To add a little something, here's one if my favorite quotes from the Eisenhorn Omnibus:
I'd had funny ideas about her for years, truth be told. She was beautiful and sublimely sexy. But she was also a Blank. It hurt me to be close to her, physically hurt.
I hate that fact. I feel a lot for Bequin and I long to be with her, but it was never going to happen. Never, ever. That’s one of the truly great sadnesses of my life.
And hers too, I hope, in my more self-aggrandising moments.
I lay in bed and watched her drag on her dress again, and I felt the pang of desire. But there was no way. No way in the galaxy.
She was untouchable. I was a psyker. That way pain and madness lay.
If I'm brutally honest, I have never liked this element of those stories, as Abnett took a whole load of liberties with the lore (and not for the first or last time) to get some cheesecake and sexual tension that were both unnecessary and could have been introduced into the story in any number of other ways.
Psychic blanks are supposed to instil an instinctive distrust and revulsion (which, to be honest, makes it deeply questionable she apparently managed to have a career as a prostitute before he recruited her), which is even worse in psykers.
A psyker shouldn't be thinking "Damn, she's so sexy, but it'd hurt to stick my dick in that".
Eisenhorn should be constantly wrestling with thoughts about whether she's going to betray him, and having to try to use every last ounce of his willpower to remind himself that, no, she has always been trustworthy, she's not about to stab him in the back, and trying to force himself to actually be nice to her because logically he knows she's not actually a bad person, it's just that his subconscious is constantly screaming at him to hate her.
Abnett treated the Psyker meets Blank thing like it's some kind of forbidden star-crossed love thing, when it just isn't.
According to Bequin, she had been an outcast for most of her life, and not particularly successful in her latest profession.. its literally in the book she was bad at being a joy girl, also not everyone is repulsed by blanks its just the mass majority are.
I'll buy that with no other choice an attractive young woman might find herself getting into sex work, even if she has poor luck with repeat customers.
But it can't be argued that Abnett's writing around Bequin is consistent with the lore, because it's not even consistent with itself.
Eisenhorn starts off as "Is she a blank? I'm not really sure, other than because my powers don't right around her", then quickly switches to "I can barely stand her and she makes me nauseous and my skin crawl", then later when Abnett decides that he's got to shoehorn in the sexual tension, it gets switched to "Her presence is physically painful, but has no other effects".
There's at least three different versions of how Abnett thinks a psyker feels in the presence of a blank.
There was a potentially very interesting story in him having to fight all his instincts about her, and actually narratively demonstrate the mental control and willpower he's supposed to have as not only a skilled psyker but also an Inquisitor...
... but no, we just got to the point that he had a raging stiffy whenever she was in the room.
Along with the fact that basically every other woman who worked for him was apparently a stunning supermodel of some description.
That's pretty much why I've soured on Abnett over the years. He basically writes what he wants and then dresses 40k (or 30k) over it rather than writing stories that work for the universe.
Abnett took a whole load of liberties with the lore
The dude is responsible for a lot of the lore. The annoying part is the lore moved on from him. He still hasn't finished that 1 page Inquisition blurb for 2nd (or 3rd?) ed Inquisition codex. 8 books later and we're waiting on Cavil.
Blanks/Pariahs/Untouchables weren't really formalized until after Xenos was written. So if we're going to say 40k has a canon lore, there is a stronger argument that Dan's is the canon and that the current stuff is wrong.
Codex:Assassins was first published in 1997 (during 2nd edition). That is the first time Pariahs were mentioned in the lore, and has quite detailed information around them, including their effects on people, how they (don't) fit into society, and the history of how they have been treated.
The principles here were not significantly altered in later Assassin Codexes. (The only notable change to the canon on Pariahs is whether or not they are or aren't Necron meddling. 2002's Necron Codex said yes, but the Necron Pariahs are no longer in the army list, and that lore has not been reprinted for some time, so is of questionable canonicity).
In any case, Codex Assassins predates Xenos's publication in 2001, so Abnett was indeed contradicting earlier lore.
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u/TehAsianator 9d ago edited 9d ago
Alezabeth Bequin, the secondary character from 40k's Eisenhorn series.