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2024Panel 13Saturday 28th SeptemberWarhammer 40k

Rule Consequentialism and the Edict of Nikaea

In the Horus Heresy series, the Edict of Nikaea looms large as one of the setting’s most pivotal narrative events. With the Edict, the Emperor proscribed the use of Warp-derived psyker powers by the Legiones Astartes and nominally disbanded the psychically-gifted Librarius orders—at great cost both to the individual Astartes of the Librarius and to …

2024OnlinePanel 20Saturday 28th SeptemberWarhammer 40k

Only Beasts Fear Nothing: Philosophical Reflections on Fear and Space Marines in the Horus Heresy Series

Abstract One well-known piece of lore about Space Marines in Warhammer fiction is that they “know no fear.” Fans of the Horus Heresy series, in particular, will have read that Space Marines are not “built to feel fear,” that they are “immune to fear,” and that they are without “the capacity for fear.” However, fans …

2024Panel 19Saturday 28th SeptemberWarhammer 40k

Numerical Narratives: A Mathematical Look at the Horus Heresy

Within the broader digital humanities field lies the application of mathematical techniques to understand and quantify literature. The use of these approaches can provide a different perspective on a work, can enhance our ability to visualize complex and evolving narratives, and can potentially quantify aspects of the narrative. This last feature is especially relevant for …

2024OnlinePanel 17Saturday 28th SeptemberWarhammer 40k

Fatherhood and tradition in the first space marine legion

A major theme in the bestselling book series The Horus Heresy is fatherhood. The inciting incident of the series is the abandonment of Horus Lupercal by his father The Emperor, and many of the primarchs struggle with their positions as gene-fathers to the adeptus astartes, as well as to the various father figures in their …

2024Friday 27th SeptemberOnlinePanel 9Warhammer 40k

The Emperor’s Great Crusade, ‘instrumental reason’ and the ‘Dialectic of Enlightenment’: The Horus Heresy series from the perspective of philosophy of history

Abstract One would expect the Horus Heresy series to only expand on background information already available in Warhammer 40,000 rulebooks and codices to create fully-fledged novels. With the first novel ‘Horus Rising’ (written by Dan Abnett and published in 2006), however, the authors began already to add new aspects to the background story. For example, …