Divination part 3

In which Lelith sees the background lore of the Dark Eldar pummeled into bloody paste. 


Story: Divination part 3
Author:  WalkingMaelstrom SemperFiTRex

I sort of feel that I should've got the last part rather than Vect, simply because I'm the gladiator and he's the one that make the plans. Not saying I can't, dearies, I just much prefer to kill shit to pure plotting. It's boring.

That doesn't stop me from recognising lack of said plot in a story, short or like here, massively bloated out of all sensible proportions.

But a part of me giggles like a twisted school girl at the imagined reactions of Vect upon reading this part. I am pretty certain you will too. Ah well, Lords and Ladies, you will have to make do with me.

The last part was one long boarding action, ending just as the parley with the Dark Eldar archon was about to get under way. Oh, WalkingMaelstrom (and we will continue calling you that, despite the name change you cad!), you tease you! So, how does it begin? 

The Dark Eldar captain simply sat there, indignant of the haughty Warlock who, thirty minutes prior, had fancifully butchered his way through the good majority of his crew.  Weaklings.  That must have been the only explanation to why the warriors, sybarites, wyches, and Incubi under his command lay dead, disemboweled, and dismembered around his halls.  They failed him…and ended up a waste of his wealth too.  He would not be responsible for their demise upon his return to Commorragh, after giving this arrogant Asur what he wanted and him leaving.  There was a modicum of regret having eyes much larger than his stomach in the interests of plunder.  Making the first strike was indeed foolhardy.  His ship paid the price, and it was only his ship he carried genuine concern over.

Okay, captain... and not archon or even dracon? What? Also, has he been sitting there for 30 minutes not saying shit? As much as this could have been interesting characterization of the Dark Eldar leader, his arrogance in this comes off as stupid. Someone this incapable of realizing that he has clearly bitten off more than he can chew (and it is reflected upon), would not last long enough in the Dark City to get into the position of being commander of a raiding party. He'd be usurped and murdered before long. 

So, Devonar and retinue are standing there, staring down the Dark Eldar, with the wyches hissing at Elon'waen because women, am I right!? We also get this marvelous thing: 

  His darker kin had shut these sorts of features off, the power of the Warp frightening them.  Instead they either focused on transforming such unpleasantness into twisted pleasure or learning new ways by which to exact this upon their beleaguered victims. 

Okay... okay. Calm. Deep breaths, Lelith. 

WalkingMaelstrom has, for the past few parts, been busy butchering Eldar and Dark Eldar lore in Warhammer 40,000. But you know what, Lord and Ladies? I am saving that for later, for the end-cap. Because Lelith feels a raging rant coming on. 

So, the Dark Eldar leader, Zerubinth, demands to know the questions of the Craftworlders, now that they are here, but gets only steely silence in reply, which is very strange. Apparently Devonar is trying to upset them by remaining silent. 

We are also treated to a highly unpleasant form of body-modification: 

Leaning forward with hands clasped, Devonar continued to play the mute, analyzing the tightly-pulled skin and hate-filled eyes hooked and pierced with barbs and needles. 

Ow. Just ow. Eye piercings. Whatever will we think of next, eh? And really, needles? Barb-shaped piercings? Are you kidding me? Does this guy even realize what a barb looks like?

Mmh, I sure would love to have that in my eye.

Also, note to myself for the rant later: 

A pity to see how Asur had fallen so low to where they would loot, violate, and murder their own kind to slake the thirst of the very enemy they should be fighting together. 

And I've got another good 14 pages of this! FUCK! 

So, Devonar finally speaks and apparently he is doing some old routine, because Elon'waen recognizes it. What is it? Riling Zerubinth up! Brilliant! The idiot falls for it though, because we have already established he is an arrogant prat with no brains. 

Zerubinth had enough.  "I will carve your stomach out fro…!" As he lunged with arms outward towards Devonar's throat, his taut hair felt a violent grab and before he knew it the side of his face met the hard surface of the table. 

 I saw chairs mentioned before (but not used) but no table. Really, what is going on? Oh, and Elon'waen knows curses that Dark Eldar don't. What? How does that make sense? Cursing is part of an emotional life, something that the Craftworlders, despite their paths, have been busy excising from themselves, never mind what an Exarch is, and also ignoring -- once again -- that we speak THE SAME FUCKING LANGUAGE. So, a Craftworlder using curses that a Dark Eldar won't recognize is a far stretch at best and confusing at worst. 

And it isn't made better in that Zerubinth repays the insults mere sentences later: 

Zerubinth defiantly cursed at the Warlock something that would offend even Khaine himself. 

 Devonar finally gets under way with the questioning, after Elon'waen breaks Zerubinth's arm, and asks the question on everybody's mind, really. Why did the Dark Eldar fire upon the Craftworld cruiser that easily outgunned them? 

Self-defense.

Because expressing how stupid that is in words is impossible. 

I will just let that one sink in. 

Zerubinth fired upon a bigger ship, uncertain whether it had discovered them or not, because it was safest that way? I hate to restate the painfully obvious, but the man's an idiot. I'm feeling ambivalent over this, Commorites, because it means Elon'waen is not the dumbest cow in the room, it is the Dark Eldar leader instead. 

Zerubinth does elaborate that it was the drifting wreck that attracted them, and they apparently cut right through the Song of Vengenace's path in the Webway to do it... which you can't. The Webway is literally a series of tubes. Or tunnels.
Devonar does point out that there is more to this story. So Devonar decides to do the thing he should have done with Cailean back in Retaliation, but didn't because of plot convenience. 

Devonar had sought to mentally probe this captain even further, but it seems he was no fledgling simpleton ripe for it.  His spears into the Dark Eldar's cortex were met with onyx spikes and shields.  His recesses of memory bit him with the harsh realization that he did reveal himself as a Warlock, something the captain likely had training on how to counter the immense psychic weight he could bear.  It would have been child's play with a mon'keigh, but unfortunately the 'Eldarith ynneas' were of like mind.  He could only bring them discomfort instead of agony.  How disappointing.  Already precious minutes were spent chasing a fleeting dream, dialogue and negotiation lost on this imbecile, and making it even worse was the looming guilt that every moment of time not obtaining information was a moment that the soul of another innocent Eldar could hang in the balance, at the mercy of fate since the servants of the Soul Sucker would be showing none.  

This is another note for later, by the way. Also, I love the contradiction in here as well as the complete and utter breakdown of grammatical structure at the end. Seriously, it is hard to make out what the fuck WalkingMaelstrom is getting at! And this is another edited segment, it would appear, as the original had "druchii" instead of "eldarith ynneas". WalkingMaelstrom is learning! Or he's actually read this blog, and that possibility amuses me greatly.

So, Zerubinth doesn't cave that easily and Devonar continues to try to pry out of him and his cohorts what they are hiding. Not even when Devonar goes "bad cop" on Zerubinth, does he cave, because apparently Dark Eldar are now all masochists. 

Devonar after a while realizes it is fruitless to try to get information out of a Dark Eldar through torture, and lapses into a thoughtful silence, but is brought out of it by this: 

"Warlock!" His Lann Caihe had broken through the silence with a personal communication.  

Another unexplained Eldar word! It means executive officer, or more exactly "water bringer", and basically serves to replace the captain of the ship if he should start going bonkers. But without context or explanation, once again we are forced to wonder just what the fuck a "Lann Caihe" is.

It turns out the wrecked human vessel was a rogue trader. 

"We've detected the traces of technology of our own kin, judging by the spectral measurements we have just taken.  We are not sure what it was, but these mon'keigh did carry Asur belongings, those that were likely taken from our craftworlds.  The signatures are there, along with scattered remnants of the stolen work tearfully ripped asunder from whatever containments the humans had in place for them.  Doubtless this is the work of greater evils, Warlock." 

 Anyone betting against that this "greater evil" is Torturer and the Sick/Stealth/Siege Six? Anyone? Didn't think so, because it is Rivals Til Death after all. Though, then again, it would have been an impressive curve-ball if it turned out to be Orks. 

This information seems to take the Dark Eldar leader by surprise, I think, because the writing is muddled here, but he continues to stonewall Devonar for no other reason than spite and keeps insisting his daddy, I mean the rest of his Kabal will soon turn up and rescue him. Zerubinth is a villain, that much is obvious, but he is that particular brand of villain known in the business as Stupid Evil. Cartoonish levels of evil has its place, but that is usually places like Inspector Gadget. I can't even list the Smurfs here, because Gargamel had a clear intent in his evil and was actually, you know, pretty intimidating.

Looks notwithstanding... 

This is a stalemate. Thankfully, Elon'waen does something to break it up, in her own Lawful Stupid way: 

Elon'waen had enough.  "I grow tired of this!  Empty threats and double-speak from depraved psychopaths…that is all I am hearing!  Just give us what we want, instead of being a brood of obstinate insects, and we'll leave you to fester in your soulless abattoir you call a ship!"  Slamming her fist down on the table she screamed more demands to them, the pitch powerful enough to make the Dark Eldar around her grasp their heads from the sound, but to her dismay even such ear-piercing agonies were met with twisted smiles.  They actually enjoyed this in some sick way.  That above all else is what perturbed her when it came to these perverted relatives.  Her craft, her aura, her intimidation, all of it naught when trying to make these beings heel.  She was the damage to his control, and whatever did not make her feel that way only angered her further, fighting the urge to decapitate everyone in the room and further validate that haughty Ranger. 

More points towards the later rant, too. 

Zerubinth goes rape-face against Elon'waen and earns a beating for it. But we also get a telepathic conversation between Simhoen and Devonar. The gist of it is that they should keep the Banshee on a tighter leash and that she is still "young in mind". How old is Elon'waen then? Because somebody on the Path of the Warrior and this far down it, cannot be a child any more! How is it that WalkingMaelstrom seem to think acting emotionally childish is a strength? HOW!? 

Devonar gets her to stop, though. Then we're hit with another continuity break: 

Elon'waen released her grip on the captain and walked back to Devonar.  Her mask hid her utter scorn for the Dark Eldar and while she was unhappy having to cease her beating, a subtle facial tweak from the Warlock piqued her curiosity.  

 Remember that both Devonar and Elon'waen were wearing their helmets. Any facial expressions would be utterly lost behind them. Yet here Elon'waen is seeing a "tweak" on Devonar's face. 

Devonar has finally found a way to break Zerubinth's stonewalled, arrogant posturing. What is that? Well, after smacking the Dark Eldar leader around some more (without his Incubi bodyguard interfering), Devonar creates a miniature warp-rift in the air. 

A miniature warp-rift. 

I'll just quote the pertinent parts here: 

The Warlock grinned with an almost sinister delight.  In his many centuries serving the craftworld and upon his path, he had learned to channel the powers of the empyrean like never before.  He had learned this particular technique on his own, a very dangerous maneuver considered by most of his kin but in his vigilance to master the powers of the Warp he insisted he learned this art.  It had not occurred to him before that his darker kin had completely masked themselves behind their pride, ambition, and utter depravity.  They consumed, pillaged, and violated in ways worse than any barbaric ork or horrifying Tyranid monster could consider.  Yet unlike those two lesser races, they still carried one weakness. 

It was fear.  Fear of the unknown…and the very well known.  Since the Fall, the Dark Eldar had found themselves unable to avoid the temptations and desires of the same heinous acts responsible for the creation of She Who Thirsts.  Compared to those who had escaped in their craftworlds and pursued lives of utter diligence and discipline, standing ever ready to combat the fiends of Slaanesh, they had instead fled entirely, forming their murderous capital of Commorragh.  There they plotted, murdered, raped, tortured, and harvested the souls of any living being they could capture and play with.  But such activities were not simply for their own enjoyment.  They were more importantly used to stave off the desires of the Soul Sucker to where the sick god would not go after them.  Their modus operandi could be summed up as "much better you than I."  Yet in all of this, they still carried the surreal fear of the Warp, the destination for all of them to be the playthings of She Who Thirsts for all eternity. 

WalkingMaelstrom is partially correct in that yes, Dark Eldar do fear the Warp and She Who Thirsts. But he gets a few (important) things wrong. Again, I will save that for the later rant. Cock-tease, moi?

It is good to know that Devonar has served for centuries as a Warlock, though. And that he has a special snowflake ability to create small warp-rifts.

Tempting though it is to start showing every little stupid thing in this, like WalkingMaelstrom's misspelling of Zerubinth into "Zerubing", I will try to recap this as quickly as possible, because we're barely halfway through and I am starting to feel bored.

Devonar basically water-boards Zerubinth face-first into the warp-rift and this does not make Zerubinth's face melt off immediately, as it should. No, this is warp-fuelled water-boarding, dammit!

And Dark Eldar have acid spit just like Space Marines now.

A nameless wych has had enough and lunges against Devonar, only to be cut in half, literally, by Elon'waen. At least the stupid cow takes her duties seriously, which I can't say for the bisected wych. 

The warp-boarding of Zerubinth continues and we get this musing about Craftworlders and Commorites:

 He [Devonar] considered them just numerically superior to those of Comorragh and that carried the only advantage. 

FUCKING WRONG! And I will tell you why later, in the rant.

Oh, and WalkingMaelstrom's grammar starts breaking down here, with more and more misspellings, grammatical mistakes and missing articles. I wonder if Torture-Device coached him on this? That this is a very likely possibility actually chills me. It means WalkingMaelstrom has so little faith in his own writing that he listens to advice from a Russian barely coherent in English. 

They finally get word out of Zerubinth that they were looking into the drifting wreck because of rumours of humans dabbling with wraithbone contructs. So, we are reminded that Shadowbone still exists.

So it seems that Torturer and crew have been raiding Dark Eldar vessels too for Bonesingers. I've got a surprise for you, WalkingMaelstrom: WE DON'T USE BONESINGERS! It's not like we just take slaves to torture, we use them to build our structures because we don't use wraithbone! Wraithbone is solid warp-matter that has to be pulled out by a psyker, and psykers are the last thing we fucking need in Commorragh, what with, oh you know, BEING ON THE FUCKING EDGE OF BETWEEN REALITY AND HELL WHERE ANY ACCIDENT WITH A PSYKER CAN POTENTIALLY FLOOD THE CITY WITH LOLWARP!!

But the real question is: HOW THE FUCK ARE THERE EVEN RUMOURS ABOUT THIS? All they'd know was that some dope has been kidnapping Eldar for literally years now. The rumours about experiments make no sense, as up until recently the only people who could conceivably know about the Shadowbone project would have been Torturer, Magos Phoeb, Rakkes and maybe Zekkel. None else. Torturer and Zekkel made a big show to present the finished machine to the rest of the Engine of Obscenity's crew. They kept the reason for the raids of Eldar vessels under wraps and for good reason.

So how the fuck did Zerubinth's Kabal even know about this? The only answer I can give is because WalkingMaelstrom wants to key in Devonar on the game as quick as possible, but the end result is fucking sloppier than a Baconator!

Anyway, Devonar has trouble fitting it all together (understandable considering the circumstances) and orders his troops back to the Song of Vengeance, after collecting all the Craftworld tech and soulstones that they can carry. Because Dark Eldar apparently feed soulstones to She Who Thirsts. Someone is gleefully unaware of what the Incubi do with them!

Back on the cruiser, Devonar finds out that the Sick Six are going to the Maelstrom, and Devonar sets sail for that, but not before crippling the Dark Eldar vessel and leaving it to be preyed upon by humans. Devonar thinks this ironic. No. True irony would be to call other Dark Eldar, of another Kabal, such as the esteemed Kabal of the Black Heart of my dear Asdrubael Vect, and let them pick Zerubinth apart. That would be irony. 

We end on this line: 

Ahead of him lay the dark clouds of the coming storm. 

And that storm is my pent up rage. 

_____________________________________________________________ 

I'm going to start off with stepping outside the Lelith persona and speak to you as one gamer to another, because this concerns basic concepts of lore, however loosely that can be used in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

The first thing y'all need to understand is that Dark Eldar are essentially Drow knock-offs. As such, they are firm Type 4s on TVTropes list of Chaotic Evil examples. How are they Drow knock-offs? Apart from the whole evil space elves thing; that they can see in the dark and that they have their own little Underdark to lord over, Dark Eldar also have a society in which the only law is "do what thou whilst" with the addendum "don't get caught, because then we act as if we actually HAD laws". The Kabal system is that way of maintaining a veneer of laws, which are basically: don't mess with our members or we will wreck your shit. But laws in the traditional sense, they are not.

Dark Eldar society is anarchic, dog-eat-dog and "to the victor the spoils"-style, but it is not without its refinement, because it is still Eldar, ie elven. What it means is that to succeed in it, you need to have brains and cunning as well as brawn. If you lack either and start acting arrogant about it, you will be tested by somebody poking his dick in your pudding whilst knifing you in the back. Kabal or no Kabal.

So, with Dark Eldar being such murderous pricks, how come they aren't extinct? Because Dark Eldar use cloning tech, or a variant thereof. This method of procreation means that Dark Eldar are GREATER in number than their Craftworld cousins, belying what WalkingMaelstrom claimed in Divination part 3. The Dark Eldar that are born in the tried and tested, but slow, natural manner are known as Trueborn.

But let's get to the meat of the reason that Divination part 3 completely massacres Dark Eldar lore and background material.

WalkingMaelstrom insisted throughout the entire chapter that Dark Eldar use the pain of others and themselves to surrogate-feed Slaanesh, so He/She/It won't eat their souls, turning the Dark Eldar into sadomasochists.

This is not so. Dark Eldar feed on the PAIN OF OTHERS. They are to all intents and purposes psychic vampires feeding of the woe and suffering of other souls, using it to fill the leaky sieve that their own souls have turned into because of the Fall. And the older you get, the more pain you need to "top it off". The Craftworlders stop the leakage using soulstones, but the Dark Eldar do not have anything like this. The fact that Commorragh is located in the Webway to a great extent slows this process down, but every real-space raid conducted is a risk, but they have to be undertaken nevertheless as slaves are the currency of the Dark City.

So how can WalkingMaelstrom get something like this so very wrong? It would seem that WalkingMaelstrom was fed old lore about the Dark Eldar, old as in ten years stale, from someone, despite the fact that the new Dark Eldar codex was released almost half a year before Divination was written. This someone was not up to date and I want to choke him/her for it. Even worse, WalkingMaelstrom took their word as gospel without checking to see whether it was actually correct to assume it hadn't changed. Basic research is something every author MUST DO, doubly so when you are writing fanfiction (or licensed fiction, if you are doing fanfiction for money). 

Furthermore, Commorragh is located in the Webway, and because of Dark Eldar's reluctance to make She Who Thirsts aware of their existence and thus flooding the Dark City with eldritch horrors, it has caused their naturally great psychic gifts to atrophy to the point where Dark Eldar no longer have psykers. They are still vestigially psychic, as this is needed for their psychic vampirism to function, but not enough to attract any greater attention from Slaanesh, except on prolonged stays in real-space.

You know what? Fuck it! I will just link you to Games Workshop's own interview with Phil Kelly and Jes Goodwin as they spoke about Dark Eldar background and lore at around the release of the current codex.

These were available when WalkingMaelstrom wrote Divination, for the record. He simply could have checked Games Workshop's own website for them! But no.

And with that, I put my Lelith mask back on.

So, what did this little sidetrack of 20,000+ words lead to? Devonar learning that Torturer is going to the Maelstrom, through a plot device that MAKES NO SENSE! I repeat, how the fuck do they KNOW that experiments are even conducted on their own people, because as far as we know, Torturer has not let any Eldar prisoners go once they have been taken aboard the Engine of Obscenity.

It is a plot hole the size of a super nova!

I also realize that my intense anger over this part most likely have made it much less entertaining than it should have been, but I am so far beyond caring whether you laugh or not it isn't funny any more. I promise to better myself for the next part I recap for you, Lords and Ladies.

I hope this nice hot cup of Lelithian anguish filled you up nice and warm. 

And with that, I will leave you with Lord Vect once more. I hope he has calmed down from his explosive rage-bout now. He will need it for the coming parts, if what I saw when I glanced them over is actually true. Seriously, I thought I was seeing things. I did not think it was possible to stall the plot even further.

Stay cruel, my kin!

//L//