Eternal War Quotes

“We're all dead the moment we're born. Just, some of us get there faster than others.”
― Alex Scarrow, The Eternal War

“I am no coward sir! I shall stand and fight!"
"Well, I am," said Sal. "So can we go... please?”
― Alex Scarrow, The Eternal War

“There's eternal opposition between yin and yang.
No third party at all, but treason occurs sometimes.”
― Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut

“In a world turned upside-down, where everything was wrong, bizarre, you could at least look up at the sky and see normality. Stars that shone regardless of who won a civil war, or who should or should not be a president. Their light was billions of years old. They didn't have a care...”
― Alex Scarrow, The Eternal War

“After all, what more does a true genius want? The mind itself is the palace where all the real treasures, the works of art, the indulgences exist.”
― Alex Scarrow, The Eternal War

“Say you release the Custodians from their vigil here. They say there are ten thousand of them. The enemy numbers in the billions. A lion is a poor hunter to set against so many jackals.”
― Chris Wraight, The Emperor's Legion

“I will meet the dying Emperor's empty eye sockets and tell him the war is almost over. At last, after ten thousand years of banishment in the Underworld, his fallen angels are coming home...These are the end times. None of you are destined to survive the coming of the Crimson Path. The Imperium has been losing the Long War since it was first declared, and now we enter the endgame. I will tell you everything, Inquisitor, because for you, it will change nothing.”
― Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Black Legion

“The door opened. I stopped. Beyond it, orks lined both sides of the corridor. They had been watching for me. The moment I appeared, they roared their approval. They did not attack. They simply stood, clashed guns against blades, and hooted brute enthusiasm. I had been subjected to too many celebratory parades on Armageddon not to recognise one when it confronted me. I went numb from the unreality before me. I stepped forward, though. I had no choice.

I walked. It was the most obscene victory march of my life. I moved through corridor, hold and bay, and the massed ranks of the greenskins hailed my passage. I saw the evidence of the destruction I had caused around every bend. Scorch marks, patched ruptures, buckled flooring, collapsed ceilings. But it hadn’t been enough. Not nearly enough. Only enough for this… this…

At length, I arrived at a launch bay. There was a ship on the pad before the door. It was human, a small in-system shuttle. It was not built for long voyages. No matter, as long as its vox-system was still operative.

I knew that it would be.

Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka awaited me beside the ship’s access ramp. I did not let my confusion or the sense that I had slipped into an endless waking nightmare slow my stride. I did not hesitate as I strode towards the monster. I stopped before him. I met his gaze with all the cold hatred of my soul. He radiated delight. Then he leaned forward, a colossus of armour and bestial strength. Our faces were mere centimetres apart.

My soul bears many scars from the days and months of my defeat and captivity. But there is one memory that, above all others, haunts me. By day, it is a goad to action. By night, it murders sleep. It lives with me always, the proof that there could hardly be a more terrible threat to the Imperium than this ork.

Thraka spoke to me.

Not in orkish. Not even in Low Gothic.

In High Gothic.

‘A great fight,’ he said. He extended a huge, clawed finger and tapped me once on the chest. ‘My best enemy.’ He stepped aside and gestured to the ramp. ‘Go to Armageddon,’ he said. ‘Make ready for the greatest fight.’

I entered the ship, my being marked by words whose full measure of horror lay not in their content, but in the fact of their existence. I stumbled to the cockpit, and discovered that I had a pilot.

It was Commander Rogge. His mouth was parted in a scream, but there was no sound. He had no vocal cords any longer. There was very little of his body recognisable. He had been opened up, reorganised, fused with the ship’s control and guidance systems. He had been transformed into a fully aware servitor.

‘Take us out of here,’ I ordered.

The rumble of the ship’s engines powering up was drowned by the even greater roar of the orks. I knew that roar for what it was: the promise of war beyond description.”
― David Annandale, Yarrick: The Omnibus