# Prospero Burns flaw



## Captain Sor Talgron (Sep 10, 2010)

Hi guys, been reading Prospero burns... took a long time to finish i can tell you. However one thing i picked up on which to me just does not sit right in the storyline.


As you all know it is a deamon of some kind who is responsible for setting Russ against Magnus because Russ believes Magnus has sent a spy on him and is dabbling in the dark arts etc.

Now what doesn't sit right with me is during the Council of Nikea, when Amon Tauromachian (Custode) takes the skjarl guy to the peak overlooking the council being held.

'Amon' from the Thousand sons appears and freezes Amon (The custode) and then reveals that The chronicler or Skjarl was actually sent as a spy, he then gets confronted by Bjorn and another space wolf i believe.

Now there is an altercation between Amon (thousand son) and the space wolves, and then Amon escapes and runs off...

Now if im not mistaken Amon (thousand sons) was part of Magnus's honour guard during the council of Nikea... even if im wrong and he was else where it doesnt matter too much. 


Now you have to think to yourselves here, if anybody even an Astartes was to pose any possible threat in the presence of the Emperor (remember they were overlooking the council) all hell would break loose! 

Word would get to the Emperor, Constantin Valdor, the sigillite about a renegade thousand sons, posing a threat however insignificant, the Custodes, Sanguinius, Fulgrim, Russ and which ever astartes was there would be down on Magnus and his warriors like a ton of bricks! Reprimanded there and then!

They would be forced to hand over any Astartes named amon, or face an immediate execution, but.....

they fly away as if nothing happened and remember the Emperor does not even mention any of this during his final judgement on Magnus.

Think about it...


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

Captain Sor Talgron said:


> Word would get to the Emperor, Constantin Valdor, the sigillite about a renegade thousand sons, posing a threat however insignificant, the Custodes, Sanguinius, Fulgrim, Russ and which ever astartes was there would be down on Magnus and his warriors like a ton of bricks! Reprimanded there and then!


The Emperor did recieve word of the incident, it is even implied that it had some sort of impact on the overall ruling of the council of Nikaea.



Captain Sor Talgron said:


> They would be forced to hand over any Astartes named amon, or face an immediate execution, but.....


Executing a Thousand Sons Astartes at Nikaea would have excalated the entire situation with dire ramifications.

But take into account it wasn't actually the _real_ Amon, it was a warp entity that attacked the Vlka Fenryka and Amon of the Custodes.



Captain Sor Talgron said:


> they fly away as if nothing happened and remember the Emperor does not even mention any of this during his final judgement on Magnus.
> 
> Think about it...


No he doesn't. But as I said above the Emperor was aware of the incident, it even being implied to have effected his ruling. The Emperor may not have directly mentioned it to Magnus during the ruling as the Emperor may have been aware that it was actually a warp entity and not a XV Legion Astartes.


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## genesis80 (Jan 12, 2011)

shouldent the real "strangeness" of the matter be, that the Emperor knowing that a warp entity breached the council subdued like 2 marines (rune priest too) and a custodes chose to........prevent the only primarch (besides the emperor) who could possibly detect and prevent warp entities from practicing his "sorcery". This should SHOW that conventional detection methods dont work on warp entities. 

(in modern times, that like...you know the enemy has a cloaked drone and you tell the radar operator (the one man who can detect cloaked units) to turn off the radar and start manning the turrets like everyone else)..*facepalm*

daemonic warp entities are manifesting in your most guarded locations, have the ability to subdue custodes and marines alike with ease (bearing in mind all this CAN happen with Magnus dead or alive or whether or not anyone is practicing "sorcery") and what do you do?..... Ban "sorcery". 

I can tell you, i would have done a million things differently and my IQ is supposedly lower than the "emperor". Sticking your head in the sand is, i think, the most unrealistic thing that could have happened in this scenario.


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## Captain Sor Talgron (Sep 10, 2010)

Okay, so you say the Emperor is aware of the incident and it has affected his judgement on the ruling.

But like you said the warp entity attacked the Vlka Fenryka and froze a custode, do you not think Russ would go berserk upon hearing that his warriors were attacked by what he would presume to be a Thousand sons Astartes?! It goes against his characters behaviour...

Secondly the Emperor knows there is so much tension between Magnus and the likes of Russ and especially Mortarion. If he knew a warp creature was present during the council there should have been alarm bells ringing that something was at work to divide his sons?

As for escalating the situation, The Emperor had the wolves stand guard, a host of Custodes was present, as well as Sisters of silence, Russ, Sangy, Fulgrim, Mortarion being present, their warriors aswell. Does that not look like an execution squad to you?

If i had four Primarchs on my side, i'd start a bloody revolution!


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## Giant Fossil Penguin (Apr 11, 2009)

It goes against the fairly 1D character of Russ that we had before this book. Now, when he's not 'doing a barbarian', the act that is expected of him, he can act like a Primarch- shrewd, calculating, intelligent and not throwing himself into a rage just because. It is the greatest cover any leader could have, a way to make any and every enemy pigeon-hole and underestimate him which only ever works to Russ' advantage.
After the incident at Nikaea, Russ knows he doesn't have to go belting off into the dark halls, his Legion howling and frothing to try to capture someone. He has the ear of the Emperor, and the testimony of a Custode and several Captains (First Captains, even) of fellow Legions to back up what he says. Getting Sorcery banned is a greater victory for Russ than anything he could get by causing a knife-edge situation to suddenly explode.

GFP


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## increaso (Jun 5, 2010)

On a separate note, I am trying to grasp the relevance of the words spoke to Ahriman by Magnus at page 276 of ATS (essentially along the lines of 'we have an asset in the Space Wolves, who doesn't even know that he is' - not got book in front of me).

Is this a flaw given that Kasper, who i presume to be the asset, was not in fact in any way employed by TS?


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

increaso said:


> On a separate note, I am trying to grasp the relevance of the words spoke to Ahriman by Magnus at page 276 of ATS (essentially along the lines of 'we have an asset in the Space Wolves, who doesn't even know that he is' - not got book in front of me).
> 
> Is this a flaw given that Kasper, who i presume to be the asset, was not in fact in any way employed by TS?


I also picked up on that. Perhaps it's a deliberate contradiction given Mcneill's own words:

"This has reared its head a few times, and it’s a recurring theme when writing in a shared universe that not everything will agree. And that’s not always a bad thing. Dan and I have engineered a few deliberate contradictions into the Prospero duology..."


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## Dînadan (Mar 7, 2009)

increaso said:


> On a separate note, I am trying to grasp the relevance of the words spoke to Ahriman by Magnus at page 276 of ATS (essentially along the lines of 'we have an asset in the Space Wolves, who doesn't even know that he is' - not got book in front of me).
> 
> Is this a flaw given that Kasper, who i presume to be the asset, was not in fact in any way employed by TS?


Not neccessarily - who's to say that there wasn't another mole in the Wolves' midsts? In fact, maybe that's what the Chaos Gods were banking on by using Hawser; they were hoping that Russ &co. would jump to the wrong conclusion about Hawser's nature and feed their paranoia about the Thousand Sons.


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## increaso (Jun 5, 2010)

Dînadan said:


> Not neccessarily - who's to say that there wasn't another mole in the Wolves' midsts? In fact, maybe that's what the Chaos Gods were banking on by using Hawser; they were hoping that Russ &co. would jump to the wrong conclusion about Hawser's nature and feed their paranoia about the Thousand Sons.


I'm inclined to agree with COTE (immediately above your reply).

I would find a one line reference to a different spy, that is no further elaborated on or referenced in either book, poor writing and I don't think that is what has happened on this occasion.

/shrug


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## Unknown Primarch (Feb 25, 2008)

without trying to flame a great arguement i just re-read the attack on prospero in TS and the writing quality compared to reading PB is phenomonal. 
mcneill either had a good idea before writing what exactly he wanted to do with the novel and was that good it overshadows abnetts work or abnett is overrated and just couldnt stand up to the challenge.

if this had a effect on why there is so many plot holes and contradictions im not sure but when i compared the two in how the whole plot and characters seemed to gel so perfectly in TS then it seems to me something is amiss in how abnett executed PB.

personally i think hawser is a WB plant as they had longest to plot and plant and agents they needed to execute their endgame plan and i actually thought hawser was gonna turn and see the urizen in his locked memories (gold light he kept seeing).


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## Dînadan (Mar 7, 2009)

increaso said:


> I'm inclined to agree with COTE (immediately above your reply).
> 
> I would find a one line reference to a different spy, that is no further elaborated on or referenced in either book, poor writing and I don't think that is what has happened on this occasion.
> 
> /shrug


True, but does it really need to be elabourated on in these two books? Magnus strikes me as someone who would be willing to play the long game and as such may have been holding back with that source for another time. Also, where would it necessarily have come up? The only time it would have been all that relevant is A) warning Magnus about Nikea and B) warning Magnus about the attack on Prospero. In case A) who says the source is infailable? Plus, considering Russ' distaste for Magnus, and his paranoia over Magnus having a spy in the Wolves' company, maybe Russ specifically covered that information up/used misdirection - Hawser doesn't know about Nikea or its purpose until he actually got there, so why would anyone else suspected of being a spy be told otherwise? In the second case, Magnus knew anyway, so wouldn't have even bothered using any spys he had.


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