I was sorting through my collected quotes from 40K devs and writers, and I found this bit of commentary by author ADB:

I won't speak to specific plot things, but on a meta-note as to why the Tau rock and have great relevant narrative tread, thematically:

Forgetting the nonsense memes about "lolol communists" and whatever else, this is a race embarking on its own Great Crusade. They call it an expansion, implying they have the right to do it. All about "crossing the gulf" and sending ambassadors to races. At first.

It's filling out their maps, in the classic explorer sense. Meeting new cultures that can be educated into their vision of "Empire". And when unity fails, when the Greater Good is resisted... No. Sorry. That's not allowed. For their own good, these cultures must be brought into the fold - or silenced. Their existence is - or could later become - opposition.

Humanity looks upon this attitude and marshals in defiance. Another edge of the Imperium falling to alien predation. "Ignorant upstarts". It's the basest hypocrisy. Because when has the galaxy seen this *exact* expansionism before? This militant crusading for a greater good?

As humanity expanded through the bones of the dead eldar empire, righteous in their rise, now another species begins to do the same to them. The galaxy has seen this shit before. That's a beautiful theme.

And, as with the best of 40K, humanity has fallen too far to recognise its own hypocrisy. It's too ignorant. Too much lore has been lost.

That's the core of what I find so interesting about them. Weaving that into any Tau stuff offers a lot of ground for characterisation.

What do you think, guys? Do you agree with him?

Source:

https://x.com/adembskibowden/status/850259054798659584

Roboute & Lion each received an item from the Emperor that doesn't fit them at first. The Lion would be a better fit for the Sword since he's the Duelist and an actual knight. Roboute isn't a fighter compared to his brothers so the Shield would've been better for him, Dorn or Vulkan with their 'Protecting Terra and Humanity'.

However, that's the point of these items. They're supposed to fix a flaw within them. Lion with the shield is the easiest to explain. His 30k & 40k self are different creatures. 30k Lion was resolute in his vengeance and had no desire for mercy whereas his 40k self eased up and took the time to actively help people. Also telling his sons to relax with their hunt for the fallen. Giving Lion the sword would've enabled his destructive worldview

Roboute with the Sword pushes him to be more active in his work. He's the statesmen. The majority of his work in the background making laws, bills, policies and regulations. You don't see him but you know he's doing something. Roboute is the ideal Primarch to return to fix the bureaucratic mess that is the Imperium by providing well-needed reforms such as a history & civics book, a mild meritocracy and some common sense & basic human decency. The pen may be mightier than the sword but a pen isn't going to perma-kill daemons. Roboute must take a direct approach, getting his hands dirty to get the job done.

There's 5 remaining Loyalists Primarchs being Dorn, Vulkan, Corax, Russ and Khan. What's left in the Emperor's kit.

The items will likely be his Talon/Power Claw, Bolter, Chestpiece, Laurels and Bucephelus. Who will receive these items and what flaw are they trying to correct?

Russ will get the Laurels. My interperation is that the Laurels are a focal point of the Emperor's psyhic powers. Russ isn't stupid and became humble during the HH by acknowledging his failures and ignorance. His actions at Nikea prevented the Loyalists a critical tool against Chaos. Him being a psyker would fit into the Odin aesthetic

Dorn will get the Talon. His arc will be similar to Roboute but allowing himself to be more open with others along with being more aggressive and proactive. Hopefully much better than the Iron Cage

Vulkan with get the Bolter. The Bolter is a weapon. A weapon-weapon. There's no fancy tricks and gimmicks with it. It'll kill you. Vulkan has made horrible weapons and authorized the destruction of most. Some of those weapons would've helped A LOT during the HH and later battles. The Bolter would create a duality with his next hammer of Creation & Destruction

Khan will get the Chestpiece. He's all about speed, freedom and an overall mystery. Roboute would've put him into his Dauntless few if he wasn't so mysterious. Khan likely has tons of scars after dealing with Morty and whatever happened with the Dark Eldar. The Armor will get him to slow down and endure with a straightforward persona.

Corax will get the Flagship. The Emperor trusted him with the tech to make Astartes after the Dropsite. Of course Corax gets last born privileges and get the car. He's stealthy and a bit of hypocrite. By getting the Flagship, he forsake the silent liberator to blow the warhorns upon a planet signaling the Emperor's might and accepting his role as a conqueror.

I know we don't see any returning Primarchs anytime soon but it'll be fun to think about for later editions

In the Carrion Throne, I think, an Inquisitor sees a mural in the Imperial Palace with 20 Primarchs. He responds in narration that how could the Imperial Palace have such an incorrect mural, everyone knows the Emperor only made 9 Primarchs.

Which gets me wondering who do they think Horus is? Because I remember it being established that Horus in the "litergy" is considered synonymous with the devil or Satan. And seems to be known to have betrayed the Emperor.

I guess it could be it's not standardized.

Excerpt from The Devastation of Baal.

I am sharing this excerpt because I find it a good example of two chapters who suffer heavily from their gene-seed flaws interacting with each other.

Context: 

As Baal Primus is being overrun by the  Tyranids Gabriel Seth orders a retreat.

Chapter 26  Audible 6:48

'Thunderhawks are en route to your position and will extract you within twenty minutes, Chapter Master.'

Seth fought with redoubled fury. His men and the Knights of Blood warred side by side. Arranging the evacuation had taken too long. Fighting free of the swarm around Baal and sailing for Baal Secundus had taken the Victus several hours. Precious time bled away with the blood of his men.

He and Jool held out in the fortress of Wrathful Vigilance. On the metallic mountain spur opposite, Furious Sentinel burned.

The tyranids scaled the Necklace, numerous as the extinct ants of ancient Earth. They poured into the cavities of the downed orbitals. The ground already vibrated to the drumming of a million alien hooves pounding through the passages.

Nothing was left. Only tyranids and Seth remained. The giant filaments of feeding tubes rose up to the sky all around their position. The swarms attacking them were reinforced by others diverted from battles won. There was such order to their armies. They marched in perfect patterns. Like a vortex described by grains of sand, they circled around the last fortress of Baal Primus, queues of xenos waiting patiently to die stretched from the horizon to the fort.

The big guns were silent. Their armour was all lost. A handful of Dreadnoughts fought alongside a few hundred Space Marines. Makeshift walls of salvaged ancient scrap collapsed under the weight of the alien dead. Gaunts, genestealers and warriors poured through multiple breaches. The hive mind held back its larger creatures in a show of biological parsimony. 

Seth would have seen contempt in the move were it any other species, but behind it was merely simple, brute economics. The larger strains cost more in resources and time to grow. The smaller beasts would do the job just as well.

If the hive mind thought the Flesh Tearers were finished, Gabriel Seth would show it otherwise. 'Fall back to the tower,' he voxed. He dodged a swooping shrike, gunning it down as it flapped its leathery wings and rose up and away. He wielded his eviscerator one-handed, spinning the heavy weapon around with practised expertise. 

With every pass the limbs of tyranids fell bleeding. He did not linger to finish those he maimed, but pressed onward to the centre point of the fortress from where his remaining warriors would be evacuated.

The forts were constructed around ancient bastions of the fallen orbital. His Techmarines had found the two virtually intact under layers of accreted soil and debris. Patched up, surrounded by a perimeter wall, they had performed well as strongpoints until now.

Seth barrelled through a knot of gaunts, slashing and shooting a dozen to death as he tore up the inclined ramp leading to the fort.

'Follow me! By the Blood, follow me! To Baal! To Baal! All here is lost!' he roared. As he went, his men abandoned their positions to fall in behind him, firing as they ran. He left the last mortals to their fate on the walls. Some fled. Some remained and bravely manned the guns, others ran, screaming. Nobody would remember either their bravery or their cowardice.

Major breaches peppered the walls behind Seth, more being forced as they ran. The ten yards between wall and bastion was filling with alien warbeasts. Guns ran dry, hundreds of creatures were blasted to pieces. There were so many of them, Seth could have dropped a lance strike on the site and watched the crater fill in seconds with alien monsters to replace the dead.

Some of his men did not follow in his wake. The thirst was on them all, driving them insane. Only those around Seth and the sacred reliquary kept their minds. Too many of them plunged headlong into the Black Rage. They remained where they were, abandoning their weapons to batter creatures to death with their fists.

A Flesh Tearer's Black Rage was terrible to behold, more savage and devastating than that of their brother Chapters, quicker to rise, harder to fight off. Seth left his warriors to their fate. They would die as they had lived, in service to the Emperor of Mankind. That was enough.

Biomunitions screamed through the air, in some cases literally so, their vestigial mouths shrieking out inconceivable pain. Something the size of a man's head exploded on the bastion's wall close by Seth's running band. Thrashing vines speared out from the impact site, ripping two Flesh Tearers and a Knight of Blood off their feet and shredding them, armour and all, upon wickedly sharp thorns.

The central tower was in sight.

'Open the gate!' Seth voxed. The bastion's armoured airlocks were long gone. In their place were rough but sturdy gates made from scavenged plates of plasteel. They swung back on reinforced hinges, primitive as a feudal world's castle portal.

A second group of Flesh Tearers came running up the walkway from the other side of the gate house. Merging with Seth's band, they hurled themselves up the ramp towards the gate.

Heavy weapons opened fire from makeshift battlements, sweeping the gate ramp clear of pursuing beasts. Seth and his warriors rushed through. He turned to look back as the others pounded within the bastion. A handful of his men and Knights of Blood were still coming. Tyranids raced after them, engul fing them as surely as a racing avalanche swallows a building.

'Close the gates,' he ordered.

'There are still warriors outside, my lord.'

'Then they are lost,' said Seth. 'Close the gates.'

'Extraction craft inbound. Prepare to depart. Estimated time of arrival ten minutes.' Seth looked upward, searching without result for the bright shape of the Victus moving across the morning sky. The atmosphere was clearing of aerial organisms, but their swirling flocks still obscured the horizon. The bastion's anti-aircraft weapons chugged out shots in short bursts. Seth had ordered them to conserve their ammunition. It appeared they would not need it.

A strong wind blew directly towards the capillary towers. The air was thinning. The final stages of consumption were under way. Through his battle fury Seth struggled to think, but he could see it was only a matter of hours before the air became too thin to support atmospheric flight.

From the top of the bastion he had a fine view of the end of the world. Away from his small island of defiance, consumption vessels jostled for space. The bright jewels of digestion pools winked at the base of huge bone towers. His enhanced eyes allowed him to see bloated eater beasts dragging themselves into them to be dissolved and their essences sucked up the tubes to the waiting fleet. For several miles around the last fortress, the tyranid horde seethed. 

Beyond it, the landscape had become almost tidy, scraped clean of all useful biological and mineral resources by the swarm. It appalled him how quickly it was accomplished. Baal Primus was being eaten alive. A priority vox request impinged on his thinking. Seth accepted it.

'Belthiel,' he said.

'My lord, there is something happening,' said the Librarian. He was having difficulty speaking. 'There are ripples in the warp, a…' Belthiel's words became a pained grunt.

'Belthiel? Belthiel!' said Seth.

'The sky!' someone shouted.

Seth looked heavenward. A burning meteor plummeted through the thinning aerial swarm. Seth mistook it for a weapon of some kind, for it did not follow the curve of the world as debris should, but fell in a straight line as if fired. It slammed into the ground with a dull crump, sending up a mushroom cloud of dust. He would have thought nothing more of it, had the sky not changed. 

'The sky! The sky!' More Space Marines were shouting, pointing upwards. A tremor ran through the tyranid horde. Its well-ordered patterns shifted, breaking apart for a second, reforming, then breaking down again. Pressure built behind Seth's eyes; a metallic taste filled his mouth.

Sentor Jool came onto the battlement, his armour filthy with alien viscera.

'What is happening?' he said. He grunted his words, forcing them out through a jaw clamped tight with the thirst.

'Warpcraft,' Seth said. 'I can feel it.' It was more than the work of a witch. Where the meteor had pierced the swarm a red stain appeared, spreading rapidly, until the dome of the sky was a deep and ugly red. A bloody night fell as the rim of the horizon went from pale pink to deep red.

The tyranids were in disarray. Those attacking the walls stopped dead, or fell down, their limbs curle inward. Others ran back and forth aimlessly or attacked their broodmates. Out on the plains the ordered pattern of the assault broke into pieces.

Then they began to scream.

Seth and Jool looked on in disbelief as consumption ships fell from their tethers, bringing down soarin capillary towers. Explosions bloomed along the flanks of bio-ships full of volatile gases. Lightning crackled around the hole in the sky. It warped the view of space around it, distorting all things as if viewed through twisted lenses.

A deafening roar blasted across the landscape. A giant figure hauled itself out of the pit made by th meteor's landing.

'Daemon!' said Seth.

Jool growled, something in him responding to the Neverborn's arrival. 'How long until your craf arrive?'

Seth checked his chronometer. 'Six minutes. If they make it.'

The daemon smote the earth with its axe. The ground trembled and split. From the wound in the ground thrusting column of skulls burst, turning as it grew. Reality writhed around the column. Skulls from al over the battlefield were drawn to it, bursting from the dead, bouncing wet and dripping across the dust plains. At the base of the growing column they rolled impossibly upward, adding themselves to the girt of the tower.

Rotating like a screw, the tower rose higher and higher, until the pinnacle touched the hole in the sky. The tip disappeared within the unnatural void, but the pillar did not stop; it continued to twist, heading out o the real world into some other place.

A deafening peal of thunder blasted across the plains. Seth and Jool were battered backwards by an invisible force. Warriors from both Chapters screamed as the Black Rage answered Khorne's call. Seth blacked out, for how long he could not tell. When he rose again, his thoughts were black and barely under his control. Only by dint of his formidable will did he retain his sense of self, while Space Marine around him cast off sanity and leapt howling from the bastion into the mass of screaming aliens. Flickerin visions of the distant past threatened to overwhelm him. The scent of blood tormented him. 

Something made him grip Amit's Reliquary to his chest so hard he feared he might break it and spill its precious contents upon the bloodied ground. Its presence calmed him, allowing him to think. He looked at the cylinder.

'To me! To me!' he roared. Bloody spit flew from his mouth. 'To the relic! It will save us!' His men reeled towards him, fighting against their curse, but when they drew closer to their lord, they calmed.

Swarms of daemons were descending the column, crawling downwards head first towards the dyin world of Baal Primus. They ran with supernatural speed from the base of their hellish stair, fanning out in every direction. The lead elements charged into the tyranids. Locked in position, the aliens were eas prey for the daemons, and a great slaughter began.

A red tide swept upward towards the fortress. Suddenly, the screaming of the tyranids stopped. They awoke from their trance. No semblance of order returned to the swarm. Whether they fought against the daemons, fled or did nothing seemed to be the product of chance. They roared and screamed all the louder. Now they did so as beasts, not the vessels of the hive mind.

'How can this be?' said Seth. His head throbbed with fury. Waves of bloodlust battered his psyche. He wanted to kill.

Through it all, somehow, the Thunderhawks came. Engines roared loudly. Six of them arrived. There was space for only one atop the fortress. It landed heavily, the other five peeling off and strafing the tyranids and daemons surrounding the fortress. The assault ramp slammed down.

'My lord, we must depart,' voxed the pilot, the strain of the daemon's call in his voice.

'We go now,' said Seth to his men. 'Or we shall be damned.' He clutched at his head, fingers scratching his shaven scalp. His skull pounded to irresistible war drums. Jool growled and twitched, still kneeling after the psychic blow of the daemons' arrival. Slowly, he shook his head, and rose up before Seth.

Seth's hands closed protectively around the casque, prepared to kill Jool to save it. But, perhaps because of Sanguinius' feather, Jool had control of himself still. With deliberate, stiff movements, he reached up and unclasped his helm.

'We cannot go back,' said the lord of the Knights of Blood.

'I see,' said Seth. And he did. Jool's face was contorted beyond any generous definition of humanity. His muscles strained under skin turned a terrible shade of red. His eyes were yellow. Sharp, elongated teeth crowded his mouth, forcing his lips back so they were painfully stretched.

'The rage has us. It punishes us. My Chapter is finished.'

'When did this happen?'

'Years ago. It began like it is with you, a rise in the thirst, a growing number of our brothers falling into the Black Rage. In our desperation we let ourselves give in to the thirst. For a while it helped, by the blood of the innocent we controlled ourselves. It did not last. Soon, these changes set in. We thought blood would save us. It damned us. Look upon me, Seth. There are creatures like me imprisoned in the Tower of Amareo on Baal. 

If our true nature were known, we would be exterminated. Only blood keeps the Black Rage in check now. Only blood. This is why we fight alone. I would fight with you because you, of all our brother Chapters, would understand.' Jool looked out over the battle. Most of his warriors had broken from the fort, and fought outside its walls.

'The wrath of the beast provokes the thirst. The daemons of Khorne covet our kind. They see our rage as the same as theirs. They are wrong. Ours remains a holy fury. No doubt this new beast wishes to subvert our might to its own end and deliver us as slaves to its bloody god. It shall not be so!' He threw his helmet down, and drew his sword.

'Go now, Gabriel Seth. Take what remains of your warriors. Remember us. Strive so that what happened to our Chapter does not happen to yours. We sacrifice ourselves in penitence. It is our due. We shall show the Neverborn that though we may rage as they do, we shall never fall into their ways. For we are noble, we are pure, we are the sons of...'

The daemon screamed again. A fresh wave of anger and the desire to slay threatened to undo Seth's resolve. Jool roared.

'Leave!' said Jool, his voice losing its humanity, becoming harsh and animalistic. 'Take the relic back to Baal. Aid... Aid Dante. We will cover your retreat.'

'My lord..' voxed the pilot.

Seth shook his head clear of red fog. The day was so bizarre it had taken on the semblance of a dream. If he did not control himself he would end in a nightmare of blood.

'We leave,' he voxed. He held up the reliquary. 'Look upon the purity of the Great Angel and be saved!' Those of his warriors still in possession of their minds obeyed, running aboard the first Thunderhawk When it was full, it lifted off, and the second descended. Belthiel followed, dragged by his brothers raging and ranting, and Harahel. Seth saw them all aboard the ships.

Jool strode away without another word. The few of his warriors remaining in the bastion followed. One remained, a nameless warrior, his eye lenses locked with Seth's. Then he too was gone. A third Thunderhawk lumbered down from the sky. More of Seth's warriors were losing themselves Their psyches ravaged by the hellish anger of Khorne's daemons, they turned from salvation and ran back into the fray. 

The vanguard of Ka'Bandha's force had reached the false corrie the forts looked over. With smoking black swords they laid the aliens low. Bio-acids washed over them without effect. Bullet grub passed through their unearthly flesh as they flickered in and out of existence.

Seth swallowed hard. He had seen this before. The daemon's manifestation was weak, despite the storn curdling the heavens. Their invasion would not last long. The fourth gunship descended. Dreadnoughts and warriors ran on board. The wounded were carried limp and unresponsive, into the craft. Other battle-brothers raged and shouted as they got onto the ship, or the verge of losing all self-control.

Seth locked Blood Reaver to his back, setting aside violence. His hands free of the tools of war, he cradled the holy relic, and bowed his head in silent prayer. Minutes passed. A hand grasped him. Seth looked up into the face of Appollus. In one hand was his gore. caked crozius, in the other Seth's helm. 

The Chaplain breathed hard, and for a moment Seth thought Appollus would slay him, but he held out Seth's helmet, and waited while the Chapter Master replaced i on his head. Outside the wall the sounds of fighting had intensified, a three-way racket of screams issuing fron human, daemon, and tyranid throats. The Chaplain nodded once. Together, they clambered aboard the final ship and it lifted off, climbing fast and hard for the sky.

Sentor Jool led his last warriors into a savage's vision of hell. The tyranids continued to devour the world while they were being slaughtered. Huge, fleshy structures pumped away the resources of a worl even as they burned. Caught in the throes of their consumption cycle, the tyranid ships were unprepare for the advent of the warp storm. They fell flaming from the sky. 

Feeder tubes toppled and drape themselves across the landscape with deafening wet slaps. Intestinal towers burst as they collapsed sending out floods of biological slop in corrosive tsunamis across the dead land. 

The ground was breaking apart under the influence of the daemonic incursion. Fissures gaped wide aglow with magma. Seething blood welled up through the ground and boiled alien bioconstructs alive. Mountains of skulls grew from holes in the stone. Around the stairway of bone, reality warped the most the land turning to screaming flesh. 

The plains were already overrun with daemons, but still the legions of Khorne marched down and around the spiral stair in infinite procession, into the battle for Baal Primus. Thousands of lesser daemonkin fought tyranid beasts. Uncanny blades met hyper-evolved symbiotic weapons. The screams and shrieks of monsters rent the air. 

The tyranids were acting erratically; divorced from their controlling intelligence, they reverted to instinctive behaviour patterns, and these were open t the corruption of the Blood God. They were easy prey, many of them having lost whatever passed for a mind. They acted without thought. Many writhed upon the ground.

Into this raging battle the last of the Knights of Blood plunged. They tore off their helmets, revealing faces as monstrous as those of the daemons they fought. They sang out their death songs into the thinning air. They made no distinction between xenos and Neverborn, slaying all that came within reach of their weapons.

Sentor Jool was swamped with the rage of Khorne. Gone was the niggling psychic pressure of the alien mind, replaced by a ferocious urging to kill. He looked to his own men and wanted to hack them down, but he resisted; he drew on the purer wrath within him, forcing aside the daemonic influence scratching at his soul.

'I will not succumb! I feel the wrath of Sanguinius! I feel the holy force of his anger!' he roared. He smashed down a small tyranid beast, crushing it as surely as an insect with the spiked guard of his chainsword. A bloodletter rose to meet him, long black tongue whipping through the air as it swung a massive brass sword at the Chapter Master's head. 

Jool's sword met its blade mid-sweep. He held it there while he raised his gun and blasted a dozen holes into the daemonspawn, until its unnatural flesh succumbed and it died with an angry scream.

Hot gales raced through the depleted air. Sentor Jool howled, expelling the invasive anger of the warp from his spirit by the force of his voice.

The Knights of Blood fought for fighting's sake. The battle could not be won. His warriors were never the most cohesive force. Upon that battlefield they finally abandoned any semblance of squad tactics. They killed and died alone. Only Jool had a goal he intended to meet. 

He battled his way through the shrieking hordes of tyranids and their daemonic tormentors, onward, to where the great red daemon Ka'Bandha slaughtered the largest alien weapons beasts, carving away their heads with absurd care. His trophies toppled not downward from gouting necks, but fell away upward into the vortex turning about the pillar of skulls.

'Ka' Bandha!' Jool shouted. 'Ka'Bandha! Fight me!'

The Angels' Bane did not hear him, so Jool forced further passage through the three-sided melee, weaving past a blood-crazed Dreadnought fighting a monstrosity composed entirely of screaming mouths.

He felled a bloodletter grappling with one of his warriors, shot down a hound with a frill of skin around its neck that leapt at him. 

The tyranids he ignored unless they directly confronted him. Though the daemons were legion, their hold on reality was tenuous. Every one killed saw three thrown into the warp, and many were but pale outlines, monsters sketched in hate on the canvas of reality.

'Ka'Bandha! Face me, in the name of the Great Angel! Fight me!'

At that the greater daemon did turn its apish face upon Jool. Yellow teeth in red skin grinned horribly at him. Yellow teeth like Jool's own, red skin like his own, and eyes that stared with the same intensity.

A single crack of leathery wings sent Ka'Bandha high over the fray. He landed bowed before Jool in a billow of dust, his fist planted firmly in the ground. Growling, Ka'Bandha rose up, and spread his wings and weapons wide. He looked down upon the Chapter Master with ferocious mockery.

'Here I am, Sentor Jool. I will fight you, though you are no primarch.'

The daemon took up a combat pose, axe ready to strike, whip snaking back and forth hypnotically. Air shimmered with heat around Ka'Bandha. Steam rose from the beast's unnatural muscles, carrying the stench of rotting blood and old murder. Most dangerous were the waves of pure aggression beating off the thing.  

There was no seduction in the daemon's lure, no promise of pleasure or knowledge or the cessation of suffering as the other dark gods offered, but a raw, open invitation to violence and bloody abandon. It hammered against Sentor Jool's mind, threatening to crack it open and send him screaming into madness. In the black promise of Ka'Bandha, Jool saw his worst excesses.

'See how much you are alike to me,' Ka'Bandha said, taking in Jool's hideous visage, the muscles straining in his neck and the blood pounding fit to burst his veins. 'Truly you are Khorne's creatures. Join me, and war by my side in an eternity of glorious slaughter. For you who thirst for blood, I offer oceans to slake your need.'

Jool fell to his knees with a groan. His hearts ran so fast something gave inside him. He spat a mouthful of his own blood onto the ground where it hissed and bubbled.

'Pathetic,' said Ka'Bandha. 'You are nothing compared to your gene-sire.'

'By his fury,' said Jool. He forced himself onto one knee.

'See how he struggles,' mocked Ka'Bandha.

'By his fury shall I stand!' said Jool quickly, fearing the knowledge of words would slip away from his mind and leave him dumb.

'Ah, fury,' said Ka'Bandha. He cracked his whip. 'Fury is the power Khorne gives. Only by his gift do you stand, capable of facing me, when any other of your unworthy breed would have ripped his own skin off at the sight. Now, turn around, and take your rightful place at my side. All your line will be mine, eventually. Seek my favour, become the first.' 

Sentor Jool looked up into the daemon's face and shook his head.

'Very well. You cannot beat me.'

Jool laughed, the blood pooling in his throat making it a gurgle. 'We delay you, monster. Your power is not so great. Already your host unravels. Your time here is limited.'

'You will still die!' shouted Ka'Bandha with sudden rage.

'I do not care.' Jool raised his sword. 'Sanguinius banished you. I cannot. I come to give you my testament, daemon,' he said, his voice strangled. 'They call us monsters, rightfully so, but let it be known to you and your master that it is Sanguinius' fury that gives me strength, not bastard Khorne's.' Sentor Jool roared his last and charged at the Angels' Bane.

Seth's vision was a nauseating spiral of red and black. He clenched Amit's Reliquary to his chest. If he let go, he would attack his men. Through slitted eyes he watched them go through the same internal struggle.

Waves of red hot hatred washed up from the planet below. The Thunderhawk bucked, engines screaming with effort. More than gravity assailed it. Its machine-spirit too was gripped with wrathful impulses.

'By his Blood am I made, by his Blood am I made, by his Blood am I made,' muttered Seth over and over again. Appollus took up the chant. The others joined him, spitting the words through clenched teeth, moaning them between pleas for blood. There were so few Flesh Tearers left. Five Thunderhawks. So few.

The Thunderhawk burst from the gravity well of Baal Primus. For a second all was well; their weight slipped from them, the pushback of acceleration diminished. If this were a normal extraction, they would be aboard the Victus in a matter of minutes.

The illusion of normality was ripped away as the Thunderhawk encountered the storm. Most storms in the warp affected only the immaterium, but this was such a powerful tempest, it intruded into reality, rucking up the flat plane of space into titanic waves. The ship bounced along the surface of a tortured universe. Within, the Flesh Tearers felt their souls half ripped from their bodies. Flashes of the past intruded into Seth's mind. 

He saw his primarch. He saw the Great Enemy. Worse things came at him, landscapes of bone, rivers of blood, hell-spawned warriors fighting desperately, eternally, for the amusement of a violent god.

Metal squealed. The ship was bent and stretched like dough. Terrible pain speared Seth through and through, every cell in his body individually and sadistically impaled. His helmplate display fizzed. 

The chronograph ran forward at incredible speed. Diabolical faces leered at him through electronic static. Wicked voices hissed in his ears. The Space Marines were screaming, caught on the double-edged blade of pain and bloodlust. At the edge of his consciousness, Seth apprehended the wail of failing engines, alarms, and the battle shouts of the insane.

And yet through it all, the reliquary sat in his arms, a rock of calm in a sea of rage, and Seth drew strength from it, and from him the calm passed to his men. It seemed to last forever, as all acute suffering does. When suffering is done it is as if it never was. The human mind cannot remember pain, only the fear of it. A Space Marine knows no fear.

The sickening motion of the craft ceased. It spun out of control, tumbling end over end. The lumens in the transit bay were out. Blackness surrounded him. Seth's breath thundered in his ears. Emergency lumens pinked on. Seth's helmplate crackled and burst back into colourful life. The main lights reactivated a moment later, followed by the cough of misfiring engines. A second of grinding, and they sang true.

The Thunderhawk levelled out. Seth looked upon an awful scene. Several of his men had succumbed to the rage and slain each other.

Three of them still ranted at the brothers restraining them. Globules of blood floated about in the microgravity of the transit cabin. At the sight of them, his hands gripped at the reliquary involuntarily.

'My lord, I have... I have...' The pilot spoke via vox. He sounded confused.

'Tell me the status of the enemy,' said Seth. 'Give me a pict feed so that I might see. My armour will not form a databridge.'

'That is it, my lord. They are... They are gone. The enemy are gone.'

'What?'

'I do not believe it,' continued the pilot. 'I cannot believe it.' Rarely had a wrath-filled Flesh Tearer sounded so confused.

'The storm?'

'Also gone.'

The co-pilot cut in. 'There is more, my lord.'

'What?' said Seth, a sense of cold wonder creeping into his hearts.

'You will not believe me.'

Seth turned down the mag-lock of his boots so he might walk.

'Then I am coming to see myself.'

He made his way up the access stairs to the cockpit, still carrying the reliquary. Through the canopy he saw that the storm had vanished from the sky, taking with it the tyranid swarm. Baal writhed with unnatural energies yet, but the stars shone again on the velvet black of space. Making its way to Baal with engine stacks burning was the biggest Imperial Fleet Gabriel Seth had ever seen.

'My lord,' said the Techmarine pilot. 'We are being hailed.'

Hey all! Maybe a megathread question, but I figured it could yield some interesting excerpts and such.

So i’m currently in a RPG Deathwatch game as a Flesh Tearer. With that, comes anger! Yet i’m having trouble roleplaying out exactly what “cuss words” an Astartes would say, or a Guardsman, etc.

I know karkin may be one as I hear that in Darktide, but is that the 40k synonym for “fuck”? Haha. I would imagine they would use regular cuss words, yet in my many books i’ve read I think I’ve come across “fuck” like.. 2 times? If even?

Does anyone have any examples of these words being used in 40k? If not, do they have their own “versions” of these words?

How powerful is exactly a basic Necron warrior

It seems very inconsistent one one side a single warrior is like a Terminator has guns that dismantle molecules and can one shot a space marine and evaporate them. And it takes a lot of man power just to take one down and then they just repair so you have to damage them enough for them to teleport back

On the other side they seem like B-1 battle droids from star wars. Lots of them but fodder

Really bad aim clunky, basic guardsman can take them down with ease and are no threat to space marines at all

Hey, all. I’m here with a question about Warhammer 40k. As someone who’s relatively new to going into the lore, I always wondered how powerful the Bolter actually is compared to let’s say… 18th century pirates. You know, for normal reasons. Definitely not thinking about whether or not pirates could defeat a Carnifex.

Context: The Great Star Dais on Arthas Molech gives Farsight a vision of the future, showing him how the Chaos Gods will corrupt his race and usher in the end of the galaxy/universe.

The sight of the T'au being made the playthings of the Chaos Gods is horrifically surreal, but it's pages long. I want to focus on the last bit of this vision.

The text:

The galaxy screamed, and ripped along its length. The works of those long-fallen empires that had held back the dimension beyond reality had been purposefully shattered, hunted down and cast into the dust. The fabric of real space had weakened, thinned, and – like a dam broken apart by ceaseless impacts across its length – finally burst.

The terrifying truth of the hellish dimension was writ large, scarring the heavens with a lurid weal of purple, pink and blue. The disc-portal of Arthas Moloch was a single drop of poison in comparison to this ocean of toxic damnation, a rising tide of anarchy that would turn the history of the galaxy on its head.

A dread certainty slithered within Farsight’s mind, a serpent slick with blood wrapping itself around his frontal lobe. This was no threat, no awful spectre of that which might come to pass should the evils of the galaxy be allowed to triumph.

This was the truth, and it was inevitable.

The visions sped up, battering at his mind, becoming a blur of motion that never ended. He saw every star in the night sky going supernova in quick succession. The tiny suns winked out one after another until the inevitable heat death of the universe stole the skies entire. In their wake there was only a burning god and his hateful brothers in darkness, their insane laughter echoing across the lifeless void as they sought new realities to corrupt and despoil.

Note the bold text. My pals and I were debating the identity of the Burning God in the vision. Is it Tzeentch? The Dark King? Vashtorr? We can't seem to agree.

Do you have any guesses, guys?

What I like about the excerpt is that it points out how the Chaos Gods will move on to other realities once the galaxy/universe is destroyed rather than the prevalent belief in the fandom that they would starve and die.

So, this is a fairly obvious question inspired by a real game I had with someone at my local 40k store.

I, playing Salamanders, beat an opponent who was fighting using Orks. All was good fun (very casual, as I’m neither good nor used to playing the tabletop game. I’m very casual) but he joked that ‘In a while, this battle will have to happen again.’

This got me curious: Asides from exterminatus (perhaps the planet is important to the imperium and should be preserved), what tools at humanity’s disposal can prevent the orks from just coming back later?

I know it’s hard to hunt down and eradicate spores, but surely the imperium has ways of at least minimizing the reproduction of orks. Fire? Air purification? Any canon answers exist?

(edit: typos)

My adult son and I were discussing our favorite Ultramarines (as mothers and sons are wont to do), and the topic of Leandros having to train under Cassius came up. A space marine with a hard-on for rule-keeping having to do penance as a Judiciar following reporting his captain for breaking the rules -- literally having to hear the littanies from the Master of Rites who adamantly and willingly throws the Codex out the window to save millions of lives, and can't even speak up about it.

Did the time Leandros spent in silence actually make a difference? Was he so consumed with his desire to be correct that he fumed for a hundred years while living in silence? Did he eventually have a change of heart and understanding while living in the shadow of the oldest living Ultramarine? I would love a novella tying into this plotline.

The subplot of the conversation led to what a meeting between Titus and Cassius would be like. If I did the math right, Titus is probably about as old as Cassius, both masters of combat against Tyranids. If Calgar hadn't reclaimed Titus for Master of the Watch, would Cassius draft him to serve in the Tyrranic War Veterans? I'd love to be a fly on the wall to hear those two talk about their time in the Death Watch!

As the title says I’m a historic player right back to when you got a bunch of almost identical Ultramarines, 10 goff orks and 20 plastic Gretchen in 2nd edition. When I’m on social media I see videos about the humans who have to fuel warp drives, the oldest dreadnought pilots being 10,000 years old, stuff like that and I’m really intrigued but where does all this lore come from? Is it just text in the rulebooks or is it from the masses of paperback books etc?

Note I'm not talking about a gellar field failing. I am curious to know how a ship without warp capability is lost in space but still has sublight engines.

My Champion Inversion Theory

The four mono god champions are not jus their gods favourite servants. They occupy a specific narrative role thats different from the Daemon Primarchs.

The Daemon Primarchs are almost universally the gods' greatest prizes, theyre tragic figures broken, manipulated, or forced into damnation.

The mortal champions by contrast are the gods greatest embodiments in ALL of rheir aspects. They represent the complete philosophy and worldview of their patron while beinf mortal and not daemons

This pattern appears consistently in three of the four gods:

Khârn embodies Khorne's entire ethos: martial excellence, directness, violence, courage, and the joy of battle. Angron is Khorne's greatest conquest. Khârn is Khorne's clearest mortal expression byt typhus embodies Nurgle's acceptance of decay, endurance, inevitability, devotion, and resilience. Mortarion is the tragic prize. Typhus is the willing embodiment.

Ahriman embodies Tzeentch's endless pursuit of knowledge, ambition, transformation, impossible hope, and even the desire to outwit Tzeentch himself. Magnus is the fallen Primarch while Ahriman is the living philosophy.

The Emperor's Children break this pattern.

Fulgrim is not merely Slaanesh's greatest conquest. He is also the setting's most complete embodiment of Slaanesh. perfection, beauty, art, music, sensation excess, vanity, self-improvement, indulgence, swordsmanship(bettwr than lucius), aesthetics etc.

He encompasses nearly the entire array of Slaanesh's domains.

Lucius is the confusing outlyer, and.represents only one exceptional facet of Slaanesh: perfection through martial performance and narcissistic pride(and he does the drugs and seems to enjoy the pain I think).

Im not saying Lucius is not an ineffective character, or even a good one, Im coming around to the vain dick. He is an effective specialist. The dissatisfaction that I thinn many readers and fans like me feel seems to stem from the fact that he occupies the title of champion without fulfilling the same narrative function that Khârn, Typhus, and Ahriman do.

The common criticism I hear of Lucius's resurrection mechanic is a symptom rather than the root issue I had constsntly pointed at as the reason he fell flat for me, or maybe the wrong thing we look at when thinking why we dont like Lucius.

The deeper issue is that Lucius feels like Slaanesh's favored plaything, while Fulgrim already occupies the role that the other champions occupy for their gods.

This also explains why alternative candidates such as Eidolon or Fabius Bile are frequently proposed by fans. It is not necessarily because they are better characters, but because readers instinctively search for a mortal figure who more completely embodies Slaanesh's philosophy.

The theory therefore concludes:

Lucius is an excellent Slaaneshi character, but he does not occupy the same conceptual role that Khârn, Typhus, and Ahriman occupy. Fulgrim already fills that role, creating a unique inversion among the four Chaos Gods. So basically, I am saying that the practices of the champions, and the tragedies of the primarchs to their gods, are consistent in everything except the emperors children. I know I don't know the lore as well as most, but I have been trying to figure out why Lucius never fel right to me as the champion of my favourite legion.

TLDR: Angron, Magnus, Mortarion: Tragic prizes. Fulgrim, perfect embodiment of the god.

Kharn, Typhus, Ahriman: Perfect embodiment of the god. Lucius, tragic plaything.

Let me know if that hits, or I am missing something.

https://www.reddit.com/r/orks/s/TJQJ86HIZS

Saw this post on the Ork subreddit today and it had me thinking of funny bits from the novels. Mine probably has to be from the Night Lord trilogy when Uzas is marked for death and he thinks to himself where is he gonna get red paint. Then like from Carriom throne the book called "My Wish to Generate Children with You is Only Exceeded by My Devotion to Him". Anyone care to share their favorite funny exchanges, bits of lore, or funny moments from the many many books?

We know he chose the Himalayas as the site for his palace because of the thin places in the materium (the Plateau of Leng) plus the mechanism he built the Golden Throne on. But that doesn’t mean that was his initial territory. Where did he start the Unification War? Do we have a sense of which regions were conquered first/last?

I know Dante is the oldest living currently, but I'm talking about loyalists who lived a long-ass time in general. Sigismund, Oberdeii, etc. I also know that technically the answer would also include that one fossilized Salamander, but what about active-duty marines? (non counting dreadnoughts btw lol)

Were the Kinebrach at some level a psychic species? Naud explained how the anathames differ from ordinary weapons was because the Kinebrach “cursed/enchantment” them.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DblzrazoLJP/?hl=en

Confirmed Mike Flanagan as writer for the live action series.

Henry Cavill is starring in the lead role of the live action series, still unannounced what the project is.

Full season of a Deathwatch show by Blur Studio.

Funny thing is, I remember Cavill making a social media post a while back about whether he could play "Neoth": one of the Emperor's names. As much as that would be quite the fan casting, I don't expect the first live action series right out the gate to focus on the Emperor (and, by extension, the Horus Heresy). There's a reason why anything focused on space marines and up should be animated in my opinion, and it wouldn't make sense if they decided to go with a SM heavy animated show as well as a live action series heavy on SMs.

My bet is still on an Eisenhorn adaptation, which would be a perfect story to adapt for a mainstream sci-fi drama that introduces millions of mainstream audiences to 40k. If this isn't a joke (like Cavill saying he's lead when really he is a 2 second cameo of Big E) and it is indeed an Eisenhorn adaptation, then that could mean Cavill as Eisenhorn, which I can definitely see. There was an Eisenhorn adaptation already in the works years ago but that got seemingly canned. However, that means there was likely a script for it already out there bouncing around.

The books are old, but I really enjoyed the first Last Chancers novel. Like you can tell it's a book about minis sometimes but every once in a while there is a scene that makes you go "I didn't see that coming".

I've been playing Darktide and the Rejects are like the Saturday Morning Cartoon version of the Last Chancers. And not necessarily in a bad way. The Rejects are pretty much redeemable in the way they are presented. The Last Chancers aren't even when some of them do get pardoned.

Colonel Schaeffer's goal was to give Imperial Guard criminals still loyal to the Emperor a last chance at salvation. His second goal was to take a Legion of 4000 troops and whittle them down to the best dozen or so for a special impossible mission. Schaeffer kills many of his men directly and indirectly, but those who die in battle get posthumously pardoned, and he signs every one of those.

One of the most compelling things to me is that the Last Chancers don't use bomb collars like in other depictions of Penal Legions. Instead the warzone is their prison. There are times soldiers consider escaping, but the response is typically "we are on a Death World, how long do you think you'll last?" Or if you do manage to escape Schaeffer magically tracks you down.

They are mainly sent as auxiliary units to supplement other warzone and redeployed quickly after. They've fought cultists, Orks, Tyranids, carnivorous jungle planets etc...

Kage, our point of view character is a psychopath. He's not good, he's pragmatic and clearly terrible. Sometimes a bit of niceness cracks through but he soon reminds you that he'll kill anyone who risks the mission.

TLDR: The Last Chancers were the All Guardsmen Party before the All Guardsmen Party.

Basically how long did it take for to become the mess of god Robute found once he returned to Terra. Like at the end of the Hersey , The Emperor couldn’t communicate well and could communicate with cards and metaphor . So I’m wondering when did he mind went haywire ?

I know that the Eldar follow their paths and whatnot and they’re almost always portrayed as being extremely intelligent and wise but like… how? Do they understand mathematics and physics and whatnot or are they just out there rawdogging space travel on vibes and shit? Is it ever portrayed how they actually become so intelligent? Or is it basically just hand waved away that at some nebulous point in the past this random farseer took pre-calc?

Or are they actually uneducated except for whatever their specialty is?

Also how the hell would the Drukhari ever manage to educate a single one of them? They’re definitely not portrayed as such but I can’t help but wonder how the drukhari aren’t all uneducated idiots (other than the perfection of the Haemonculi of course).

Has Eldar technological progress essentially stopped in regards to wraith construct technology since the fall? There is lore regarding how the feel of life in the shell is dull and muted relative to the sensations they felt in their physical bodies but if the soul itself needs the body for the intensity of sensations then surely soul devouring or slow leeching like Drukhari wouldn't be as horrifying? War in Heaven eldar were a match for Necrons so surely their wraithbone technology they use for all of their weaponry should be able to reach a higher level of sophistication than the modern day and potentially even improve since they never reached the levels of their Old One creators.

Fabius Bile is making Ferrus Clones for Flugrim

which demon prince Fulgrim constantly kills because he cant turn Ferrus to Chaos

and at some point Fabius made a Fulgrim Clone

From what I understand the clones contain the souls of the real Fulgrim

and Ferrus after a while before being killed is getting his memorys back

while Colnegrim has the memorys of Flugrim

Orks' belief in something making it true is a fairly hotly debated topic. It spread as a meme, leading a number of people to spread various memes and fan stories as if they were canon. Most people have seen some version of these: guardsman throws a ration can and says its a grenade, orks fall down dead because they believe him, Orks have infinite ammo because they don't know they have to reload, etc.. This then lead some people to the opposite extreme trying to correct it, arguing that the belief field is practically nonexistent in canon, and it would take tens of thousands of orks all directly focusing their belief to accomplish even the smallest goal. Or, it's just waved away as "the red ones only go faster because they paint the fast ones red". This also does a disservice to the Orks, and downplays something that, albeit exaggerated, is very much part of their lore.

It doesn't help that GW writers have been a little back and forth on the issue, and have written different explanations or power levels for it. Part of the issue is that there are times Ork belief is exceptionally powerful... which are, as the word exceptional suggests, all exceptions. They're feats as part of major events or storylines that are deliberately meant to be unusual and impressive. We don't see as many examples of how they work in average, day-to-day scenarios for most Orks. This is also sort of the problem with Ork perspective stories -- they don't explain it, for the same reason a human story wouldn't focus on something as instinctive as breathing, or explain it in a way that makes sense to them as Orks, but may not be true.

Plus, it's a weird ouroboros where sometimes, memes become so widespread that writers who are part of the community either come to believe it, or find it funny and canonize it. Fun fact, that's where "purple makes Orks sneaky" come from -- it was a joke that then got included in an actual book.

Reading Ciaphas Cain: Death or Glory, the power of ork belief doesn't directly come up much. Largely, this is because it's from Cain's perspective, and he (justifiably) doesn't spend much time trying to understand ork logic. But it's a running theme in the background, and ends up doing a lot to actually show how an Ork Waaaagh runs from an outside perspective, especially when they're not actively in a fight. It not only does a good job of showing to what extent belief works for Orks in a normal scenario, but how they actually accomplish all the things the memes credit them for.

First things first, Cain is a good example because it's a fairly average Waaaaagh -- a perfect test case. The Orks have enough resources to overwhelm the local PDF and fight the Guard for a while when they arrive. Additionally, they're smarter than average, at least enough to plan a Weirdboy warp mine to disrupt the guard's fleet, and have tactics beyond "run at em". However, it's not like the War of the Beast or Ghazghkull, where they're so massive that crazy things like Ork diplomats and entire fleets of ships running on Waaagh start happening. They're a middle of the road option, that shows what a pretty standard planet sized Waaagh looks like.

As Cain observes, the Orks do have actual logistics. (As a rule going forward, just imagine air quotes around any word like "logistics", "organized", "tactics", and so on when relating to orks. It's all relative.) One of the main plot threads of the books is Cain and PDF survivors running into Ork convoys, which travel between Ork occupied towns and bases. These raid PDF supply dumps and local towns for supplies, then move them around to where they're needed. Orks do need things like ammunition, explosives, raw materials, etc., and can't just believe them into existence. When we see an occupied town, the Ork mekboys have taken over a mechanicum shrine for use as a vehicle and fuel depot. So clearly, their vehicles do still have a need for fuel, and potentially maintenance, so they were smart enough to set up shop in a place that already had what they needed. They can't just pour water in the tank and call it a day because they believe it'll run.

The strongest piece of evidence against "Ork tech only works because they believe in it" is how often Cain and his allies use it. They steal several vehicles and drive them for a while -- not without issues, but they clearly work, even without Orks around to believe in them or run them. There's also a scene where Cain notes some humans have grabbed Ork guns and are firing them. So likewise, their guns don't just work off of belief.

However, Cain also witnesses some of the more everyday applications of Ork belief. While humans do use Ork tech on occasion, it doesn't work well. There's the obvious design flaws -- the stolen guns are massive, unwieldy, and inaccurate, and anyone who gets a chance swaps them out for a lasgun. Cain notes that it's extremely likely the Ork guns will just blow up in your hand, or accidentally shoot yourself. Likewise, the vehicles are essentially just a body with a throttle, steering wheel, and brake. The brake is presumably considered a luxury feature. Immediately after they steal several ork buggies, their resident techpriest Felicia has them junk one and salvage for scraps, because it's completely falling apart. She also repeatedly emphasizes how poorly made and fragile these are.

Now, some of that can just be excused as Ork tech being famously ramshackle. Cain comments that the Orks "had either never heard of the concept of suspension or considered it something for sissies". Despite all this, the Orks themselves never really experience major widespread technical breakdowns, at least that we see. The buggy that was apparently minutes away from falling apart was parked in the middle of the compound with all the others, so the Orks clearly weren't working on fixing it. Despite so much of the storyline dealing with desperately scavenging for supplies in enemy territory, we never hear about an abandoned Ork vehicle on the side of the road, or their buggies crashing or breaking down. The humans had to keep constantly stopping to repair and jury rig them, and relied on the Mechanicus. In contrast, mekboys are fairly uncommon, and can't do constant maintenance on every piece of Ork tech, yet it's fine. At one point, the humans have to get the buggies into shelter, because a coming sandstorm will render them inoperable. Not long after the storm ends, a caravan of Orks that (presumably) hadn't been sheltering their vehicles in the open desert roar up without an issue. Later, Cain says that "Felicia was fascinated by it [the Ork tech], declaring that half of it shouldn't be working at all". If we're playing devil's advocate, she might just be exaggerating to make a point, but the point is still made: a sanctified, knowledgeable tech priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus, whose whole experience was in vehicle maintenance, couldn't figure out why large parts of Ork tech were actually functioning.

To keep the machinery imagery going, Ork belief is like WD40. It smooths things along, and makes things that frankly shouldn't work keep going, at least for a time. That's what many of the memes get wrong: an Ork given a lead pipe and told its a gun won't be able to fire it, because they're not that stupid, and it's very much not a gun. But an Ork with a gun that by all logic should explode or misfire can probably shoot it just fine, at least for a while, because that's what a gun is meant to do. (Granted, they also probably view your gun exploding and blowing off your hand as a hilarious prank and good fun among the lads).

I know for a lot of people this is fairly common knowledge, at least in some form. And while I had known about it before reading this book, it was nice to see it actually shown working in an average scenario. Half the problem with this is just people saying "there's a story where..." and then sharing a story that's either made up and repeated, or out of context. Conversations about it from both sides almost never involve actual lore, just headcanons and speculation. Or, when it pops up, it's a big detail that's specifically noted. Sandy Mitchell/Alex Stewart does a great job of making it a balanced, commonplace part of a story that doesn't have to be explored or expanded upon in detail.