The 40k Lorecast - Episode 93 - The War of The Beast pt2. Terra is saved but the galaxy is still in danger

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

On today’s cast we continue our coverage of the war of the beast. We open with all of Terra freaking out about a giant attack moon just above Terra. But luckily the Lords of Terra have an idea, ca...lled the Proletarian Crusade. After that dismal failure, we cover two different visitations to the imperial palace, from the Orks and then the Harlequins. From there we follow the forces of the imperium to mars, where they learn the origins of the ork invasion. But before they can act they have to run and pick up a Primarch, who just appeared out of no where.PatreonMerchandiseDiscord Link:Our WebsiteRetro RecallOur Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.com* Check out Pebl: https://hellopebl.com* Check out Pebl: https://hipebl.ai* Check out Shopify: https://shopify.com/loreAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the 40K lore cast. Welcome to the 40K lore cast with me, John Barsati and Bradchester. This guy. On today's cast, we'll be continuing our coverage of the War of the Beast with the arrival of the Ork Moon above Terra and the Imperium trying to do something about that because it's really not ideal. You know who also had a hard time with the War of the Beast? You, because that was our fourth take on the second sentence of the podcast.
Starting point is 00:00:42 Yes, and it's fantastic. Today's starting strong. Speaking of... You know, I want to go with this. for this cast, I want in the Discord, who either said the same thing too much or mispronounce the words more. You know, I can...
Starting point is 00:00:56 Brad, I edit the podcast. I can auto win... Son of a bitch! You're cheating! You're just cheating. John's voice was perfectly clear. Brad just kept stuttering for no reason the whole time. It's not even me. You just clip it on. I'm adding stutters from other casts into this one
Starting point is 00:01:15 just to make you sound worse. Yeah. For those who are new to us, the 40K lore cast is a weekly podcast, folks in the lore of the Warhammer 40K universe, releasing every Monday at 7 p.m. Eastern time. If you like the show, please comment on it and obviously like it.
Starting point is 00:01:31 That's always helpful. It does help our algorithm out quite a bit. Also, for those who want to support us and don't want to listen to the apparently horrible audio-leveled ads, sorry, guys, I have no control over them. I just, there's an ad placement. We do now have a Patreon that gets it for you ad-free at $4.99 a month. It's a very common thing I get.
Starting point is 00:01:51 Hey, can you control the volume of the ads? Like, literally no. I'm sorry. It's kind of watching anything with, I mean, this goes back to old people when you actually watch regular TV, when the ads were always wildly louder than the show was. And it's one of those things where like, that's why for the ads, there is a lead-in. You'll hear me kick it. I do that for two reasons.
Starting point is 00:02:13 One, so it just, it makes the cast. flow better, but also it's to give you guys a heads up that, hey, unbalanced audio incoming. Brace yourself? You're telling the listeners, brace yourself. Yeah, basically, if you're wearing headphones, take them off. We're here for people. I really wish everybody, I had control over them. If I was the one putting the ads in, I would balance them, but I'm not.
Starting point is 00:02:35 So anyway. All I'm saying is lean into it. Also, in the show notes, you'll see a link to our new YouTube page, as well as our Discord. both of them we're very proud of. The YouTube page is new. The Discord is fantastic. We're at time of probably release
Starting point is 00:02:50 will be over 9,000 people strong and growing. It really is a wonderful community. I cannot express enough how I'd like you guys to join it. Also, should have us a while ago because at time of release, we'll be multiple weeks after. But thank you to everyone who came to our giant Warhammer event in Southfield, Michigan.
Starting point is 00:03:08 I don't know how... Oops. I just love the fact that we went Oh, in real time, this is... Yeah, in real time, we're like four days out. In release time, we're multiple weeks passed. So this is a weird thing. Hello, past people.
Starting point is 00:03:24 Thank you for coming to the thing. Wow. That's all I got. On top of it. Yeah. Let's jump back into War of the Beast. Starting off with a recap. The tranquil and mostly positive life of the Imperium in the middle of M32
Starting point is 00:03:38 just got demolished by an orc invasion. Like, the Imperium has been... completely thrown for a loop. It's the largest invasion until the Second War of Armageddon, which is about 10,000 years later. There are other significant invasions, but in size and scope,
Starting point is 00:03:55 nothing compares to this, or maybe Abadon's 13th, no, Abadon's 13th, Black Crusades after Armaged. Yeah, so there we go. Significantly after Armaged. Let's see, this is the biggest thing in numbers, and it will be the biggest thing in numbers, for a really long time.
Starting point is 00:04:10 Yeah, and we're going to be covering probably in about episode four. for the legacy of the War of the Beast. It massively wrecked the Imperium and how it was going to function going forward. The War of the Beast, I was reading to people's comments on it, you know, you want to take out of people's opinions and may have actually been the reason
Starting point is 00:04:28 the Imperium's such a nightmare to live in today is it's because they were so afraid of another War of the Beast. The way that we build our hive worlds, the way we do everything changed a lot. So this thing's important. And why is it important? Well, because the Lords of Terror suck. A tornado of soccer.
Starting point is 00:04:45 The opening of the War of the Beast was made significantly worse by the Lords of Terror. And there were primarily a few key characters. Lansung, who's the high admiral of the Navy, of the Navy, who saw the war of the Imperial Navy. He saw the war with the orcs as a way to actually improve himself and diminish the power of his others by letting millions, billions of imperial citizens die while he stood back. It's billions. It is billions. It's actually billions of people.
Starting point is 00:05:16 Just while he stood back. Then you have the ad mech who have mysteriously withdrawn from the conflict, not out of like cowardice, just everyone knows they're scheming. We don't know what's going on. To combat this, we have the head of the Inquisition and the head of the assassins working to undermine them. Separately, though. Totally separately. Yeah. In the first round. I mean, this is, and I'll do my first big deal of the cast. It is a big deal, though, because if they would have actually come together, I think that a lot of this could have been stopped. They just kind of knew of each other's existence in what they were doing. But I think everybody just assumed everybody was so skinny that there's no way anybody could work together.
Starting point is 00:05:58 Exactly. In the first round of the fighting, the imperial fists got eliminated down to one fist. Well, it's two fists, according to keep both of his hands. But there are two. There is one imperial fist. left. But he has two hands. So, you know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:06:16 There we go. Horland issued a last wall protocol, and in doing so, every successor chapter of the imperial fists has met, and they've agreed to unify under one banner. Their next move is to be determined. Obviously, it's to save Terra, but they're missing. The best part of it, though, is that there was a great orc attack moon that appeared next to the sanctus system. having his hand-forced Lansung deployed the entire Imperial Navy to the spot,
Starting point is 00:06:44 and despite taking heavy losses, defeated the orcs and destroyed the attack moon. The Imperium then declared victory, which is kind of weird because there was still a lot of orcs all over the place and attack moons, but there were small attacks. Did this at the end of the last cast. They saw other attack moons. They knew there was more forces. They were small ones. If there's a giant scrub in the streets of 10 on 10,
Starting point is 00:07:08 and you beat up one guy and then walk away claiming victory, the other nine guys will probably show up. And well, the other nine orcs did show up. It's actually worse than that. Lansom goes back to Terra as a hero. And he really was a massive hero. They have a huge parade for him celebrating his heroism. And in the middle of the parade,
Starting point is 00:07:28 a Bork attack moon appears, when we say in orbit, it's part of it's in the atmosphere, right above Terra. Right above the appraign. It's low orbit. Yes. It's exactly.
Starting point is 00:07:41 I think if you jumped high, you could touch them. Yeah. If you look up, oh, it's right there. I mean, it wasn't District 9 close, but it's close. Another movie that's just amazing sci-fi film. Let's dive in. So before we dive into the Battle of Terra, we need to talk a bit about some of the nefarious things that Lansung had been doing
Starting point is 00:08:00 before we head out the Sanctus to rescue it. Because Lansung really was a, I was going to call a master manipulator, but he wasn't, but he was a good manipulator. He's a schemer. There we go. That's a much better term. Thank you. Much better term.
Starting point is 00:08:14 So let's start off with the first, then, the biggest thing he did was he neutered the imperial guard. As we said last time, the Lord Commander of the Astromilitarum Heth died with the imperial fists fighting against the orcs. His successor, Abelveralut, came in. But Lansing used this moment to neuter his competition because Lansing's entire goal, was to rise the title of Lord Commander of the Imperium. And that title's really going to go to one of two people, the Imperial Navy or the Imperial Guard,
Starting point is 00:08:47 foreshadow, or a Space Marine or a Primark. But at this era, these guys all thought he would go to a human. And so Lansing was concerned that after his fight with the orcs, his forces would be heavily depleted. And this would allow the guard to shine should any other engagement arise. Or just they could even say,
Starting point is 00:09:06 hey, there's more of us, I should be in charge. So to prevent this, he worked with... I hate this guy. I know you do. It's just because of the fact that, again, you said master manipulator and I said schemer. And the reason was is that a master manipulator would make himself greater, but he would
Starting point is 00:09:21 also want the most power around him. This guy's actually weakening severely the power and the stability of the Imperium. He's burning everything down so that he can take control of the burnt husk, of what's left there. This is such a terrible plan. And what makes this so terrible is that he spreads the guard around the galaxy with the Lord Commander, Er Udo, who's also aligned with him. So the guard are just, their engagements, some of them are even overmatched in all around,
Starting point is 00:09:54 but then Lansing pulls the fleet away from them. So all these guardsmen are stuck wherever they are all around the planet, which means that if this thing goes wrong, there's no guardsmen. like, you know, when an orc attack moon appears above Terra and all of the Imperial Guard is nowhere near Terra. The guys that you really, really, really need to fight against these guys? Yeah, it seems bad. The other interesting one for Lansing is Wienand.
Starting point is 00:10:24 Now, as we said last time, Lansing's plan was to hold his fleet back and let the space marines fight it out with the orcs at Port Sanctus. But Wienand convinced one of his subordinates to go for glory and engage the orcs, which forces Lansing's hand. In the end, Lansing is successful, but at great cost to his armada.
Starting point is 00:10:45 While the reason I'm bringing that up is what happens in the process of Lansing going out to fight the orcs at Port Sanctus, this random thing occurs. An inquisitor named Veritas, who, spoiler alert, is actually Kairl Sinderman. I was just about to say, bonus. He's got a pretty big,
Starting point is 00:11:02 if you want to name drop people and things you've done, he's got several. Irole Cinderman may have the best resume of anyone at this era. So Cairo Cinderman is all over the Horace books because that's when he was alive. Well, he's still alive at this point. But he served with Garv Olochen.
Starting point is 00:11:20 He'd spent time with Eufriety Keeler. He'd personally read parts of the book of Lorgar. He was also with Garrow and the crew of the Eisenstein when it fled to Istvon 3. He actually was one of the people who founded the Inquisition. But when he found English, he changed his name to Veritas. At this moment, when he shows up, this man is 1,500 years old.
Starting point is 00:11:45 Regular human, not a space marine. He's encased in a suit of power armor that is... Whoa, whoa, whoa. Scale that back, John. He's encased in power armor. He has Darth Vader's suit on. I was... This is life support.
Starting point is 00:12:01 I was going to say, yeah. It's... Like, it's our... But yeah, sure. It's also armor. The biggest thing it's doing is he's Mr. Burns frail. He is wandering around in a giant suit of life support. That's all this thing is.
Starting point is 00:12:21 Veritas, though, is interesting. He is a psychopath when it comes the Inquisition. He's what the Inquisition refers to as a Puritan, in that he believes only in the teachings of the Emperor and the authority of the Inquisition. Any and all. The second part's a big deal. Exactly.
Starting point is 00:12:37 Because his believing in the fact of the authority of the Inquisition is the actual will of the emperor and they can go over anybody or anything. And he 100% believes this. Yeah. And this is important because we've talked about before that stuff like rogue traders, but the Inquisition, all this, they have some weird powers where they can like requisition ships and do stuff like that. Veritas genuinely believes that the Inquisition should be.
Starting point is 00:13:04 running the entirety of the Imperium. Because... Well, also, if he was, everything would go bad pretty quickly because he also wants to murder all the heretics instantaneously. Yeah, and his definition of heretics... Is everyone.
Starting point is 00:13:18 Yeah. It's kind of everything. There's not going to be much of an imperium when he's done. Yeah. Seemingly, out of nowhere, Veritas appears and begins accusing the Inquisitor Wienand of betraying the Inquisition. He claims that she is more aligned with the Lords of
Starting point is 00:13:34 terror than the Inquisition, and therefore she should be stripped of her title. However, you say it as a statement on that, but he said it, it is, this is one of the cool stories in The Worthabees, again, 12 books, but he says it in a accusatory like you slept with my wife kind of, you know, feel. It's a, it's an accusatory statement of, what did you do? Yeah. However, due to this accusation, the Inquisition puts together a conclave and the conclave gets there and devote. And the conclave decides, no, there's not really any evidence of Ween's treachery. In fact, it's actually kind of the opposite.
Starting point is 00:14:12 She's doing a great thing for us. She's incredibly loyal and she seems to have nothing but the Imperium's best interest in mind. They do completely treat him like the Karen at the... Yes, and we should mention that one thing I should point out. So his being Kairal Sinderman is not revealed at this point. For some reason, the Inquisition doesn't even know who he is. Even the Inquisition is unaware of how famous this person is,
Starting point is 00:14:37 but he's also very, very powerful. Even though he's walking around with, I just assumed he was the fish from Megamind walking around in his armor. So Veritas decides after being denied this one that it's just fine. I tried it the real way. I'm just going to kill her. So he hires a bunch of assassins to go and kill Wienand. Luckily for Wienand, Van Gorich had his own suspicions about Veritas.
Starting point is 00:15:03 And he had secretly sent Eson Wire, who we talked about last time, to protect her. So she had this. And the fun of this, she wasn't aware of this, by the way. There was, she had this. Remember, S on Wire, Super Ninja. Yeah, yeah, the super assassin. So she has, and this is all. I, again, this is my problem.
Starting point is 00:15:22 I read this more comically where, like in a movie where you have a guy who thinks he's a master spy, but actually isn't a master spy. And there's some bodyguard killing everyone that they try to murder him. That's basically how. I saw this scene. I was going to go Pink Panther. I was going to go Pink Panther. I was going to go Pink Panther. Let's go Pink Panther. We're old enough. Let's do Pink Panther. This is basic, I view this whole thing as Pink Panther, where endless assassins are trying to kill him. And Esson's having the assassins accidentally shoot each other, you know, type scenario. Like it's very, very, you can read it seriously,
Starting point is 00:15:53 but I just chose not to because it's me. But eventually after enough of these attempts, Wienin just realizes that eventually she's going to die. So she fakes her own death. So she fakes her own and upon faking her own death, she does it so she can go into the shadows to figure out what's going on with these Lords of Terror. Because, again, Vangorich is doing this to keep her alive, but Vangorich is not talking to her yet. Now, after this moment, they begin to. So it wasn't until she goes into hiding, her and Van Gorge begin to have a conversation of, hey, something's up here. We need to do something before the entire Imperium dies.
Starting point is 00:16:29 also is this book two before they even acknowledge each other yeah yeah yeah it's right about book two it's yeah we're a ways into the story before they like a you also think this guy's an a-hole right yeah want to be friends well like all right let's go back to the cliffhanger there's a moon over terra full of orcs and it's not just over terra it's pretty much just kind of almost in terra And Terra is effectively defenseless. Defenseless at this point. Let's recap. Lansing basically sent half the fleet around town to, I don't show everybody how awesome he was.
Starting point is 00:17:11 Yeah. And he put the Imperial Guard everywhere to try to get exactly. But Tara. It didn't give them a ride back. He's a master manipulative. Yeah. He's also allowed the Imperial Fists to die. There's nothing left.
Starting point is 00:17:28 And so to add to the issues, Tara then calls Mars for support. And Mars's response is new phone, who this. That's best way. And so now all of Tara defends pretty quickly into anarchy. Kind of can fear the grips the entire population because they're seeing a foreign invader with no response. Well, yeah. Well, it's a fair of foreign invader for no response. But also it has been hundreds and hundreds of years of no one can.
Starting point is 00:17:58 touch us, this is the center of the universe kind of thing, where Terra is, no one could possibly come here. This can't happen. It's over a thousand years, and the last time was horace. So this is... No, I'm saying. I'm just saying that, like, even you hearing about any kind of scuffle,
Starting point is 00:18:14 you know, has been... I also want to point out, custodes, didn't say a thing. Like, there's an orc attack moon above the imperial palace, and the custodes were just like, man, maybe kind. Yeah, because they were also like, hey, man, you could do whatever you want the rest of the terror if you show up the imperial palace.
Starting point is 00:18:30 I'm just saying, we're going to wreck you. I mean, it's true. To be fair, this is before the custodes were in the game, so they were really good at this point. It's... The custod slid the Ron Swanson's paper over and says, this just says, I do what I want. You're like, all right.
Starting point is 00:18:46 I will say, it's funny. It's a weird note here. I think the custodes were so much better before they put them into the game. A thousand percent, I hate that they're in the game. It's because they the lore... Because they were the other's enigmatic figures. that were so powerful and you didn't know what they were doing.
Starting point is 00:19:01 And they only communicated with the emperor and you weren't really sure if the emperor was fully communicating what exactly was happening. But they were also so large of power. They could wreck everything. Although actually, that's going to come up in this episode. Not everything. That's coming up in a little bit, guys.
Starting point is 00:19:17 But let's dive into this. The Lords of Terra finally do come up with a solution. And the solution is they see above Terra a giant wood shipper. And their thought process is, let's just put a bunch of wood in it. This idea is so stupid. Such a great one. First off, they all agree that the entire thing is Lansing's fault.
Starting point is 00:19:36 That's the first thing they all do, and that part was actually kind of funny. They were correct. What the Lords of Terror look at, and they say, we have no real formal military here. There's implantary defense force, that's it. The orcs, when they attack, are going to overwhelm us, and we're all going to die when that happens. So, why don't we go there and just, I don't know, shorten the trip?
Starting point is 00:19:56 And the whole idea comes actually out of the ecclesiarchy, who decide this is a great idea, and points out that, hey, there's a massive merchant fleet here, which there is. As we said last time, the merchant fleet is 90% of the ships within the Imperium. And there's a ton of people on Terra. It's Brad Rant time. This idea is so terrible. They just say, hey, does your ship have any armor? And you're like, basically not.
Starting point is 00:20:25 Do you have any guns? Like a tiny bit. You should run straight at those orcs when I horribly die. Yeah, but if we send enough of you, you'll slow it down so we can figure out something else. What else are we going to do? Hey, grab everybody from the mall and hand them a lasgun. Have they ever fired one ever before? No.
Starting point is 00:20:51 But again, as the orcs using his choppa to cut through that, it'll take him an extra couple seconds and maybe we'll figure something out before then. And if we keep doing that over it over and over again, it'll delay our inevitable demise and someone will figure it out. Well, and the part that's funny about this is this is the idea of the ecclesiarchy. They get the full backing of the head of the merchant ships. He was like, yeah, this is a great idea. I will use my merchant ships to save the save Terra.
Starting point is 00:21:23 Okay, he was on his fourth divorce. Yeah, exactly. Just got done. And he went, yeah, might as well just drive into the orcs. Everybody else went, hey, man, I have way more to live for. He's like, nope, let's all do it. We're all doing this. The funny part to me about this is Van Gorich, of course, Veritas, who's now, who has a supplanted
Starting point is 00:21:44 wean into this point. They're like, you guys are out of your minds. A bunch of them are all saying no. But unfortunately, another voice pops up saying this is a terrible idea. And it was Lansing, who just, could not read a room. That's all I'm going to say. Because when everyone thinks you're an idiot in an a hole, whatever side you choose, everyone's going to go, oh, so the opposite's the correct one. That is 100% true. I'm pretty sure they weren't going to agree to this. And he's like,
Starting point is 00:22:10 I'm 100% for or against it. He's no. I'm, I changed my mind. Everyone's changing the vote. I'm doing whatever he. We're going. Yeah. We're going to the moon. We're going to the moon. What happens next is called the proletarian crusade. And I'm going to call GW out here. I usually hate on them for their naming mechanics. I loved that they'd call it the proletarian crusade. Very clever naming mechanic. Someone got an A plus in their philosophy lessons.
Starting point is 00:22:39 So let's get into the proletarian crusade, which actually does have an upside initially. So the populace loves the idea. Everyone starts signing up for this. Whoa. Let's talk about the thing that people forget all the time. Tara is one, if not number one or two. I can never remember. Well, they're top five. Screw it. But it is wildly populous. This is Corazon with, hey, we didn't think you, we thought you wasted a lot of space. That is Tara. We're talking all the way up to basically people living almost to the core.
Starting point is 00:23:18 They have an underdark, basically. it is quad. They give an guesstimate, which is quadrillions of people. So there's people to give things to. Here's a stick. Here's a slingshot. You will actually make a difference if you give 100 billion slingshots to people. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:23:39 It does work to a point. So we're talking tens of thousands of shifts start landing and just get jam-packed with people because it's not a long trip to the attack moon, by the way. and these ships start going up. And the truth is, at first, it kind of works. There's just so many ships that the orcs just can't shoot them all down. And orcs shooting is ork shooting, you know, as someone who is... Not precision in the gate.
Starting point is 00:24:05 Let's go for everybody who doesn't play the game. Orks on a six-sided die need a five to hit things. That's not including any negative modifiers you might have. So they shoot volumes of shots in a general direction. So if you put enough targets out there, you'll get some stuff through. Brad and I know, I love playing orcs and I live by my five up and I oftentimes die by my five up because it does not work. There are many times where it's just like, oh, how many shots did you get?
Starting point is 00:24:34 I rolled for 70 shots. How time did you hit? Four. Didn't go well that day. By the way, hundreds and then thousands of ships make planet fall in the attack moon. And now there's millions of imperial citizens running crazed across an orc moon, shooting their lasguns at anything that's not imperial. The second phase of this is super cool, though.
Starting point is 00:24:56 This actually I like. So I'm not the biggest fan of just going, hey, give the whole family a lasgun and go to the moon. It'll be great. But while they're doing this, they land a crap ton of heavy machinery out here. Yeah. I'm talking, what is it, a hundred Lehman Rust tanks? and Camaras full of people, hellhounds. They're just bringing like real forces to bear on this.
Starting point is 00:25:21 There's so many people that actually the orcs, of course, rush out for melee combat. And again, for those who forget, and a orc boy is two times the size of a regular human. And they are, this is the, I think we're in an era right now, people are talking about 100 man versus one gorilla. The orc rompill stomps that gorilla. It's like it's 100 guerrillas to the one orc. But there's so many people, the orcs actually start falling back
Starting point is 00:25:51 because they can't beat up this many people. They get overwhelmed by the population. And it looks like the humanity might push all the way through. And then the orcs just decide to play the game differently. Fun thing about an orc attack moon is it's not really a moon. It's not made of rocks and geologic structures that form over time. it's a like hodgepodge death star where the orcs just put metal things together and other manufactured. But it's basically got piles of scrap all over it.
Starting point is 00:26:23 As the humans are pushing the orcs back, the orcs just decide, all right, and they move the surface of the planet. And they collapse. They collapse two mountains down on top of the entirety of the human attacking force, killing almost everybody. Happens next is decently well written. but I hate it. So if you hear my tone change, I'm sorry. This is so dumb. This has never happened before.
Starting point is 00:26:50 Also, never happened again. Because I think everyone read it and went. It's a bit of cringe. Anyway. I'm just assuming that there was a zote on top of the shoulder, like a parrot. So after the failure on the moon. Obviously, we're not big fans of this guys.
Starting point is 00:27:04 Yeah, exactly. Should be pretty clear, everybody. After the failure on the moon, some of the merchant ships are coming back. And one merchant ship that comes back lands right out. outside basically the Senate, and three orcs step out of it. And one of them is an ambassador named Bezrak, who demands an audience with the leaders of Terra.
Starting point is 00:27:23 And at this stage, that is technically the Lords of Terra, to the Lords of Terra. And I'm saying that because you'll get, give me a couple minutes, guys, you'll get why I made that specific piece there. Van Gorish sees this and says, all right, well, let's not kill the orc because then that attack moon's coming down. and let's just hear him out. And I think his idea was to buy time.
Starting point is 00:27:44 I think Van Gorge was just like, we just got our butts kicked. We got to buy time. And if this gets us time, that's fine. So Bezrak goes in front of the Lords of Tara. And this whole scene is just super over the top in the book. I'm sorry, just is. Also, I really do think that this is just three grots and an overcoat. It would have been better if it was.
Starting point is 00:28:06 Unfortunately, it's not. It would have been way better if it was. So Bezraq comes in. And he gives them two choices, surrender or die, which I hate because why would the orc... Pause, pause, pause, because this makes the scene even dumber. Because he's apparently comes out with his monocle and his pinky out when he's drinking. He just speaks high gossip. And that's the whole...
Starting point is 00:28:31 I'll explain what I think GW is trying to do with this. I'm going to give you guys a story. I'll think a laugh at what I think they were trying to tell, which could have been a lot better. But he, Bezrak starts chiding everybody. He mocks all the Lord's terror for being cowards. He does, though, tell them about the great beast. And it says, his phrase is that the beast has you by the guts and you can either struggle, in which case the beast will rip them out, or you can surrender and get to keep your guts.
Starting point is 00:28:59 Not very orky, I'm being honest. In the end, the Lords of Terra just become jittering nothing. People are, like, crying. They're, like, some people are begging for mercy. And actually, a couple guys say kill him, which is not helpful. And Bezrock eventually just leaves. But it's weird. He's talking down about, like, humanity being too stupid.
Starting point is 00:29:21 And it's just the whole bit's dumb. Again. Yeah. Monaco? Need someone to draw this for me and put it in the meme section. I need an orc with a monocle with pinkies out. You don't know there's already a Bezreck model. Google's name.
Starting point is 00:29:35 you'll find that there are people have made Bezrech models and yeah they look they're good. There's some very good Bezrech models. But what I think they were trying to do here is show that these orcs were different. So Van Gorich realized that Bezrak was equal to a human or better in thought and power. At this moment, Van Gogh realizes that their fight is not against the crazed orcs of the past. This is a new type of orc, an orc who has brute force. and tactics, and that this battle ahead of them was going to be harder than anything they'd had in history.
Starting point is 00:30:11 Now, Bezrak leaves, and guess who shows up, the Eldar? My boys. Now, the difference is, whereas the orcs land on the planet and calmly walked up with a good old-fashioned, take me to your leader, the Eldar do what Eldar do. They already knew where the leader was, so they're just going to go there. and the leaders, not the Lords of Terror. We'll be right back after a quick break. In my professional life, one thing I know well is how challenging, managing a global team can be.
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Starting point is 00:32:24 Okay, well, I'm going there. That's where I go. I go there. Let me set the stage. There is an orc moon right above the imperial palace. Custodes don't even open a window. An orc ambassador has come down to talk to the Lords of Terra. No one bothers the emperor with this thing.
Starting point is 00:32:39 They're all doing their own thing. Suddenly, in the halls of the imperial palace, seven harlequins appear with a shadow sear. And just start beelineing for the emperor, which the custodes are not really. cool with, if I'm being honest. This, also, I love that you put in the, they said they come in peace. I really feel it was just on Mars attack.
Starting point is 00:33:07 Yeah. Do not run away. We are your friend. That's a movie, by the way. That's how I feel that was going on. That movie just hits me in my heart. It's so stupidly funny. The Harlequins are there to deliver a message
Starting point is 00:33:18 of incredible importance, but they did so unannounced, and at a breathpoint, and fully armed. The custodes just start, attacking. And the Harlequins... It's a special forces team in. Hey, we've got a message to deliver.
Starting point is 00:33:33 Here's all these killers that we show up. We're like, fully armed, but the forces team, and I do like is that this is actually some of the funnier parts of the writing. They're literally yelling, I come in peace while dodging
Starting point is 00:33:44 all the bullets from the custodes and then shooting back at the custodes and killing them with some pretty nasty guns. The Harlequids are breaking out the ultimate dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge, and the custodes are just getting slaughtered by Shrieker cannons. They're still also running full speed. Yeah, and they keep moving through.
Starting point is 00:34:07 So the problem is, as they kill more custodes, more custodes keep showing up. And eventually there's enough of a wall of fire that you can only, you know, dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge so many times. You're dodging a wrench, you're dodging a ball. This is a lot of wrenches. And they start killing off some of them till the final. shadow seer almost makes it to the doors of the golden throne and just gets grabbed by the throat by a custod. Yeah, who for whatever reason doesn't instant kill her. Yeah. And then she basically goes,
Starting point is 00:34:42 hey, I got a lucky coin from the arcade a thousand years ago. She pulls out a Drake tooth that was given to Eldrad by Vulcan. And apparently this is enough for the custodes not to bash her facing, which was what would have happened, just totally. Well, somehow, by the way, and I, so again, I read this book a long time ago, and I didn't have time to go find it and reread this bit. Van Gorich and Veritas get access. So the customs haven't said a word to anybody, but now those two are allowed in. And they take, like, the secret door into it.
Starting point is 00:35:14 Yeah, which, because this is my least favorite of the parts of the story. I do like the World of the Beast allowed. We said it's true books. This is by far my least. Yeah, I like this part of the story because it's funny. but it makes no sense. Because in mid-conversation, they are just standing next to the Custodes out of nowhere.
Starting point is 00:35:33 And no one thought to go there. We've been here all along. The attack moon was there. Hey, Custom, hey, we have no Imperial Guard in this planet barring a couple thousand guys. Could you guys help us out? We're about getting invaded by the Orks. Nah, that wasn't worth it.
Starting point is 00:35:46 But we heard shooting from the Imperial Palace, so we went in there. But I digress. I do love this part because in my mind, there's a backstory to it. because Eldrad basically had, you know, looked into the future and did some stuff and sent them to aid. And I can only assume that he went, all right, guys, you got the token to show that you should be trusted and that you have a message from me. And they went, no problem.
Starting point is 00:36:11 We will take care of this perfectly. And then they invaded the imperial palace in full speed. And he's like, no. Just knock on the front door. Hey, look, I've got this token. Can I please talk to someone of importance? That's all they just to do. Later on, just having a big drawing board going,
Starting point is 00:36:29 let's go over the things that went badly. We're going to review the plan. And spoiler alert, I have some notes. I have some. All right. Now the shadow seer is being interrogated. Her name is Laurel, for the record. And she's being interrogated by Van Gogoran Veritas.
Starting point is 00:36:49 Whoa, whoa, whoa. It's Laurier. Why not? I'm going to say it was some flow. She's barely Latin. Good to know. Eldrad has sent her and them to aid the humans. It's a weird aid, but more importantly, to warn them. The Eldar had used their psychic powers to calm all the warp around soul.
Starting point is 00:37:08 Something I want to point out, apparently they can do, but only when it only matters, because this skill would have been really helpful a lot more of the times, like when Gilliman is trying to get back across the galaxy later on, or, you know, 13th War of Ar, 13th, Black Crusade. This could have been really helpful a lot of times. Any of these times. They chose one time to do it. But anyway, the real reason that they're there is not just to calm the warp,
Starting point is 00:37:35 so they can deal with the orcs, but it's to warn that the chaos is rising, and that humanity needs to prepare for the coming forces of chaos. That's it, though. She mic drops after that. Hey, like, what forces of chaos? What do they do? You're like, nah, I got nothing else. smoke bomb and just takes up.
Starting point is 00:37:54 Well, what's actually funny about it is that in it, though, she does turn to, she does turn to Veritas and say, I know you can feel this. And Veritas makes a face of, yeah, I do, because he is a very powerful psycher. He can feel something's going on. What's funny about this, though, is that after this moment, she just disappears. Like, they don't kill her, which is what usually the Imperian would do. In fact, I think she appears later back with the Eldar. So I guess they just let her go.
Starting point is 00:38:24 In my mind, again, they were so confused by the lack of information in this message that you felt you had to invade the Imperial Palace in. You're like, so you went through all this to go, hey, man, Taco Tuesdays. They just left and everybody went, dude, couldn't they have just emailed that too? What happened? The part I like about this is I want to believe that after this meeting, Van Gorich and Verraich, And so, you know what, thank you. Go ahead and go on your way. And then she leaves.
Starting point is 00:38:56 And later, the custodes show up to come grab her and say, hey, where's that person that killed a couple dozen custodes? We need to have a comrades where they're like, oh, we let her go. You did. A couple dozen customs. We told you specifically. They're like, why would you do that? Every custom still takes 10,000 people to Mick and you just let her go.
Starting point is 00:39:17 Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. So let's get to the cool part now of where stuff comes. kind of does turn around a little bit. All of Terra is basically preparing to get absolutely wrecked by an orc invasion when the last wall arrives. About 3,000 space Marines with their fleet arrive in orbit above the moon and launch an incredible offensive. Let me give a quick thing.
Starting point is 00:39:42 I'm not pooing on all the books on this, but that part was by far the low part in a 12 book series. It was just because super cool stuff. starts happening right now because the fist and all the successor chapters sorry the fist yeah and all the successor chapters show up and start they put on i think they just went into the armory and started mass producing boots of mighty ass kidding oh this is because they they put the hammer down yeah and not only that they also show up with mars out of nowhere so we so planet side terminators skittari and one of my personal favorite things in the game
Starting point is 00:40:21 Castellin robots all land all over the moon and just start wrecking the orcs. At some point, they fight their way in and actually destroy the portal linking the moon to the rest of the orcs using melta bombs, thereby just eliminating the orcs ability to reinforce. But cool thing happens because they do some good reveals over these books, guys, because the whole idea is that they don't know what's happening with how this orc thing is so powerful. And each little reveal gives you a bit more. And at the very end, as they're placed in the melta bombs,
Starting point is 00:40:52 an orc war boss appears. And this war boss, though, is... I was just want to say, he's not... He is not click and paste war boss. And they describe him as the size of a dreadnought. Yes. This is a walking orc the size of a dreadnought. He becomes musying on in. And the chapter master of the Iron Knights goes to fight him,
Starting point is 00:41:14 and he grabs a chapter of the Iron Knights and pulls his head off of his shoulders. as the melta bombs explode all around him. So this is the first glimpse we have into, oh, there's a bigger group of orcs than we thought. Back on Terra. And then I'm sorry. There's more Lords of Terra awfulness.
Starting point is 00:41:35 Oh, this is getting a lot worse. Tara, they go, yeah, man, that was a great victory. Because of us. We're so awesome. We took care of everything. You're welcome, everybody. please no no need to thank me you're welcome yeah could do finger guns be boopi p boo lord commander udo takes complete credit for this and udo remember had been a puppet of
Starting point is 00:41:59 lansing and now lansing was gone because he sucks and udo needed to get some more glory so udo sees this happen and goes great look what i did now what's funny about this to me is that Udo gets a little bit too big for his britches out of nowhere. He is instantly. He gets all fired up. Let me go back just a second because it is, again, this is why everyone should hate the Lords of Terror, the Passion of a Thousand Sons, don't care that their fiction of characters to still get mad about them.
Starting point is 00:42:35 Because these guys cannot push people down to step on them to get slightly higher fast enough. This is a new set of stairs. That is just bodies. You're like, yeah, what do you call them? What I like about happens next is the term I like to think of is, if you've ever seen Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade, when they're drinking out of which cup is the cup of Christ, and then that just goes, you have chosen poorly.
Starting point is 00:43:00 That's what I think of what Udo does next. So Udo immediately demands an audience with all of the last wall, guys. I love this. You did the Indiana Jones. In my mind, you're just playing your CRPG, and you just keep choosing the bad. option and you kept following that because let's talk about what he did he doesn't thank them he doesn't greet them he instantly starts yelling at them and chastising for breaking the codex of star days
Starting point is 00:43:28 which they take super well they really roll with it they have no problems the head of the black templar who's standing in front of them is yeah that makes sense please keep yelling at me person half my size with a very cuttable neck first off he tells them they're going to immediately be broken up into smaller chapters, and should they ever pull this stunt again, they would face the full wrath of the Imperium. He then tells them that they're going to, they're all going to go upstairs and outside and be paraded in front of the people of Tara as separate chapters, and then each chapter will redeclare their oath of fealty to the Imperium. He then, on top of that, they all kind of point at Corland and say, what the F, guys, why is there one imperial fist?
Starting point is 00:44:15 and he says, yeah, we're not telling anyone about that. It would be damaging to the Imperium if anyone fed out the imperial fists were gone. So we're just going to pretend they've always been gone. Finally, just to have a bit more fun, he also tells them to leave the Orick attack moon alone. He's already promised it over to the head of the Mechanicum named Kubik, and he has plans for that, which we're going to reveal pretty shortly. This does not go well. Now, to their credit,
Starting point is 00:44:45 what? Corland does prevent the imperial fists from murdering him right then and there. I, for now. I'm a little sad on that because I thought for sure that the Black Templars would just go, so we're just going to see how many times we can cut him, right? Yeah, like we're just, how about you grab left arm?
Starting point is 00:45:04 I grab right arm and we'll see, like, splitting the wishbone and the chicken. Let's see who gets more of him. Would it make more sense? interestingly though these actions of udo and the other members of the lords of terra bother inquisitor veritas veritas has just brought himself up and the funny one of veritas is there's hinted in there that he actually he in lansing and then by by proxy udo were aligned behind the scenes to do something but the last i don't know 24 hours have ruined veritas these actions of udo at other members of high terra messed with inquisitor Veritas, who's been on a bit of an adventure recently.
Starting point is 00:45:44 First, he discovered that Wienin was still alive and sent more assassins after her, but they all mysteriously died. Didn't work. He then realized that was because of Van Gorich, the head of the assassins, who's tried to have him murdered. That didn't work. Yeah. If, I mean, Veritas was a Decepticon, he would be Philtron.
Starting point is 00:46:02 Yeah. Because absolutely none of his stuff works at all. What happens, though, is then he has a massive shift of character. because Veritas, it was hinted early on, was aligned with Lansing and Udo behind the scenes to achieve something. But the actions of the proletarian crusade were tens of millions, possibly billions of imperial citizens die for no reason. He just sees these people are useless and morons. Then the Orkin Baster thing shows up where he's watching Lords of Terror beg for mercy from a Zeno. I think this is funny because,
Starting point is 00:46:39 in the books, he's wildly more upset about them asking for mercy and not having their crap together in front of Zinos than he is tens of millions of people die. It's just like, this happened. Yeah, but this is the actual stickler. Like, figure it out, man. And as we said before, his meeting with the shadow seer really changed him because she was the one to point out, can't you feel chaos rising? And he could.
Starting point is 00:47:05 So Veritas now has this moment of, I have to move. away from a Puritan to being more a pragmatist. The survival of humanity is at stake here. Like, whether I agree with everything doesn't really matter. We have to survive. So Veritas then says, we need a truce with me and Weenand. I know she's alive. Organize it. And so they actually do. The two of them meet and they agree that the Lords of Terror suck and that they're going to work together to make them suck less. I do like the fact that Ween doesn't really understand how many times that Verdez
Starting point is 00:47:41 Oh, there's no idea. This is, our Pink Panther reference was really good. She has no idea of how bad this was. Like, yeah, of course we'll do reconcile. You know, I have no bad blood to you. You've never done anything really bad to me.
Starting point is 00:47:53 I think of it like two rappers do a co-lab and then later you find out the other one has 55 disc tracks on you. It's, oh. Oh, I did not know about that. This makes that collaboration kind of awkward. I'm going to go have a chat with my agent. So what happens next is interesting.
Starting point is 00:48:10 Udo senses that Veritas and Vinen were going to stand against him. And so he goes to pass a motion banning the Inquisition from the Lords of Terra. And this is just... I love this guy. Just because... Oh, the confidence is incredible. This is colligula levels of bad decisions, though, in a row. You're like, you're just going to get killed, right?
Starting point is 00:48:33 Like, just, you're just reading down the playbook. He has a picture of Caligula Niro in his bedroom going, I got this, guys, I'll live up to your excellent leadership. This finally is the bridge too far. And chapter master Corland, who's also medic, foot soldier, Corland, requisition officer Corland, munitions field officer Corland, decides to act. And he declares Udo a traitor to the Imperium and moves to remove him from power with force.
Starting point is 00:49:05 And he's backed as he does this. by the co-heads of the Inquisition, newly founded, and the head of the Assassins, along with a man named Zach, who's the head of the Arbytes. And I like this home because of all the Lords of Terror. No, you can't do this. And then looked at who was doing, going, oh, so it's the Space Marines, the Assassins.
Starting point is 00:49:23 Read the room. The Inquisition and the Arbites are all saying he's got to go. You know, I'm just going to go ahead and not get the ever-living hellbeat out of me and go with, yeah, I support this. Corland removes Udo and immediately declares himself the Lord Commander of the Imperium, which I want to put out. That means Corland in the period of, I don't know, a month has declared himself chapter master of the imperial fists and then declares himself the head of the entire imperial military.
Starting point is 00:49:52 He himself, a lot of promotion. This is impressive. This is impressive. If you don't know what the land of the country of Sealand is, that's what kind of I think of is the guy who owns Sealand. So this occurs. but what happens next in the books is a lot of what I would consider cliffhangers at the end of an episode back to back to back to back to back.
Starting point is 00:50:13 There is a horde of reveals that we're going to get through real quickly. And each one of them is important. And you're like, oh, that's an incredible reveal. And then they get to the next one. And you're like, Jesus, come on, guys. Slow it down. So you know what? I'm not touching this one.
Starting point is 00:50:31 Or the name. I actually, before last night, I was prepping myself. Oh, there's no way you're going to say this. And I just went, nah, let John get made fun of it for it instead of me. All right. He's referring to the name Equidix. You are Q-U-I-D-E-X. I'm going with erquetics.
Starting point is 00:50:51 If this is going to be literally where you live is going to determine how you pronounce this one. So when Corland... Again, nope. When Corland was found on Ardamante. he was revived by a tech priest, that tech priest was Eucydix. Since that moment, Eucydix has gone missing. And this is because upon returning to Mars, Eucydix became pretty disillusioned with the actions of the fabricator general.
Starting point is 00:51:16 Eucydix had just seen the results of this or incursion and realized it's the greatest threat to the galaxy. And he couldn't remember why the admec were not throwing all the resources after it. Well, he rolls back and finds out that they have hidden Dr. Evil underground labs full of doing tests on all the Orch Tech. Yeah, OrchTech and Ork Biologies. He didn't know why. And we said in the last episode, so then Goric had sent one of his main assassins to Mars
Starting point is 00:51:44 to see what's going on over there. Because again, he was saying, wait, why are these guys not getting super involved in this? This is scary. And one of his agents makes contact with Aquitex and convinces Aquatics to spy for the Imperium. Aquatics agrees and brings the agent with them to witness one. of the tests. He's also a terrible, cool dude, terrible spy, because he gets caught instantaneously.
Starting point is 00:52:09 Oh, he's a useless spy. And what they, what they witness. No, it's just, I'm sorry, I just, I can stop laughing. In my mind, it's, I don't want to use the reference a thousand times, but it was just the Steve Buscemi. He's like, hello, fellow loyal not spying on you, Ed? Like, like, just, he just walked in and just started asking wildly obvious questions. Hey, what are you doing right there with that secret project that I will definitely not let anybody know about?
Starting point is 00:52:38 You're just like, really? That's how you're going to go about it, bro? What the secret project was is the ad mech thought it was pretty cool. The orcs could teleport moon-sized objects around the galaxy. And the ad mec took that technology and decided to start playing with it themselves. Yep. Now, as the Brad said, Equidix gets captured and sentenced to be turned into a servitor. because that's how they do stuff.
Starting point is 00:53:04 Cortland sends the Black Templars to go to Mars to retrieve Aquidex. They land, and there's a weird moment because they land, and there's this massive force of ad mech just kind of standing in front of them. No one's shooting at anyone, but we're talking Skatari, dune crawlers, castle and robots, all lined up in a military formation in front of them, and everyone's got this kind of moment. as the Black Templar go to land more stuff, the Admec fire off a warning shot
Starting point is 00:53:37 that perfectly hits a drop pot and blows it up, at which point all help breaks loose. Black Templar immediately attack because it is the Black Templar. And the thing with the Black Templar is, they're pretty sure everyone's a heretic at all times, and Mars are all heretics at all times.
Starting point is 00:53:58 This doesn't take much of a shove to say, yeah, I want you to slaughter Mars now. The Black Temple, I went, yeah, I'm going to slaughter Mars now. So they begin attacking. Should have done this before. They begin attacking. Luckily for everyone involved, the fabricator general Kubik is actually back on Terra and had watched Corlin take control and was actually impressed by. Corwin gave a whole long speech. I actually wasn't that good.
Starting point is 00:54:19 And I'm sorry, it wasn't. But he takes control and he decides to give this new lord of the Imperium a chance. And so he issues an immediate ceasefire. Because they're adme, remember, they're all chipped. So as soon as he says cease fire, the admit just stopped shooting. And the Black Templar, they may stab a few guys who aren't resisting, but, you know, whatever. It's Black Templar. We let Black Templar do what Black Templar need to do.
Starting point is 00:54:45 Anyway, at this moment, Kubik tells Corlin what they're really up to. And that, hey, and this is, by the way, it's not written the way it should have been. this should have been a super awkward conversation. The admec's entire plan, the reason they didn't care about the orc invasion is they were just going to teleport Mars out of, out of Seoul. Somewhere else. Yeah. Their plan was so bad, though, because they were like, hey, where are you going to send it?
Starting point is 00:55:12 You know, somewhere else. Yeah. Where is the somewhere else, man? Their whole plan was like, he has to sit there and say to him, yeah, the reason we didn't give you guys any help. at all is because we were just going to move. That was it. Like, we were, like, we were, we were, we were 100% okay with the orcs destroying Terra because we weren't going to be nearby to watch it.
Starting point is 00:55:35 I was going to let you, all of you died because I was going to leave anyways. Now, the cool thing. That's the worst explanation ever. The cool thing to me, though, is that they did succeed to a point. They were able to teleport one of the moons of Mars from one side of the planet to the other one. Eventually, they find Aquidex. who's only half servitor at this point. I was, yeah, they make this like, it's a, we rescued him.
Starting point is 00:56:02 He's not in great shape when they pick him up. And I also want to point out something, that when they go and save Equidex, this is not because the imperial fists feel some, like, deep love towards a person who saved him. The fists are way too stoic for that thing. The reason the fists were looking for him is because Aquatics had spent a ton of time Ardamaata,
Starting point is 00:56:23 researching the orcs there. He knew more about this orc invasion than probably anyone in the galaxy. And they just learned from the orc ambassador that there's something called the beast, but that's all that they know. Equoitex, being half servador, still had some of his memories left,
Starting point is 00:56:40 and he was able to share what he knew with him. And this was again, reveal number two. There's a super orc called the beast that is leading what's called a Great Wa. And I'm going to let you guys know something around. I'll be able to know this. Wa, by the way, is just war. If you know what a cockney accent is, if you don't look it up.
Starting point is 00:56:59 But yeah, if you yell the word war and don't move your tongue while yelling it, it comes out as wah. So that's what a wa is. A wa is an orc war, an orc declaration of war. There you go. Also, in a quick that no one really gave about him, old UDog is half servitor. By the way, that's fully reversible. No one helps him out.
Starting point is 00:57:25 Oh, yeah. He might even go full servant or if it's for all I know. Who knows? They're like, hey, you have information? Do you still have it? Yes. Also, you look gross. Cool.
Starting point is 00:57:37 Just moving on. The next thing he does is he says, but he knows where the beast is. And the beast is on Ulanor. And so with his information, Corlin takes it, goes back to the Imperium. He says, we're going to muster the entire force of all of the,
Starting point is 00:57:50 of our Imperium and we're going to Ulinor. He sends the Imperial Navy out to grab all the guardsmen who are stuck around the galaxy. He puts out a call to all the other space marine factions to muster back at Terra. He's ready to lead the greatest military campaigns since the Great Crusade. And then Veritas walks in and says, Hey, by the way, I have some information for you. And the information... This is where things start getting super cool.
Starting point is 00:58:17 If you love the Salamanda. That this whole bit's so funny, though, because apparently Vulcan has been spotted. It's the first time they've seen any prime mark in a thousand years. And Veritas didn't think this was pressing information. He waited until now to tell him. That's true. He's just like, he did just drop it like, oh, yeah. Also, they're serving burritos in the cafeteria and I saw Vulcan.
Starting point is 00:58:44 Like, Corlin's literally about to leave Terra to go on this campaign. He goes, oh, yeah. I know you're going there, but on the way, you might want to go to Caldera because Vulcan's there. Just throw it out there. And I'm sure, Corr, the Primark, yeah, you know, Vulcan the Primark. Why didn't you open with this? This should have been like, kick down the door. There's a prime mark.
Starting point is 00:59:06 Someone go pick him up. Let's go to Vulcan now because it's going to make Brad happy because we've done a lot of... Also, Caldera is also a super cool world for Vulcan. Because Vulcan is effectively a sister world because in the Great Crusade, they discover this world and they had people from Nocturn on it. Yeah, and we haven't covered Nocturn yet. So we should point out. So his Vulcan's Home World.
Starting point is 00:59:27 Yeah, Vulcan's Homeworld is a world called Nocturn. Nocturn was routinely raided by the Drukari. This is very early Drukari. This is pre-vectuary, obviously. Because of that, some of the people were spread around. During the Great Crusade, some of the people stolen from Nocturn and were being taken by the Rukari back to be tortured to death got saved by Kraft World Eldar. And the two of them settled a planet together called Caldera. And they lived in harmony. But hot harmony came to a pretty
Starting point is 00:59:58 rough conclusion when Vulcan, Ferris, Manus, and Mortarian arrived to tell the humans to come join the Imperium. And in doing so, turn on the Eldar who'd saved them. The humans said no, just no. And they have a long protracted battle. It's actually pretty cool. when we cover Vulcan and the Salamiders will spend more time on this. And we have, it's cool, but like just GW, does it always have to be random insect warriors?
Starting point is 01:00:26 Yeah, every time. So again, we said last time, again, random, the Eldar use in this battle, a mind-controlled, it's a really weird thing with Eldar, like a mind-controlled zeno, that's an insect with long claws and a metal thing. Just one time. One time, let it be a killer rabbit.
Starting point is 01:00:43 You know, like a foul, cruel, bad-tempered rabbit. with a vicious streak a mile wide and huge... Holy hand grenade? Yeah. Something that could only be killed by the most holy of weapons, like a holy hand grenade. That would be awesome. Anyway, protracted battle happens on the planet.
Starting point is 01:01:01 Vulcan gets mad at the populace for not seeing the light of the Imperium and burns them. But I think this is one of my favorites because I think this is when Vulcans personality that has persevered to right now in current day 40K really got changed because he felt immense sorrow for his action and could not. You're much more forgiving than I am. Oh, he felt real sorrow for burning to death millions of people who'd done nothing wrong other than, hey, yeah, these guys saved us from being tortured to death by the jury.
Starting point is 01:01:41 Look, man. And you guys want me to stab him in the back. So 10,000 cool X, but one murder of a planet makes you a planet murder? Yeah. Yeah, I think it does. It's like, you're just thrown out there. He's really cool now, though. Sure.
Starting point is 01:01:57 He had a blip, man. He had a momentary lack. He had a momentary lack where he burned an entire planet to the ground. Killed three different races on the planet also. Anyway, afterwards, to Brad's point, Vulcan was sad. and then Vulcan vowed that he would always protect the world of Caldera. Not the people of Caldera, because they're all dead. He burned them all in.
Starting point is 01:02:21 So the next group of people that they brought in to settle Caldera, he has some weird affinity to. This does become the fun part of this, because the orcs, as part of the War of the Beast, end up descending on Caldera. And whereas every planet the orcs land on, they end up running over it. This one has a three-meter-tall, power armor-wearing, giant hammer-wielding, immortal. Well, actually, Vulcan's taller than three meters because he's the
Starting point is 01:02:48 tallest of the prime. It's 3.5 meters. I don't care. But I love this because Vulcan didn't just put on his with somebody ass kicking. He double nodded them because he goes in,
Starting point is 01:03:01 it starts laying, he starts giving coupons away for trips to beat down city. He is just wrecking them. What happens here is kind of hilarious. Vulcan with his giant hammer just posts up and just starts fighting orcs and killing them by the thousands, at which point eventually he gets overwhelmed that he
Starting point is 01:03:25 dies and he heals up and restarts all over again. So if you guys have seen... It's a perpetual. Yeah, the secret level with King Aelstrom. Eelstrom lives and it comes back. But yeah, Aelstrom lives and hits the bicycle pose. And then goes back to punching the orcs. But what's funny is that he's... His presence in power is so great that the orcs on Caldera can't help but just keep rushing him to fight. So Caldera, the population of Caldera just kind of gets to hang back and watch because all the orcs are just trying to prove that they can beat him. Because why stab a little weak human when you could go beat up to the human war boss? They're looking for the best, the biggest of the best.
Starting point is 01:04:04 Also, he's surrounding these works with his hammer. It's just going. Now, the problem, though, is that while they're doing this, the planet's actually really doomed. The orcs were on Caldera because the way that they make an attack moon is they build these, like, gravity generators, and they suck a chunk of the planet up into one of their little things in orbit and turn it into an attack moon. Corland and them arrive and just, oh my God, there's a prime mark. No one's seat member. Even the, I think the space marines are old enough at this point to have seen the prime market. We're talking over a thousand years.
Starting point is 01:04:38 I don't know. There's a couple of it around. I mean, obviously, Bjorn the fell handed, but he's a dreadnought. I'm saying anyone who's not a dreadnought. I'm not sure if anyone is still alive at this point. This is a big deal is what I'm getting at. Corlin goes to the planet. He finds Vulcan, reinforces, helps Vulcan beat back some works and says to him, hey, this planet is doomed.
Starting point is 01:04:56 But Tara's in real danger. We need you. Come with me. We're going to gut on the ship. We're going back to Tara. He goes, no. It's just, no, I'm not leaving. And you just explain to him, I'm not leaving this planet so long as there are orcs here.
Starting point is 01:05:09 So you can go. I'm going to go back to punching the orcs. And Corland, to his credit, goes, all right, I'll punch the orcs too. And they deploy down to just save the planet. The next bit's hit and miss, depending on how much. Kind of. Yeah. Well, it is a 80s montage of fighting, though.
Starting point is 01:05:28 Oh, this is a massive montage of fighting. It's like 80 pages of story. And I'm going to skip all of that and press on like 15 seconds. Space battles, land incursions. combined forces of Imperial Guard, Navy, Skakari, Space Springs, and a Primark, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. They eventually get to the Great Gravity Generator, which they could have just blown this thing up from space,
Starting point is 01:05:51 but they chose to do it on the ground. No idea why. Sometimes you got to throw your hammer while you're standing in the disintegration beam. Oh, no, no, no, no. You're missing. This is way better than that. So they have a protracted battle. There was a stalemate, and they're stuck outside.
Starting point is 01:06:07 The orcs aren't. They can't get past the orcs. The orcs are holding the ground in front of the gravity generator. And Vulcan just yells, Leroy Jenkins and jumps over everybody, leaps and kind of like throws himself into the beam between the planet and the attack moon. And as it disintegrates his body,
Starting point is 01:06:27 throws his hammer into the middle of it, blowing the thing up, which then, like Death Star style, blows up the attack moon in orbit. So the Ewoks of Endor just are dancing, around and watching this thing explode. Caldera is saved, and then a short while later, a disintegrated Vulcan gets back up and goes, all right, so you said Terra?
Starting point is 01:06:51 We got to go back to Terra? All right, let's do some Terra. And they both return to Terra, and it's another very funny moment of the Lords of Terra. Vulcan walks in, and this whole trip back, he's getting the breakdown. Here's what's been going on. Here's all this stuff. And he's also not happy And this to Brad's point
Starting point is 01:07:13 Over you know 10 foot Whatever like 13 foot behemoth Wander Imagine how terrifying it looks to see a primark When you've just heard of them in stories And also he's one of the scarier looking primarks He's not messed up or it's because he doesn't look Obsidian black and a giant
Starting point is 01:07:33 With red eyes Blowing red eyes And he just sits there and walks in and informs the entire Lords of Terra, I am only not going to murder you all right now for the sake of unity of the Imperium, not for lack of you deserving it. And then he turns to the assembled forces
Starting point is 01:07:52 and he says, I will personally lead the chapters of space marines who are like ultramary they're all there. And everyone's, okay, the guardsmen, the naval personnel, we're going to Ulanor and we're going to slay the beast once and for all. It is really funny too, because he semi implies that when I'm done, I am coming back.
Starting point is 01:08:13 Yeah. Oh, yeah. I just, for unity today, tomorrow, no guarantees. My calendar clears up. I'm penciling murdering you. Every one of you because you guys suck. But. True story. Yeah. From there, we're going to break. And the reason we're going to break at that point is the next chunk gets even more.
Starting point is 01:08:37 loopy, for lack of a better phrase. The stuff, when they go to Ulinar, it gets crazy, it gets crazy really fast. So we're going to do, I think this is going to be forecasts, guys, just given that we're at number two right now, and we haven't gotten to the beast yet. And then we start to cover
Starting point is 01:08:52 post beast. Or what's considered the main battle and then post-past. Yeah, exactly. There's a lot to get through. So we're probably going to do forecast on this, but we hope this one's been fun for you. As you can hear, Brad's happier today, because the Lords of Terror just took a bunch of L's. So it's a much better day for him. And Vulcan showed us. Exactly. That's right. And Vulcans there. Brad's always happy when
Starting point is 01:09:11 Vulcan's there. For those of you who have read the books, I hope we're doing this justice. We're trying to compress 12 books. I mean, this is probably 40 hours of reading into like four hours. So, yeah. But until next week, this has been John Barsati and Bradchester.

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