# Views on Know No Fear *Spoilers*



## thebinman (Jun 18, 2010)

Finished this on the way back from the Lake District. A few views: 

In my opinion the best book I have read from the whole series, mainly due to the vastly superior representation of civilians. I cant believe that Abnett and Graham McNeill are writing the same language. May be its because no women feature, and I have let to see a rounded female character in the series. (just thought of the Mechanicum character who was admittedly very good)

The way that Kor Phaeron captured an admittedly weakened Roboute Guilliman was absurd. I would not expect the Warmaster himself to exhibit such power. Unless Kor has already been granted daemon hood, which is possible of course. 

Obviously the revelation of the immortal / very long lived Ollanius Pius was the high point of this or many of the other novels. I suspect that the need to not produce a cod highlander story line will stop him being similar to the Emperor in nature but I cant wait to see the future of this man. 

If the Ultra Marines were really reduced to 80,000 men I dont see how they can play such a large role in the scouring...unless there is a big gap between this and the Siege of Terra? (I only see that as nine years so I suppose a large rebuild is possible)...


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

80,000 men is a lot of men. That's essentially a full strength normal Legion.

Also from "Fallen Angels" we know that Caliban was capable of producing 5000 marines every year and a half (if I recall correctly, definitely less than 2 years) from a single deathworld's population.

Ultramar, with its 500 (minus one for Calth, maybe) would be able to create so many more so much faster. The main issue would be geneseed, but I'd imagine that a substantial minority of the dead UM's geneseed would still be harvestable.


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## TheReverend (Dec 2, 2007)

of course, the other question is, if they have 80,000 marines by the end of teh heresy, how come they only produced 23 successor chapters? 

I do think Kor has gained significant powers from the warp, but even they weren't enough to save him from Guilliman in the end.


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

TheReverend said:


> of course, the other question is, if they have 80,000 marines by the end of teh heresy, how come they only produced 23 successor chapters?
> 
> I do think Kor has gained significant powers from the warp, but even they weren't enough to save him from Guilliman in the end.


Because the Legion break up wasn't till after the Scouring which took 7 years in itself.


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## Rems (Jun 20, 2011)

That and it's likely they produced a hell of a lot more chapters than 23. The Grey Knights Codex states there were about 400 chapters from the Second Founding. I imagine anywhere from a third to three quarters would have been from the Ultramarines. 

The 23 successor chapters number is from back when the Legions were considered to be about 10,000 in size rather than the 100,000 average there is now. The new information from the Grey Knights Codex would suggest the Ultramarines only producing 23 Secound Foundings has been retconned. 

@OP

The Ultramarines were able to play such a large role in the scouring because they did not take part in the Heresy. After Calth, which occurred early on, the Ultramarines stayed in Ultramar rebuilding, with Guilliaman making a conscious decision to not go aid in the Heresy but stand ready to take over the Imperium if the Emperor falls. Once the Emperor had 'won' the Ultramarines were in a very good position compared to the rest of the legions.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

Rems said:


> The 23 successor chapters number is from back when the Legions were considered to be about 10,000 in size rather than the 100,000 average there is now. The new information from the Grey Knights Codex would suggest the Ultramarines only producing 23 Secound Foundings has been retconned.


I wouldn't even say retconned. I'm pretty sure both the Apocrypha had statements along the lines of "X number of _known_ Successors" attached to them.

Even if I'm wrong about that, there have been qualifiers such as the one from the 4E Dark Angels Codex, which states that there were more Successors than the three listed in the Apocrypha. Said Codex predates the novels that raised the bar to 100,000 Astartes/Legion. So even if the size of the Legions was retconned, the number of Successors/Legion was already by no means what the Apocrypha claimed. 

Cheers,
P.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

It slipped my mind, but there was probably a lot more than 80,000 marines at the end of the novel.

It said towards the end of the book that roughly half the marines on Calth were probably dead--so 100,000 out of 200,000. The other 50,000 were spread throughout the other ~500 planets of Ultramar.

So, that means anywhere between 180,000 (if the estimate of dead was a little high and a little bit less than half had actually died) and probably 120,000 UMs were left afterwards.

Still considerably larger than the second largest Legion and potentially twice as strong as a normal Legion.


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## Child-of-the-Emperor (Feb 22, 2009)

thebinman said:


> If the Ultra Marines were really reduced to 80,000 men I dont see how they can play such a large role in the scouring...unless there is a big gap between this and the Siege of Terra? (I only see that as nine years so I suppose a large rebuild is possible)...


There were several years between Calth and the Siege of Terra. After Calth the XIII stayed out of the rest of the Heresy and rebuilt their strength, thus becoming (once again) the largest Legion by far - especially considering every other Legion was taking heavy casualties during the Heresy. 



hailene said:


> It slipped my mind, but there was probably a lot more than 80,000 marines at the end of the novel.
> 
> It said towards the end of the book that roughly half the marines on Calth were probably dead--so 100,000 out of 200,000. The other 50,000 were spread throughout the other ~500 planets of Ultramar.
> 
> So, that means anywhere between 180,000 (if the estimate of dead was a little high and a little bit less than half had actually died) and probably 120,000 UMs were left afterwards.


_Know No Fear_ tells us that 30,000 survived the muster at Calth. 50,000 who were garrisoned throughout the rest of Ultramar also presumably survived (although given that Lorgar and Angron were elsewhere in the Ultramar Empire I doubt they all did). There would also have inevitably been XIII Astartes scattered throughout the fleet, although the casualties of the Underworld War have to be factored in. 80,000 Astartes immediately post-Calth would be a logical estimate in my opinion. 



hailene said:


> Still considerably larger than the second largest Legion and potentially twice as strong as a normal Legion.


Well the Word Bearers roughly maintained 150,000 Astartes immediately pre-Heresy whilst the average Legion size stood at 100,000. But I get your meaning.


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## thebinman (Jun 18, 2010)

I also thought the marine being chastised for researching fellow marine slaying was also a very nice piece of dramatic license. 

Great read. 

CotE: why do you think Angron is in Ultimar? 

By the way, cool new photo of Angron on Lexi:









http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:Angron_Primarch_World_Eaters.jpg#.T1YyhXm0M68


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Child-of-the-Emperor said:


> There were several years between Calth and the Siege of Terra. After Calth the XIII stayed out of the rest of the Heresy and rebuilt their strength, thus becoming (once again) the largest Legion by far - especially considering every other Legion was taking heavy casualties during the Heresy.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


There must have been a second quote later in the book that says only 30,000 survived. I can only recall midway-two thirds of the way through that one of the character mentions that probably half of the marines had been wiped out. I read it pretty quickly though (Abnett tends to do that to me, it's too good to read slowly). Could you provide the quotation of them being knocked down to 30,000 marines on Calth?

And was it officially retconned that the Word Bearers were upped to 150,000? In "First Heretic" it was pretty clearly stated that they stood at 100,000. Did they increase their numbers by 50% in the over the five decades leading to the Heresy? Or has it been changed that they were always at 150,000?

Seems an awful lot to recruit from a single feudal world. Plus I find it a bit hard to imagine they increased their numbers by 50,000 in five decades considering they were the ones winning the mot victories towards the end of the Great Crusade. Unless they utilized Chaos powers to increase their fighting ability, geneseed cultivation speed, or geneseed compatibility.


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## Khorne's Fist (Jul 18, 2008)

thebinman said:


> CotE: why do you think Angron is in Ultimar?


It's been mentioned by ADB himself over in the BL section. He's working on _Betrayer_, a sort of companion novel to NKF, which covers what Angron and Lorgar are up to insead of being at Calth.

As to the novel, for me it's one of the best so far. The way the story is told in real time works really well, and the fact that SMs are actually portrayed as superhuman is a welcome change. It's about time we saw them jumping from huge heights and pulling people apart with their bare hands.

There did seem to be a lot of loose ends. What was the deal with the contemptor? He only turned up at the end when all the action was over. It felt like Abnett had a bigger plan for him, but once again BLs word count restrictions got in his way.


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## Child-of-the-Emperor (Feb 22, 2009)

thebinman said:


> CotE: why do you think Angron is in Ultimar?


As _Fist_ said, AD-B said over on our BL forums that his next Heresy novel (_Betrayer_) will cover what Lorgar was up to whilst Kor Phaeron was leading the ambush at Calth. Angron was also with him which _Aurelian_ tells us.



hailene said:


> There must have been a second quote later in the book that says only 30,000 survived. I can only recall midway-two thirds of the way through that one of the character mentions that probably half of the marines had been wiped out. I read it pretty quickly though (Abnett tends to do that to me, it's too good to read slowly). Could you provide the quotation of them being knocked down to 30,000 marines on Calth?


I can't, havn't got the book with me. But I certainly remember reading it towards the end.



hailene said:


> And was it officially retconned that the Word Bearers were upped to 150,000? In "First Heretic" it was pretty clearly stated that they stood at 100,000. Did they increase their numbers by 50% in the over the five decades leading to the Heresy? Or has it been changed that they were always at 150,000?
> Seems an awful lot to recruit from a single feudal world. Plus I find it a bit hard to imagine they increased their numbers by 50,000 in five decades considering they were the ones winning the mot victories towards the end of the Great Crusade. Unless they utilized Chaos powers to increase their fighting ability, geneseed cultivation speed, or geneseed compatibility.


They numbered 100,000 during the events of _The First Heretic_, but increased their Legion size by 50,000 the time of the Heresy - thus becoming the second largest Legion. _Aurelian_ informs us that Lorgar was told during his Pilgrimage into the Eye that he needed more warriors for the coming war, thus over the course of several decades he accumulated them.


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## TheReverend (Dec 2, 2007)

hailene said:


> Seems an awful lot to recruit from a single feudal world


given that the Dark Angels were the most efficient at recruiting and they were producing tehe best part of 5000 SM's a year, 50,000 in 5 decades by the Word Bearers is possible, even taking into account battle losses.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Now that I'm back at home, I looked up the quote.

"We have built a picture of resistance across the planet. It is broken and scattered, but it is fierce. Spread across hundreds of locations, as many as thirty thousand of your battle-brothers and two hundred thousand Army and Mechanicum warriors are still active."

Thirty thousand is probably pretty low since that's how many were active and part of the communication network. How many units were confused, injured, incapacitated, or plain cut off due to jamming or equipment damage.

I personally think a lot more survived Calth.


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## forkmaster (Jan 2, 2010)

I think it is just the lack of communication that they estimate a certain number. Ultramarines had high losses, but it would most definitely be that many simply couldn't contact others that they were presumed dead. UM valued information, and I bet RG thought he would rather presume his warriors were dead, than to have imaginary potential armies to command.  What I loved about this book, finally I got my answer about Chapters, how they were built up and all that.

We know 200 000 UM were present at Calth, and around 50 000 WB (five Chapters) and also that the first 10 companies formed first Chapter, the 11-20 formed second and so on.


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## Child-of-the-Emperor (Feb 22, 2009)

hailene said:


> Now that I'm back at home, I looked up the quote.
> 
> "We have built a picture of resistance across the planet. It is broken and scattered, but it is fierce. Spread across hundreds of locations, as many as thirty thousand of your battle-brothers and two hundred thousand Army and Mechanicum warriors are still active."
> 
> ...


Whilst that is plausable I am going to take it at face value. That way Guilliman's decision to remain in Ultramar throughout the heresy seems more reasoned and justified.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Child-of-the-Emperor said:


> Whilst that is plausable I am going to take it at face value. That way Guilliman's decision to remain in Ultramar throughout the heresy seems more reasoned and justified.


I just thought about this as I woke up (weird to think about Warhammer 40k right before work, right?)

The quote says across the _planet_. That doesn't include any marines in space. Which makes sense since communication with their naval and space-based forces had been cut off.

So that reaffirms, at least to me, that significantly more than 30,000 marines survived Calth (at least up to that point of the story).


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## Child-of-the-Emperor (Feb 22, 2009)

hailene said:


> I just thought about this as I woke up (weird to think about Warhammer 40k right before work, right?)
> 
> The quote says across the _planet_. That doesn't include any marines in space. Which makes sense since communication with their naval and space-based forces had been cut off.
> 
> So that reaffirms, at least to me, that significantly more than 30,000 marines survived Calth (at least up to that point of the story).


Yeah I mentioned that inevitably some Astartes survivors would have been scattered amongst the fleet. Although my (very rough) estimate of 80,000 included the inevitable casualties of the Underworld War as well - which perhaps would cancel out the survivors amongst the fleet (again, very roughly). Im standing by 80,000 being a reasonable estimate overall.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

So, on the assumption that the number of marines in space more or less equals the number of marines lost in the underground war in Calth...

That would mean, more or less, that every surviving marine managed to reestablish contact in the (off the top of my head) 20-30 hours after the attack? Give or take 5000 for wiggle room.


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## Child-of-the-Emperor (Feb 22, 2009)

hailene said:


> So, on the assumption that the number of marines in space more or less equals the number of marines lost in the underground war in Calth...
> 
> That would mean, more or less, that every surviving marine managed to reestablish contact in the (off the top of my head) 20-30 hours after the attack? Give or take 5000 for wiggle room.


I was careful to say _"very roughly"_


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Child-of-the-Emperor said:


> I was careful to say _"very roughly"_


I still believe that at least a significant minority of UMs were in the fleet.

Why would the Word Bearers, who probably had detailed information about the disposition of the Ultramarine force in real time, not try to board and take more vessels? Why only try to take a few? I'd hazard that there were too many UMs to make it worthwhile except for the largest, most powerful vessels.

There was at least 1200 marines aboard the "Macragge‟s Honour".

Luciel, the UM captain killed by Tchure, had his _company_ assigned to the close defense of Numinus High Anchor. I would assume that there would be many more anchor points around the planet, similarly defended, and at least a solid chunk of Luciel's company would have been aboard. And remember a company in this context being 1000 men.

Plus the Ultramarines, particularly Gulli, would have had a good idea on when the Word Bearer's were to arrive. No one seemed to startled at their arrival, so I assume that they didn't come particularly early.

I don't imagine Gulli, the Primarch of Logistics, being so far behind that he expected the Word Bearer fleet to chill around Ultramar while he gathered his forces. I'd think that he'd plan for a quick top-off for the Word Bearer fleet and then head off to kill the Orks. No more than a couple-few days before they left.

I guess they could have shipped the marines up at the last second...

We know that at least ~50 hours before Gulli gives the order to return fire, that marines were already moving to board, because Rubio and his company is waiting to board by that point.

That's a lot of time for a lot of marines of the most efficient, in terms of logistics, Legion to get aboard. I think.


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## mbatemplar (May 28, 2010)

Did no one else catch the massive spoilers regarding the anathame? 

That the object that Olls was holding in his hand was possibly the same anathame that was used to turn horus to chaos, and that it plays a pivotal role in the lead up to the duel between the emperor and horus. Perhaps serving as horus's achilles heel or allowing a shred of his humanity to return?

Furthermore, the role that faith plays in its usage was interesting as well


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## Child-of-the-Emperor (Feb 22, 2009)

mbatemplar said:


> Did no one else catch the massive spoilers regarding the anathame?
> 
> That the object that Olls was holding in his hand was possibly the same anathame that was used to turn horus to chaos, and that it plays a pivotal role in the lead up to the duel between the emperor and horus. Perhaps serving as horus's achilles heel or allowing a shred of his humanity to return?


It's almost certainly not the same blade.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

As CotE said, it is highly unlikely that a mere cultist leader would be given such a valuable weapon. If that wasn't enough it's described as an "athame" in the book. It's something completely different.


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## mbatemplar (May 28, 2010)

I do agree that it's probably not the same blade, but based on horus's reaction, I didn't think he knew that right away.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

Edit: I remember where Horus was!

Anyway, it happened when John happened onto Oll and they share the vision.

Yeah, it very likely was the same weapon used to wound Horus. Where he picks it up will probably be pretty interesting.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

hailene said:


> Luciel, the UM captain killed by Tchure, had his _company_ assigned to the close defense of Numinus High Anchor. I would assume that there would be many more anchor points around the planet, similarly defended, and at least a solid chunk of Luciel's company would have been aboard. And remember a company in this context being 1000 men.


I won't claim to be an expert, but I remember a quote from The First Heretic:



> One hundred thousand warriors in perfect formation, bolters held in grey fists, helmed heads raised in pride. A hundred thousand pairs of red eye lenses stared ahead. Squad by squad, led by Sergeants. Company by company, led by Captains. Chapter by Chapter, led by Masters.


This makes me think that companies were still at 100 Astartes during the Heresy - is there a quote elsewhere that claims otherwise?

Midnight


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

MidnightSun said:


> I won't claim to be an expert, but I remember a quote from The First Heretic:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Different Legions, different meanings.

The quote from _First Heretic_ comes from a Word Bearer's PoV. To a Word Bearer and his Legion a Company may very well mean exactly one hundred brothers.

In _Horus Rising_ we know that "hundreds" of Space Marines from the First Company were seen by Loken in the beginning of the book--easily meaning that more than 100 Space Marines made up the Luna Wolve's First Company.


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## forkmaster (Jan 2, 2010)

Simple math, there is approximately 250,000 UM, and there are 25 Chapters Master (one for each Chapter). Each Chapter contain 10 companies, which means around 250 companies (this is from the book, but I cant give you page number).

Divide 250,000 with 250, and you get 1000, which is the number organisation for each UM company. Now remember, as ADB said, this is only UM organisation, not necessarily all Legion formations.


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## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

Regarding the anathame, its not improbable that it is on Calth.

Remember, Erebus was there. And in the Chapter's Due, a blade named the shard of Erebus by M'kar is recovered from the Tomb of Ventanus and used by Calgar to banish M'kar.

So I wonder if Ventanus faced Erebus and took his anathame in Know No Fear.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

"an athame"
"anathame"
"anathema"

the choice of words is clumsy and I think that abnett tried to make a link between them that would be conciously picked up on - as equally clumsy as his use of the mechanism in first and only when he attempted to deflect interest from the spymaster instead of rawne. Strangely, when gav thorpe used the same mechanism in deliverance lost, he was slated "ahh wanker I saw through your gaping wide decoy plot" and yet when the radical inquisitor is revealed to have turned the spymaster, abnett gets lauded for it.

er anyway tangential, but you cant disagree that such obvious 'traps' are laid by abnett, and this may simply be one of those things.


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## Cowbellicus (Apr 10, 2012)

"Darth Sidious"
"Master Sifodius"

Lucas pulled that crap in Phantom Menace (a pox upon it).


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

heh I liked phantom menace. no hayden panetierre or whatever his name was, qui gon, big lipped wide nosed huge eared lazy racial allegories, and a 'were gonna need a bigger boat' moment twice. dinosaurs with laser balls and forcefields, a proper baddy and podracing?

I still wonder why its so poorly regardrd. then again I prefer return of the jedi and the ewoks to empire strokes back, so what do I know?


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## Cowbellicus (Apr 10, 2012)

Well, I'm glad you asked. Pardon the complete and total thread hijack here, but every male over the age of 17 needs to watch this. All of it.

http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-wars/star-wars-episode-1-the-phantom-menace/

It is a brilliant, insightful, thorough destruction of phantom menace, told through a comedy vehicle.


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## COMPNOR (Apr 21, 2010)

forkmaster said:


> Simple math, there is approximately 250,000 UM, and there are 25 Chapters Master (one for each Chapter). Each Chapter contain 10 companies, which means around 250 companies (this is from the book, but I cant give you page number).
> 
> Divide 250,000 with 250, and you get 1000, which is the number organisation for each UM company. Now remember, as ADB said, this is only UM organisation, not necessarily all Legion formations.


I thought in the book it stated each Chapter was 10k strong?

I thought there was a thread about it, but can't find it. But what happened to Macragge's Honour at the end? Seemed like it took off in pursuit, and that was it.


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## hailene (Aug 28, 2009)

COMPNOR said:


> I thought in the book it stated each Chapter was 10k strong?
> 
> I thought there was a thread about it, but can't find it. But what happened to Macragge's Honour at the end? Seemed like it took off in pursuit, and that was it.


That's what he said. 250,000 Space Marines, 25 Chapters. 250,000/25=10,000.

I don't recall what happened to Macragge's Honour at the end, however.


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## COMPNOR (Apr 21, 2010)

hailene said:


> That's what he said. 250,000 Space Marines, 25 Chapters. 250,000/25=10,000.
> 
> I don't recall what happened to Macragge's Honour at the end, however.


My reading comprehension skills have sucked the last couple of days. 

And I found the other thread, fate unknown at this time.


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