[NiceGuyEddy]

The HH novels have thrown up a few gaffs in their time some are minor enough yet some are fairly significant. Lets list them. Any explanations other than "BL f'd up" are welcome.

1. First one that springs to mind is the whereabouts of Valdor. In the short story Blood Games as well as Nemesis he's on Terra yet in both Horus' betrayal is known so the Wolves must already have been dispatched to Prospero yet in A Thousand Sons Valdor is right there on Prospero with the Wolves.

2. Dorn knows, meets, respects and even nominates Loken to the Mournival in Horus Rising yet doesn't know him in Flight of the Eisenstein or at very least must rely on Sigismund's character reference.

3. In Blood Games, The Lightning Tower and Nemesis the Emperor makes an appearance in person for seemingly trivial matters, for all intents and purposes he's basically just wandering around the palace eavesdropping and sneaking up on people. Yet, again, Horus's betrayal is known. This means that Magnus must have sent his message already so by this point daemons are pouring into the dungeons and the Emperor SHOULD be on his thrown keeping them out but he's not.

4. This one's more of an unlikely/foolish choice by Dorn in desperate times than an actual plot hole. In the Dark King Curze has been summoned to account for his ways he attacks Dorn, Kills loyal SM's then he makes off and destroys a "loyal" planet of the Imperium, Nostramo. Dorn had described this as "Long ago" yet after all of this Curze was not brought to heel. Then despite this he is seen as trustworthy enough to be sent as one of the punitive legions to confront Horus at Istvaan as seen in Fulgrim. Desperate times true but Dorn had sent what he thought to be 7 loyal legions to combat 3 known traitors surely 6 would have been enough especially with the doubt over the Night Lords.

Any others?

 

[space cowboy]

It is late for me, but in item number 2, why are you referencing Loken? It is Garro who is the main character in Eisenstein, and Qruze as the lone Luna Wolf in attendance. Loken is on Istvaan III or dead by the point the Eisenstein gets picked up by the Fists.

 

[NiceGuyEddy]

yes but when they are being interrogated by sigismund and dorn loken is mentioned. Dorn then asks for sigismunds opinion who says something like "i met him, stalwart cthonian" despite the fact that dorn was actually there when sigismund met loken and talked with him for longer than sigismund did.

 

[Yog-Sothoth]

Good questions

Unfortunatly I have no answer apart from BL f'd up :grin:

I'll, keep watch on this thread and see if any of the lords of fluff grace it with there presence though.

 

[Child-of-the-Emperor]

I've noticed these four as well, and from memory they seem to be the most significant ones.

1. First one that springs to mind is the whereabouts of Valdor. In the short story Blood Games as well as Nemesis he's on Terra yet in both Horus' betrayal is known so the Wolves must already have been dispatched to Prospero yet in A Thousand Sons Valdor is right there on Prospero with the Wolves.

Aye, I brought this up in a thread just after Tales of Heresy was released. It seems to be a fairly significant issue, Valdor being a prominent Imperial character. Some suggestions could include that perhaps Valdor and his contingent of Custodes left for Terra immediately following the Burning of Prospero, whilst Russ and his Legion repaired/refuelled - thus Valdor was able to escape Prospero before the Alpha Legion ambush. Its a bit flimsy, but it could work.

2. Dorn knows, meets, respects and even nominates Loken to the Mournival in Horus Rising yet doesn't know him in Flight of the Eisenstein or at very least must rely on Sigismund's character reference.

Swallow has been quizzed about this several times. If you read the passage again though not once does Dorn state that he doesn't know or never met Loken, he's merely asking for Sigismund's opinion, perhaps to back up his own conclusions made prior to Flight of the Eisenstein.

3. In Blood Games, The Lightning Tower and Nemesis the Emperor makes an appearance in person for seemingly trivial matters, for all intents and purposes he's basically just wandering around the palace eavesdropping and sneaking up on people. Yet, again, Horus's betrayal is known. This means that Magnus must have sent his message already so by this point daemons are pouring into the dungeons and the Emperor SHOULD be on his thrown keeping them out but he's not.

Aye, this was also a fairly major issue. One which Swallow simply messed up on in my opinion, because no water-tight justification was given in Nemesis or in Q&A sessions. When I quizzed Swallow about it the first two times he simply said "No", and "That hasn't happened yet". But I was persistent and showed him that it actually had, he replied with the following:

First, don't assume what think you know about the Heresy to be the way it actually happened... The whole point of the Horus Heresy fiction line is to reveal the truth of that turblent period of history, not follow what what was written down in myth and legend ten thousand years later.

Magnus's "screwing" of the webway - as you so delicately put it - isn't something that happens all at once. Magnus's psychic signal creates a fracture that grows over time. The Emperor doesn't take the Golden Throne immediately after Magnus's disruptive message, and he's quite capable of leaving it if he needs to for short periods - at least at first...

A fairly large change in the background (although Im more of the believe it was unintentional). The Collected Visions states that immediately after the warning the Emperor needs the use the vast majority of his psychic might to keep the Imperial Webway sealed and contained, and even A Thousand Sons has Daemons gathering at the breach in the Webway immediately after Magnus' warning. For the Emperor to be walking about the palace eavesdropping on people two years after the warning took place is very strange...

Massive cop-out in my opinion.

4. This one's more of an unlikely/foolish choice by Dorn in desperate times than an actual plot hole. In the Dark King Curze has been summoned to account for his ways he attacks Dorn, Kills loyal SM's then he makes off and destroys a "loyal" planet of the Imperium, Nostramo. Dorn had described this as "Long ago" yet after all of this Curze was not brought to heel. Then despite this he is seen as trustworthy enough to be sent as one of the punitive legions to confront Horus at Istvaan as seen in Fulgrim. Desperate times true but Dorn had sent what he thought to be 7 loyal legions to combat 3 known traitors surely 6 would have been enough especially with the doubt over the Night Lords.

I've asked Mcneill about this and he seems to think in general it was down to communication:

This has reared its head a few times, and it’s a recurring theme when writing in a shared universe that not everything will agree. And that’s not always a bad thing. Dan and I have engineered a few deliberate contradictions into the Prospero duology...

My take is that the Warp is a fickle place, with astropathic messages a less than precise method of communication. Taskforces were likely assembled at short notice, with whatever forces were available brought to bear. And as to what Fulgrim told Ferrus, the Primarch of the Iron Hands simply didn’t believe him, thinking it was a scheme to split the loyalists and sow dissent... (and the Night Lords aren’t mentioned at this point, only Angron, Mortarion and Lorgar).

The trouble is that everyone assumes that communication is as ‘easy’ in across vast galactic gulfs of space as it is to just pick up the phone. That’s not the case at all, in fact it’s the opposite. You have to factor in the emotional responses too, rather than just take things as Fact A and Fact B which can be believed. This is a time of mistrust and misinformation, so it’s easy to see how some things get overlooked. Just look at our own history of war to see how that can happen.

Or other than that it could have been simply that the Night Lords were perhaps given a chance to redeem themselves or that they weren't deemed as dangerous as Horus was (the lesser of two evils). After all Night Haunter had essentially only gone AWOL, whilst Horus had actually declared outright war on the Imperium with three other Legions in tow.

 

[NiceGuyEddy]

Thanks CotE, any others?

 

[texcuda]

very interesting reading, i'll be watching this thread closely :drinks: