Gaming The System - The Feminist Gaming Podcast

228 - Word-Hammer 40k - Writing in the 41st Millennium with Chris

• Gaming The System - The Feminist Gaming Podcast

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Exploring Warhammer 40K: Writing, Lore, and the Power of Short Stories - Featuring Chris

Welcome back to another episode of Gaming the System! In this supplemental episode, our host is joined once again by Chris to dive deeper into writing within the Warhammer 40K universe. The conversation spans Chris’s journey into the 40K hobby, touching upon the evolution of the game, the appeal of different factions like Sisters of Battle and Death Guard, and the intricacies of writing compelling 40K narratives. They discuss how the vast lore of Warhammer 40K provides a rich ground for storytelling, the strengths and weaknesses of long novels versus short stories, and the importance of context and character development. The episode also explores themes like toxic masculinity, the complexity of space marines, and potential paths for the upcoming Warhammer 40K TV series. Tune in for an engaging discussion filled with insights and anecdotes from the expansive Warhammer 40K universe.

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Matt:

So welcome back to a, another episode of Gaming the System. We're joined once more by Chris, who we had long to talk about our writing in gaming episode recently. This little conversation is just gonna be between the two of us, and it's gonna be a supplemental episode where we expand on writing as we, we mentioned very, very briefly at the end of our writing episode. Chris, you brought up 40 K Universe and I went and I think Alex and Gem are probably don't, I'm particularly interested in it, but that's okay. There's, there's, that's, that's perfectly fine. We're also, if you're watching us, we're joined by Chris's cat.

Chris:

Yes, this, this is Riley. So if he if he makes an appearance again, you know who he is.

Matt:

It was like having cats wandering off on, on and off. So Chris, we. Start with tell me when,

Chris:

when and how you got started with with 40 k Sure. Okay. So this is a story of two parts. So I think I like the vast majority of people got into w when I was much too young to kind of really appreciate, number one, the hobby and the cost of the hobby. So myself and my good friends, we started playing when we were, we were kind of pre-teens up until we were young teenagers, and this was a long time ago, so I'm what, nearer to 40 than 30. So, it was probably about 15, 20 years ago that we were first started playing. And then like everyone does, we we grew up and, and kind of passed away from the hobby. And then my two good friends in the last few years have really got back into it in a big way. And I was not roped in. I, I I, I I came back in relatively recently and by relatively recently, I mean, within the last sort of year or so. So I, I have jumped straight into 40 k, 10th edition. And, and that's, that's kind of where I have now really become an enthusiast hobbyist as opposed to what we did when we were much younger, which was by armies and, and paint them, but not, not really kind of fully invest ourselves in, in everything. And of course it was a very, I dunno how long you've been playing, but it was a very different game back, you know, back 20 years ago to, to what it is now. And so I got into my first army in this kind of new iteration of the hobby. 10th edition got into Sisters of Battle who a a faction that kind of appealed to me the most. And I got into them about a couple of months before the brand new Codex came out. So that was really good'cause I obviously bought my first few models, could wait for the new Codex, bought the shiny new codex, which I was super happy about. And the, the Army boxes and have kind of been getting into them. And I've also, very recently, literally within the last two weeks decided on the second Army because the new the new death guard codex super appealed to me as well. And have spent far too much money on that, although I'm ashamed to say I did not get the fancy new Codex I was one of the unlucky ones when, when the release came around. So, so that's me. And from a writing perspective, which I'm sure we'll, we'll discuss. One of the things that I I. I was super keen to get into this time that I didn't so much when I was a, a, perhaps young teenager, is I've started to engross myself in all of the law and you know, bought myself plenty of of novels and, and all that kind of stuff to, to kind of give myself the full experience. So that, that, that kind of ties us into what we were discussing at the very end of that writing episode I was on.

Matt:

I'm very pleased. that you're all one of your favorite legions is the death guard because I'll, I'll introduce you to my entire army in a moment. So I'm, I'm very, very proud of humble beginnings and all that. And death guard gives us the perfect opportunity to talk about toxic masculinity. And

Chris:

Excellent.

Matt:

I came up with that. I came up with that like two weeks ago. And I'm very, I'm very, very pleased with that. It's enough to make yourself laugh. It's fine.

Chris:

Yeah. And me. And me and me, but I, I, I, I can't not laugh at a pun.

Matt:

hopefully a listener of you out there will at, maybe one of them will find it funny. Behold,

Chris:

Hey.

Matt:

my, my bodyguard.

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

He is just in case anyone's watching, a great big table behind me just appeared covered in Death Guard. But if you're, if you're, if you are watching, you'll see that it's just my four little plague marines that I didn't, so we are gonna, this is the, this is the, I'm probably the antithesis view. I think we couldn't be further apart in our journeys into 40 K

Chris:

Right.

Matt:

I, my, the first I was like, really aware of 40 k was within the last year. And I'd been listening to, it started off with, no, actually, yeah, it started off with, do you know the MEUs video game?

Chris:

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt:

Have you played that?

Chris:

I haven't, no. Although I, I have heard of it and and I, I was gonna talk about video games'cause I obviously want to bring up Space Marine Two as well.

Matt:

Absolutely. so that was the first, like me getting a, it, it's a really, now that I'm, I'm more immersed into the universe in general,

Chris:

Sure.

Matt:

really captures the flavor of adeptus mechanics

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

it, so the, it's the MEUs versus the Macrons

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

and the first off, the, the trailer for it is It's just a, a MEUs megas reciting a, a soliloquy

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

that I've listened to that so many times. I probably do it from heart and with so many the. I've come across the bits and bobs of the writer. Of the, the reading that I found of it is there are so many pockets of fabulous writing

Chris:

Yep.

Matt:

universe, and they don't necessarily pop up where, where you'd expect, so you can have it in a, random a random trailer to one of the games. And

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

just the, the, the vibe of the game was just really titillating. And then that led me to the, the Lutin nine YouTube channel,

Chris:

Yes.

Matt:

who is probably the, the chief of Law master the 40 K.

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

are you familiar with him?

Chris:

am, yeah, I'm very familiar. A lot of sleepless nights have been absorbed.

Matt:

Yeah, he's I, there's, do you listen to Eldon Ring as well?

Chris:

I, I don't know, and you did recommend it to me when we were talking last time about Alden Ring because and, and I think I'm right in saying that the 40 K universe is probably the most expansive piece of, of kind of fictional law universe. I don't think there's a larger one. And please correct me if I'm wrong, but I, I, I do think that it, it's, if not the biggest, almost certainly the, the biggest in terms of, of the, just the sheer amount of, of, of kind of law and not just law, like good to law, right. Like law that, that, you know, you, you've got layers, layers of, of, you know, political intrigue, of complexity, of of obviously war. And, and, and that that's one of the points that that's worth making. So if anyone's this, think you who appreciates world building, if nothing else, just the sheer scale and, and the impressive nature of the law building in the 40 key universe is something, something to behold, you know, that YouTube series, I'm not too sure how long it's been going, but it's been going long enough for there to be a lot of incredibly in-depth episodes. You know, just covering the law of 40 K.

Matt:

Honestly, the, the, I, I can't think of any, any, even if you just think of it in sheer terms of word count,

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

there's a universe fictional universe that has the sheer word count that the 40 K one does.

Chris:

Yeah, I, I, so I, I can't think of either, and it, it, it's kind of, in interesting to me because, and I, and I bring up the, the kind of love of the of the universe and, and, and the creation, but that there are some themes in there, right? It's as far as grim dark goes, that's about the definition, right? It's, it's, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty grim dark and, and I guess everyone might have their own kind of definition of, of, of grim dark, but but it, you know, it, it's, it's pretty grim. And the focus of the law is always that. There is war, right? It, it's, it's, it's not there's no downtime. You have multiple factions and and again, for those of you who who don't know it, it covers everything from robots to, to kind of gross aliens, to, to obviously genetically enhanced human beings to kind of ethereal space elves, space arcs and, and obviously inspired by inspired by a whole lot. But the fact that the world is, is never, not all universe is never not at war with one faction or another. And, and there's even, right, you even have factions say humanity that are fighting in of themselves, right? So, so you, so you are looking at a grand theme of nothing's ever sits still. It's super grim, dark, and everything is at war. So from a writing perspective, which I guess brings me to the, the first point I want to make is that when you, when you absorb yourself in the law, you, you understand all the history and, and how everything kind of ticks over. But when you are setting stories in this world where the, where the grand, the grand theme is when they, who is reading your books or absorbing your material is coming with the premise of or is coming with the with the kind of forethought, I guess, if that's the right word, when is the fighting gonna happen? That makes telling a story in my opinion, quite difficult. Because you've got an expectation. And maybe it's your audience where you've got people who are coming, coming to your book or your video game or whatever. And video games are obviously slightly easier to do this, which is basically like, I've bought this book because I play the. I played a game and the game fundamentally is a war game. This, there's two armies that opposite. You go, when is this going to happen in this book? And, and I wonder if you are an author or you are a writer and you've kind of got that overall looming presence of when are they all gonna start killing each other? How that impacts you as a writer setting a story.

Matt:

and the, the, the, the, the skill of the writer. Action and fighting and that shit is, is it's just word count really. You can, you can come up with ideas and then write them as, as in as long form as you possibly can. I I tried listening to the start of, there's the Horace Heresy series, and then there's the Solar War series, which is the, the Siege of Terror. And I've not read many of the books. The ones I have read the I I've certainly read are the first four of the Horace Heresy. I think those ones are fabulous. And I thought, right, I'll skip to the end of the Horace Heresy and see what this siege of terror is about. then were, I remember us talking about it in the writing episode, how that dialogue is the hardest thing to write. And what if you take. All of the descriptive stuff out of the start of the, the, the first War book. It's, it's like maybe four pages of worth of actually spoken words. And I go, that's a bit of a cop out because the fighting is fighting. But the thing that makes

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

is why we're fighting

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

and why are they fighting and what are the stakes?

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

Because, otherwise you go like, what's, what's the worst that can happen? And go, oh yeah, there'll be another battle. Whereas in the, I I, I reread the, the horse rising book recently,

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

there's so much I like, I like the depth of the space Marines that are on display in it, because. I have a lot of, I have a lot of gripe about the writing in the space. Marine two,

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

I know if.

Chris:

I imagine, I know we spoke about it briefly the last time we were on the podcast. It's pretty poor. Like, and, and I think that goes back to what I was just saying, which is 90% of people playing that game, they aren't gonna care if the dialogue's good or not. Like they, they genuinely don't. All they wanna see is, is the great big enhanced humans shoot the aliens. Right. And, and the, and the, the amusing thing to me is that that's exactly why people are playing the video game and also playing the, the, the board, the board game right. Is like, you know, and I, and I think I just talk about the game briefly. I think 10th edition for me is the best iteration of, of the game. If, if only, because I remember when we were playing as teenagers and literally all you did was lie in your. Your army's up and you just, it was last man standing. Whereas now the way that the game works is there are objectives and you, you, you can kind of get secondary points and it, and it, and you've got a lot more to do. And the reason that they've done that is, is because a lot of the armies are hideously imbalanced. Right. So, so you've got your, your kind of, ancient race of, of AI robots with, with their guns, that can literally phase you out of existence. Right? And, and you, and you are up against, you know, say my army, the Sisters of Battle, who, who are, who are women who, who are just ordinary women, okay, granted, they've got power armor but you know, they, they're not gonna stand a chance. And, but, but what you can do when you play the game is you can, you can come play for objectives. And, and the, the thing I love about the Sisters of Battle well one of the, the things I love about them is that, is that fundamentally they're martyrs. They don't care whether they live or die. Anyway. When I read the novels though, that's quite difficult to write and, and write well, right? Because, because in the, in the same way that, and I, and I've got Space Marine novel, which which I did enjoy which I'll talk about in a second. But it's got a similar problem to, to writing Space Marines. Right? And that if you are. Trying to write this as a battle, or the only way really you can write this as a battle who are idealized, idealized brainwashed from, from a, from a young age or pretty much from birth into this kind of heretical order sorry, the opposite order of of, of kind of religious fanatics. You know, that's a really difficult thing to write'cause they've really only got one thing going for them, which is, you know, we love the emperor. We worship the emperor. We've been brainwashed to, to, to kind of, have this, this guy as a God. He is our God, and we will do. You know, whatever in his name, we will fight for his name. We will burn in his name. We will do the stuff in his name. Right. Which is fine. When they're on the battlefield screaming and, and firing flamethrowers and doing all this kind of stuff. What do they do in their downtime? Yeah,

Matt:

on the massive long space journeys, what do

Chris:

yeah. What do they talk about? And then, and every single book that I've seen, space meetings do that. And I've seen Sister Battle do that. They never get it right. It never feels right. And and it, and, and I've got two examples. The first one is is a, a space w's novel called and I'll Get It Right'cause I, I do recommend it. It's called Blood of Heim by by Chris Wright. And it's it's essentially spacewalk versus death guard. In it, in, its in its simplest form. But what they do a couple of things in it that's quite cool. And the first thing they do is they bring a space wolf who has gone to join the Death Watch and they bring him back from the death watch into his, his pack. And he's immediately ostracized and his outcast because Space Force's whole thing is that they're a fighting pack and they fight together and they're Vikings essentially. And the the, you know, and so one of the main characters is, is immediately kind of at odds with that and has spent a time outside of that environment and, and now has questions and questions, how they've always done things and all of that sort of stuff. So that was straight away and interesting to note for me.'cause there's a bit of conflict there between characters who are usually, you know, as we were just talking about, space Marine Two, right? They're all together. They call each other brother a lot and they shoot, you know, and say, but what you're doing is you're kind of. Adding a little bit of complexity, which is just enough to make it interesting because he's there going you know, we, we all grew up on this planet. I've, I've seen things that none of you have, and I question the ways and the decisions and, and, and all of this kind of stuff. And the second thing they do, which is kind of interesting and, and cool is Sisters of Battler in it, which is the reason why I read it in the first place. But they are not the focal point of the story. They are secondary and in so doing, they can do all the stuff that this is the battler are famous for, but you never have to sit down and talk to one for any length of time because fundamentally they haven't really got a lot to say in, in of themselves in the, in the, in their kind of brainwashed world. I'm sure they're, I'm sure they're having great conversations with each other. But you know, writers like d Danny Ware who, who write, you know, says the battle books. And, and she kind of has them as obviously talking about you know, honing their combat skills and, you know, or that their, their kind of ritual and their prayer and all that kind of stuff, that's fine, but it's not very interesting. The second, third, fourth time you, you hear it, right? And, and so, but in this, in this in this spacewalks novel, you don't get any of that. All you get is there the kind of sisters battle of reaction. So, so obviously when the, when, when the pox, when the nogal plague enter, enters the city that the space wars are trying to defend. One of the things, and apologies, spoiler warning one of the things that they asked the sisters battle to do is cleanse half a city because, you know, everyone's getting infected and they need to cut, cut the spread off, and the sisters go, yep, we're on that. You know, we will, you know, absolutely no remorse. We've got it. And, and that's, it's moments like that that I like to see that kind of Bri you know, they've, they've used the kind of, some of the pins that w. If you're a fan of the Army, you kind of want to see and expect to see. They've kind of used that as a plot device, which I like, rather than the, the kind of the Army's gimmick being stretched out across a whole novel. Do you see what I mean?

Matt:

So they, they, rather than putting the entire novel on the back of the sisters, bring the sisters in to be a specific thing at a specific time

Chris:

Correct. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt:

'cause I, I, I completely get what you mean. I get, so recently when we were talking about. Gate three. There are two characters that are basically cult cult members. And they just, every other sentence is something to do with the cult. You just go

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

talk

Chris:

Yep.

Matt:

else. and I have this, so the, my

Chris:

I.

Matt:

my three favorite factions there are the Aeps MEUs. They're

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

my first road in then the Tes,

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

'cause the Tes are so terrifying. my and then death guard.

Chris:

Yep.

Matt:

I like the death guard, but they're, they're just, they're just cool and sick. And Mor

Chris:

Yeah,

Matt:

is, I, I, I would love to have a mor at some point.

Chris:

it would be a, a badass model to get, wouldn't it? And pay, I'm a little bit intimidated by it. But I I, I will, I will do it eventually. And that, and what is super amazing about the death guard in this space, Ws novel is that because they are the, the antagonist. But he does add in that that kind of giddy happiness, that the possession of Nogle. Has, so they, they aren't just, just kind of mindless, like there, there is a, there is a kind of like, that they are animated, but in a way that you are not expecting. Because there's, there's a joy there from, if anything, it's really creepy. It's, it's very cool.

Matt:

I love that. The, so one, one thing that they, a fabulous thing about this universe is the, I find the, the emperor and the pri marks and the space brings

Chris:

mm-hmm.

Matt:

fascinating dynamic because. When it's the, the golden Emperor his, with his perfect genetic sons,

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

like demi God figures, and they talk about the, the parade on all inor. When the emperor went, ah, I've done, we've done all the hardest stuff. I'm gonna go back home and work on a secret project. I'll leave it in your hands. from the perspective of the space, Marines and the humans, which is where we spend the most of our time, you, just see these God-like figures seem infallible.

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

as soon as you get into a room with one of the pri marks or two of the pri marks, you see that. Oh, it's the, the, the fact that it, it stayed together and seemed so cohesive was because the emperor was in charge.

Chris:

Hmm.

Matt:

when you, when you just take, it only takes two years for, for it all to fall apart.'cause and then you meet Mor and he's got fabulous, like, breathing apparatus

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

feeds him horrifying, like poisonous mixtures from all over the universe the fabulous drinking the cup scene with drinking the most poisonous thing they can find from a certain place. Then you go, this is a demigod being, why would they be so, they are, they are born to be. If, if all the other prime marks weren't there and the emper weren't there, they would lead. would lead, they come to be, they're genetically bred to be leaders,

Chris:

Hmm,

Matt:

you give him an opportunity to become the most putrid, poisonous, toxic thing in existence. And you say, oh, but what about the imperium and the golden God, emperor?

Chris:

hmm.

Matt:

And, and you look at the world eaters who want to just slaughter everything and annihilate everything and finding these incredibly, not all space marines are exactly the same. They're all, they're all, they're all, not all just brother shouting

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

like they come across in Space Marine Two. They are these incredibly strong characters where you go, why would anyone want to be a plague? Marine?

Chris:

Yes.

Matt:

go, obviously these guys would obviously want.

Chris:

Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and they're given like like the vampire thing, isn't it? You're given the choice, you know, do, do, do you want, do you want this kind of power in this kind of immortality? And a lot of people go, yeah, of course I do. Like, like, you know, and, and, and I will a another, another example for you because one thing that I've found from reading a lot of Wuh hammer literature is that a lot of success seems to be had in smaller formats. I. So, the, I, I guess not the sister's book, but the Book of Martyrs is a collection of short stories. And I liked that as a format. Some of them are better than others. One of the ones in the book of Martyr that is really good is and it starts off like all WMA stories do at a battle. But Asist a Battle is taken captive by Thet. And then the rest of the story is literally just an interrogation. And, and it is incredibly amusing. And it won't, it wouldn't be able to last for a whole novel's worth of this, but it, it, it's kind of perfectly encapsulates sort of what you were just talking about as well, about the kind of, the kind of, the way that the Ham 40 k concepts lead to such amazing kind of moments. Is, is you have, is you have the Tao. Trying to convince a sister of battle that their way of, of thinking is better. And, and this is a absolutely devoutly saying no in spite of all logic and reason. So, so you've got the ta the concept of this story is that the, the tower do what they have done for centuries to this planet. They, they basically kind of softly take it over by providing the local citizens with trade and, and, and all the, all this kind of stuff. But you just have to kind of subtly accept thet rule. And the imperium obviously hate that idea'cause it's their planet. But, but obviously it's just the battles there. They don't have the, the resources and so that the tower managed to, to obviously fight the. The, the remainder of the forces and just take this, this sister of battle hostage to learn basically what, how, and why these people exist. And, and they're basically saying like, you, everything that we have given you, everything that we're presenting to you is a better way and existence for these people. And also, you know, every, everything you believe in is clearly ludicrous. It is false. And, and to have a sister of battle just be like, I will, I will burn you the slightest chance I get. I will kill you and they'll kill myself and I don't care. And just the absolute exasperation of the tower this is, is that's like genius that it's so good. But again, can only exist in a short story format. And so, and, and I think that they've been doing that with some success. Have you seen any of the of the War Hammer online? Animations?

Matt:

Think so. Did you watch Secret Level

Chris:

No.

Matt:

recently? Oh, it's fucking

Chris:

No.

Matt:

It's a basically like 10, minute animated episodes

Chris:

okay.

Matt:

on a a particular video game universe.

Chris:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And one, yeah. I remember one, one being based on, yeah. I didn't see it, but it rings a bell.

Matt:

Yeah. And that was, that was, that was awesome.

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

I've massively come round to how extraordinary short stories can be

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

And the, it is like the, there's, there's nothing worse than a, a long book written by a bad writer

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

and. can have like a two page story written by an incredible writer it shows that it, it's, it is just a different kind of art form.

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

like taking a chapter out of a bigger book. Sometimes can punch in a different way when they're shorter.

Chris:

Yeah. Although I do, sorry, go ahead.

Matt:

I was gonna say so what were the, what were the, these online war hammer

Chris:

Oh, yeah, yeah. I will. Let me just let me just find, so, they're, they're kind of official games workshop kind of animations and they, they released them unfortunately. Through, through hamama tv. So it requires obviously the, the, the subscription. But they, they a lot of the content on there is really good. But the one that was the one that I watched it was in four parts, I think they might still be on YouTube is they called Pariah Nexus. And again, it's Sister's Battle because that was, that was kind of how I, how I was absorbing it. But it's a really well done incredibly well animated, but, but nice little, nice little animation and again, in short story format. So I almost wonder if for a universe as expansive and as, as, as kind of, just filled with law and, and concepts and, and kind of interesting moments that maybe that's maybe that's a better, better format to tell these kinds of stories in. It and, and, and I. Sorry, go ahead.

Matt:

I was gonna say like it's when with the universe this big, infinite opportunities for writers to come in

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

do things, so yeah.

Chris:

Yeah, and, and I think that, and, and I, and I don't know if if it's doing it a disservice to say that they, they, a lot of the, a lot of the concepts rely on one or two points of interest. And, and maybe, maybe it's your, maybe it's your user base. Maybe you're satisfying both.'cause like you said, like. You've said, say you have, you found respect for kinda short story format, because if you're a good writer, you can really make that work, but you're also satisfying your people who are waiting for something to kick off and for, you know, the, the guns to start going. And, and maybe that is a fast way of kind of a appeasing both audiences. And I'm just thinking that in my experience in, in a long novel format, I think the only successful one that I read in, in my opinion was the was the the Space Ws book because it combined three and, and did it successfully well and wasn't too long. And there was a bit of there was a bit of kind of complexity in, in, in the characters there. Like I say, some, some of the other sisters novels that I read were, that were novel in length or novella, I guess. Were, I. Heading towards that point I was talking about earlier where they were just starting to become repetitive because, you know, there's only so much that Sisters Battle can sit and talk about before it, it starts becoming boring. The one, the, there was one novel that I, I read, I think it's Mark of Faith, but don't quote me on that, where it was Sisters versus Thousand Sons. And, and that was kind of, that was kind of interesting because that was the first thing that I read where the, one of the pins for sisters is that they, in their ideology are super easy to manipulate by chaos because basically all you need is a way to communicate to sisters a battle that what they are doing is the emperor's will, and then you can get'em to basically anything. And that was basically the, the whole kind of twist of that novel. So, again, spoiler, if you haven't, if you haven't read that, but but that, that was kind of super interesting is that the, a lot of the, the quest for these relics that they were, they were going on, were actually. Well, actually chaos, just getting them to do stuff. And, and that was quite nice. But again, you can only really do that once and then, you know, that's, that's your kind of, that's your novel toll, you know? So again, maybe even for that one, a short, a shorter format would've been, would've cut down a lot of trimmed, a lot of the, a lot of the fat, I guess.

Matt:

Think it would, I think probably the hardest, one of the hardest things would be would be to write the sis of battle versus the Tyra.

Chris:

Yes. Yeah, because, because there is nothing there. There is, and again, like there is a short story where that happens. And, and yeah, I, and I can't, and I, I'll, I'll send you offline. The, the, the one, the book it's in, because I'd have to double check it. It might be Book of Marty, but I'm not too sure. But it would make sense being the book of Marty, but the, yeah. One of, and, and Orks again. Difficult because tyra's motivation and a's motivation are similar, although at least Arks can sort of speak English. Right? And, and there is in the another compilation of sisters short stories. There is a short story, which is has sisters in it, but is written from the point of view of ORs. And the whole thing is written in, first person about in, in how ORs speak. And, and that, that was heavy going. It was good, you know, it was, it was fun. It was, it was interesting. But but, but heavy going. But yeah, I, I was kind of with space screen too. I was a little bit disappointed that the antagonist was Tyra Ns. And I, I think chaos are in it as well. But I, I felt like, I feel like Tyra ns are always the easy option because you don't really need, need to give them any motivation.

Matt:

Yeah, that's my, my the most, sort of just, it's, it can't be disappointing because the, the, that's what the tes are. It's that I, I would, I want to, I was desperate to find as much Tyra Law as I could.

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

one of my absolute favorite looting videos is his, the, the first contact tes,

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

is only about a half hour long, but it's just the most gripping and horrifying thing,

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

But it, it's the, it's the same. It's the, it's the same horrifying Tyra nerds appear, do this

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

to planet, move on. They're they're like a, a, a natural disaster. You can't, you can't write much from a position of a tsunami or a hurricane. It's just it.

Chris:

I do, I do like, and you, you might have might have come across, come across this in the law, but there is an inquisitor who deals with with a Tyra invasion of, of planets literally by blowing up planets around where it's happening. And that I really like because it's ludicrous to basically have a, and obviously'cause the 40 K universe is so expansive that you can have stuff like that and you just sacrifice a few billion lives and then, and then your problem has gone away. They can't spread any further, you know? And you just kind of cross that off on a map and then move on with your existence, you know? And I do like that just for the, just for the, you know, there isn't another world where you could get away with doing something like that and have someone go, yeah, that tracks.

Matt:

Yeah. And the the one fabulous wow. particularly fabulous area that I think games like when you have writing, like in Space Marine two, misses the point of a grim dark universe in that it's it's a satire of reality it's going, there are no, there are no good guys here.

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

The uni, the there is, there's, there's only war for a reason. It's not, not just a, a theoretical thing. If you try and you've got a million, human worlds out there, you think, right, how are we supposed to, how are we supposed to manage that? If we go right, even if we have no external threats, there would be chaos anyway, and we've got. As many external threats as you could imagine. We could be allies with every other sentient race. And then s can come in from outside the galaxy and you go, oh, shit.

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

The gene Steeler cults and

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

all sorts of things that orks and that are infinite threats, like the orks are basically endless. And then the necros

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

out nowhere and it just, it's, and then you have people go, oh, but the space Marines are cool. They're such, these are like alpha males. This is how all

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

be. So for one thing, they don't have any sexual organs.

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

get them carved out. So that's one thing that just you, you can't try and draw like black and white comparisons between

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

world and k.

Chris:

Yeah. And, and I think you're right. And one of the things that always slightly irritates me is, is when, and Spaceman Interior is guilty of this where they, they paint the Space Marines as the good guys. Where it, yeah, against the Tyra its Sure. But you know that just in the scale of, of the 40 K universe, the vast majority of those millions of worlds you've mentioned will have never seen a Space Marine, you know? And, you know, having all those space Marines on, on that one world and then having like minus Kga turn up at the end of this kind of stuff is like, you are, you are really,

Matt:

bullshit.

Chris:

yeah, you are. You're just kind of, you are. You are, you're taking obviously such a vast and impressive world building feat and you are narrowing it, and you're narrowing it and narrowing it until you know you're left with only

Matt:

a Marvel movie.

Chris:

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

Matt:

at the end. Awesome.

Chris:

yeah. And, and, and I think, and I think that that's my point, is that like, and they do it all the time with Star Wars you know, like, I'm kind of a bit sick of, of stories about Jedi. You know, you, you, you, like, you and I, and I get the, I get the first trilogy'cause the Jedi the core when everyone was that kind of stuff. But like, I don't want to see stories about other Jedi. I want to see, like I, you've got a massive expansive universe there. Tell me an interesting story. You know, tell, tell me something where the stakes are equally. No, not equally high. I like, I like really low stakes. Right. And that was what was, that was what's really cool.

Matt:

stakes

Chris:

Sorry.

Matt:

when it feels like the

Chris:

Yes.

Matt:

it doesn't have to be.

Chris:

No, no, no. And, and that, that was what was that was what was really cool about and it's, the name of it is falling out the back of my head now. The ah, the bounty hunter, what's his name?

Matt:

Or

Chris:

Yeah. Yes, that was it. Sorry, I had a momentary brain. Brain lapse. But yeah, so, so the first step, the first season of that where, you know, it's relatively low stakes but you were getting so much kind of interesting. Stuff happening around in terms of the law and the planets and all that kind of stuff. Tho those are the kinds of things that I, I really feel like if they, if they were progressing in making a a TV show of 40 K, which I think they are'cause I know that Henry Caval is involved and all this kind of stuff, I, I really hope they're not trying to, I don't know, tell all of the horrors heresy in eight episodes, or do you see what I mean? Like, I, I really hope they, they're grounding it in a, in a kind of a time and a place, and they're telling a very specific story yet, but something low stakes and something where, where you are giving your writers room enough to create characters or use existing characters that can expand and fill the space that they are given, not the other way round.

Matt:

Yeah. Because the, it's the, the, problem with, and the beautiful thing about the biggest like universe, like, like fictional universe ever is that not everything can be. The, the fate of the universe is a, a balance.

Chris:

Yep.

Matt:

the Horace Heresy is so massive is because it's the thing that shapes the entire universe forever

Chris:

Yep.

Matt:

And if you tr you can't write something bigger than the civil war between the,

Chris:

Yeah, yeah.

Matt:

most powerful hearts of the, the imperium, and you don't need to,

Chris:

No, no. And, and you,

Matt:

oh, go

Chris:

and that's been written, right? Like, it, it, it's kind of happened and, and I know, I know it's kind of. It feels like a dumb thing to say, but like that exists. I I know, and that's why I, I know you said you've read some of the Roy books and they are good. So I, I will dip my toe into those, I think. But I kind of feel like it's happened. I know what's happened. You know, uht tell me, tell me an interesting story that I haven't read either, you know, through law or by by, you know, other means. Because they're definitely out there, you know, without a doubt. And, and if, if some of the things that we've been talking about today kind of mean anything in terms of what is successful then I think that you, basically, what you have to do is you have to unfortunately appeal to your audience that want to see space Marines shoot people. I. Like, you're going to have to do that because that's what sells the franchise. They, they've kind of made space Marines, whether you like them or not. They are the, they are the kind of staple of the franchise, right? So you can't not have them. And so e even then you're, you're, you're kind of, cutting away almost 70% of, of what you can actually do if you're saying that your story has to include Space Marines, right? And so I, I, I get it. Because you know, you're playing a video game, of course, you're gonna wanna play a space ring and have a big axe and cut tear nerds apart. I would like to, that'd be fun. But when I do that, the writer in me goes, yeah, but why, why am I doing this? What is my motivation for, for this, you know? And, and that's, that's what they've really gotta get. Right? Like, I, I wanna see the cool stuff, but I also want to, you gotta have the multiple levels of it.

Matt:

It has, it has it. I, I, this is a, a massive gripe that I have with writers, like the Space Marine ones. It's like they're, they're definitely given a brief and going, right, you are not in, you are not in charge of this project. You're not in charge of the,

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

you are not in charge of this. You don't get to dictate exactly what happens and why it happens. You have to, you have to write stuff within this set of guidelines,

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

surely a writer would go, well, they want me to write this. They want there to be no subtext. But must surely writers in, in games like that there, they can't go, well, there are no deep space Marines. not like there's any, any law written work to to point out Oh yeah, me, space Marines are all unique and different and distinctive. You can write space Marines that are really cool

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

badass, but also don't just say brother to each other constantly

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

completely surface level, surface level discussions and you just need to just need to sit back and go, right, what, what these marines have been through. Because the, one of the first things in in. Rising in the first ho is it's Gar who's one of the ho's captains talking to a, basically a journalist.

Chris:

Hmm.

Matt:

you think, why would a, why would a Space Marie talk to a journalist? Because it's'cause it's Horace wants the journalists to know what the, what the, the Great Crusade was about. So, so, oh, it's not just about killing things. he says that Space Marines have fear bred outta them, which comes to another toxic masculinity thing of showing, oh, these are alpha males. They don't feel fair,

Chris:

Hmm.

Matt:

when cataclysmic things happen, they feel something. They don't just go, oh, the, the in the emperor was just, my primark's been slain, my legion has turned against me. You don't just go, Stokely, go, oh, time to fight the next battle.

Chris:

Hmm.

Matt:

Writers, you have to, they, you have to look at the, the, like, the richness that this particularly bleak universe gives you the, gives you the option to, because

Chris:

Hmm.

Matt:

a fabulous, like the, the core satire of all of it is that the emperor is a God. And the, the, the what arguably starts the, the turn to chaos when the word bearers, he finds out that the word bearers were worshiping, worshiping him as a God.

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

And he loses his shit and basically breaks the, the word bearers. And so they go and find another God.

Chris:

Yep.

Matt:

And then once everything's said and done, and he's turned on the golden thrown. The Sisters of Battle, his most zealous warriors are the kind of people who he wouldn't he, he would've hated their existence.

Chris:

Yeah. And, and that, that's what's super cool as well. And I, and I, I love so much the I mean it's laced, laced with hypocrisy and all this kind of stuff, which is one of the reasons why it's cool.'cause like you say, it's satire. But I love so much that the, I love the implications that sister Battle in particular are so anti, obviously anti chaos, anti demons, anti all that kind of stuff. And there's a heavy implication that Saint Stine is a demon. And, and obviously that, that whole thing about the emperor, you know, being the most powerful psych that's ever existed whereas, you know, all the sisters battle do is spend a lot of their time hunting and, and slaying psychs. You know, I, in the name of a God who isn't really a God you know, is, is is kind of super clever and interesting. But again, we're talking broad concepts here. Right? Tell me a good story in those concepts. And I'm on board. That's all you've gotta do. It's like basic rules of storytelling. It's, it's not good enough just to give me a battle in an interesting concept.'cause I'll be, I'll be interested for about two minutes and then I'm bored. Like, and, and it, it, it can only work like that. You've, you, you, you've gotta go, you know? Go back to your basic rules of storytelling, gimme motivations. Give, you know, give me character led decision making. You know, give me all those things and then give me the cool battle in the cool concept, and you, you know, you've done it. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Matt:

like the, i, I played first few hours of, we'll bring this to a closer. We got up to an hour. This has been really fun and clearly I think we've got a lot more, got a lot more we could talk about. So we probably have this again.

Chris:

Yeah, that sounds good.

Matt:

I it for. About two or three hours. And then I stopped playing it'cause the writing was so bad. It, it, it spoiled the game for me. The, in terms of gameplay, it was fine. was fine, but it wasn't good enough to ignore to, to put up with the writing for it.

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

but then when I, I played Final Fantasy final Fantasy seven Rebirth,

Chris:

Yep.

Matt:

the story and the characters were utterly gripping. I loved it all the way through, but the, the combat was absolute dog shit.

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

boring, pointless. I skipped through it as much as I could,

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

was so good that I didn't care.

Chris:

Yep.

Matt:

And so the, the perfect mix is when you get writers who. Who can, who can write compelling stuff. then you add the gameplay together with that. And I'll end with like, I, I wonder, so I, I don't play 40 k yet. I am learning and consuming law and, and watching battle reports and live, live three hour games, trying to work at how it works. I'm also working, so I'm a video editor

Chris:

right?

Matt:

practicing turning full match into like a 40 minute battle report.

Chris:

Sure.

Matt:

So that's helping as well. And I like to imagine when I'm looking at a game, thinking about what the possible story could be behind what's happening on the table.

Chris:

So when you first play your first game. That is the most fun you will have. You, you, you can play competitively. I'm sure people do and have a great time and there's a meta and all of that kind of stuff. Fill your boots. But when I sit and play Magic the Gathering, or I sit and play War Hammer or Dungeons and Dragons, and I get that's, this is the main reason you played Dunna Dragons, but the war gaming stuff in particular, 40 k is the first thing we do is we sit down and we go, right, why are armies here? Well, what are they, what are they doing? What are they trying to achieve? Because if you don't do that, in my opinion, it's boring and, and you can turn up to tournaments all you like, and you can play and you can win. And I guarantee you, you will not have as good a time as the game you play with your mates where you've discovered, you know, at length. And, and that's where all the mo, that's where the good moments are. You know, when you, when you're down to your last few units and you've got a, you know, a sisters battle surround completely surrounded by Tyra and, and you know, they're going down in the next turn, but you know what? You roll some really good dice and Yeah. And, and you just, you know, they, they, you know, they take out the car fix in some freak, you know, incredible di dice roll, and then they all get eaten and it's, and it's great. And that's what, it's, that's what it is, you know, and, and, you know, yes, you'll, you'll lose the, the game. But it doesn't matter because you've had a great time and you've told a good story. And, and that's what I think some of the some of the fiction that I've read, just to kind of summarize what I've been rabbiting on about for the last hour, is that, that magic is what is, is difficult to capture. In, in, in fiction, and I've seen moments of it more in the, in the short format. But but yeah, I, I think that there's a, there's hope for the TV series if they can do that.

Matt:

I, I am slightly apprehensive because. Henry Cave's an incredible actor. An incredible actor, seems like a lovely bloke. But he, reason the Witcher happened was because of him.

Chris:

Hmm.

Matt:

the driving force that led that.'cause that's he's Henry Cavell, but he didn't, doesn't seem to have, it, wasn't smashed out of the park. And it,

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

it, it feels like if he approaches 40 K the same way he, he seems to have approached the Witcher. That's worrying because he's an actor first. And

Chris:

Yep.

Matt:

in order to, you, you, if he, if he had just played geral and didn't have any role in the, the running of the show. That would be, that would be different. And it's so worrying.'cause and, and like if I, I've not watched any of the Rings of Power series by, by all accountants. It's just awful.

Chris:

Right.

Matt:

and you just think that it's, it's, it's, it's a good thing that War Hammer is such an expansive, an infinite universe.'cause even if it happens and it's the worst thing ever, you can just, I can go and listen to that contact and.

Chris:

Yep. Yeah, exactly. And like I say, it would be, it would be a, a shame if if it was to receive such kind of, you know, high viewership and it not be the best example of, of what the, you know, what all the concepts in the world is capable of. Just as an aside, I know we're about to wrap up, but one of the things that absolutely frustrates me knowing about the Witcher is the production design is so inconsistent. I dunno, dunno if you've noticed this, but like, like the clothes that the people wear, they haven't seemed to find a cohesive, like design. So, you know, when you watch the Lord the Rings films and everything is so intricate and fits into the world and, and seems to, to to kind of cohesively, you know, work. Now when you watch The Witcher, have a look at some of the things people are wearing and be like, how, you know, how did they make that or why, why are they wearing that as opposed to not this? And once you've seen that, it's really, really difficult to unsee it. And it, you know, you, you get some of the characters in the Witcher that dress like they're going to some sort of eighties rock kind of convention. And then you get some that are kind of wearing, you know, armor that it seems really impractical for no good reason. And it's just, it's just really weird. And, and not only is the, is does, does the writing suffer and, and all of that kind of stuff, but yeah, I think, I think they, they didn't nail the production design of it either.

Matt:

Just that, that feeling of bad decisions have been made here.

Chris:

Yes.

Matt:

there are things that sort of, you'd think if you, think that there would be, there are people in the room that would go, oh yeah, that's obviously a terrible idea. And then we go through, we, you go through ideas until you find, right. These are all the good ideas we'll

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

the bad ones rather than, right. We've got Henry Cabell, there's Geralt, good idea,

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

everything else.

Chris:

Yeah. Yeah. I, I think, I think it was very much like, very much held up by a couple of good decisions. And then, and, and maybe, maybe that's why rings of power hasn't, hasn't been so highly, highly rated because there aren't really any good decisions in it.

Matt:

and the, the, the, the way it looks as, as well, there's a,

Chris:

I,

Matt:

there's a, a meme of, it's like, Boer and Far Mirror, like showing their arm, or it's like the, the Twilight of Godo and it's in, on

Chris:

yeah.

Matt:

legs and go door at the height of its power, and he's wearing like a dinner plate,

Chris:

Yes. Right. Yeah. And, and, and. Yeah. And that, and that kind of stuff is, is, and okay, I I am, I, I, I don't work in a, in a multi-billion pound studio. So, I, you know, maybe, maybe there isn't a level of QA that I'm expecting. There should be, right. But it, it can't surely rest on, on, on that, where they've basically gone, you know, you, you show somebody, don't you, that these are my ideas for the, for the, for the Gama. And somebody goes, no, no, this, this isn't gonna work. This isn't gonna fit. You're gonna need to redo this.'cause this is, do you see what I mean? Somebody with some sort of creative vision has to have given that the okay, or not as the case may be.

Matt:

It's, and again, like the, the, the Tolkien universe is massive as well, and like with 40 K, the writers have no excuse for poor writing because you could go, right, look at the entire back catalog of, of,

Chris:

Mm-hmm.

Matt:

40 K universe. And they could go, oh, well we've, we've never seen it on screen before. And they go, well, that's, that's an argument could be made. But with, with Lord of the Rings, some of the most iconic cinema ever produced the richest like films ever made. You just go, literally, if we just copied that,

Chris:

Yeah.

Matt:

copy that and start from there, but we'll, we'll have to come back and talk about the Tolkien universe.

Chris:

I, I'm sure we will. But yeah. Absolutely. Sounds, sounds good.

Matt:

Alright. Thanks very much Chris for joining us. Listen.