Chapter 20
381, If they're too young, you will die: Age of consent varies from planet to planet. Some say it's 18, others say 16 is good, a few say you need to wait till 20 and 21. But if you hit on an 18 year old on a planet where it's 20, you get a warning if you're an off worlder, and if you listen you'll be fine. Emperor help you if you don't. But on nearly every planet I've been to, twelve and under is considered way too fucking low. Damn near everyone takes poorly to those who just don't get this. I've even seen Chaos cultists get legitimately pissed and violent over this. The crowning achievement has to be the brother/sister pair we found dead. Judging by what was sticking out of the sister's head, someone beat them to death with a can of soup. The Commissar started to investigate the murder, found the plans the two had for their stay on the planet, instantly stopped investigating. Called it community service.
382. Some phrases ooze betrayal: Bit of advice. If anyone ever and I mean EVER says "have you told anyone else this?" you know what you do? You shoot them in the face, right there, right now. They are going to stab you in the back. Once, when I was just a corporal, I did one man recon into rebel territory. By pure accident, I stumbled onto a meeting between the Planetary Governor and an underground group of cultists, fifty armed men at the meeting alone. I instantly legged it all the way back to base and found my local commanding officer. She got me all alone, and asked if I had told anyone else. I don't know what came over me, but one second she was leaning over me with a motherly smile, and the next she was dead on the ground, my las pistol smoking. And she had a Chaos charm in her room. Thank god the Comissar took my word, otherwise she would have painted the walls with my brain. And it tells me a lot that she said "do you have any proof?" as opposed to "have you told anyone else." Because she had a brain. Unlike holey on the ground.
383. Don't try to dabble in local slang: With a million planets, it's only natural that there would be a bit of cultural drift in Imperial society. "Kuulfritqu" is apparently slang for beloved on this one planet in the middle of nowhere. Just one problem. "Kuulfrikqu" means "I challenge you to a duel for the hand of your beloved". Cue a very confused man wondering why a local drew a dueling pistol on him in the two seconds of life he had left.
384. You can't drown everything: Water's a funny thing, we need it to live, but it can also be an effective weapon. Ciaphas Cain famously drowned 7,000 Orks when they outnumbered him 20 to 1. But there are some people it just doesn't work on. Once we had captured twenty aliens that had opened talks of alliance with the Tau. I was guarding the room they were held in while a torturer tried to waterboard them...did I mention these were fish xeno that could breath in air and in water? Yeah, it was stupid and got boring. It went on for so long that I started teaching the others how to play Regicide through the bars, even as the one out of the cells got lose and drowned the interrogator.
385. Suicide attacks only work once: This is a concept the Imperium of Man likes to romanticize to a disturbing degree. Attacks where a soldier throws his or her life away in the name of hurting the enemies of man with their dying breath. Now to be fair, there are places where it's an appropriate reaction. When the Chaos Lord was rampaging across Imperium space, there was one incident where a lieutenant charged a Chaos Space Marine, melta charge in each hand, as the Marine rounded the corner. After massacring most of the base's garrison. There was nothing left of either of them. Honestly, I couldn't think of any other way to hurt the thing, and, sadly, one low ranking officer for a Chaos Space Marine is a trade anyone would make. But that man sold his life at a high price. Some people sell their lives for nothing. One woman grabbed all of the grenades in her squad, pulled all the pins, and ran into the thick of a Tyranid horde. Or rather, she tried to. The grenades went off when she was only halfway there. You don't get a fucking second try with these kinds of attacks people.
386. Things falling from high up can hurt: It's a basic concept, but an effective one. You just need to see the result of an Ork Rok to see that. If those shit for brains can get it, why can't you? Upper balcony of a mountain fortress, guy tosses a rock off for shits and giggles. Lady on patrol at the bottom nearly dies, five broken ribs and a severed spine. Her girlfriend made sure she was all right, got her treatment, put in the order for cybernetics, went up too, made sure the bottom was clear, and threw the dumb ass down herself.
387. Make sure you fit: You know what's impressive? A Rogue Trader with her own set of gilded power armor. You know what's not impressive? It not being able to fit through the doorways in the ancient temple we were exploring. We spent ten minutes trying to wiggle her through a long ass tunnel before we could actually continue with our grand adventure. And then the place started to cave in. Ancient ruins aren't the most structurally sound places as it turns out. Needless to say, no one was staying to spend ten minutes getting her back through. The fact that she was stubbornly trying to force herself through shows you don't need to be a dumbass teenage boy to be obsessed with trying to stuff things where they don't fit. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if her armor was what brought the place down, she kept damaging the walls when she clipped them.
388. Age slows you down: Look. I'm lucky in this regard. Not a lot of Guardsmen get rejuvenation processes handed to them. Somehow I managed to "prove my worth" to the Imperium. Don't ask me, I don't know how these fuck nuts think. But even I can't move as fast and as well as I could when I was twenty. Damn body is breaking down on me. And yes wiseass, that department isn't working as well either, glad we had this discussion. So, to my fellow old fucks, recognize it. I really don't want to see someone else try to hold their own in a melee only to see them heaving with exhaustion before being gutted. BY A FUCKING GRETCHIN! WHY IS THERE MORE THAN ONE ENTRY IN THIS BOOK DEDICATED TO THOSE FUCKING SHRIVELED SECOND HAND TESTICALS!?
389. If you promise people money, pay them: Never, ever, EVER, stiff someone on their paycheck. In my line of work, whenever someone is promised money, it's for mercenary work of some kind, and mercenaries don't exactly take it well when they don't get paid. It's why half of them demand payment up front, or at least half of the payment up front. The ones that don't take it very badly if you stiff them, and they tend to act accordingly. I see this happen from time to time, and currently I've seen people shot, set on fire, set on fire and then shot, set on fire and kicked off a cliff, kicked off a cliff and then shot, and set on fire, kicked off a cliff and then shot. Mercs seem to be birds of a feather.
390. Do not try to get multiple sexual partners: Disregard this if you're in a situation where you actually sat down like an adult and worked out a situation with multiple partners where everyone is happy. Good on you. Everyone else? Grow up. You dick is not a mighty behemoth and/or your vagina is not a bottomless cavern that requires more than one person to satisfy. Find a person to stick with and don't be a two timing whore. Otherwise you'll find that slighted lovers are very good at collaborating to plan revenge. Turns out a fresh purity seal shoved into an eye socket is lethal. You know, the list of things I've never seen in my life is way shorter than I'm comfortable with.
391. You can be edgy or practical, not both: I think this is a first for the list, an entry where the death was that of a Dark Eldar. You know, if Chaos wasn't the enemy of man that I hated the most, it would be the Dark Eldar. These fucking people. "Trying too hard," might as well be tattooed on their forehead. They're the type of people who peel off skin so that they can use it as paper and prove how hardcore they are. Has anyone ever tried to write on their skin? It doesn't go well does it. That's why reasonable people use paper. You see this edge before reason mentality everywhere with these xeno degenerates. Like the one time we found one trying to raid a farm. And even as we were surrounding it, it kept trying to pull its pants down so it could fuck a Grox. It cared about that more than doing things that made sense. Don't be a Dark Eldar guys.
392. Training will never be a substitute for experience gained in combat: Do you know why Space Marines only take in initiates that have already seen years and years of combat? It's because of this. You can spar with the most professional of trainers for a decade, but you still won't match up to a soldier who has spent a year on the front lines. This is one of the reasons blue bloods are insufferable. They think they're warriors who are ready to idly swing their swords and slay their enemies, when in reality they're just fresh out of basic training that went on longer and had a bigger budget. That's why I had to deal with a lady who thought she could take care of a local farmer uprising, because they were "mere peasants." These peasants had been holding out for three years, meaning that they had gotten quite a bit of experience. She had a power sword and reinforced armor. She got killed by a fucking arrow to the face. A fucking arrow, they were out of bullets and power cells. And she still died.
393. Never stand by while someone on your side does something horrible: Ok, listen up you little shits. And yes, I am angry. I don't care if they're your friend. I don't care if they owe you one. I don't care if they're a route to promotion. If they're doing something that screams "wrong" do something about it. Ran into an underground slaving ring on one planet. And a couple of local PDF troopers had been looking the other way about it. Next day, all the slavers were discovered riddled with bullets. Along with the PDF troopers. Good fucking riddance I say. Would've done it myself if they hadn't beaten me to it.
394. You cannot start Tyranid civil wars: I can understand the hope behind this. There's in fighting with nearly every species out there. The Eldar and the Dark Eldar don't exactly get along, Orks killing each other is part of their way of life, the Tau have to deal with the Farsight Enclaves, and even the Necrons seem to have some internal squabbling. With the Tyranids, however, it's not really a thing. Closest you can do is reduce the rank and file to mindless animals by severing their connection to the hive mind, and that's not really the same of starting a civil war. Like when this one idiot tried to get two splinter fleets to fight each other by using his flotilla to lure one into another. They interbred and became even stronger, covering up each other's flaws. That flotilla didn't make it.
395. If it's haunted or possessed, set it on fire, DON'T GO IN!: This one will make my sister happy, she loves it when situations like this happen. If someone is clearly under the influence of hostile spirits, douse it in promethium, light a match, throw in some purity seals for good measure, and watch it all go up in smoke. Call in artillery to be safe if you're not certain. But for the love of all that's holy, stay outside. If you go in, there's going to be bleeding walls, everything's going to talk, a shit weasel Daemon will be doing this to make their can't be bothered to do anything themselves bosses happy, and it's going to end badly. I told them not to go in, all eight did, and I could hear the screaming and what sounded like someone swinging an axe in fifteen seconds. I warned them. Then again if they had stayed they would have known the reason I told them to stay outside was because my sister was circling the house, splashing flamer fluid on the walls, doing that little giggle of hers.
396. Have weapons from uncertain sources checked: So I recently came into possession of a plasma pistol that was on a Chaos controled world too long ago. I'm not an idiot, so I had a Tech Priest take a look at it when I got back to make sure that it was working properly and didn't have a daemon living inside of it. Turns out the cooling system was neglected and needed a replacement, which it now has. If I had been recklessly using it, I would've blown my own hand off, if not the whole arm. So have professionals take a look and don't just go mindlessly shooting with whatever you get your hands on. Otherwise it's going to end in explosions, blood, guts, and someone crying over an idiot-EVEN THOUGH I FUCKING TOLD HER THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN!
397. Shit talking is rarely productive: Ok, knock it off. I know some planets recruit young, but there's still a level of standards we come to expect by those recruited into the Guard. You're not twelve. Even if you are actually twelve, you don't get to act like a twelve year old anymore, not when you've got a rifle in hand. So no constantly talking shit to other people in your unit, or the enemy. It tends to make it so that everyone hates you and will stab you on the toilet, yes, that I have found a corpse with stab wounds on the toilet. I'm fairly certain this was how it happened. Or, you know, when you poke your head out of the trench to imply you fucked the enemy's mother, they'll put a las round in your head. I'm honestly having a hard time imagining someone who wouldn't do it. And no, I am not being a hypocrite. Talking shit is being a cock when you're all hot air and bluster with no substance. What I do is educate stupid people. There's a difference. Mainly that I know when to keep my fucking mouth shut.
398. Falling in love takes time: Do you know how long I knew my wife before we got romantic? Three years. Oh sure, we screwed before that, but I've already established in this book that there's a difference between love and lust. But before then we were friends. Damn good friends. In fact, relationship advice. You need to be friends with someone before you can be lovers with them. Being a lover without someone you're also friends with is like trying to put on a roof before the walls are up. We took time to get it going.
399. You can't deflect las bolts with mirrors: I swear to the Emperor, the people who come up with this garbage. Here's their simple five year old logic. Mirrors reflect light, lasers are focused light, therefore mirrors reflect lasers. Except that's not how it works at all. I've seen it happen, I know this first hand. Some genius walking onto the battlefield with armor and a helmet covered in mirrors and thought he was invincible. Las bolts melted the mirrors and he died a slow and agonizing death.
400. Stop over romanticizing the enemies we fight: First, I'm certain this is heresy to some degree, so that should be reason enough. But you really shouldn't try to romanticize ANY of the pricks we fight. But when delusional, pretentious twits try to sound deep, they say things like "the Eldar are tragic," or "the Orks have found a meaning to life that truly completes them," or "The Tyranids are a stunning force of nature," or "The Dark Eldar are so sexy," seriously that last one happened. These are stupid mindsets that make you act like an idiot on the battlefield, make you not realize what's going on, and will get you killed by the enemy. So let's go through these mindsets and see how stupid they are one by one.
The Orks are truly complete and have found the meaning of their life. Technically true. It's just that their answer to the question "what is the meaning of life?" is utterly asinine and is powered by the logic of five year olds. Seriously, they use the same reasoning when my daughter was five and said she wanted to eat nothing but cookies forever. They're stupid creatures who can't comprehend a life outside of punching and shooting things, along with beating up smaller Orks to make them do menial tasks for them. If you think that's a good answer to the meaning of life, you must have a pretty fucking boring definition of life.
The Eldar are tragic. Not really, I view their fall as more of a comedy. The tragedy is that they felt like they had to drag down the rest of the galaxy with them. I don't care how fucking long you live or how bored you get, when you start killing and maiming people for shits and giggles, you deserve whatever it is that's coming your way. So when all the murder fucking tore the galaxy a brand new asshole, it was the Eldar's fault because they had spent the last five thousand years killing and torturing each other to the point where their society collapsed...BECAUSE THEY WERE FUCKING BORED!
The Dark Eldar are sexy. Only from a distance and if you've never seen one in person. So basically one if you look at a picture of one from far away. You know the whole murder torture thing I just mentioned? They're the ones that never stopped it. Never fuck crazy, it will end with mutilated genitals. I will admit that their outfits are sexy though, but that's just it. You like their outfits, not them (I hope.) Look, if that's the case, craft some Dark Eldar looking armor and find someone who will want to wear it during sexy times. Trust me, you'll find someone. And stay fucking far away from the real thing.
The Tau are enlightened. Oh shut the fuck up. They sterilize subjugated worlds, mindlessly worship their ruling caste, and they're just generally uppity twats. For someone who cares about other races so much, they sure don't mind having those smaller species die en mass in order to protect their "Greater Good." You ever notice that? That the planets that they bring into the fold stand between Tyranid fleets and their core worlds? Awfully convenient, don't you think? For all the talk about Greater Goods, it always seems to be "Tau First."
The Tyranids are a stunning force of nature. The Tyranids eat, shit, and repeat. What's so stunning about that, the fact that their minds are so utterly simple that they manage to push themselves through the monotony? Or are you the type of person who finds beauty in ordinary biological functions. If I go out with a sharp stick, kill something, eat it, get runs from it, and repeat this for ten years, would you call me a stunning force of nature? Of course you wouldn't, because you're not a total twat, so stop being a twat when it comes to Tyranids.
The Necrons are-ok, gonna have to stop you there, because no one knows what the fucking Necrons' deal are anymore. At first it was about killing all organic life, except now it's not, except there's apparently some of them out there who still want to kill organic life because they've got something to prove apparently. And no, they still don't want to be your fucking friend, so shut up about it already.
Chaos is true freedom. No. It isn't. And the fact that people still think this show just how utterly thick they are. I've seen Chaos close and personal, ok? It's not freedom. Freedom is the ability to make decisions without outside influences dictating what is and isn't acceptable. There is no freedom in Chaos. You're a slave to malevolent pricks. You can be a murderer or a murderous pedophile, that's the only real choice you get in Chaos. You always have to be acting out the desires of those twisted abominations known as gods, always killing, always scheming, always spreading sadistic plagues, always seeking the next high. What part of that sounds like fucking freedom? It's slavery with more glamor!
So. Got it? Stop romanticizing these things. Stop approaching them with arms open. Kill them. Unless you directly need them for survival, kill every last fucking one.