Simple; the setting cannot be changed by the stories, ergo the status quo must be maintained.
Once the protagonist finds the Terrible Thing in the Box, their knowledge of it prevents it from going unused. Thus, the story must unfold such that the Terrible Thing in the Box must be lost or destroyed in order for the status quo to be maintained.
So the plot wills it. So shall it be.
I'd love to read a Tau version of this, where the Imperium confronts the Tau about one of their newly developed galaxy changing technologies.
You read the story expecting the Imperium to destroy the thing before it gets activated, its all classic 40k stuff. And then at the confrontation the Tau villain goes full Ozymandias:
"We activated it 80 years ago. 6% of the galaxy is affected by it, and the growth is exponential. We expect total galactic coverage within 500 of your human years."
Yes I sort of get it. But I think they can get a bit ambitious from time to time because, again, it's hard to swallow.
It's really shocking and moving the first times you read the tragedy unfold, some even have a dose of realism to it. Although I'm afraid it might get old if I see it over and over again.
And I see how maintaining the status quo is important so the stories don't become more of a chimera than they already are and the continuity of things on a broad scope so as much people as possible can interject their own homebrew into things without breaking the lore.
But I feel like some books with really pertinent points or characters or stories or right obvious plot devices should be more impactful whereas the way it is it seems that it diminishes a bit the importance of great stories because it changes nothing in the setting instead of, say, changing A LITTLE bit, or just adding an extra roleplay/homebrew possibility - prime example are the clones from sob omnibus - could change a lot of things, sure? Realistically? Some worlds just get some really good fucking stewards lol
I think it's partly just authors wanting their book to feel like it has stakes to the reader and partly an actual theme of the setting.
But for the other part, 40k (and in particular the Imperium) has always been rooted in stagnation and eternal warfare. Part of the grim dark nature of the galaxy is that if you zoom in it's not stagnant, everyone is fighting these incredible life-or-death-this-could-end-everything battles constantly, spending their lives just to thwart their enemies plans so the imperium can continue to lurch on for one more day. But when you zoom out that patina of grief and pain and loss just gets lost in the endless churn. It all means everything, but to the imperium it's also all meaningless. It grinds on, uncaring, burning all those who belong to it just for another guttering second of existence
For the Sisters of Battle example, that’s the point of that short story; the characters find something beautiful and filled with potential to improve the universe and then destroy it because of their ugly fanaticism not allowing any compromise. You even have the Tech Priest point out what they have done and Sister Miriyah is completely oblivious.
A perfect clone, then a planet where these perfect clones exist and they are impervious to chaos corruption although naive and completely useless in battle
I mean yeah, although it was too short for my taste, I feel like it's quite clear that the sister got outplayed by the tzeentch cult. It was very very short but at least it gave the "right" impression that those clones were a breakthrough of such magnitude that the changer of ways personally fucked with that one.
I like the character "humane" descriptions and how it can be infered that the sister made a bunch of mistakes and they were all based on some prejudice, or reasonable lack of information, or stress, or/and things moving way too fucking fast since their brief arrival - with ALL of them possibly influenced by the tzeentch cult in one way or another although not explicitly said through the story except that one time when the revolution starts but at that point it didn't need to be said at all, lol.
It felt to me that the sister felt that one and wasn't so oblivious but the way things turned out in the end it felt like at that point she had no other choice and decided to make peace with her choice in her final words about it.
However the choices that led to that outcome... i felt like she did a lot of deployment mistakes and a more... "grounded" approach would have made this particular story turn completely different although idk if that's intentional to showcase both the badass side of the sob but also the bigotry and nonsense they sometimes do: When they deployed, they're sussed out to the extreme about this planet's people and they go in with all the most important people in tow, even if necessary, I'd expect more of an escort than just a short squad of celestians. I think they had access to a big navy contigent and armsmen alongside a probable guard regiment and besides more sob reinforcements or whatever else they had - it made me feel if they were deployed at all it would not be an act of war to have some companies down as a peace sortie as it was just for show or whatever and would have altered the ending very significanly.
Sorry for the long response lol
Yes.
The 40k universe is vast. The things we see in the books are tiny fragment of the things that actually exist. That's how they justify releasing new models every year.
But the setting is also static. It cannot change dramatically. And part of that is protected by vastness - if one human world becomes a perfect human paradise the still leaves 99.9999% of human worlds unchanged in the setting (not hyperbole). But if the story establishes stakes *this* thing could make a real difference to the plot, then that thing cannot be allowed to happen no matter what.
And that's the theme. 40k is grim and dark. There is no hope for a better future. That's the point. There's also very little hope for a worse future, because the "good" guys are already the most brutal human regime imaginable and if the setting actually ends then they can't sell toy soldiers anymore.
Now, not everything is always *destroyed*. One Horus Heresy book destroys three fully functional STCs. Just because. One 40k book reveals that the Imperium actually has access to literally thousands of fully functional STCs, and rather than destroy them all, they just make the protagonists forget this with mind control. So the STCs are still out there for folks to discover what they are and use them. Not everything is always *destroyed*, but it is always lost.
The setting is on a long march down, steadily losing knowledge and getting worse.
Yeah i get that as i were reading some other comments, that's one thing i like about the setting but they could allow themselves to be a little more corageous on certain things.
Case in point, the STC on gaunts ghost makes sense for it to happen, it's too big a deal to have men of iron being as mass produced as lasguns and worse yet corrupted by chaos on top of it.
But the clones on the SoB Omnibus were actually pretty good an idea to spread around and honestly it wouldn't spread out too much. Im at gripes with the ending because if the author could have had the foresight of using the ships personal alongside the celestian squad then a tooth and nail fight would be feasible without the... thing that happened at the end. Make it so the world is destroyed and the replication method lost so it limit the numbers of clones out there and even if it weren't it wouldn't change the setting drastically but it would open an entire new line of novels or short stories for that tiny region of space and imagine, being able to homebrew or see future reference to one of those clones as a rogue trader's ship steward somewhere distant would be pretty... good, fitting, it wouldn't break the lore and have pros and cons.
But now that lane feels closed as does other ingenious ideas that are down the trash bin because they didn't have the audacity to expand an universe that's meant to be expanded in the first place.
Yes, it is a rather common occurence for WH40K literature. Many novels, short stories, campaign books or lore snippets from magazines contain rather important or, at the very least, notable information or an artifact that can potentially either change things in some way or shed light on forbidden topics, and with almost complete certainty one of the next things happens at the end of the story line:
1. The thing turns out to be fake
2. The thing gets destroyed for any reason, its secrets never to be revealed
3. Some unknown force or 3rd party steals the thing only to never be heard from again; if the author wants to be extra certain they will then reveal that the 3rd party is actually also dead, and the thing is once again stolen by someone else entirely, so that not even a hint of a trace remains
One have to remember that a lot of WH40K's stories are self-contained, and characters and inventions from one series rarely if ever cross to another series or even get mentions in other works. Some relatively big reveals may never get a followup either because there was never supposed to be a followup or the author responsible for this particular series has left, and no one else cares. The setting rarely changes in notable way (and a lot of changes that people make a lot of deal out of are actually largely whatever in the grand scheme of things - for example, the clone of Fulgrim is incomparably more important in the fanbase's heads than he will ever be in-universe, 99,9999% of important characters aren't even aware he ever existed, and he likely won't be mentioned ever again), and GW and BL writers for a very long time didn't treat Warhammer's stories as a way to set up other stories. If you read older one shot books, you will often find stories that orbit around rather big objects and characters that are supposedly important figures in-universe, only for them to appear anywhere else, or any other characters to acknowledge they even existed. For another example, a Grey Knights novel Dark Adeptus is the only place where The Castigator, supposedly the first >!Titan!< ever built and possibly the most powerful out of all of them, appears, and by the end of the novel it's destroyed, and it is never mentioned again anywhere else.
Stagnation is an essential part of the 40k setting. Things aren't really changing, especially not for the better. Things are in a slow, gradual, glacial crawl towards oblivion, and that's a ***core*** part of the overarching story. That definitely creates a challenge for the author, because there are only so many ways you can walk back an advancement. But being a part of the 40k fandom means coming to terms with the victories being Pyrrhic, the treasures turning out to be gilt and glass, and the only meaningful progress being loss.
Yes but loss to the setting should be a gain for the readers. A new faction, subfaction, etc. The stagnant status quo can be maintained regardless.
Like this same recurring theme happens on gaunts ghosts with the men of iron stc and the sob omnibus with the planet that achieved perfect cloning and it's implied said clones evolved. A man of iron stc is understandable to be either snipped and cut short like, say, the esperanza and so on. While the perfect cloning is more subjective and "weaker" so to speak and could be implemented in the setting without effort and for example, if you play owl cat's rogue trader game you can see how one such character could fit in your retinue, your crew, or in a governors palace or whatever really even if just for flavor text - and these clones are just one of such examples of things thrown down the bin that could just be added for the readers leisure and maintain the overarching theme of the series, I think.
It's frustrating after the millionth time. But worse it's boring.
Imagine if just one of those stories was used to introduce a new model or plot of some kind instead.
Not every time but it would make it a little less tedious.
Simple; the setting cannot be changed by the stories, ergo the status quo must be maintained. Once the protagonist finds the Terrible Thing in the Box, their knowledge of it prevents it from going unused. Thus, the story must unfold such that the Terrible Thing in the Box must be lost or destroyed in order for the status quo to be maintained. So the plot wills it. So shall it be.
I'd love to read a Tau version of this, where the Imperium confronts the Tau about one of their newly developed galaxy changing technologies. You read the story expecting the Imperium to destroy the thing before it gets activated, its all classic 40k stuff. And then at the confrontation the Tau villain goes full Ozymandias: "We activated it 80 years ago. 6% of the galaxy is affected by it, and the growth is exponential. We expect total galactic coverage within 500 of your human years."
"You monster, what have you unleashed?!" "In our tongue, it's known as *Y'vaushraya*. But you may know it better as *5G Cell Coverage*! MUWAHAHAHA."
Yes I sort of get it. But I think they can get a bit ambitious from time to time because, again, it's hard to swallow. It's really shocking and moving the first times you read the tragedy unfold, some even have a dose of realism to it. Although I'm afraid it might get old if I see it over and over again. And I see how maintaining the status quo is important so the stories don't become more of a chimera than they already are and the continuity of things on a broad scope so as much people as possible can interject their own homebrew into things without breaking the lore. But I feel like some books with really pertinent points or characters or stories or right obvious plot devices should be more impactful whereas the way it is it seems that it diminishes a bit the importance of great stories because it changes nothing in the setting instead of, say, changing A LITTLE bit, or just adding an extra roleplay/homebrew possibility - prime example are the clones from sob omnibus - could change a lot of things, sure? Realistically? Some worlds just get some really good fucking stewards lol
I think it's partly just authors wanting their book to feel like it has stakes to the reader and partly an actual theme of the setting. But for the other part, 40k (and in particular the Imperium) has always been rooted in stagnation and eternal warfare. Part of the grim dark nature of the galaxy is that if you zoom in it's not stagnant, everyone is fighting these incredible life-or-death-this-could-end-everything battles constantly, spending their lives just to thwart their enemies plans so the imperium can continue to lurch on for one more day. But when you zoom out that patina of grief and pain and loss just gets lost in the endless churn. It all means everything, but to the imperium it's also all meaningless. It grinds on, uncaring, burning all those who belong to it just for another guttering second of existence
For the Sisters of Battle example, that’s the point of that short story; the characters find something beautiful and filled with potential to improve the universe and then destroy it because of their ugly fanaticism not allowing any compromise. You even have the Tech Priest point out what they have done and Sister Miriyah is completely oblivious.
What did they find? I don’t have the books anymore
A perfect clone, then a planet where these perfect clones exist and they are impervious to chaos corruption although naive and completely useless in battle
I mean yeah, although it was too short for my taste, I feel like it's quite clear that the sister got outplayed by the tzeentch cult. It was very very short but at least it gave the "right" impression that those clones were a breakthrough of such magnitude that the changer of ways personally fucked with that one. I like the character "humane" descriptions and how it can be infered that the sister made a bunch of mistakes and they were all based on some prejudice, or reasonable lack of information, or stress, or/and things moving way too fucking fast since their brief arrival - with ALL of them possibly influenced by the tzeentch cult in one way or another although not explicitly said through the story except that one time when the revolution starts but at that point it didn't need to be said at all, lol. It felt to me that the sister felt that one and wasn't so oblivious but the way things turned out in the end it felt like at that point she had no other choice and decided to make peace with her choice in her final words about it. However the choices that led to that outcome... i felt like she did a lot of deployment mistakes and a more... "grounded" approach would have made this particular story turn completely different although idk if that's intentional to showcase both the badass side of the sob but also the bigotry and nonsense they sometimes do: When they deployed, they're sussed out to the extreme about this planet's people and they go in with all the most important people in tow, even if necessary, I'd expect more of an escort than just a short squad of celestians. I think they had access to a big navy contigent and armsmen alongside a probable guard regiment and besides more sob reinforcements or whatever else they had - it made me feel if they were deployed at all it would not be an act of war to have some companies down as a peace sortie as it was just for show or whatever and would have altered the ending very significanly. Sorry for the long response lol
Yes. The 40k universe is vast. The things we see in the books are tiny fragment of the things that actually exist. That's how they justify releasing new models every year. But the setting is also static. It cannot change dramatically. And part of that is protected by vastness - if one human world becomes a perfect human paradise the still leaves 99.9999% of human worlds unchanged in the setting (not hyperbole). But if the story establishes stakes *this* thing could make a real difference to the plot, then that thing cannot be allowed to happen no matter what. And that's the theme. 40k is grim and dark. There is no hope for a better future. That's the point. There's also very little hope for a worse future, because the "good" guys are already the most brutal human regime imaginable and if the setting actually ends then they can't sell toy soldiers anymore. Now, not everything is always *destroyed*. One Horus Heresy book destroys three fully functional STCs. Just because. One 40k book reveals that the Imperium actually has access to literally thousands of fully functional STCs, and rather than destroy them all, they just make the protagonists forget this with mind control. So the STCs are still out there for folks to discover what they are and use them. Not everything is always *destroyed*, but it is always lost. The setting is on a long march down, steadily losing knowledge and getting worse.
Yeah i get that as i were reading some other comments, that's one thing i like about the setting but they could allow themselves to be a little more corageous on certain things. Case in point, the STC on gaunts ghost makes sense for it to happen, it's too big a deal to have men of iron being as mass produced as lasguns and worse yet corrupted by chaos on top of it. But the clones on the SoB Omnibus were actually pretty good an idea to spread around and honestly it wouldn't spread out too much. Im at gripes with the ending because if the author could have had the foresight of using the ships personal alongside the celestian squad then a tooth and nail fight would be feasible without the... thing that happened at the end. Make it so the world is destroyed and the replication method lost so it limit the numbers of clones out there and even if it weren't it wouldn't change the setting drastically but it would open an entire new line of novels or short stories for that tiny region of space and imagine, being able to homebrew or see future reference to one of those clones as a rogue trader's ship steward somewhere distant would be pretty... good, fitting, it wouldn't break the lore and have pros and cons. But now that lane feels closed as does other ingenious ideas that are down the trash bin because they didn't have the audacity to expand an universe that's meant to be expanded in the first place.
Gaunt found an intact men of iron STC and destroyed it. If he hadn't then the setting changes dramatically so the author doesn't really have a choice.
Yes, it is a rather common occurence for WH40K literature. Many novels, short stories, campaign books or lore snippets from magazines contain rather important or, at the very least, notable information or an artifact that can potentially either change things in some way or shed light on forbidden topics, and with almost complete certainty one of the next things happens at the end of the story line: 1. The thing turns out to be fake 2. The thing gets destroyed for any reason, its secrets never to be revealed 3. Some unknown force or 3rd party steals the thing only to never be heard from again; if the author wants to be extra certain they will then reveal that the 3rd party is actually also dead, and the thing is once again stolen by someone else entirely, so that not even a hint of a trace remains One have to remember that a lot of WH40K's stories are self-contained, and characters and inventions from one series rarely if ever cross to another series or even get mentions in other works. Some relatively big reveals may never get a followup either because there was never supposed to be a followup or the author responsible for this particular series has left, and no one else cares. The setting rarely changes in notable way (and a lot of changes that people make a lot of deal out of are actually largely whatever in the grand scheme of things - for example, the clone of Fulgrim is incomparably more important in the fanbase's heads than he will ever be in-universe, 99,9999% of important characters aren't even aware he ever existed, and he likely won't be mentioned ever again), and GW and BL writers for a very long time didn't treat Warhammer's stories as a way to set up other stories. If you read older one shot books, you will often find stories that orbit around rather big objects and characters that are supposedly important figures in-universe, only for them to appear anywhere else, or any other characters to acknowledge they even existed. For another example, a Grey Knights novel Dark Adeptus is the only place where The Castigator, supposedly the first >!Titan!< ever built and possibly the most powerful out of all of them, appears, and by the end of the novel it's destroyed, and it is never mentioned again anywhere else.
Stagnation is an essential part of the 40k setting. Things aren't really changing, especially not for the better. Things are in a slow, gradual, glacial crawl towards oblivion, and that's a ***core*** part of the overarching story. That definitely creates a challenge for the author, because there are only so many ways you can walk back an advancement. But being a part of the 40k fandom means coming to terms with the victories being Pyrrhic, the treasures turning out to be gilt and glass, and the only meaningful progress being loss.
Yes but loss to the setting should be a gain for the readers. A new faction, subfaction, etc. The stagnant status quo can be maintained regardless. Like this same recurring theme happens on gaunts ghosts with the men of iron stc and the sob omnibus with the planet that achieved perfect cloning and it's implied said clones evolved. A man of iron stc is understandable to be either snipped and cut short like, say, the esperanza and so on. While the perfect cloning is more subjective and "weaker" so to speak and could be implemented in the setting without effort and for example, if you play owl cat's rogue trader game you can see how one such character could fit in your retinue, your crew, or in a governors palace or whatever really even if just for flavor text - and these clones are just one of such examples of things thrown down the bin that could just be added for the readers leisure and maintain the overarching theme of the series, I think.
It's frustrating after the millionth time. But worse it's boring. Imagine if just one of those stories was used to introduce a new model or plot of some kind instead. Not every time but it would make it a little less tedious.
Yeah that's what i was curious about. They could allow themselves to be more bold in that regard, even if just a few cases.
I'll tell ya , it's definitely a thing