Distraction, pt. 1 and final

In which the undefeatable Supreme... Overlord... WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?

Story: Distraction, pt. 1 and final
Author: Torture-Device

Ladies and gentlemen, Distraction, pt. 1 and final (this is the actual title of the chapter as written on DA) features the very first shred of plot we have seen in the last 10 parts.

That's a significant problem.

Distraction is also the most excruciating sample of bad, broken, jumbled English trying to pass itself off as Frank Herbert we possibly shall ever see.

That's even worse!

This is going to be quite the ride.

Distraction, pt. 1 and final manages to be one of the the longest chapters I've seen yet (I suspect we'll be making that comment many times over in the course of this series), containing nothing but bad quantities of overexplanation, contradiction and lore-rape.

In fact, the part starts out with a bit of explanation of one of Torturer's servants: an apparent Adeptus Mechanicus magos named Phoeb.

Apart from having a hilariously funny name to say, Phoeb is remarkable for the fact his backstory is a retarded misconstruction of the Martian Priesthood's history.

The legendary mystique of the Priesthood, as Phoeb had learned, was more a myth, than reality. The fabled secrecy of Adeptus Mechanicus, their supposed elevation above the mortals of Imperium, even their autonomy was largely a farce - as well as the unity of their ranks and leaders. The Omnissaih was long forgotten, but the Emperor ruled with an iron fist. His servants, if needed, had burrowed deep into their sanctuary, dictating their rules, putting their needs... or the needs of the so-called "mankind"... far above everything else. Had they become a caricature, a mere shadow of their former selves? Phoeb thought that they did. He was even foolish enough to voice his opinions - and in return get his data slates razed, his workplace defiled, his name dragged through dirt.

The Great Pursuit came to an inglorious end when reality manifested itself in the ugly glory - the Adeptus Mechanicus cared more for abiding by laws and regulations of the Adeptus Terra, rather than for inner integrity, the heritage of Mars.

 So this guy went from being a nice person who builds toasters, to sticking daemons into guns just because he got kicked out of the Adeptus Mechanicus? Not a person of very good character from the get-go, was he?

Anyway, notice the odd language here. "The Great Pursuit" especially. This appears to be a mistranslation of "The Quest for Knowledge", which is what tech-priests (especially explorators) undergo to collect lost technology for the good of the Machine Cult. Be ready, because this mistake becomes a hallmark of this part.

Torture-Device also forgets that Tech-Priests do not worship the Omnissiah at all. They worship the Machine-God. The Omnissiah, according to the tech-priests, is the Emperor, who in turn is the Machine-God's representative in the material realm.

So in other words, with their stressing of a non-material god and prophesizing of His representative come to the realm of the living, tech-priests are post-messianic tech-loving space-jews.

"Time to chop your foreskin off and replace it with titanium!"

But you often hear tech-priests cry out, "praise be to the Omnissiah!" and the like, so I suppose Torture-Device is half-right.

Well, closer to a quarter-right. Tech-priests do indeed sort-of worship the God-Emperor, but definitely not as their god; saying "thank you Omnissiah" is like saying "thank you Jesus". There's a reason the manufactorum voice in Space Marine insists one must "serve the Machine-God" and not the "Omnissiah".

I also have complaints with the fact that it's well-known that the Ecclesiarchy does not fuck with the Adeptus Mechanicus.

The higher Magos rarely expressed any positive attitude towards his handiwork, all too preoccupied with pleasing Fabricators, Lords and a plethora of Ecclesiarchy functioners who more than ready to command and put their foot in any of the processes the Mechanicus conducted.

In fact, the tabletop core rulebook makes a point about this when it tells us the Ecclesiarchy turns a blind eye to the Machine-Cult so that they don't decide to implode the Imperium by shutting down the flow of every single fucking thing that all humanity need to survive.

So, now that we've fully explained how none of this magos's backstory makes any sense, let's move on to the real meat of this chapter. The black, rotten, worm-ridden meat.

Actually, I've decided I won't subject you to the text that comes hereafter. No, rather than waterboard you, I think I'll summarize. There's simply too much that's too painful about this text, and I myself had a hard time pushing through it.

Remember that mistranslation from earlier? Well, it's in full-force when this next part hits. Apart from insistently referring to craftworld eldar as "Asur" (the Warhammer Fantasy term for High Elves, based off the name of the elven/eldar chief god Asuryan) Torture-Device also makes reference to "Skeletal Architects" which are apparently some sort of eldar thing.

What he's really talking about are the bonesingers. You know, the eldar who use their power to shape wraithbone into weapons, armor, buildings and what-not. Sort of the core foundation of the craftworld lifestyle.

While not as bad we also get to hear about the "Eternal Circuit" (I suppose it's like a much more worthless version of the Infinity Circuit) and I'm left wondering how the blazes this guy knows so much about all this. You could say Torturer interrogated his eldar captives, but his crew speaks as though they're intimately familiar with craftworld culture.

So amid all this we are introduced to a whole slew of random out-of-nowhere new space marines who have apparently been living onboard Torturer's flying dildo the entire time. I can see no mention of them coming aboard earlier, which begs the question why the twenty-something space marines on Torturer's crew didn't just jump down together and crump Cailean earlier.

Furthermore, Torture-Device makes use of tacky naming by dividing these new marines into additional groups that spoof the name of Torturer's warband, the "Sick Six". There's now the "Stealth Six" and the "Siege Six" to contend with.

Haha... see, he's a nazi, it's funny. Get it? "Sick Six"? "SS"? Please rape my face.

But anyway. I promised there'd be plot.

So Phoeb has done something highly innovative: he's apparently created an imitation Golden Throne that serves the sole purpose of hooking up with the minds of eldar rape-victims to materialize weapons out of nothing.

Not just any weapons, though. You see, Phoeb has created a new form of matter, one so sinister, so evil, so mind-blowingly evil it can apparently destroy wraithbone like no tomorrow.

Magos-Excommunicate Phoeb has created...

SHADOWBONE.

 

Is that seriously the best you idiots could come up with? Shadowbone? What, were you high when you decided on that?

"Hee hee hee. Hey WalkingMaelstrom."
"Mwee hee hwee, yeah, Torture-Device?"
"Hee hee. We should-- ee hee hee, we should-- ehee hee... we should make a special kind of wraithbone-- eehee!"
"Heh heh yeah, special kind of wraithbone."
"Hee hee. We'll name it-- whoooo! We'll name it SHADOWBONE. How fucking clever is that!?"
"OMG IT'S SO FUCKING AWESOME DUDE! MY ARM IS SINKING INTO MY DESK YEAH!"

I'll bite. So let's assume this retarded magos somehow made this wonder-material. How is it he's the one that made the discovery of the almighty SHADOWBONE as opposed to one of the literal millions of other extremely intelligent tech-adepts in the Imperium? Particularly the millions who have better facilities than he does. Didn't the Emperor give serious thought as well to how to deal with eldar? If it's as easy as slapping a bunch of eldar to a chair, why didn't the most intelligent human being in existence, with tens of thousands of years of scientific knowledge, come up with it first?

Show a bit of modesty! This is a stupid idea and I don't see how it concerns anyone. Zekkel, being the idiot he is, insists it is the "bane of [eldar]" so I guess we're meant to assume that they'll, like, blow up a craftworld with it or something equally stupid. They insist they'll make torpedoes out of this SHADOWBONE, but I can picture how that will work out and it involves a whole lot of eldar ships blowing them up in the dead of space.

Well, actually, I suppose this explains the random warlock from earlier. But if Torturer were that significant a threat I'd think Ulthwé would go the route of hunting him with every resource available. More importantly they failed to foresee that Torturer's escapades would go this far. I know for a fact that farseers are much more "farseeing" than that.

I want to now look at the underlying themes at play with this whole shadowbone thing. Enough making fun of the stupid name, because I'm actually going to dive into the maddening waters that are Torture-Device's writing.

Wraithbone is the pinnacle of warp-manipulation in every respect. It's established that the prime reason the craftworld eldar survived the Fall was because the wraithbone that constructed the craftworlds shielded them from the raw power of Slaanesh. Wraithbone simply repels Chaos. This is why Altansar was able to survive unscathed during its thousands of years stuck in the Eye of Terror.

The whole theme of the eldar (not to wank myself off here) is that in all ways they are humanity's betters. A farseer is refined where an Imperial sanctioned psyker is primitive and natural. A farseer calculates where a sorcerer of Tzeentch prays and sacrifices to fickle powers. In fact, even amid humanity's Golden Age it's clear the eldar were still the masters of the galaxy. Their flaw as a race is that they royally wrecked themselves with the birth of She Who Thirsts. That's it. Space marines can kill them, but eldar civilians can just as easily kill space marines.

So eldar have already mastered how to make the warp work in a peaceful manner, which is why wraithbone, warp-made-to-matter, doesn't try to murder them.

But what does it mean when Torturer comes along and makes something better than wraithbone by using his brutish methods? It's Torture-Device telling us, "my character is better because I said so!" as he wanks off onto his keyboard. Never mind that he thinks eldar are defenseless weaklings who are easy chattel to be played with. The main problem is that this is the author insisting he's made the guy who can do what everyone else in 40K, every overpowered Special Character Matt Ward has regurgitated in the last half-decade, can't.

Torture-Device insisted off the bat with the creation of Torturer that he is intentionally meant to be a "spesshul snowflaek" character. That's all fine and well. He's made fun of the mind-numblingly stupid trends among the furries on deviantart and how everyone loves to stick their horrendous characters into their favored franchises as the big hero.

So parody is fine and well, and tasteful in its own sick ways. But at 250,000+ words in total for this monster of a series and clear planning all throughout, I am reluctant to say this was ever parody to begin with. He calls it parody to veil the fact that he just wants to do exactly what everyone else has done. All this ends up being is just terrible writing.

I'll make the rest of this brief for your sakes.

This segment with Torturer also revealed a genuine purpose to the Sick Six kidnapping Inquisitor Tina: they plan to use a highly powerful psyker she had imprisoned to produce shadowbone torpedoes for them to use on craftworlds. Again, the problem is that...

Ugh.

Just put the background on what we know about eldar aside and let's look at this logically. Torturer has one ship. If you were to attack one of the only few remaining centers of civilization for an ancient super-advanced people, what do you think you would be fighting? Is Washington D.C. undefended?

No. No government in the history of ever has been dumb enough to keep their capital unprotected and survived for any period of time. Craftworlds are no different. Do you think the craftworlders will just watch a torpedo hit them? Do you think they won't notice your obviously non-eldar ship approaching?

The last ~8 pages of this part are devoted to Epistolary Cailean again, much to our dismay. Really nothing happens, except that we are introduced to the most incredibly stupid and obviously corrupt inquisitor I've read of.

[...] His nails slid down the arms of his seat in the Council, chipping as he dragged his hands down the marble in futile anger.

Like with the most of the high-ranking Malleus functioners, Inquisitor Lord Morran Tenepht X appeared ageless. If anything, the receding hairline and graying strands gave out his true color… but where many Inquisitors have been submitting their bodies to rejuvenating procedures, Tenepht's age had been obscured by the mass of scar tissue covering his face. He sat slumped in his prosthetic exoskeleton, a clunky, brazen machine that supported his legs and lower body. It viciously climbed up his spinal cord and dug in, giving some mobility to his paralyzed limbs. The contraption surprised Cailean, for he had seen much more sophisticated augments – later he learned that the barebone construction was usually covered up with plating and served as a framework to the Lord's powerarmor.

Tenepht gurgled and panted behind the quivering mask of burnt skin.

[...] Tenepht smacked his cracked, inflamed lips and dark blood oozed out.
[...]

The Lord Inquisitor chuckled. A tip of his blackened tongue crawled out of the corner of his mouth, and probed at the oozing blood. Daemon fire burns never healed, but he learned to use that to his advantage.

Look at this guy's description. If this doesn't scream "bad guy" I don't know what does. He's closer in appearance to a haemonculus than he is to any good ordinary inquisitor I've ever heard of.

So Inquisitor Tenepht spends several pages accusing the Imperial Paladins of doing their jobs.

"What happened at Grexx cannot be explained by anything but deliberate sabotage of the Imperial Creed. As far as I understand, Master Quintus, after the rising of the cultist swarm and the battle that took place, the Imperial Paladin forces had been dispatched on the planet and took control over Governor Unellar's Administratum?"

 What kind of Inquisitor complains that Space Marines are combating heresy? I'm sure he complains that the Ultramarines are "sabotaging" the Ecclesiarchy's Imperial Creed, what with how they have an entire part of the Imperium to themselves. Maybe instead of going to the Imperial Paladins and upsetting them, he should have taken a look at things on Grexx first? Seen signs of battle, maybe? Checked for lingering corruption by the presence of fully-manifested daemons?

Torture-Device's spelling breaks down completely here. I see reference to Epsitolaries and Epistorlaries while Tenepht blabbers about the wishes of several Ordos like he's the head of the Inquisition. Nothing comes of it except several pages of pointless arguing.

 ---~~~---

And that's where we stop, because I grow tired and this chapter waxes long.

Last week Torture-Device put up a rant on his deviantart journal. While he is prone to this, this particular rant concerned nerd-rage.

In it, we are treated to this informative paragraph:

Some might attempt to say that I'm a nerd too, based on the fact that I do 40k shit. But many people wondered, why my 40k fancreations are so weird often and why they rile up so many nerds when I piss in their kool-aid? Here's the secret, come closer.... yeah, I have your attention? I NEVER READ A 40K CODEX THROUGH. Not a single one - I got bored. I read bits here and there or consulted an online source on matters. I have no fucking idea how stormbolters work, how many fucks a Sister of Battle is allowed to recieve, or how the Eldar language works. I don't give a single flying, crawling or drowning fuck. There's other stuff to delve deeper into, such as sociology, for example.
More over, as a kid I almost never watched cartoons, because duh - post Soviet Russia. I seen like 3 series of Star Trek and 1 movie in 2009. I like FPS shooters like Halo, and to be honest, I think pen and paper RPGs are lame as fuck. Point is, I'm too lazy to be a nerd even though some things I enjoy border on nerdfag shit.

The sociology bit is ironic, given that I've not heard of a single serious sociologist who hasn't at some point deconstructed racism as a social structure.

Torture-Device is free to like and dislike what he pleases. I don't mind. I've got my own sick, nasty interests. But pot, meet kettle, this guy is in denial here.

Torture-Device has contributed several novels' worth of fan-fiction to the world, not even counting the stuff that is not a part of Rivals Til Death. He does it with a near-religious care, making mounds of elaborate drawings and paintings in honor of his and WalkingMaelstrom's work.

If you want to put that much dedication into explaining why your self-insert character is better than every other thing, don't turn around and mock two Star Wars fans arguing about prequel vs. original trilogy.

I look forward to our next meeting, Kabalites!

- V