# Priests of Mars (Spoilers)



## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

I know it'll be months before most get their hands on _Priests of Mars_ but at the chance there will be any who would read my spoilers and discuss it with me, I simply must talk about this book.

*Warning spoilers below! Do not read this if you don't want to know anything about Priests of Mars.*

I'll start by discussing some of the highlights,



My favourite character in the novel is definitely the gestalt entity Galatea. Amorally psychotic, delightly insane, unafraid to assert just how powerful he really is and absolutely awesome looking, Galatea was one of the best things about PoM. Galatea is a machine intelligence that becomes smarter when Tech-Priests link into it adding their processing power to its own, similar to the Geth in Mass Effect, only Galatea takes it a step further by removing their brains and storing them in its chassis. Deleting brains as they become too mad from the horrible situation they are in or as they degrade naturally Galatea disgusts most of the other characters, especially after he takes control of the Speranza, due to his status as an abomination. Though he clearly is a monster he raised a very interesting point when Archmagos Kotov basically called him one for killing those he absorbs, Galatea counters by saying that their minds live within him and live for far longer than they would normally, whereas Kotov and other Magos harvest flesh from people so they can live longer and sacrifice those people in the process, asking Kotov if his heart is his original one and if it isn't then who died for him to get it? As for how he looks, picture the top half of a tech-priest wearing a hood and with multiple silver eyes on a blank face. Then for his lower body picture a scorpion's body with splayed bird feet on each of its legs, and around his body are the tanks that openly display the brains of the Magos's whose minds form his consciousness. Insane and awesome at the same time.




The return of Julius Hawke was an awesome idea, and this novel showcases much more of him in a different setting. One thing is fairly clear after reading _Priests of Mars_, Julius Hawke is a dirtbag. _Storm of Iron_ had him on his own against the Iron Warriors who are pure evil, and Hawke got plenty of heroic moments during that book but it never showcased how he interacted with other people. _Priests of Mars_ does. Hawke openly avoids doing his share of work in the enginarium, foisting it off on the Ogryn Crusha, and starts a black market booze trade and accepts anything in payment from the other menials, be it trinkets, small possessions, favours, protection and _companionship_ which he accentuates a little so there is no doubt what he means. And later in the novel when Crusha is decapitated by a Dire Avenger, after smashing around six Eldar, Hawke's only response when told the guy whose been covering him all the novel has died is, "Now that would have been a sight to see," which disgusts Abreham Locke. The novel shows more of Hawke than _Storm of Iron_ did and makes it clear that while Hawke is an expert soldier and is capable of heroics when he must be, he isn't a good person.




The Titans in the novel were another interesting point, though I imagine they will be either loved or hated once people read the novel as they are not like other Titan Legios. Legio Sirius is led by the Wintersun, a Warlord Princeps, who runs it like a wolf-pack. He is in charge but at several points the Reaver Titan Princeps, known as the Moonsorrow, openly challenges his leadership like a wolf would its alpha male. These Titans do not follow rank as its given, but rather follow the strong. After the Wintersun has a waking nightmare about his Titan being devoured by Tyranids and goes on a sleepwalking rampage, nearly killing the Moonsorrow and killing some of his own crew with the intensity of the malfunction, the Moonsorrow's princeps immediately begins trying to take over claiming that the Wintersun's time is done. He fails but its clear that he will try again another time. I enjoyed these Titans but I admit that their group dynamic is a strange one, one that is not reflective of the other Titan Legios we've seen.




Servitors are also greatly expanded on in the novel. One of the menials is turned into one for complaining too much and becomes a typical servitor, until he gets smashed on the head and it produces likely a miracle. He begins to regain his personality. So apparantely it is possible for Servitors to regain who they were, its just extremely unlikely and requires a powerful head injury. Though he does not completely remember everything, he remembers enough that its clear it isn't just random stuff or that he is malfunctioning, his brain has clearly been jostled around and is restoring what was taken from him. He also reveals that the Servitors always feel that something is missing, a sense that they are lesser than what they used to be, but do not remember things like he does. But they also do not like hearing him in their neural network as he reminds them of what they used to be. So Servitors are more aware than we thought, not by a great deal, but enough that it makes being turned into a Servitor so much more horrific. And the novel also reveals that aliens can be servitorised when the Ork Servitors appear under Galatea's command. He has taken an entire Ork WAAAGH! captive and after converting them into servitors, skins them and clothes them in vat-grown human skin simply to appease one of his minds who argues that it is an abomination, which is the Mechancius view on this practice. Aliens are lesser and not fit to be servitorised, only the perfect human form is. And of course they are monstrously powerful opponents, combining the mindless presence and lack of fear of a Servitor with the brute force and even more innate durability of an Ork. Not surprising that even a Black Templars Terminator has trouble with them.




A few cool references also caught my eye. One of the ships that joins the fleet bears the mark of Zahira, the Crone of Invigilata, as a reward after it destroyed the Ork Krooza _Choppa_ at Armageddon. A nice little reference to _Helsreach_. And the Forge World Graia from the video game Space Marine is mentioned as having created some of the machines aboard the Explorator Fleet. Little things, but its always cool when you get the references being made. I think there was one more but I can't remember it now.




The only thing that confused me is when the Black Templars leader Kul Gilead fights the Avatar of Khaine, its never made clear how big the Avatar is. It has to be big enough to fit into their Strike Cruiser's bridge, and its mention that Gilead strikes it in the midsection, but Avatars are always described as being far larger then that. An inconsistency perhaps? I think its more likely the Avatars can change their size based on where they need to fight.


Thoughts anyone?


LotN


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Just skim read - but in regard to the BT fluff, I can't foresee how an Avatar of War would look if it was too big to prosecute it's conflict. I've always wanted to see a greater avatar, the size of at least a Revenant. 

"I am the God of Hellfire, erm, War, and Death, and Um Destruction, and um I will murder you all, and cut your dick off, and shove it up you ass so when you shit, you shit all over... ah fuck it... it's a tunnel, let's go home guys."


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

The Avatar has always been a weird one, in the very original story when one fights a keeper of secrets he is as tall as the greater deamon, and back in the nineties it was well established that the game models were much smaller than the actual real thing but were shrunk down for ease of play. But deamons vary in size the great unclean ones on the cover of realm of chaos were the size of titans or could take the form of a portly grand father figure to walk through an empire village. But for me i always go with the size of the Forge world avatar model, for me that is the correct height in comparison to a marine and such.


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

Do you fancy giving a rough plot summary under spoilers LotN?


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## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Child-of-the-Emperor said:


> Do you fancy giving a rough plot summary under spoilers LotN?


I suppose but there's a good deal of rough, here we go.




The story revolves around the Kotov Explorator Fleet which is planning an expedition to the Halo Scar, an area of space where stars are aging abnormally and the gravity tides can tear a ship apart. The fleet plans to find the Breath of the Gods, a piece of archeotech that in M38 Magos Vettius Telok went to find, and never returned to the Imperium. The fleet is led by an Ark Mechanicus ship, known as the Speranza, and is Archmagos Lexell Kotov's last hope to expunge his disgrace and regain his status.

The fleet is joined by a squad of Black Templars led by Reclusiarch Kul Gilead, the 71st Cadian Hellhounds led by Ven Anders, a Rogue Trader named Roboute Surcouf and his crew, the Titan Legio Sirius and Magos Tychon and his daughter Linya Tychon. Each has their own reasons for wanting to go beyond the Halo Scar, and its the Rogue Trader who has made it possible by discovering a message from Telok that he received as a gift from the Eldar. Meanwhile Eldar from Biel-Tan are tracking the fleet, led by a Farseer whose visions show that her future daughters will never be if the fleet goes forward with its mission, she is obsessed with stopping them. 

After travelling through the Warp from planet Joura the fleet eventually reaches the relay station where Magos Telok was last seen, only to find that the station's intelligence has gone mad and become the creature in the first spoiler on my first post. The creature, named Galatea, agrees to lead them beyond the Halo Scar and is able to get some of the fleet across, though a Retribution cruiser and its escorts are lost to the Eldar who then board the Strike Cruiser and kill the Reclusiarch, and then destroy the cruiser. The Ark Mechanicus is able to fend off the Eldar and what remains of the fleet makes it into the Unknown Space beyond the Halo Scar and find a single planet, which the Rogue Trader names Katen Venia. The novel ends with the fleet preparing to explore the planet.



Of course that leaves out the character plots, their interactions with each other and exactly how the book ends which in my review, I stated to be the best parts of the novel.


LotN


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