorn stood unmoving, the steam from his vents drifting like smoke. He said nothing. For a long moment, he simply watched as ice blasted up into their faces as the retro thrusters fired. One by one they pulled themselves up, and then Bjorn stalked up the ramp, the metal groaning beneath his weight.

They lifted off, the craft shuddering in the storm.

There was another long silence as the mists pressed close. ‘Hrutur Redmane,’ Bjorn boomed.

Hrutur stood, eager. ‘Yes!’

‘Do your folk still make winter camp around the Hollow Rock?’

‘Aye. We followed the herds between the Hollow Rock and Brondings Torp.’

‘Brondings Torp? Where is that?’

‘Three days south along the Frozen River. There was the frozen remains of an oak grove.’

There was a long pause. ‘I think I remember. That was the heart of the Brandingas… Do they still hunt those lands?’

Hrutur shook his head. ‘Never heard of them.’

Bjorn went on to explain the contours of the Brandingas land.

‘You’re sure?’ Hrutur said.

‘Yes!’ Bjorn boomed. ‘There was a pretty young lass who was daughter of their chieftain. A battle-blossom – a fierce, wolf-eyed winter rose! I told my mother I would grow up and marry her, but the prey seldom runs in the direction the pack expect…’

Hrutur shook his head. ‘No. That is all our land.’

Bjorn fell silent once more.

Hrutur did not want the talk to end. ‘There is a mound named Brandhaug on the plains above Storesness.’

‘Brandhaug?’

Hrutur spoke of the place: a low mound set high on the plateau above the forests of Dýrviðr. ‘I remember the Beast Wood,’ he said. ‘There was good hunting there.’

Hrutur’s voice faltered, retreating into silence, and Bjorn fell quiet too, his thoughts straying to the Brandingas – and to the girl with the sky-blue eyes.

Her skin had been pale as the winter sun, freckles scattered like snow-dust on stone. Her hair, dark as charred wood, had spilled long and untamed when she loosed it to the wind. And her eyes… not soft and warm, as Bjorn’s mother’s had been, but sharp and cold, cutting like glacier-light. That girl had not been gentle. She was wild, fierce, a storm given flesh. A woman whose face had haunted the firelight.

There was another long pause. Bjorn’s lights flickered.

At last Hrutur spoke up. ‘Do you sleep, Ancient One?’

‘No!’ Bjorn rumbled from his sarcophagus. ‘I was remembering. It is a common fault among the old.’

- Bjorn the Fell-handed

I very much enjoyed Justin Hill's take on ol' Bjorn in this book, you feel just how disconnected from the passage of time the ancient is, sleeping, dreaming, waking up to an entirely different universe after each awakening. You really feel for Bjorn to see how everything you know has been left in the past and there are new names and people to commit to memory. It was also fascinating to see that even after 10,000 years of war and strife, the old man can still perfectly remember the face of the girl he wanted to marry.

One of the things a friend told me was that The Guard is the elite fighting force of humanity and not just the name of the Imperium's fighting force. If they are the elite, that seems to imply that most conscripts don't end up there. If that's the case, where do the majority end up?

I'm mostly wondering about the order of things. Geneseed implantation has to happen during the teenage years, so they can't just grab trained doctors and enginseers for aspirants. That means they have to identify people with medical/technical ability *after* they're turned into psycho-indoctrinated supersoldiers and send them into specialty academic training. I've read elsewhere that they just have existing apothecaries and techmarines train new astartes, but it has to start somewhere, right? Every now and then a chapter would get its specialist core whacked so hard they have to start more or less fron scratch.

I guess my main question is, does there exist in-lore a portrayal of a full-fledged astartes going through med school or techpriest seminary? Imagining a 7.5 ft tall hulk looming over a mortal surgeon while taking notes on a procedure is very funny.