| 1 | [[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_81vndv8m8il.png]] |
| 2 | [[caption-width-right:300:CoversAlwaysLie. But this time,\ |
| 3 | [[IntendedAudienceReaction they're doing it deliberately]].]] |
| 4 | %% |
| 5 | ->''"If I had only known what was waiting for me, I would've [insert cowardly and/or self-deprecating action here]."'' |
| 6 | -->-- '''[[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.]]''' |
| 7 | |
| 8 | [[FakeUltimateHero Commissar Ciaphas Cain]], '''''[[LargeHamTitle HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!!]]''''' is the protagonist of a series of novels by Creator/SandyMitchell, set in the ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' universe. Where ''Literature/GauntsGhosts'' is ''Literature/{{Sharpe}}'' [[JustForFun/XMeetsY meets 40K]], Ciaphas Cain is something between ''Series/{{Blackadder}}'' and ''Literature/{{Flashman}}'' in the gothic SF world of 40K. Taking a tongue-in-cheek approach to the normally ''absurdly'' [[CrapsackWorld Grim]] [[BlackAndGrayMorality And]] [[CosmicHorrorStory Dark]] 40K universe, the series follows the exploits of a cowardly, self-hating [[ThePoliticalOfficer Commissar, in charge of morale and discipline]] in [[Characters/Warhammer40000ImperialGuard the Imperium's army]], who has managed to not only survive the front lines of the ultimate CrapsackWorld, but ''prosper''. Over the course of the series, Cain becomes a massively acclaimed Hero of the Imperium, partly through opportunism, skill and minor heroism, but mostly through sheer blind luck. Sent to [[InHarmsWay progressively more insanely dangerous warzones]] as his reputation grows, Cain actually wants nothing more than to find a quiet place to hide from the fighting. |
| 9 | |
| 10 | In short, he's the type of person Commissars are supposed to ''shoot''. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | That is, ''if'' you believe him. The author himself has stated [[ShrugOfGod that even he doesn't know]] whether Cain is actually the DirtyCoward he presents himself as, or [[CowardlyLion just doesn't give himself enough credit]]. [[DeathOfTheAuthor If you're curious as to which is which, the best option is probably just to read the books yourself and draw your own conclusions.]] |
| 13 | |
| 14 | The novels are presented as [[ATrueStoryInMyUniverse sections of Cain's private memoirs]], organized, edited, and {{footnote|Fever}}d by [[StateSec Inquisitor]] Amberley Vail, Cain's occasional liaison both professionally [[note]]he and his regiment occasionally help the Inquisition, either as cat's-paw or heavily armed backup, and she's the one he calls when he finds something that falls under the heading of "the Inquisition's problem"[[/note]] and personally. |
| 15 | |
| 16 | Eleven novels, fifteen short stories and two audio dramas have so far been published. Many of the stories have been recompiled in omnibus editions. |
| 17 | |
| 18 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 19 | |
| 20 | [[folder:The novels]] |
| 21 | * ''For the Emperor'' (2003) details Cain's adventures in creating a functional regiment, the 597th Valhallan, out of the remains of two former regiments that were savaged by Tyranids; his first deployment with that regiment, to the world of Gravalax which the T'au are attempting to steal; and his first association with Inquisitor Vail, who has discovered something very useful in Cain's aide, Jurgen, and wants to use the both of them against someone who is playing the humans and the T'au against each other... |
| 22 | * ''Caves of Ice'' (2004) concerns the 597th's deployment to an iceworld under siege by Orks... and populated curiously by desert creatures. Cain has to lead a small squad into the planet's tunnels, finding something he is not exactly prepared for... |
| 23 | * ''The Traitor's Hand'' (2005) takes place some years later, with the 597th deployed against a series of Chaos cults. With rebels and insurgents on every hand, Cain must figure out what the Ruinous Powers are planning, as well as deal with an ObstructiveBureaucrat who happens to be the one sort of person he can't simply pull rank on: a fellow commissar... |
| 24 | * ''Death or Glory'' (2006) is essentially a prequel, detailing Cain's first rise to prominence during the Ork invasion of Perlia. Shot down behind enemy lines, he begins gathering up survivors into a makeshift convoy and traveling towards safety. Though he stumbles upon a number of fortuitous circumstances (such as what looks like a clandestine research lab under a dam), he really has only one goal in mind: saving his own skin... |
| 25 | * ''Duty Calls'' (2007) picks up with Cain still in the 597th, but carries on from where ''Death or Glory'' left off; it forms the middle book of a trilogy. Called to handle a genestealer infestation and associated Tyranid hive fleet, Cain finds himself press-ganged by Amberley into helping her search for the people who ran that clandestine research lab. They have taken from it an artifact which could alter the very fate of the galaxy... |
| 26 | * ''Cain's Last Stand'' (2008) takes place in what was the "present day" of ''Warhammer 40K''[[note]]the Dark Millenium story event, which moved events forward into the 42nd, had yet to occur[[/note]], after Cain has already retired to Perlia and is teaching at a military academy. Of course, one of the events of ''[=WH40K=]'''s present day was the 13th Black Crusade, which catches the tiny planet up in its grasp. Abaddon knows about that universe-altering artifact, which has been returned to Perlia, and if Cain can't stop them from getting it, RocksFallEveryoneDies. |
| 27 | * ''The Emperor's Finest'' (2010) details Cain's experiences serving with a chapter of SpaceMarines (the Reclaimers) while clearing out a [[DerelictGraveyard Space Hulk]]. It picks up immediately following the events of "Echoes of the Tomb", below. |
| 28 | * ''The Last Ditch'' (2012) once again sees Cain fighting alongside the Valhallan 597th to defeat an Orkish uprising on Nusquam Fundumentibus, during the course of which he uncovers something that casts new light on an old foe. |
| 29 | * ''The Greater Good'' (2013) has Cain travel to the world of Quadravidia to stop a [[AlienInvasion T'au invasion]]. But when the T'au call for a cease-fire, Cain gets nervous because he knows that means [[EnemyMine they need his help]] against [[FromBadToWorse something worse]]... |
| 30 | * ''Choose Your Enemies'' (2018): Cain and the 597th are defending a mining world from Eldar raiders when they learn of a greater threat to the nearby hive world Ironfound. |
| 31 | * ''Vainglorious'' (2023): As Cain nears retirement, he is drawn into political maneuvering with a Forge World and the Adeptus Mechanicus. |
| 32 | [[/folder]] |
| 33 | |
| 34 | [[folder:The short stories]] |
| 35 | * "Fight or Flight" (2002) was the original story starring Cain, from which all other works sprouted. In it, Cain first joins the Valhallan 12th Field Artillery, a nice, safe assignment where he can hide away from anything more offensive than Jurgen's psoriasis. They successfully defeat an Ork infestation, but things go [[HoldYourHippogriffs ploin-shaped]] when there turns out to be a Tyranid splinter fleet right behind them... |
| 36 | * "Echoes of the Tomb" (2003) concerns an event Cain alludes to often: his first experience in a Necron tomb. He's a field adjutant helping agents of the Mechanicus investigate ancient ruins. Guess how it turns out. |
| 37 | * "The Beguiling" (2004) takes place on the planet of Slawkenberg, where Cain runs into a priestess in service of the god Slaanesh. This priestess, Emeli, almost succeeds in seducing him, but Jurgen is able to intercede, and the story ends with the two of them fleeing and calling an artillery strike on their location. |
| 38 | * "Sector Thirteen" (2005) involves Cain investigating a brothel where several of his men got into trouble. What he discovers is that it's actually the center of a genestealer infestation. He and Jurgen now have two priorities: wipe out the genestealer cult[[labelnote:*]]Because why steal genes when people will actually pay you to take them? Nyuck nyuck.[[/labelnote]], and -- more importantly -- survive. |
| 39 | * "Traitor's Gambit" (2009) finds Cain on a planetary inspection tour aboard the governor's luxurious yacht... which is immediately commandeered by a group of pro-T'au terrorists. He and Jurgen must find a way to stop the enemy from using it as a {{Suicide Attack}}er on the Imperial fleet -- while somehow avoiding death themselves. |
| 40 | * "A Mug of Recaff" (2012): Trooper Jurgen has watched the heroic Commissar Cain defeat a heretical uprising and wants only to get him a nice mug of recaff. But the heretics aren't quite finished just yet... |
| 41 | * "The Smallest Detail" (2012): Jurgen is on a scrounging mission when he accidentally uncovers a black market racketeering operation. |
| 42 | * "Old Soldiers Never Die" (2012): A limited release novella (Which has since been republished as an [=eBook=]). Commissar Cain and the Valhallan 597th deploy to the planet Letonia to help quash a civil insurrection, and quickly find themselves in [[ZombieApocalypse much more dire straits]]. |
| 43 | * "The Little Things" (2012): Released as part of the Black Library's 2012 Advent Calendar. What's meant to be a quiet, private meeting between Cain and Vail is interrupted by kidnappers. |
| 44 | * "Hidden Depths" (2014): Amberley Vail and her team were only looking to track down a heretech smuggling ring. However, hidden among the T'au artifacts that they seized, she finds a priceless artifact of a different Xeno race, and must discover how it ended up on Ironbound. [[note]]Effectively a prequel to ''Choose Your Enemies''.[[/note]] |
| 45 | * "Last Night at the Resplendent" (2018): Released as part of the Black Library's The 12 Tales of Christmas (2020). Shortly after the events of "Sector Thirteen", Cain and Divas decide to relax with a night at the theater, only to find themselves fighting for their lives. |
| 46 | * "The Bigger They Are" (2021): The Valhallan 597th is enjoying a short rest after quashing a planetary rebellion, when a mysterious comet strikes a distant island chain. |
| 47 | * "The Only Good Ork" (2022): While en route to his long-awaited retirement on Perlia, Cain is dragooned into helping suppress a genestealer infestation on the world of once Ork-infested world of Frumenta. While under attack by infected soldiers, Cain and Jurgen find themselves in a short-term alliance of convenience with a minor Ork band that had sprouted up while the local PDF was too busy fighting genestealers to look for secondary greenskin infestations. |
| 48 | * "Rotten to the Core" (2022): While stopped at a void station while between postings, Cain and the 597th are called in by the local government to help suppress the local gangs, who are being united under someone Cain suspects is a Chaos cultist. |
| 49 | * "Three Questions" (2022): While traveling between systems with the Valhallan 597th, Cain is informed by another regiment on the ship, the Kastrian 73rd, that their Commissar died in his sleep. While hoping to look like he was far more diligent in his inquiry into the matter than he intended to actually be, Cain asks a few questions too many, and ends up realizing that the late Commissar Fossick may have been murdered -- with pretty much his entire regiment on the suspect list. |
| 50 | [[/folder]] |
| 51 | |
| 52 | [[folder:The omnibuses]] |
| 53 | * ''Hero of the Imperium'': Contains the novels "For The Emperor", "Caves of Ice" and "The Traitor's Hand", along with the short stories "Fight or Flight", "Echoes of the Tomb" and "The Beguiling". |
| 54 | * ''Defender of the Imperium'': Contains the novels "Death or Glory", "Duty Calls" and "Cain's Last Stand", along with the short stories "Sector Thirteen" and "Traitor's Gambit". |
| 55 | * ''Savior of the Imperium'': Contains the novels "The Emperor's Finest", "The Last Ditch" and "The Greater Good", along with the short stories "A Mug of Recaff", "The Smallest Detail", "Old Soldiers Never Die", and "The Little Things". |
| 56 | * ''The Anthology'': Contains all the short stories from "Fight or Flight" to "The Three Questions". |
| 57 | [[/folder]] |
| 58 | |
| 59 | [[folder:The audio dramas]] |
| 60 | * ''[[http://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/dead-in-the-water-mp3.html Dead in the Water]]'' (2011): While on a mission to reconquer a Feral World lost to the Imperium during the Heresy, Cain is sent on a mission to find a missing patrol and investigate reports of unusually well-armed rebels. While on it, he stumbles on a secret about the world of Archipelaga he would rather have left lost to the ages... |
| 61 | * ''[[http://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-40000/the-devil-you-know-cd.html The Devil You Know]]'' (2014): After delivering a resupply to a Catachan force sent to defend a jungle Death World from a Tyranid splinter fleet, Cain arranges to inspect one of their observation posts as a way of getting himself out of the way ahead of an expected major offensive. Unfortunately, Tyranids aren't the only danger waiting for him in the jungle... |
| 62 | [[/folder]] |
| 63 | |
| 64 | %% Now has a character page at Characters/CiaphasCain in need of improvement. |
| 65 | |
| 66 | ---- |
| 67 | !!As part of the ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' universe, the series involves a large number of the tropes on that page, as well as employing literary and narrative tropes of its own: |
| 68 | |
| 69 | [[folder:A - E]] |
| 70 | * AbhorrentAdmirer: |
| 71 | ** In a non-romantic example, Cain considers Sulla as this. She, of course, remains completely unaware of what he thinks, and sees him as a mentor. |
| 72 | ** Mira is a [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] example. Cain is happy to sleep with her, but begins aggressively finding excuses to avoid her company when he realizes that she is hoping to make him her husband. It's not that he'd mind that either, the problem is that she thinks he's given his implicit consent already in no uncertain terms, and thus he'd have a very awkward time explaining to her the fact that it would be plain impossible for him to leave his position to marry. |
| 73 | * AbnormalAmmo: In ''Old Soldiers Never Die'', the 12th Valhallan Artillery is equipped with gas shells, designed to airburst to spread their load. [[spoiler:Cain resolves the ZombieApocalypse by having the 12th use the gas shells to deliver a vaccine to the Nurglite plague to large zombie concentrations.]] |
| 74 | * AbsurdlyDedicatedWorker: In ''Cain's Last Stand'', after [[BigBad Warmaster Varan]] [[spoiler:is killed by Cain]], his shuttle pilot is found starved to death in his cockpit. Varan's main superpower is psionic {{brainwashing}}, and the investigators surmise that he ordered the pilot to wait for further orders [[spoiler:and thanks to Cain, could never give him different ones]]. |
| 75 | * AbsurdlySharpClaws: The tyranids' form the basis of a minor RunningGag[=/=]NoodleIncident where the first time in a book that the 'nids are mentioned, Cain invariably flashes back to a time he saw genestealers tear apart Space Marine Terminators like their armor wasn't there. We finally get to see it in ''The Emperor's Finest''. |
| 76 | * AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: Since most cities in 40K are so old the undercities have undercities (and many of those have undercities of their own), this trope is somewhat justified. |
| 77 | ** Both {{Lampshaded}} and played straight in ''Death or Glory''. When Cain is trapped in a building surrounded by Orks, he remarks that having sewers and storm drains as a convenient escape route whenever he's trapped is not nearly as common as he would have liked. |
| 78 | ** Played straight in ''For the Emperor'' when Cain and Vail go into the city sewers to [[spoiler:hunt Genestealers]]. |
| 79 | ** Played with in ''The Emperor's Finest'', when Cain points out to the Astartes Commander that the tunnels running below an enemy artillery unit aren't spacious enough to fit Space Marines, but PDF troopers can move there just fine. [[spoiler:However, after saving Cain and Mira from the Genestealer ambush, Space Marines proceed to hunt down the survivors in those very tunnels. In Terminator suits, no less.]] |
| 80 | * ActionGirl: The women of the 597th Valhallan Regiment, led by {{Colonel Badass}} Regina Kasteen, [[spoiler: Inquisitor Amberley Vail of the Ordo Xenos]], among others. |
| 81 | * AdmiringTheAbomination: This is a common failing of Techpriests when it comes to Necrons and their tombs, and the Cain novels are no exception: |
| 82 | ** While searching the mines below a processing plant his unit's guarding, Cain discovers a Necron tomb. The Techpriest who accompanies Cain can't understand why he wants to blow up the tomb's entrance and call in the navy to bomb the place into oblivion. [[spoiler:He changes his mind after he's the only survivor of a group of "Cogboys" who entered the tomb; he eventually gleefully helps drown the tomb in promethium.]] |
| 83 | ** The short story ''Echoes of the Tomb'' chronicles Cain's first encounter with the Necrons after a group of Techpriests attempt to salvage [[spoiler:what they believe is]] an inactive tombworld. |
| 84 | * AdvertisedExtra: Apart from the conflict at the beginning before they can contact Cain, a few early scenes where they agree to work together with the Imperium to fight the Tyranids, the bit where El'Hassai accompanies Cain to a Mechanicus facility and an appearance in the epilogue, the T'au don't really contribute ''anything'' to the plot of ''The Greater Good,'' despite the book being named after their central philosophy. The scene on the front cover of Cain and a T'au Fire Warrior [[BackToBackBadasses fighting back-to-back]] against a Tyranid horde [[CoversAlwaysLie never happens]]. |
| 85 | * AfterActionPatchup: Used, notably in ''The Traitor's Hand'' to stay out of the line of fire. |
| 86 | * AirVentPassageway: |
| 87 | ** Both used and subverted in ''Cain's Last Stand'', where the air vents are ''exactly'' the place genestealers like to hide, but Cain takes the fact it works as a sign that the Tyranids aren't the only threat. |
| 88 | ** He also readily uses maintenance hatches after learning of them in ''Death or Glory'' (he notes in the short story ''Traitor's Gambit'' that he tries to acquire their access codes in advance when possible). |
| 89 | %%* AlmostDeadGuy |
| 90 | * AloofLeaderAffableSubordinate: Inverted with Cain and Jurgen. Cain is a charismatic leaded beloved by his troops, and Jurgen is generally despised and admits that he doesn't like people. |
| 91 | * AlwaysABiggerFish: The resolution of ''Cain's Last Stand'' depends on this. |
| 92 | ** Most of the stories go this way--Cain and his unit are summoned to take care of one threat, but then an even BIGGER threat shows up. |
| 93 | *** ''Fight or Flight'' (The very first Cain story) starts with the mopping-up of a fairly minor Ork incursion, with Tyranids showing up just as they're about to wrap things up and call it a day. |
| 94 | *** ''For The Emperor'' starts out with tensions between humans and the T'au, with the real threat being [[spoiler:Genestealers]]. |
| 95 | *** ''Caves of Ice'' has the Orks at the start, with the [[spoiler:Necrons]] as the real threat. [[spoiler:That is before an [[HumongousMecha Ork Gargant]] smashes through Necron Monoliths and threatens evacuation zone.]] |
| 96 | *** ''Duty Calls'' originally has the 597th sent to deal with a routine civil insurrection, which turns out to have been started by genestealers, followed closely behind by Tyranids, but [[spoiler:a much greater threat from renegade elements of the Inquisition and the Adeptus Mechanicus presents itself]]. |
| 97 | *** ''The Emperor's Finest'' starts with Genestealers and Tyranids, but Orks also become a very prominent threat. Interestingly, the T'au and the Orks are frequently on the ''lower'' end of the threats that Cain faces, and are often used as the "Set-up" villains. |
| 98 | *** ''The Last Ditch'' starts with Orks, but shifts to Tyranids. |
| 99 | *** ''The Greater Good'' has T'au forces at first before shifting to Tyranids (again). |
| 100 | *** [[spoiler:''Choose Your Enemies'' spends most of the book with the Eldar as the main threat, with the real threat of the Chaos Cult only becoming apparent at the climax.]] |
| 101 | * AmusinglyAwfulAim: One of Cain's cadets in ''Cain's Last Stand'' has a reputation for being a lousy shooter. However, this comes across as more like an InformedFlaw -- the one time we see him shooting, he easily hits the heretics. |
| 102 | * AnachronicOrder: |
| 103 | ** The first three books are in chronological order, the fourth is a prequel, the fifth takes place between books two and three, the sixth takes place in the [=WH40K=] universe's "present day" long after the events of the rest (although the last three all focus on his part in a single larger story), the seventh takes place between book four and book one, and the eighth (which notably involves his second campaign on a specific world when the story of his first trip there has yet to be published) takes place after the third, but still half a century before the sixth, the ninth taking place less than a decade before the sixth and the tenth taking place several years after the eighth. The short stories are in equally random order, with two taking place before book four (including Cain's first act of alleged heroism), one taking place somewhere between books four and seven, one taking place immediately before book seven, and one taking place roughly a decade before book six, and several that have so few reference points that one cannot reliably tell what decade they took place in. |
| 104 | ** In-story, the Cain Archive Amberley is editing the stories from is described by her as "consisting merely of a single dataslate, stuffed full of files arranged with a cavalier disregard for chronology, and to no scheme of indexing that I've been able to determine despite prolonged examination of the contents." (For example, in ''The Emperor's Finest'', Amberley notes that Cain had not yet written about the immediately preceding events, chronicled in the short story ''Echoes of the Tomb'', which Mitchell wrote seven years earlier.) Also, the editing and release of Cain's memoirs is done at Vail's sole discretion, such as expanding upon {{Plot Hole}}s in previous books (''Duty Calls'' was used to resolve a dangling plotline in ''Death or Glory''). |
| 105 | ** If the novels are divided into groups of three (which the Omnibus editions do) each trilogy is in chronological order, with each of the latter two following Cain's (often peripheral) involvement in a single larger plot. The short stories in the Omnibus volumes don't adhere to this, though. In the first Omnibus, ''Hero of the Imperium'', each novel, taking place during Cain's time with the 597th, is preceded by a short story from his time before joining the 597th, detailing Cain's first encounter with the major threat of the novel to follow. The two short stories in the second Omnibus, ''Defender of the Imperium'', are in strict chronological order, with one beginning before ''Death or Glory'', and the other preceding ''Cain's Last Stand''. In the third Omnibus, ''Saviour of the Imperium'', the three novels are followed by the novella ''Old Soldiers Never Die'' and a collection of short stories, in no particular chronological order. |
| 106 | * AnArmAndALeg: Cain does this [[spoiler:to the pro-T'au terrorist leader in ''Traitor's Gambit'': when the woman orders him out of the last escape pod at gunpoint, Cain orders Jurgen to shoot her. While she's distracted, Cain shoots her from the hip with a T'au-manufactured plasma pistol he acquired earlier, the force of the blast ripping her gun arm off and more importantly, blasting her back far enough to get the pod shut.]] |
| 107 | * AntagonisticGovernor: A couple examples: |
| 108 | ** In ''For The Emperor'', Governor Grice causes a lot of problems for Cain and the other Imperials [[spoiler:because he's a genestealer hybrid]]. |
| 109 | ** Averted in the other novels, where the governors are competent but hopelessly outmatched or a UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush {{expy}}, none of them are actually ill-intentioned towards Cain (except for one after he ended up brainwashed by the villain). In one case, one even saves Cain from being married to a particularly pushy GirlOfTheWeek). |
| 110 | ** [[spoiler:DoubleSubverted in ''Choose Your Enemies'' where the Planetary Govenor is helpful and effective right up until he is revealed as the BigBad.]] |
| 111 | * ApocalypseWow: Cain's [[spoiler:Necron tomb-killing]] promethium bomb in ''Caves of Ice'' is powerful enough to launch debris into orbit, where it buffets his fleeing troop ship. That would probably manage to squeak onto the [[ApocalypseHow Class 0 minimum requirements]] were the planet reasonably civilized beyond the sole refinery (which was consumed in the blast entirely). |
| 112 | * ArmourIsUseless: |
| 113 | ** Averted. Cain takes to wearing carapace armor under his coat from ''For The Emperor'' onwards, which helps on several occasions. Armor has also saved some others' lives; Jurgen in particular has had his helmet save him at least twice. |
| 114 | ** Played straight with the Reclaimers and genestealers in ''The Emperor's Finest''. It's a longstanding truth in the 40K universe that genestealer claws can punch through just about anything. |
| 115 | * ArmorPiercingQuestion: "When did you last have an augmetic upgrade?" turns out to be one for [[spoiler:Magos Kildhar]] in ''The Greater Good''. [[spoiler:It makes her realize that she's been the ManchurianAgent all along.]] |
| 116 | * ArtisticLicenseShips: |
| 117 | ** Cain describes the ''Indestructible'' as an Armageddon-class battlecruiser in the beginning of ''The Traitor's Hand''; a different work quoted in the book calls it a cruiser. This could be for a number of reasons (Armageddons are typically converted Lunar-class cruisers, or Cain's professed lack of interest in the navy). Or "cruiser" could just be short for "battlecruiser". |
| 118 | ** Cain and a few other characters mistakenly thinking that any ship used by Space Marines is called a Battle Barge, as opposed to a distinct class. |
| 119 | ** Cain is amazed at the size of a Space Hulk based on how small the ships he recognizes are in comparison to the whole, comparing it to a small moon. Amberley states that the hulk in question is only 4 or 5 kilometers across in any direction, which she describes as "quite big enough", being so big that an entire fleet anticipates taking months to destroy it. The problem is that in this setting an escort ship is from .8 to 1.5 kilometers long, and a standard cruiser is more than 5 kilometers in length (though this varies by game edition and writer). The hulk is referred to as containing ''battleships'', any one of which would be twice the size as that given for the entire object. The distances and travel times when he explores it indicate an object at least ten times the given size, so this may just be a typo. |
| 120 | ** In ''The Greater Good'', Cain gives a number of details about the ship he was traveling on, each of which implies that Cain was on a totally different class of warship. After a while Amberley gives up on trying to figure out which ship he was on. |
| 121 | * AscendedMeme: [[http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/File:Traitorshand.jpg The cover]] of Traitor's Hand certainly seems [[http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/warhammer40kfanon/images/c/cd/Drive_me_closer_i_want_to_hit_them_with_my_sword.png/revision/latest?cb=20091011115912 familiar...]] |
| 122 | ** In ''The Last Ditch'' Cain manages to defeat a Tyranid swarm that has him vastly outnumbered by having his Guard troopers shoot up a Pyrovore, triggering an explosive chain reaction that annihilates the swarm. At the time the book was released, the Pyrovore was a notably useless unit with a loadout that was designed for close combat and stats that both made it terrible at close combat and meant it would die long before it could get into range. Furthermore, they were saddled with a poorly worded special rule that made them into thermonuclear bombs capable of sweeping both armies off the tabletop when they exploded.[[note]]This is the rule in question "Volatile: If a Pyrovore is slain by a Wound that inflicted Instant Death, every unit suffers a Strength 3 AP- hit for each model (excluding Pyrovores) within D6" of the slain Pyrovore (resolve damage before removing the Pyrovore as a casualty)." What they probably ''meant'' to say was that every unit within d6" of the Pyrovore would suffer an S3 hit for each model in that range. What they ''actually'' said was that every unit on the tabletop suffered that number of hits. This meant that if the Pyrovore was surrounded by a pack of 20 Termagants or Hormagaunts when it exploded, everything else on the table would immediately sustain 20 hits, enough to kill anything that isn't a Warlord Titan. People noticed this flub almost immediately, and the jokes flowed from there.[[/note]] |
| 123 | * AsTheGoodBookSays: |
| 124 | ** Cain disdains "Emperor-botherers," but he does have some fondness for ''The Precepts of Saint Emelia'' and quotes it a few times throughout the series. In ''Duty Calls'' he's '''infuriated''' when the villain uses a QuoteMine of one of his favorite verses to justify his crimes. |
| 125 | ** In ''The Emperor's Finest'' one of the Tech Priests frequently quotes trite platitudes that Cain doesn't recognize. Amberley's research reveals that they're from ''Soylens Viridians for the Machine Spirit," a book the priest wrote himself and was kind of bitter never got popular. |
| 126 | * AssassinOutclassin: Cain survives three distinct assassination attempts in ''Duty Calls''. |
| 127 | * AsymmetricDilemma: Two examples in ''The Last Ditch'': |
| 128 | ** While fighting a Mawloc in Cain worries at length about the prospect of being digested to death, prompting a footnote from Amberley about how he'd die of physical trauma or suffocation first. She admits that it's not as reassuring as she'd meant it to be. |
| 129 | ** Later, Cain marvels at a pile of demo charges that could take down an Ork Gargant. Jurgen agrees if the Orks had a Gargant... and if the Tyranids hadn't eaten all the Orks. |
| 130 | * TheAtoner: The Battle Sisters in ''Duty Calls''. |
| 131 | * AttackAttackAttack: |
| 132 | ** The Battle Sisters in ''Duty Calls'', until Cain reminds them of other duties. Also, Orks, Tyranids, Necrons, and Khornates. |
| 133 | ** One of Cain's (and the Valhallan 597'th's) strengths is recognizing that while yes, the Imperium ''does'' encourage the guards to attack and never stop, it's usually more effective to use actual tactics against foes. This is pointed out in ''The Last Ditch,'' when another Commissar points out that the 597th isn't "doing their duty to the Emperor" by charging and attacking as hard as they can. Officers of the 597th point out that by ''not'' following this trope, they've killed twice the enemies that the locals have and with a third of the casualties. |
| 134 | * AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: {{Exploited}} by Cain in ''Duty Calls'' when he realizes that the Battle Sisters are about to be overrun by Tyranids, which would have the effect of causing the entire defensive line to fold. He doesn't know who's in charge, so he picks the group of Sisters that have racked up the highest body count. He chooses correctly, as it turns out. |
| 135 | * BackFromTheDead: [[spoiler:Emeli.]] |
| 136 | * BackToBackBadasses: The cover art of ''The Greater Good'' has Cain doing this with a [[EnemyMine T'au Fire Warrior]] [[AtopAMountainOfCorpses Atop A Pile of Tyranid Corpses]]. Of course, [[RunningGag as is usual for this series]], [[CoversAlwaysLie nothing like this ever actually happens in the book]]. |
| 137 | * BadassArmy: The Valhallan 597th. In contrast with typical portrayals of Valhallans as employers of ZergRush tactics straight out of the worst months of the Great Patriotic War, the 597th are a highly experienced, highly trained, and highly modernized mechanized infantry fighting force. |
| 138 | * BadassBack: At one point in ''The Traitor's Hand'', Cain attempts to elbow a cultist behind him, then switches to stabbing his chainsword under his arm into the cultist's chest. |
| 139 | * BadassLongcoat: |
| 140 | ** Like the sash and cap, this is a standard part of Cain's uniform. |
| 141 | ** The 597th Valhallan Regiment, since they're native iceworlders. Cain {{lampshade|Hanging}}s the {{irony}} of the Valhallans being known so well for their characteristic greatcoats, considering that many of them forgo wearing that part of their uniform most of the time in the field. While such a coat is essential in an arctic environment like their homeworld, most of their deployments are to warmer locations, where such a coat is unnecessary and very uncomfortably hot for the cold-adapted Valhallans. |
| 142 | * BadassNormal: |
| 143 | ** Cain has faced down Chaos Space Marines, Genestealer Patriachs and Tyrants, and Ork Warbosses in single combat. |
| 144 | ** The Guard, and sometimes the PDF, even though Cain usually regards the latter as nothing more than a joke. |
| 145 | * BaitAndSwitch: In ''Duty Calls'', Cain mentions how dark the Inquisition's secrets could go. Zemelda Cleats, a new recruit of Amberley's, makes light of her new duties, comparing it with a children's game. All this sets up [[BreakTheCutie something terrible]] [[SacrificialLion happening to her]] on Amberley's watch.. [[spoiler:but Cain's not talking about [[SheepInSheepsClothing Amberley]] at all. The dirty business refers to rogue Inquisitor Killian]]. |
| 146 | * BattleChant: In ''The Traitor's Hand'' there's a parody of this with the Khornites' catchphrase by having someone (mainly Cain) snark back at them whenever they show up (e.g. "Harriers for the Cup!", "Well, he can't have mine" "I'm getting really sick of hearing that"). The same book also has a scene where the Valhallans start chanting Cain's name as he duels a Chaos Space Marine, to his embarrassment. |
| 147 | * BattleCouple: Several examples: |
| 148 | ** Cain and Amberley. |
| 149 | ** Cain and Felicia to a lesser extent. |
| 150 | ** Cain and Mira. |
| 151 | ** Grifen and Magot. |
| 152 | ** Vorhees and Drere, a MauveShirt couple from Grifen's squad in the second novel. |
| 153 | ** Velade and Holenbi, Imperial Guardsmen from the first novel. [[spoiler:This actually dooms them--the Genestealers infect them, specifically because they're in love. Any offspring would have eventually subverted the regiment and any places the regiment visited generations down, and when Ciaphas finds them showing signs of Genestealer infection, he [[MercyKill shoots them]].]] |
| 154 | * BavarianFireDrill: Cain says in ''The Emperor's Finest'' that the surest way to bluff your way through a conversation is to act like you already know what you're talking about and be just vague enough that the other person hears what he or she wants to hear. He demonstrates this spectacularly in ''Duty Calls'' by [[spoiler:bluffing his way into a rogue Inquisitor's hideout]]. |
| 155 | ** The specific incident in ''The Emperor's Finest'' that Cain mentions this about involves, incredibly, ''marriage''. [[spoiler:To the heir to a planetary governor, of all people. It takes him ''days'' to figure out what he's agreed to. Amberley is bemused at how slow on the draw Cain was about that.]] |
| 156 | * BeAllMySinsRemembered: Played with. |
| 157 | ** On the surface, the series is essentially one massive confession on Cain's part that he does not deserve the title of "Hero of the Imperium" with which he has been immortalized. |
| 158 | ** The trope becomes subverted when you read carefully; more than once, Cain has done something heroic without thinking about it. Through most of the series, he appears totally selfish, but if something needs to be done, then it needs to be done. A specific example is when he jumps to save Amberley in Pererimunda and later reasons that he only did it because the pilot wouldn't have left without her, but one can see that he jumped first and rationalized later. This not only happens with Amberley, but also on other occasions, such as the time he sets the explosives in Nusquam Fundumentibus. He's pretty much sacrificing his own life to take out the tyranid infestation, but he survives thanks to some fast reasoning and Jurgen's proper use of a snowmobile to escape through tunnels previously dug by their enemies. |
| 159 | ** As noted above, WordOfGod tells us that not even the author has defined if Cain is really a hero or not. Sometimes he's written Cain as entirely worthy of the title of "Hero of the Imperium", sometimes not. |
| 160 | * BeleagueredBoss: |
| 161 | ** During his years with the Valhallan 12th Artillery Regiment, Cain was forever pulling Guardsmen out of Arbites cells for drunken brawling, indecent behavior and otherwise disturbing the peace. While most commissars wouldn't have hesitated in shooting the lot of them and inspiring discipline through fear, Cain always does his best to limit his discipline to prison, latrine duty and floggings so as to maintain his popularity with the men (as so many martinets end up [[UnfriendlyFire dying heroic deaths suspiciously far away from the front line]], which he notes more than once). As his reputation grows, this has the side effect of the troopers doing their job flawlessly while on duty: no one wants to be the one who disappointed Commissar Ciaphas Cain, Hero of the Imperium (he cites one man as preferring to take on a ''[[XenomorphXerox Carnifex]]'' with a broken chair leg rather than let Cain down). |
| 162 | ** According to Inquisitor Vail, most Imperial Guard commissars operate at a regimental level, but the Imperial Navy has a single man enforcing discipline for a {{Mile Long Ship}} (or possibly several of them), and the PDF often has one commissar for the entire planet. Said individuals often spend their days getting drunk, leaving the men under them blissfully unaware of their existence. |
| 163 | * BelligerentSexualTension: Cain and Mira. It ends with them apart but they know it's for the best. |
| 164 | * BeneathTheEarth: Cain often ends up in these types of environments. He's also the perfect man for the job with his "tunnel senses," much to his discomfort. Amberley notes that while he often claims to be from a Hive World, she can't find any record of such a thing. Of course, this being the Imperium of "lose a planet because of rounding errors," that's not so far-fetched. |
| 165 | * BeneathTheMask: |
| 166 | ** The entire series is about a '''[[FakeUltimateHero HERO]] [[MemeticMutation OF THE]] [[DrinkingGame/TVTropes IMPERIUM]]''' who secretly regards himself as a DirtyCoward whose every action was motivated by self-interest. Whether or not you believe that depends very much on [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation how you interpret his true character]]. |
| 167 | ** {{Inverted}}, in a fashion, for most of 40K's xenos races. In Cain's stories, we see these races as they would appear to someone who can't get inside their heads. We see the Orks as comic loonies because we can see through their eyes, but Cain sees them as ravening barbaric brutes. We see the Necrons as WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds because we know what their lives look like from the inside, but Cain sees them as omnicidal eldritch abominations. In short, Cain's stories allow us to see what 40K looks like when you ''can't'' see BeneathTheMask. |
| 168 | * BetterToDieThanBeKilled: [[spoiler:Commissar Donal]]. |
| 169 | * BigBeautifulWoman: Mira is described as having inherited a slight tendency toward plumpness from her father. She apparently carries that [[BuxomBeautyStandard weight]] [[CurvesInAllTheRightPlaces quite well]]. |
| 170 | * BigBulkyBomb: Multiple instances: |
| 171 | ** In typical ''40K'' fashion, Cain improvises an over-the-top one of these using an entire refinery's worth of promethium to blow up [[spoiler:a Necron tomb]]. The resulting explosion is felt ''from orbit''. |
| 172 | ** He pulls another stunt like this on Nusquam Fundamentibus, where [[spoiler:he essentially triggers a volcanic eruption to kill a buried Tyranid bioship before it can summon more of its kind]]. |
| 173 | * BigDamPlot: Cain destroys a dam to escape an Ork army in ''Death Or Glory''. He later rigs another one (its replacement) in ''Cain's Last Stand'', but it fails when [[spoiler:Necrons arrive to claim the Shadowlight and jam the detonation signal]]. |
| 174 | * BigDamnHeroes: Cain, Jurgen, and Amberley do this. A ''lot.'' Also, [[spoiler:Captain Detoi and his troopers]] pull this off in ''Traitor's Hand'', as do [[spoiler:the surviving Reclaimers]] in ''The Emperor's Finest'' (sort of). |
| 175 | * BlatantLies: In ''Greater Good'' Cain claims that he "isn't easily startled". Amberley's footnote on that section consists of nothing but laughing. |
| 176 | * BlaseBoast: Cain does this a lot. He makes sure to remind the reader that he only does it to seem like a HumbleHero. |
| 177 | * BlindObedience: Jurgen towards Cain, who thankfully doesn't abuse it. |
| 178 | * BlingBlingBang: Amberley's power armor is gilded so much it looks like it's made entirely of gold from distance. |
| 179 | * BloodKnight: |
| 180 | ** Lieutenant Sulla is either laudably eager to destroy the enemies of the Emperor, or a borderline LeeroyJenkins, depending on whom you ask. Cain definitely leans toward the latter view, but her eventual promotion to general officer rank, and more significantly her troops' high morale and confidence in her abilities, suggests that the former is more accurate. |
| 181 | ** And the casualty rates in her units (which are the highest in the regiment) suggest the latter. The units' success rates and correspondingly high morale, meanwhile, suggest the former. |
| 182 | ** Magot, in one instance, led her subordinates into a melee charge at [[AxCrazy Khornate]] [[TheBerserker cultists]], And [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome slaughtered them]] [[CurbStompBattle without taking any casualties.]] |
| 183 | * BoardingPod: In ''The Emperor's Finest'' Cain and Jurgen have to help repel ork boarders on the Reclaimers Strike Cruiser ''Revenant'', who repeatedly ZergRush the ship with these. The Space Marines use their Thunderhawk {{dropship}}s as a fighter screen but some get through. |
| 184 | * BoardingSchool: Cain makes the Schola Progenium seem less like a badass MilitarySchool and more like ''Literature/TomBrownsSchooldays'', complete with [[RugbyIsSlaughter "scrumball practice"]]. |
| 185 | * BoomHeadshot: [[spoiler:[[SociopathicHero Maxim]] [[ColdSniper Sorel]] and Jurgen.]] The former suffers a direct hit, killing him, while the latter receives a glancing hit that merely leaves him comatose for a while. |
| 186 | * BoringButPractical: Cain reflects in ''The Last Ditch'' that many commissars favor bolt pistols as sidearms for their well-known loud and messy effects, adding to their intimidation factor. Cain contrasts this with his humble laspistol, which while not as impressive, is something he rarely has to worry about running out of shots for at an inopportune moment, making it better suited for keeping him alive in the field than an ammunition-dependent projectile weapon might be. |
| 187 | * BorrowedBiometricBypass: Clearly known to work in-universe; when Cain and his cadets are escaping from the governor's mansion in ''Cain's Last Stand'' he puts a lasbolt through the genecode scanner that controls access to the escape tunnel specifically to prevent this. |
| 188 | * BrainsAndBrawn: Played with. Cain is undoubtedly more clever than Jurgen, while Jurgen is much stronger than Cain. However, Cain's such an excellent swordsman that Jurgen can't even compare. Cain is able to best a Chaos Marine (well, more like "barely fend him off while making it look easy", mostly by taunting said Marine) in melee, an Ork Warboss (by shooting him in the face) and loads of pureblood tyranid genestealers (still in a very probable way), which results in Cain actually doing all the melee fighting, while Jurgen dispatches distracted enemies with heavy weaponry. And while Jurgen may be BookDumb, he's certainly a talented scrounger. Also, Cain is an amazing shot with a laspistol from the hip, while Jurgen is a much better sniper. |
| 189 | * BrainwashedAndCrazy: |
| 190 | ** This is a plot point in ''The Last Stand''. The book's BigBad is an extremely powerful psyker who can overwrite your mind and turn you to Chaos just by looking at you. He even has a retinue of ''Sisters of Battle'' that he corrupted in this manner. |
| 191 | ** At one point in ''Vainglorious'', a group of skitarii suddenly turns on their fellows, a group of Space Marines, and Cain. Which leaves everyone puzzled, since they were searching for signs of a genestealer cult and those skitarii had already been confirmed free of genestealer taint. [[spoiler: The skitarii had actually had their brains rewritten by a high-level techpriest to hide his plotting.]] |
| 192 | * BrickJoke: |
| 193 | ** Amberley's comment about marshmallows and meltaguns became a running gag that appeared in the first three books. |
| 194 | ** In ''Caves of Ice'', Scrivener Quintus, in his idiosyncratic minutes of a meeting to assess the Ork threat on the refinery, offhandedly mentions that Broklaw fired his bolt pistol into the air to call the meeting to order. Later on, [[spoiler:when Cain arrives after learning of the Necrons, he gets freaked out at the large blast hole in the ceiling, which Broklaw refers to like an inside joke]]. |
| 195 | * TheBrigadier: Lord General Zyvan. |
| 196 | * BrokenAce: Ciaphas himself. Capable, intelligent, handsome—and a compulsive liar desperately trying to hide what he sees as his own fundamental lack of courage and decency in a culture obsessed with martyrdom. It's fairly obvious in his memoirs that Ciaphas is incapable of giving himself credit for any achievement, because he has to justify any noble act with ignoble intentions. |
| 197 | * BuffySpeak: In ''Choose Your Enemies'' Cain refers to things with the appopriate aesthetic as "Eldary" to the amusement of his companions. By the end of the conversation they're all using it for lack of a better term. |
| 198 | * BugWar: ''For the Emperor'', ''Duty Calls'', ''The Last Ditch'' and the short stories ''Fight or Flight'' and ''Sector Thirteen'' are all campaigns against Tyranids and/or their Genestealer infiltrators. ''Cain's Last Stand'' starts with fighting against Tyranids. ''The Greater Good'' features them as a GreaterScopeVillain. |
| 199 | * BulletholeDoor: Jurgen's melta (a [[{{BFG}} weapon designed to shoot through armored tanks]]) comes in handy for these. |
| 200 | * ButtMonkey: Penlan, aka "Jinxie". It hasn't killed her yet. She's even been promoted. Additionally, she's rather popular with the regiment, as it's believed that all the bad luck in her squad gets attracted to her and leaves everyone else alone. Interestingly, this basically makes her the rank and file version of Cain, considering how often the latter manages to bumble into trouble just to bumble right out again through dumb luck. He just has better PR. |
| 201 | -->'''Cain:''' But she's not nearly as accident prone as she's supposed to be. I'll grant you she fell down an ambull tunnel once, and there was that [[NoodleIncident incident]] with the frag grenade and the latrine trench, but things tend to work out for her. The Orks on Kastafore were as surprised as she was when the floor in the factory collapsed, and we'd have walked right into that hrud ambush on Skweki if she hadn't triggered the mine [[OverlyLongGag by chucking an empty food tin away]]... |
| 202 | * BuxomBeautyStandard: Evidently, the ''Warhammer 40000'' universe as told by Sandy Mitchell. Considering the main game has few women that aren't evil, [[{{Squick}} monstrous]] {{succubi|AndIncubi}}, or generally ([[FormFittingWardrobe facially]]) unattractive [[KnightTemplar nuns]], some might gain a new appreciation for the setting after reading his novels. |
| 203 | * CallAHumanAMeatbag: At one point in ''Caves of Ice'', the techpriest Logash (angry at being denied the chance to investigate [[spoiler:a Necron tomb]]) bitterly refers to "Typical meatbag behavior". Given the massive ShoutOut quotient of the series, this is likely a callout to the TropeCodifier. Notably, throughout both the series and 40K in general, regular humans call techpriests "cogboys". |
| 204 | * CallARabbitASmeerp: |
| 205 | ** Inherited from the game's setting, mostly. See ShoutOut.CiaphasCain for the best examples. |
| 206 | ** A particularly interesting case occurs in regard to the alcoholic drink amasec, as there are two different "rabbits" in different parts of the galaxy. In the Cain series, it is fairly clearly whisky, explicitly mentioned as derived from grain. In the [[TabletopGame/DarkHeresy Calixis Sector]], the word instead refers to a fruit-derived brandy. Although given that the galaxy is ''extremely'' large with literally tens of thousands of inhabited worlds, and how similar words can have wildly different meanings even on our own single world, some language drift is understandable. |
| 207 | * CallBack: In ''Cain's Last Stand'', Cain suspects that in addition to the ongoing Chaos invasion of Perlia, there are necrons floating around. Sister Julien doesn't quite get why this is a very bad thing until he refers to the 3rd Edition necron fluff where they [[MonsterMunch killed the entirety of Adepta Sororitas Sanctuary 101]]. |
| 208 | * CaptainErsatz: |
| 209 | ** Cain is basically Series/{{Blackadder}} (the ''Blackadder Goes Forth'' version especially) and Creator/GeorgeMacDonaldFraser's Literature/{{Flashman}} [[RecycledInSpace IN SPACE]]. A big difference however is that he never crosses the line from lovable scoundrel to outright villain like Flashman does. Cain may be a womanizer, but it's always consensual. |
| 210 | ** Gunner Jurgen is probably based on another Creator/GeorgeMacDonaldFraser character, Private Literature/McAuslan, AKA the Dirtiest Soldier in the British Army. Like [=McAuslan=], Jurgen is ugly, has skin problems, horrible breath, and body odor that causes revulsion in everyone he meets. Unlike [=McAuslan=], he is a highly competent soldier, though he isn't terribly bright (yet amazingly good at planning ahead). Likewise, if Cain is one of Blackadder then Jurgen is one of Baldrick, probably the one from ''The Black Adder'' who was competent and had good ideas more often than not. |
| 211 | ** Warmaster Varan is in many ways an Ersatz of UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, right down to the mustache, arm gestures, and speeches. Granted, he's an insecure, [[spoiler:[[StupidJetpackHitler psychically-empowered mutant]]]] Ersatz, although this isn't revealed until late in the book. Amusingly, none of the Imperial forces are terribly impressed by his rhetoric, and Varan depends heavily upon [[spoiler:his psychic ability to enthrall anyone he can speak with or has a line of sight to]]. |
| 212 | ** Ariott, a minor character in ''Death or Glory'', is an Ersatz of James Herriott, of all people, being a veterinarian and later writing an autobiography called ''[[Series/AllCreaturesGreatAndSmall All Lifeforms Large and Small]]''. |
| 213 | * CaptainObvious: |
| 214 | ** In ''The Beguiling'' |
| 215 | --->'''Cain''': No wonder they made [Mulenz] an observer, I thought, nothing gets past this guy. |
| 216 | ** This is one of Cain's frequent observations about Jurgen, often delivered with a great deal of {{Understatement}} and [[DissonantSerenity unconcerned stoicism]]. |
| 217 | * CarFu: |
| 218 | ** One of Jurgen's specialties. |
| 219 | ** Magot also once ran over a Tyranid Lictor with a Chimera to rescue Cain. |
| 220 | --->"Nice driving, Magot."\ |
| 221 | "You're welcome, commissar," the familiar cheerful tones of one of my perennial discipline problems assured me, before taking on a faintly puzzled air. "How did you know it was me?"\ |
| 222 | "Lucky guess," I told her. |
| 223 | * CassandraTruth: Cain does it ''to himself'' in ''Cain's Last Stand'', continuously reassuring himself (despite recurring nightmares and overwhelming ''lack'' of evidence) that [[spoiler:there are no Necrons on Perlia. Guess who shows up at the very end?]] |
| 224 | * CasualDangerDialogue: Kolbe, the Arbites praetor of Adumbria in ''The Traitor's Hand'', calls Cain's commbead in the middle of a Khornate cultist invasion to tell Cain something, then before he can say it, tells Cain to hold on a second. |
| 225 | --> He was interrupted by a burst of incoherent screaming which sounded like the warcry of a Khornate fanatic and which [[KilledMidSentence terminated abruptly]] in a thud of a power maul on full charge and a gurgle that sounded distinctly unhealthy. "Well he's not getting mine ... Sorry commissar, where were we?" |
| 226 | * TheCavalry: |
| 227 | ** In ''For the Emperor'', the 597th gets stymied trying to break through entrenched traitor PDF units (the 597th are mechanized infantry, meaning they lack heavy armor or artillery to deal with entrenched opponents), but then the Fire Caste security presence at the T'au embassy sends in a unit of Hammerhead {{Hover Tank}}s as a GunshipRescue, which blast a hole in the enemy lines. |
| 228 | ** In ''Death or Glory'', after decapitating the Ork WAAAGH! by killing the warboss but also mightily pissing off the Orks, Cain and his RagtagBunchOfMisfits flee for their lives, hoping to reach Imperial lines before the Orks catch them. Imperial warplanes get there first for a GunshipRescue. |
| 229 | ** {{Subverted}} in ''The Last Ditch''. After the gang learns of the Tyranid presence, Amberley Vail pulls strings to get a Space Marine strike cruiser to Nusquam Fundimentibus. [[spoiler:Cain wins the battle before the Bone Knives get there; the best they can do is collect him and Jurgen from the planet surface.]] |
| 230 | ** A literal example in ''The Greater Good''. Cain's shuttle is shot down by the Tyranids and crash-lands in the wasteland of a forge world. They're nearly overwhelmed by Tyranids before a Death Korps of Krieg horse cavalry company comes to their rescue. The Death Riders themselves later have to get bailed out by a Reclaimers land speeder. |
| 231 | * CatchPhrase: Cain has a few. |
| 232 | ** He enough says that someone did something "neat as you please." |
| 233 | ** Due to his pessimism, he often says, "my earlier assessment of the situation turned out to be an exaggeration and was on the pessimistic side, but not by as much as I would have hoped." |
| 234 | ** He'll often say "the coin dropped" when he puts the pieces together and has a EurekaMoment. |
| 235 | ** If he thinks something is likely, his narration will say "It's credits to carrots." |
| 236 | * ChangingOfTheGuard: Subverted. Young Donal in ''Cain's Last Stand'' is in many ways a dead ringer for a younger Ciaphas, and Ciaphas knows himself well enough to be watching the young cadet. As Cain's essentially upon his last great adventure, the reader might expect Donal to survive and take up the reins as a GenerationXerox. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, Donal is badly wounded and attempts a YouShallNotPass moment, but is captured and mentally enslaved. Cain and Jurgen rescue him, but they are forced to test the extent of Warmaster Varan's mental domination, and when Donal feels himself slipping again he [[DyingAsYourself commits suicide]].]] |
| 237 | %%* TheChainsOfCommanding |
| 238 | * ChekhovsBoomerang: Jurgen's status as a "blank" is a significant factor at the end of ''For the Emperor'', and throughout the rest of the books it often saves Cain's life in certain circumstances. |
| 239 | ** In ''Duty Calls'', [[spoiler:it serves as a [[SealedEvilInACan seal]] protecting Jurgen from being harmed by a Chaos ArtifactOfDoom when he picks it up--an artifact which ends up killing the rogue Inquisitor as he makes his getaway once he leaves Jurgen's area of effect]]. In ''Cain's Last Stand'', Cain again uses it to his advantage when [[spoiler:he confronts Warmaster Varan. Jurgen's presence nullifies the power of Varan's CompellingVoice, allowing Cain to wrong-foot and defeat him]]. |
| 240 | ** When Cain and a small squad go into [[spoiler:the Necron tombs to destroy the warp portal]] in ''Caves Of Ice'', they get confronted by [[spoiler:Pariahs]]. Most FreakOut, but Cain and Jurgen are unaffected due to having an acquired immunity to [[spoiler:the psychic effect used by the Pariahs, since it's essentially the same thing as Jurgen's ability.]] |
| 241 | * ChekhovsGun: |
| 242 | ** Whenever Jurgen's melta is brought along, it will probably be needed. (Of course, a melta being a melta, there are plenty of times when it ''would'' have come in very handy. It's a very "opportunistic" weapon). |
| 243 | ** In "Traitor's Gambit", Cain finds [[spoiler:a T'au-made gun]] and keeps it as evidence of their involvement. It's still at hand when he needs a weapon quickly and his laspistol is not convenient to draw. |
| 244 | * ChekhovsGunman: |
| 245 | ** Inquisitor Vail, in the first book, is introduced to Cain ''incognito'' at the governor's palace. He doesn't discover her true identity until later in the book. The reader, however, should know who she is since her name and Ordos are revealed in the introduction. |
| 246 | ** Warmaster Varan is first mentioned in ''The Traitor's Hand'' in one of the chapter opening quotes, those being his last words. It isn't until ''Cain's Last Stand'' that those words are spoken by the man himself, although in a slightly different context than their original use would have the reader believe. |
| 247 | ** Gunmen in the case of the PVF fighters of Chilinvale in ''Cain's Last Stand''. The village is mentioned to be the closest to the Valley of Daemons in the book. The book spends a long time on the volunteers there (which were Corporal Manrin, Ex-Imperial Trooper Jaq, 361st Coranian, and teenage girl Franka as well as other unnamed volunteers).[[note]]The fact the three were named at all was a definite hint.[[/note]] The trope is seemly subverted when the town is brought up again when Inquisitor Makan pretends to be the man in charge of PVF in Chilinvale, [[note]]This gave him a plausible excuse to be in the Valley in Daemons in the first place (the Shadowlight was a secret to everybody and people would be asking hard questions if they knew the Inquisition was there).[[/note]] only for Cain to indicate that neither him nor Makan seemed to want to call in those PVF. However, when the battle starts, Manrin just happens to lead the Chilinvale PVF [[spoiler: to the battle and [[ContrivedCoincidence just so happens to meet Cain during a stealth mission which just so happens to be to the one transport carrying the now mind-controlled Donal]].]] Which wrapped up not one, but TWO instances of [[ChekhovsGunman Chekhov's gunmen]] with one event. |
| 248 | ** [[spoiler:Inquisitor]] Malden is quoted on page 47 of the Omnibus: "You'll get more with a kind word and an excruciator than with just a kind word." A psyker named Malden shows up in ''Traitor's Hand'' to...extract information from a member of the council of claimants. |
| 249 | * ChildrenAreInnocent: |
| 250 | ** Even Cain is horrified in ''Duty Calls'' by the realization that Killian abandoned children to a Tyranid attack. |
| 251 | ** To a different degree of "innocent", given the setting: Amberley recalls a book from her childhood where she always liked the pictures of burning heretics, and children are taught songs like this: |
| 252 | --->"The tracks on the Land Raider crush the heretics, crush the heretics, crush the heretics. The tracks on the Land Raider crush the heretics all day long..." |
| 253 | ** A more conventional example in the aftermath of the fighting in Fidelis in ''The Emperor's Finest''. As Cain and Jurgen head to the starport they pass a group of kids playing in the rubble of a wrecked building, who only break from their game to wave and squee at their passing Salamander. |
| 254 | * CitywideEvacuation: There is an evacuation going on for the last third of ''The Last Ditch''. Tyranids are working their way toward the planet's biggest city, and Cain tries to send its three million people elsewhere to either maker the city a less tempting target or reduce the casualties if it is hit. The process is complicated by the governor refusing to evacuate herself for as long as possible. |
| 255 | * CleanCut: In ''Duty Calls'', Cain manages to score one of these on an assassin using his chainsword. |
| 256 | * {{Cliffhanger}}: ''Hidden Depths'' ends with Amberley and her team escaping a firefight by going through [[spoiler:an Eldar webportal]], without saying anything about what's on the other side. |
| 257 | ** This is not resolved until YEARS later, in ''Choose Your Enemies''. |
| 258 | * ClosestThingWeGot: Ariott is pressed into service as the caravan's medic in ''Death or Glory.'' He's actually a veterinarian. The same book also features two artisans (of unspecified trades) pressed into service as auto mechanics by the only real Tech-Priest; over the course of the book they start to carry Mechanicus iconography and act as Enginseers in all but name, and according to a footnote they formally joined afterwards. |
| 259 | * ColdSniper: Sorel, in ''For The Emperor''. |
| 260 | * CommissarCap: Standard gear, though Amberley does note that Cain would probably prefer a helmet. |
| 261 | ** It's humorously {{lampshaded}} near the beginning of ''Caves of Ice'' |
| 262 | --->'''Captain Durant''': The one in the fancy hat wants to know if you've wired up his gadgets. |
| 263 | ** Also: |
| 264 | --->'''Cain''': It was a tough call for me to make, but unfortunately that goes with the hat. |
| 265 | * CompellingVoice: [[spoiler:Warmaster Varan]] can turn anyone to Chaos if they can see and hear him--even ''[[spoiler:Battle Sisters]]''. |
| 266 | * ComplainingAboutRescuesTheyDontLike: The ultra-religious Tallarns, or at least Asmar and Beije in ''The Traitor's Hand'', call it ''blasphemy'' that Cain had his dropship land on part of a monastery because he was in a hurry to get there to save them. The part in question was the ''vegetable garden''. Then they don't even help fix it, unlike Cain's troops (having been redeployed already). They are slightly mollified when the Valhallans [[SarcasmFailure offer to have the bricks blessed in their names]]. |
| 267 | * CompromisingMemoirs: Cain wrote a set, [[ATrueStoryInMyUniverse which we're now reading]]. |
| 268 | * ConspicuousGloves: Cain wears gloves. Technically they're part of his uniform, but they also serve to hide his prosthetic fingers. |
| 269 | * ConspiracyTheorist: Many of them found the death of the Governor of Adumbria dying of apparent natural causes [[SuccessionCrisis with no named successor]] a year before the planet was attacked by Chaos forces to be extremely interesting. The fact that there was no evidence of any connection between those two events at the time of the war, and still no evidence of such twenty years later just proved the brilliance of the conspiracy in their eyes. |
| 270 | * ContinuityDrift: In ''For The Emperor'' it is mentioned that Cain has seen Astartes reclaim the geneseed after going back on the Space Hulk. However, in ''The Emperor's Finest'' he is far too sick [[spoiler:from an emergency teleport]] to actually go back onto the ship, and in fact starts making efforts to get as far away from the hulk as possible. |
| 271 | ** In ''For the Emperor'' Cain mentions that he mopped up the Space Hulk with an Imperial Guard unit which also did not appear in ''The Emperor's Finest''; perhaps he returned, however reluctantly, with some support. |
| 272 | ** Amberley does mention that the "Cain Archives" did need heavy editing, and was essentially a single very long document with events placed wildly out of order from one another. Such discrepencies could have their origins there. |
| 273 | * ContinuityNod: |
| 274 | ** A couple to Literature/GauntsGhosts: |
| 275 | *** A small blink-and-you'll-miss-it one in ''Duty Calls''. When riding in a limousine, Cain notices a small cabinet made of naalwood, and comments that it was probably worth more than the aircraft he rode in on. This is because naalwood only comes from the planet Tanith, which was destroyed by Chaos half a millennia previously, and so is very rare and '''very''' expensive. |
| 276 | *** There is an earlier nod in one of Vail's footnotes. In response to Cain making a comment about how he always gets command of ''ad hoc'' units on special duty, she comments that giving commissars command of special task forces is common practice, referencing one commissar who commanded a regiment for some years, though he was given the dual rank of Colonel to ease the paperwork. |
| 277 | ** Commissar Forres hastily retracts an accusation of cowardice in ''The Last Ditch'' after she learned that the last time a Commissar insulted Colonel Kasteen, Cain challenged said Commissar to a duel. This was Tomas Beije, towards the end of ''The Traitor's Hand''. |
| 278 | ** ''The Greater Good'' has several; |
| 279 | *** Cain mentions adjusting his hat to a "suitably heroic angle". He was shown how to do this by Mira in ''The Emperor's Finest''. |
| 280 | *** The plot is also set off by the T'au remembering him favourably from the events of ''For the Emperor''. |
| 281 | *** It's mentioned in a footnote that the 12th Artillery, who Cain was stationed with in the short story that began the series (where he met Jurgen), was among the troops sent in. The question of whether Cain made a social call to his "old friends" is a further reference to Major Toren Divas, who Cain [[UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom would probably rather avoid]] (thanks to what happened in ''For The Emperor''). |
| 282 | * ConvectionSchmonvection: Explicitly {{invoked|Trope}} and {{averted|Trope}}. Once Cain claims that a plasma bolt missed by a millimeter. Amberley points out that he would have suffered flash burns that close, so he [[UnreliableNarrator must have been exaggerating]]. |
| 283 | ** Played more realistically in "Traitor's Gambit"; he winds up shooting someone with a plasma pistol he had stuffed into his coat earlier, without drawing it first. Cain mentions being burned in the process, but since the alternative was to be left behind on an exploding ship, he doesn't dwell on the injury. |
| 284 | * ConvenientlyAnOrphan: Cain is a product of the Schola Progenium, schools which raise and educate the children of people who died serving in the Imperial forces. |
| 285 | * CoolTeacher: |
| 286 | ** Cain appears to have become one prior to the events of ''Cain's Last Stand'' (or at least he claims to be more relaxed, to the irritation of his colleagues). |
| 287 | ** By the time ''Cain's Last Stand'' was written though, the latter was forgotten; every named member of the faculty is ultimately shown to be a bit of a CoolOldGuy (or in one case, a Cool Old Nun), at least off duty. |
| 288 | ** Those [[RetiredBadass awesome four]] are hardly the [[TwoTeacherSchool only teachers in the schola]], and Cain does mention that he wouldn't really bother with the rest of the faculty. And even with the above three, he doesn't really give a picture of their teaching styles. |
| 289 | * CooperationGambit: In ''For the Emperor'', Cain's unit is stationed on a planet that's [[PowderKegCrowd on the verge of civil war]] thanks to the T'au attempting to annex it. Neither side wants it to break out (yet), leading to a lot of this. Early on, a Kroot mercenary saves Cain from being beaten to death by T'au sympathisers. Much later, Cain helps a T'au ambassador (who was shot by an assassin) get medical treatment and escorts him back to his compound (even [[spoiler:having to [[ShootTheDog order the guardsmen under his command to shoot some loyalist PDF]] who wanted to lynch the T'au]]). |
| 290 | * CorruptQuartermaster: In "The Smallest Detail", Jurgen and a local investigator catch a quartermaster who's selling food and weapons on the black market and fudging the records to hide this. Jurgen was content to ignore it, considering it harmless and so common as to be unremarkable, until the quartermaster panicked and tried to have him killed. |
| 291 | * CosmicPlaything: Cain repeatedly comments that if the Emperor is actually watching him, He has a sick sense of humor. |
| 292 | * ConsummateLiar: Even before he knew about Jurgen, and afterward when he's not around, Cain was confident in his ability to fool ''mind readers''--mostly by controlling stray thoughts. It is implied that he couldn't have defended himself from an actual investigation and is lucky that his memory has never been scanned before. But then again, Amberley is the first human being in his life whom he cannot fool no matter how he tried, and she's an Inquisitor. |
| 293 | * CourtMartialed: |
| 294 | ** In ''For the Emperor'' Cain presides over the trials of six Guardsmen from the Valhallan 296th and 301st who had been involved in a BarBrawl that resulted in the deaths of several Guardsmen and Imperial Navy personnel. The penalty is death, but Cain uses his authority as regimental commissar to commute the sentences to [[TradingBarsForStripes service in a penal legion]]. He then deals with the root of the problem by re-founding the two amalgamated half-strength regiments as one unit, the Valhallan 597th. |
| 295 | ** ''The Traitor's Hand'' wraps up with Cain facing a Commissariat tribunal, basically a court-martial by a different name. |
| 296 | * CoversAlwaysLie: Boy, do they; the cover artist deliberately presents Cain in the overblown style of the propaganda posters the character so often ends up on. Thus, the laspistol-wielding, cover-seeking Cain is depicted boldly leading his men, and even [[GunsAkimbo dual-wielding]] [[HandCannon bolt pistols]] [[AtopAMountainOfCorpses while he stands on a pile of enemy dead]]. Also, none of the covers include the red sash Commissars wear as part of their uniform, and which is a minor plot point in ''Cain's Last Stand''. Cain is also depicted as being hugely muscled, although given his daily chainsword practice regimen and feats with the weapon in-story that's not much of a stretch. |
| 297 | ** Hypotheses aside, one of the few things we do know for sure about Cain's physical appearance is his imposing height--Amberley in one book clearly states that Cain was just under two meters tall and invariably among the tallest in any group of people. |
| 298 | ** ''The Greater Good'' is a particularly strong example of this trope. The name and cover art imply that the T'au feature heavily. However, the conflict with the T'au is resolved amicably in the first few chapters [[EnemyMine due to the oncoming Tyranid threat]]. Then the T'au and the Imperium retreat their forces to fortify their respective worlds, and the T'au remain in the background for the rest of the novel. One would almost think them a RedHerring left by a TrollingCreator... |
| 299 | *** It does finally answer the question of why Cain always carries a bolt pistol on the covers rather than the las pistol he normally uses. Jurgen acquires a very nice bolt pistol from a dead tech-priest and a footnote from Amberley mentions that Cain often used that pistol when posing for propaganda posters. |
| 300 | * CrapsackWorld: Oddly enough, despite Cain's dry panic and his constant placement on the hellish frontlines of a hellish universe, his and others' commentary reveals that the Imperium is somewhat less crapsacky than it's normally portrayed: he leads Imperial Guard regiments that aren't used as cannon fodder, the Imperium is (wearily) able to work with FILTHY XENOS to avert civil wars, Cain notes that stereotypical "shoot everyone for heresy" Commissars and Inquisitors do not last very long, and it's stated that on many Imperial worlds, ordinary people do enjoy a standard of living comparable to their counterparts on modern Earth. So while there is the risk of dying horribly at the hands of an invader, it's unlikely. |
| 301 | ** Which makes sense when you realized that the events form the codexes (the main source of GrimDark) are only the major ones and are often centuries apart. |
| 302 | ** It's also explicitly justified several times. Most of the places Cain visits are such backwaters that the Imperial government in the sector mostly just ignores them, allowing the locals to carry on. The world in the first book, for instance, had been openly trading with the T'au for generations before anyone noticed. The one major world we see, the forge world in ''The Greater Good'', is the setting's usual hellish hive full of slave labor and casual dismissal of human lives. |
| 303 | * CrazyPrepared Jurgen always seems to have whatever is needed in those pouches of his. |
| 304 | * CrushingHandshake: Cain's augmetic fingers have given him the upper hand (ha ha) at least once in regards to this trope. |
| 305 | * {{Cult}}: There's the usual mess of Chaos cultists. Also, Vail reports a cult that worships Cain as the embodied will of the Emperor and quotes the ''Book of Cain''. Fortunately, Cain never heard of it. |
| 306 | ** Almost certainly picked up from ''{{Literature/Flashman}}'', where there is a (historically accurate and very funny) scene referencing John Nicholson, a British officer in India in the 1840s who was worshipped as a god by several frontier tribes known as the Nikkulseynites. His response was to flog anyone who mentioned them; Flashman suggests taking up a collection instead. |
| 307 | * CurbStompBattle: In "A Mug of Recaff", Jurgen shoots his way past a Chaos sorcerer and the daemon he was conjuring up in ''under a page'' because they had gotten between him and the kettle he needed for his boss' brew-up. The fact that he's immune to all direct effects of warpcraft and weakens daemons just by standing too close to them played a major role in this. |
| 308 | * {{Cyborg}}: Plot- and story-specific instances include: |
| 309 | ** Cain has [[ChekhovsBoomerang two augmetic fingers]] due to having the originals shot off by a glancing hit from a Gauss flayer. |
| 310 | ** Janni Drere has augmetic lungs which are noted to give her breathing [[VaderBreath an audibly mechanical sound]]. |
| 311 | ** Amberley's companion Caractacus Mott is mentioned to be mostly augmetic from the neck down; his first appearance has him effectively ignore being shot in the leg by a lasgun. |
| 312 | * DangerousDeserter: The first book gets some of its tension from whether the penal squad will decide they've got nothing left to lose and become these. [[spoiler:Kelp does. No one follows, and he seals his fate when he attacks Cain.]] |
| 313 | * DataPad: Frequent mention of dataslates is made throughout the books. In particular, Cain occasionally sees Jurgen looking at a [[PornStash porno slate]], and according to Amberley, the entire "Cain Archive" was him putting all his adventures onto a single dataslate. |
| 314 | * DeadlyDodging: Cain making combat servitors fire at each other in ''Cain's Last Stand''. |
| 315 | * DeadlySparring: A [[DownplayedTrope downplayed version]] occurs during a friendly match with the Techmarine Drumon.[[note]]Drumon is in armor and allows Cain to turn on his chainsword; meanwhile Drumon wields a power sword with its power field deactivated, as Cain is in his commissarial greatcoat[[/note]] Cain nicks Drumon's armor with his chainsword and is horrified at having damaged a centuries-old relic, especially since he's a guest of the Reclaimers. However, Drumon reassures him that it's just a nick and he intends to keep it to remind himself of the dangers of complacency. |
| 316 | * DeadpanSnarker: |
| 317 | ** Cain, in his comments on other characters. |
| 318 | ** Amberley frequently does this in her footnotes and in her comments about some of the non-Cain texts she inserts pages from. |
| 319 | ** Colonel Kasteen doesn't take crap from anyone, but is especially short with {{Obstructive Bureaucrat}}s: |
| 320 | *** In ''Caves of Ice'', the administrator of a mining facility protests that Kasteen's defense plan presents an unacceptable risk of damage and demands that an alternative strategy be formulated; Kasteen responds that the administrator is welcome to ''"go outside and ask the orks to go away, if she thought that would help."'' |
| 321 | * DeathbedPromotion: Cain leaves his commissarial sash of office to the grievously wounded cadet Donal as a way of saying he's become an official commissar. Subverted when he shows up again under the brainwashing villain Varan's orders, but Jurgen interrupts the effect long enough for Donal to shoot himself in the head, asking Cain to kick Varan's ass for him. Cain takes back the sash and proceeds to do so, booting Varan off a dam with a BondOneLiner. |
| 322 | -->'''Cain:''' Commissar Donal sends his regards. |
| 323 | * DeceasedFallGuyGambit: Cain defuses an argument between the Ordo Xenos and the Adeptus Mechanicus over which side caused the security leak that allowed Chaos agents to learn of the Shadowlight by blaming it on the long-dead rogue Inquisitor Killian. While he claims this was just so he could stop the argument and get people working on solving the problem, the logic he uses in naming his scapegoat is fairly plausible. |
| 324 | * DecliningPromotion: Ciaphas Cain is a downplayed example. It's mentioned in [[FootnoteFever a footnote]] in ''The Greater Good'' that he would more than qualify as a "Lord Commissar" (which is technically a title connoting respect, since the Commissariat is made up of equals) but refuses to be called such. Downplayed because he still gets the respect and influence either way; he just does it as part of his HumbleHero persona. |
| 325 | * DeliberateValuesDissonance: The xenophobia and authoritarianism of the Imperium are on full display, though Sandy Mitchell tends to use it for BlackComedy instead of plain grimdark. |
| 326 | ** Now and again, especially when Cain is up against the T'au. Apparently, egalitarianism and open-mindedness freak him out, as you would expect from an Imperial citizen. |
| 327 | *** From the same book, he also seems approving when the Arbites show up to [[PoliceBrutality beat the crap out of]] a handful of troublesome but otherwise peaceful pro-T'au humans. |
| 328 | *** While subtle, there are a few casual lines thrown in that shows Cain has the typical xenophobic view of the T'au expected from most Imperials. Relatively speaking, he is still very tolerant of them, which can largely be attributed to professional respect and the overall lack of instances where the T'au have actively tried to kill him. Granted, as a well-connected Commissar, he might also be privy to the knowledge that the [[GoodIsNotNice Greater Good is not nice]], which could also influence his views of them. |
| 329 | ** Another example in ''Cain's Last Stand'': glancing around the Schola grounds, Cain notes a black-painted truck bearing a load of prisoners for interrogation, execution and ''live-fire exercises'', decides all is well and gets back to work. There's also the line about looking forward to a brisk round of target practice against unarmed demonstrators, but that one was probably a joke. |
| 330 | ** He mentions organizing firing squads very casually as part of his duties in one of the short stories. |
| 331 | ** Cain also appears to believe wholeheartedly in machine spirits and the rituals of the Mechanicus, although he doesn't care much for individual techpriests most of the time. (Given the two Necron tombs they hacked off while he was around ''that we know of'', it's hard to blame him.) Finding a stolen Imperial-made gun mounted on an orkish buggy, he wonders if it will still work now that its spirit "has been corrupted by being forced into servitude". When it does, he reckons it's because it remains loyal to the Emperor. In the same book he makes a big deal about the courage and self-sacrifice of an escape pod's auto-pilot computer. |
| 332 | *** He's quite put off by the secular way the T'au and their loyalists use their machinery, and wonders why the machine-spirits of the T'au don't simply stop working "out of sheer pique." |
| 333 | *** In ''Cain's Last Stand'', he sees that the Chaos forces are using Imperial wargear with Chaos runes daubed over the aquilae. He immediately decides that it will be too dangerous to ever put those weapons back into Imperial hands because they've effectively converted to Chaos, and orders them destroyed. |
| 334 | ** Amberley Vail usually comes across as a fairly reasonable, likeable person. And then she mentions, in ''Caves of Ice'', how she can never hold back a smile when looking at the amusing expressions on the faces of heretics being burned alive in a book from her childhood. She also seems quite pleased (enough to unsettle Cain) in ''For The Emperor'' when [[spoiler:the T'au seem unaware that their wounded troopers they've just rescued are probably infected by Genestealers, and shows no inclination to warn them]]. |
| 335 | ** In ''The Greater Good'', when the Mechanicus finally comes clean about their Genestealer breeding/research program, one character at the conference points out that all the original implantees were male. [[spoiler:Female prisoners scheduled for conversion to servitors were turned over to the implanted men so more hybrids could be produced, it's implied via rape.]] Though uncomfortable at the measures taken to study the Genestealers none of the Imperials at the table have any real problem with this [[spoiler:although a visiting T'au diplomat is clearly appalled. He's even more horrified when he admits that the gain might be worth the horrible cost, only to learn the Adeptus Mechanicus don't care at all about the people and only think of their output]]. |
| 336 | ** Then there's the [[TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior nursery rhyme, "The tracks on the Land Raider crush the heretics, crush the heretics, crush the heretics..."]] |
| 337 | * DemonOfHumanOrigin: In the short story "The Beguiling", Cain wipes out a Slaaneshi cult with an artillery strike after killing its leader, Emeli, when she tried to seduce him into being a HumanSacrifice. Several decades later in the novel ''The Traitor's Hand'', Cain encounters Emeli as the final boss; she's been turned into a Slaaneshi Daemon Prince during her time dead. |
| 338 | * DestructionEqualsOffSwitch: Jurgen tries to invoke this during ''The Greater Good''. Unfortunately the Mechanicus doesn't believe in this trope, and the door stays locked. |
| 339 | * DiscreditedMeme: InUniverse. During ''The Traitor's Hand'' the Khornates Cain is fighting yell, "Blood for the Blood God!" so often that he gets sick of hearing it. |
| 340 | * DidntThinkThisThrough: Cain tells [[spoiler:the ringleader of the pro-T'au terrorists he's facing in ''Traitor's Gambit'' essentially this; after she gives a [[MotiveRant long-winded rant about how they plan to use the commandeered yacht in a suicide attack to kill Zyvan and cripple the Imperial forces long enough for the T'au to annex the region]], Cain shoots her down by pointing out that even if the terrorists succeed in their half-cocked plan, the chain of command will ensure a new Imperial general takes over and the T'au won't be allowed to gain a foothold. Cain also adds that unlike her comrades, who at least appear to believe in the Greater Good, the woman [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech is nothing but a common thief using the situation to line her own pockets]].]] |
| 341 | * DidYouJustHaveSex: In ''Choose Your Enemies'', Cain sees both Colonel Kasteen and Major Broklaw entertaining the attentions of local nobles at a banquet in the 597th's honor, and wryly thinks to himself that neither the CO nor XO are likely to spend the night in their own quarters. Sure enough, the next morning, Kasteen is "gulping recaff with the air of someone who was tired but still relishing the process of having got that way." |
| 342 | * DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Over the course of the books, Cain defeats several daemons and a few Chaos Space Marines in close combat...with the aid of others, of course. Cain's reputation has gotten such a boost from these feats that the Imperial Guard has even made a drinking song about him kicking ''[[GodOfEvil Khorne]]'' in the balls. |
| 343 | * DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler:Cain kicking Warmaster Varan over a cliff in ''Cain's Last Stand''.]] |
| 344 | * DisposablePilot: Warmaster Varan's ([[spoiler:BrainwashedAndCrazy, like all his minions]]) pilot is eventually revealed to have starved to death as he had been told to stay there until Varan's return. After Varan dies and DecapitatedArmy is noticeably averted, he continues to wait for orders that never come. |
| 345 | * DistinctionWithoutADifference: Cain doesn't "charge the enemy". He "retreats forwards". |
| 346 | * DividedWeFall: Cain often uses this argument to get multiple factions to work together, typically because if they fall, so will he. |
| 347 | * DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Varan is a relatively short man with a huge ego, extraordinary charisma, astounding oratory ability, fanatical and twisted followers, and ''a tiny moustache''? [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler Subtle.]] |
| 348 | * DoorStopper: These books aren't, unless you buy the omnibus editions, but there are references to books of this type in the stories, most notably the novel ''[[Literature/WarAndPeace Waaaagh! and Peace]]: The Siege of Perlia and its Neighboring Systems'', which was never completed due to the author's untimely death by a stack of books falling on him. The 37 volumes which he did complete are an incredibly detailed reference on the first nine weeks of the titular two-year campaign (which would imply that the complete version that the author intended would have gone on to 428 volumes). |
| 349 | * DramaticIrony: The sorceress Emili sees the core of indulgent self-interest and potential for greatness in young Cain's heart and tries to convert him to worshipping Slaanesh, returning later as a classic WomanScorned when he rejects her advances. He never figured this out, thinking he was just meant to be a sacrifice and that her later attention was just sour grapes because he won. |
| 350 | * DrawAggro: Cain and Jurgen confuse a combat servitor in ''Death or Glory'' by alternating shots at the thing. Each time it targets one of them, the other attacks and the servitor's targeting systems reset onto the new threat. |
| 351 | * TheDreaded: The Cain novels are more or less the only ''Warhammer 40K'' media that ''convincingly'' continue to portray Necrons as horrific monstrosities to be feared. Cain has only pulled off one win out of three encounters with the Necrons (and only by blowing them up from orbit), as opposed to his constant success against just about everything else. They are also the one threat thus far that he has adamantly refused to stand and confront, reputation be damned. |
| 352 | * TheDreadedToiletDuty: A squad of repeat offenders jailed for their behavior on shore leave is punished by Cain with relatively light sentences (so as to maintain his popularity, there's plenty of commissars who'd have shot the lot at the first offense). One is apparently such a repeat customer that he can joke about it. |
| 353 | -->'''Cain:''' Hochen, Nordstrom, Milsen, Jarvik... and the inevitable Gunner Erhlsen. Tell me, Erhlsen, are you planning to make latrine orderly a full-time career? |
| 354 | -->'''Erhlsen:''' "[[QuoteToQuoteCombat We serve the Emperor as our talents direct.]]" |
| 355 | -->'''Cain:''' Where you're concerned he delegates to me. |
| 356 | * DreadfulMusician |
| 357 | ** Early in ''For the Emperor'', Cain describes the regimental band of the 597th Valhallan as |
| 358 | ---> [T]humping and parping away at ''If I Should Forget Thee, O Terra'', as though they had a grudge against the composer. |
| 359 | ** At one point in ''The Traitor's Hand'', Cain mentions the elevator music in an Arbites headquarters. |
| 360 | ---> After about thirty seconds of tedium, made even worse by a scratchy recording of ''Death to the Deviant'' apparently performed by tone-deaf ratlings with nose flutes .... |
| 361 | * DressingAsTheEnemy: In ''Death or Glory'', Cain and Jurgen have to infiltrate an Ork-occupied town in a stolen Ork vehicle. They go in at night to reduce visibility, Cain has to keep his head down, and Jurgen drives while wearing a bulky blanket over himself to conceal the fact that he is human. A few [[OurGoblinsAreDifferent Gretchin]] try to hitch a ride, but fortunately Jurgen [[TalkToTheFist speaks enough Orkish to trick them]]. Later in the novel, Cain and his new allies are trying to get to a [=PDF=] supply base ... but they're all traveling in captured Ork vehicles, and nearly get blown away by the unit already there before proving they're really Imperials. |
| 362 | * DrivenToSuicide: Shows up twice in ''Cain's Last Stand'': |
| 363 | ** [[spoiler:Donal]] shoots himself when he realizes that [[spoiler:he can't overcome Varan's brainwashing]]. |
| 364 | ** When [[spoiler:the brainwashed Battle Sisters acting as Varan's bodyguards]] have his control over them broken, they collapse into screaming hysterics, then throw themselves off a rooftop. |
| 365 | * DueToTheDead: In ''Caves of Ice'', when they have to burn a body to keep the Orks from realizing they're there, even Cain seems perturbed by it. |
| 366 | * DungeonBypass: |
| 367 | ** Cain is on the receiving end of one of these in ''The Caves of Ice''. |
| 368 | ** Jurgen's melta is frequently used for this. |
| 369 | * DwindlingParty: In ''For The Emperor'', Cain sentences five [[MauveShirt troublemakers]] in the nascent 597th to certain death in a [[TradingBarsForStripes penal legion]]. He ends up having to lead them alongside Amberley Vail into the city's AbsurdlySpaciousSewer to get to the bottom of the local conspiracy. [[spoiler:One deserts, later trying to off Cain only to get [[LudicrousGibs gibbed]] by Jurgen's meltagun. One takes a bolter round to the ribcage during the ensuing retreat from the 'stealer hordes. One gets [[YourHeadASplode His Head A Sploded]] by the traitorous governor. The final two have to be {{Mercy Kill}}ed by Cain himself after he realizes they've been infected by the Genestealers.]] |
| 370 | * DyingAsYourself: [[spoiler:Commissar Donal]] shoots himself rather than re-succumb to [[spoiler:Varan's brainwashing]]. |
| 371 | * EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: |
| 372 | ** In ''For the Emperor'', the first book in the series, Jurgen offers to go with Cain on his quasi-SuicideMission, surprising Cain with his loyalty and thoughtfulness. Unfortunately, as the series went on and more stories came out covering events before this book, we learn that Cain and Jurgen have been practicially joined at the hip almost from day one, and it's an extremely rare event where Jurgen ''doesn't'' follow Cain into battle to watch his back. Making Cain surprised by something Jurgen has done dozens of times before. |
| 373 | ** The very first short story ''Fight or Flight'' was not meant to be continued and it shows. Cain is a downright DirtyCoward with no wiggle room for interpretation, Jurgen is remarked as being long dead [[spoiler: despite outliving Cain who died of old age after two centuries]], and there's no mention of Cain's other adventures or accomplishments |
| 374 | * EarnYourHappyEnding: Although we recognize it also depends on his luck. |
| 375 | * EarthShatteringKaboom: To deal with the necrons in ''Caves of Ice'', [[spoiler:Cain essentially turns an entire promethium refinery into a giant fuel-air bomb. The explosion would probably have been a mass extinction-level event had the planet not been an ice world, and the shockwave ''buffets Cain's ship in orbit!'']] |
| 376 | * EasyLogistics: |
| 377 | ** The aversion is discussed in the first book. The Imperial Guard would rather not have to fight for Gravalax if they don't have to, as its status as a remote border system means that ensuring a secure supply line would tie up a lot of resources that are needed elsewhere. But on the other hand, if they ''don't'' fight for it, the T'au might take it as a license to keep on going and start grabbing other, far more valuable systems. |
| 378 | ** It's played with in the 597th; they don't have the same problems keeping their numbers and equipment up that other regiments do because it took decades for the logistics branch to catch on that they were amalgamated and stop giving them two regiments' worth of supplies. |
| 379 | * EatenAlive: When Cain faces off against [[SandWorm Mawlocs]] in ''The Last Ditch'' he brings up a bit from the fluff about people being eaten whole by them, to suffer a slow, agonizing death as they are digested alive. Amberley then [[ThisIsReality notes that in actuality]] anyone eaten by a Mawloc would actually die rather quickly by suffocation or crushing... before admitting that probably isn't much of a reassurance. |
| 380 | * EatingTheEyeCandy: |
| 381 | ** Actually ''saves Cain's life'' in ''Duty Calls''. As he checks out Colonel Kasteen's backside as she's walking up some stairs, he happens to see from the corner of his eye a set of gun toting servo-skulls flying down from the ceiling to kill him. |
| 382 | ** In another story, a rather bored scribe is supposed to be writing the minutes of a rather dull meeting. Instead (clearly never thinking anyone would ever actually ''read'' said minutes) he eulogises about Colonel Kasteen and in particular the way the light sets off her red hair. |
| 383 | ** In ''Cain's Last Stand'', while tutoring his cadets on how to spot heretical infiltrators in Guard regiments, Cain asks a surprise question to the cadet who is paying more attention to the [[AmazonBrigade Adepta Sororitas]] novitiates exercising outside. |
| 384 | ** Cain mentions a few times that after being rescued from an Ork prison camp on starvation rations, getting some proper food in her has done wonders for [[SheCleansUpNicely Felicia Tayber's figure]]. |
| 385 | * {{Egopolis}}: A town Cain saves in ''Death or Glory'' (or more accurately, blows up with an ork army inside) gets rebuilt as "Cainstead." Amberley notes that he found this hilarious. |
| 386 | * EliteMooks: The PDF in ''Cain's Last Stand''. |
| 387 | * EmbarrassingStatue: After Cain's liberation of Perlia, a huge statue is erected in his honor. Cain himself thinks it an eyesore, and when the planet is attacked decades later, asks hopefully if the statue's been destroyed. |
| 388 | * EmergencyAuthority: The Imperium being [[RightHandVersusLeftHand what it is]], the 597th often has to declare martial law in order to get the bureaucrats out of the way (typically because Cain is empowered to shoot them if they don't). |
| 389 | * EmergencyPresidentialAddress: |
| 390 | ** Played with in ''Duty Calls'', as the governor's speech [[EpicFail is a complete failure]] ([[IsThisThingOn and not even rehearsed]]; he seemed under the impression it ''was'' the rehearsal), demonstrating just how out-of-it the governor is (and with a name like Merkin [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush W. Pismire the Younger]], take a wild guess [[TakeThat who he's supposed to be...]]). |
| 391 | ** In ''Cain's Last Stand'', the planetary governor's daughter is hastily located, sworn in, and instructed to make a broadcast to counter her father [[BrainwashedAndCrazy who is performing the same service for the other side]]. Cain himself makes a few broadcasts banking on [[FamedInStory his fame as]] [[TheMagnificent The Liberator]]. |
| 392 | * EmergencyRefuelling: Cain's RagtagBunchOfMisfits have rigged a supply depot to explode so the orks can't use it, when a straggler tank that's low on ammo shows up. Against Cain's judgement, the tank crew restock as much as they can and bail before the pursuing orks can catch up, and ''then'' the depot explodes. |
| 393 | * EmotionBomb: A psyker in ''Duty Calls'' uses despair, Slaaneshi cultists [[LoveIsInTheAir spread lust around]] wherever they are, and Necron pariahs are "shrouded in horror"... over and above the reasonable reaction to Necrons, that is. |
| 394 | * EncyclopediaExposita: The novels frequently have "excerpts" from from various fictional sources -- often Jenit Sulla's [[PurpleProse unreadable biography]] -- in-between chapters. |
| 395 | * EnemyCivilWar: |
| 396 | ** Done with [[spoiler:the ''[[HordeOfAlienLocusts Tyranids]]'' of all things]] in ''The Greater Good''. [[spoiler:The Tyranids attacking the planet are from a different hive than the ones that the Mechanicus has on ice, and tear into each other every chance they get.]] |
| 397 | ** The rivalry between two different Chaos powers is a plot point in ''The Traitor's Hand''. |
| 398 | ** Causing one is the only reason Cain manages to survive his [[BadassUnintentional unplanned assault on the central Ork command post]] in ''Death or Glory''. After killing the Warboss leading the whole WAAAGH!, rather than killing Cain and Jurgen on the spot, the various Nobz serving under him instead start bickering about who's in charge. And [[BloodKnight Orks being Orks]], it only takes a few seconds for bickering to turn into bloodshed. Another character showing up and hosing down the whole mess with a heavy flamer ensures that this happens afterwards ''within'' the various Ork clans as well as between them; the resulting chaos is probably a large reason it only took two years to reclaim the planet after the Orks had conquered half of it. |
| 399 | * EnemyMine: |
| 400 | ** In ''For The Emperor'', Cain's recon team and a squad of T'au pathfinders briefly team up to scout out the terrorist base. Then they find a Bigger Fish and things get worse. Meanwhile on the surface, a T'au armored vehicle helps the Guard break through a rogue PDF position. |
| 401 | ** ''The Greater Good'' also sees the Imperium and the T'au team up, on a larger scale: with the approach of Tyranid hive fleets large enough to destroy multiple worlds from both sides, the two empires agree to stop fighting long enough to stop the bigger problem. [[spoiler:Kind of subverted, since the T'au expected that the fight against Tyranids would deplete the Imperial Fleet of the sector to the level where they will be able to capture dozens of systems without Imperial interference. And if the bulk of the casualties ended up being on the T'au side, the Imperium would gladly do the same thing to them. The Imperium-T'au agreement isn't so much an alliance as it is a ceasefire until their mutual enemy goes away.]] |
| 402 | ** ''Choose Your Enemies'' features Eldar saving Cain's life a few times. This is what happens when the Farseer in charge of the Eldar unit knows [[spoiler:if Cain dies, the Slaaneshi daemon Emeli will destroy both the Eldar and a large stash of soul stones]]. |
| 403 | ** "The Only Good Ork" revolves around Cain convincing an Ork leader that they should kill the genestealers looking to kill or infect them both, ''then'' try to kill each other. |
| 404 | * EnemyScan: In ''The Greater Good'' Cain is on the receiving end of one of these things. A squadron of [[MiniMecha T'au battlesuits]] keeps cornering him, shining [[LaserSight a bright targeting light]] directly on him, which of course he tries to slip away from. [[spoiler:In reality, it is not a scan to highlight weakness, but rather to get a clear picture of his face to confirm his identity against the T'au's files on him. They just wanted to talk to ''him'' specifically.]] |
| 405 | * EvenEvilHasStandards: Parodied in ''Duty Calls'', where Cain considers Periremundian fashion (and PDF uniforms) so garish that even Slaaneshi cultists would find them in bad taste. |
| 406 | * EverythingIsAnIPodInTheFuture: In ''The Greater Good'', this is used to contrast T'au technology--complete with rounded corners, icon-based touch interfaces, wireless projectors, and "thin, flat" portable computing devices--with the UsedFuture technology of the Imperium. In ''For the Emperor'' the local architecture adopting a similar aesthetic (still recognizably human but with no right angles) is an early indicator of how much influence the T'au have had on the place. |
| 407 | * ExactWords: At the end of ''Cain's Last Stand'', Cain [[spoiler:lures Varan to a meeting to discuss "terms of surrender". At the meeting, he announces that it's to discuss the terms on which ''Varan'' surrenders.]] He does it again a few pages later by [[spoiler:fulfilling Commissar Donal's final request, killing Varan by putting the boot to his ass.]] |
| 408 | * ExplosiveDecompression: Partially averted in ''Death or Glory''. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Inquisitor Vail in a footnote. However, Cain is noted to be holding his breath. This is ''not'' the right thing to do if you wind up in hard vacuum, unless you like having severe lung injuries. |
| 409 | * {{Expospeak}}: |
| 410 | ** Vail's footnotes frequently serve as this. |
| 411 | ** During a briefing in ''The Traitor's Hand'', Cain gives a concise but informative discussion of the Chaos Gods, focusing on Khorne and Slaanesh as their minions are relevant to the story. |
| 412 | * ExtradimensionalEmergencyExit: Cain finds himself in a Necron tomb that's just reactivated. Fleeing for his life, he runs through a Warp portal that happens to be linked to a Necron ship currently under attack by the Reclaimers chapter of Space Marines, who rescue him. He lost two fingers in the jump, although the Reclaimers outfitted him with augmetic replacements. |
| 413 | [[/folder]] |
| 414 | |
| 415 | [[folder:F - J]] |
| 416 | * FakeStatic: Alluded to in ''The Traitor's Hand'', when the Valhallan Sentinel squadrons take off to deal with a heretic shuttle without actually waiting for their orders to come in first. |
| 417 | --> Calling them off would be difficult and time-consuming and probably involve an inordinate number of freak vox failures... |
| 418 | * FantasticDrug: |
| 419 | ** Early in "Old Soldiers Never Die", when the limo carrying him is attacked by locals, Cain's first thought is to quiz the governor about what combat drugs the planet's gangers have access to. |
| 420 | ** In ''Duty Calls'', Simeon is addicted to every single combat drug in his injector rig. He would die immediately if it were ever removed. |
| 421 | * FantasticLivestock: ''Duty Calls'' has the world of Periremunda (CanisLatinicus for "LostWorld") which uses sauropods as livestock. Unfortunately, the world falls under attack by Tyranids, and the immense farm animals provide them a huge amount of biomatter to convert into more Tyranid organisms. |
| 422 | * FantasticRacism: Both used and subverted to a degree. Cain says he has trouble thinking of the T'au in ''For The Emperor'' as people, and the short story ''Traitor's Gambit'' makes his dislike of the T'au even more evident. Equally, he's shocked by (comparatively) friendly T'au behavior, being confused when [[spoiler:a kroot saves his life when he is set upon by dissidents who support the T'au presence]]. Despite this, and remaining suspicious of multiculturalism or alien values, he gets on well enough with two comparatively cooperative T'au soldiers (a Fire Warrior and the aforementioned kroot), doesn't seem to bear most aliens any specific animosity, and [[spoiler:almost shoots the two possibly-Genestealer-contaminated T'au soldiers to spare their comrades the trouble, only backing off because he couldn't be sure if they were infected (they had the usual symptoms, but as he notes, those symptoms could have been induced by exhaustion).]] He's also horrified by [[spoiler:Amberley smiling at the possibility that the two were infected and inadvertently dooming their comrades]]. Note that even feeling ''any'' sympathy towards aliens puts him light years ahead of everyone else in the galaxy. He's also very egalitarian to the T'au diplomat working with the Imperials to coordinate their ceasefire in ''The Greater Good''. |
| 423 | * FeedItABomb: In ''The Last Ditch'', Cain shoves a krak grenade into a barrel of promethium and tricks a tyranid mawloc into eating it. KABOOM! |
| 424 | * FemmeFatale: Inquisitor Vail, and Colonel Kasteen to a lesser extent. Both are quite beautiful and ''very'' capable in combat. |
| 425 | * FictionalDocument: The assorted outside sources Vail sources in her footnotes. |
| 426 | * FieldPromotion: Cain hands these out in ''The Traitor's Hand'', ''Death or Glory'', and ''Cain's Last Stand''. |
| 427 | * FieryRedhead: Kasteen and Magot. |
| 428 | * FirstEpisodeTwist: ''For The Emperor'' runs on this. The [=296/301=] Valhallan is merged into the 597th (and are forged into a single force, instead of two mutually antagonistic units) and Kasteen and Broklaw become friends with each other and with Cain, genestealer cults are behind the trouble on Gravalax, Amberley Vail is the inquisitor, Jurgen is a blank... |
| 429 | * FireForgedFriends: The entire Valhallan 597th in general. Kasteen and Broklaw in particular. |
| 430 | * FireKeepsItDead: The series references the Imperial practice of burning ork corpses to prevent re-infestation several times. In ''Death or Glory", Cain is rather confused at how insistent Jurgen is that they burn the corpses of the Orks they kill, and the accompanying footnote provides the trope's page quote. |
| 431 | * FiveRoundsRapid: Used word for word in ''The Traitor's Hand''. Also said by Cain himself in ''For The Emperor'' when he thought Jurgen's melta would make too '''big''' a [[BulletholeDoor hole]] but two hellguns would be just right. Averted in the short story ''The Beguiling'': [[spoiler:faced with a daemon, he doesn't bother trying to use a normal gun, instead calling in a full artillery barrage on the location]]. |
| 432 | * FlamethrowerBackfire: |
| 433 | ** In ''For The Emperor'' a sniper accompanying Cain shoots the pack of a (already dead) genestealer cultist's flamethrower to create a barrier to cover their escape (although this is justified, since the sniper was armed with a [[EnergyWeapon LongLas]], which would easily have been able to boil the fuel and make the tank explode). |
| 434 | ** Averted in ''Caves of Ice'' where a flamer-equipped guardsman is killed by a [[{{BFG}} bolter]] to the chest, though Jurgen takes out a Flamer-wielding Ork and causes it to detonate. |
| 435 | * FoodEnd: To date, nine out of ten books have ended with a mention of food or drink, along with several of the short stories. The exception among the novels is ''Cain's Last Stand''. |
| 436 | * FootnoteFever: Each book contains about one footnote per five pages. In the foreword to the first omnibus edition, Sandy Mitchell commented that the typesetters were '''very''' glad no other Black Library books had such footnotes. (Incidentally, this is another facet picked up from the Flashman books, which are themselves quite well annotated, although those notes are at the end of each book rather than the bottom of the page.) |
| 437 | * ForDoomTheBellTolls: Cain alludes to the Bell of Lost Souls tolling for him. Vail assures the reader that it was just a soldier's figure of speech since he couldn't have expected it to ring for him--then. |
| 438 | * ForegoneConclusion: Cain will live, to write his memoirs. Vail will live, to edit them. Jenit Sulla will live, to poorly write her memoirs (and rise to the highest ranks of the Imperial Guard). Lord General Zyvan will live (at least) long enough to transfer Cain from the 597th to his personal staff, where Cain stays until (at least) three years before his retirement. |
| 439 | ** In the prequel books, Jurgen becomes Cain's aide, he finds necrons in that tomb, Emeli is a Slaaneshi cultist attempting to sacrifice his soul and is promptly killed off, et cetera. |
| 440 | ** There are also minor characters in some of the books whose later memoirs are quoted by Amberley in the same volume, which makes it clear that they survive the book, though one short story contains a excerpts from a manuscript by a minor character which was never finished, foreshadowing the fact that said character didn't survive. |
| 441 | * {{Foreshadowing}}: |
| 442 | ** In ''The Emperor's Finest'', the assembled military leaders of the Serendipita system discuss possible threats related to the joint Astartes/Mechanicus expedition to a genestealer-infested space hulk taking place in their space. They agree that the Astartes themselves are probably safe, but a.) the Mechanicus tend to be ''way'' too crazy about the prospect of archeotech to take proper precautions, and b.) the Astartes salvage crew also includes a large number of chapter serfs which are entirely human. ''The Greater Good'', set 60 years later, reveals that they were right to be worried on both counts. |
| 443 | ** During ''The Greater Good'', Cain notes with surprise how few cybernetic augmentations Magos Kildhar has, seeing as the higher in rank most members of the Adeptus Mechanicus get the less flesh they try to have. [[spoiler:It's because she's been a ManchurianAgent for the genestealers for decades, and going in for augmentation would reveal her tainted genes.]] |
| 444 | * AFriendInNeed: Kasteen and Broklaw, at the end of ''Traitor's Hand''. |
| 445 | * FullFrontalAssault: In "The Little Things", three men try to kidnap Amberley (or possibly her wealthy cover identity) shortly after she gets out of the shower. Cain is able to take out two of them, but one gets the drop on him only for Amberley to foul his gun arm with her [[ModestyTowel towel]] long enough for Cain to shoot him. Cain notes that his last sight was a memorable one. |
| 446 | * FunWithAcronyms: One of Amberley's footnotes explains the slang term "fungs" as a phonetic pronunciation of [="FNGs"=], or [[NewMeat "Frakking New Guys"]]. She then says that Cain told her that the Guard uses a lot of [=TLAs=] like that--TLA meaning "Three Letter Abbreviations". She's ''almost'' certain he was pulling her leg with that last one. ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-letter_acronym He wasn't.]]) |
| 447 | * FunnyBackgroundEvent: Amberley's psyker Rakel is present at a Guard briefing in ''For The Emperor'', with the command staff informing Cain of the state of play while steadfastly ignoring her bizarre antics. |
| 448 | * GenkiGirl: Of all possible people, [[spoiler:Magos]] Felicia Tayber, an [[GadgeteerGenius Adeptus Mechanius]] [[HollywoodCyborg tech-priestess.]] [[note]]The Adeptus Mechanius prefer to rise above emotion--or like to think so--to be more like machines.[[/note]] Whom Cain may or may not have slept with... |
| 449 | * AGirlInEveryPort: Cain mentions playing around a lot in his early career. He eventually stopped, partly because it kept putting him in danger (e.g. by dating a girl who turned out to be a Chaos cultist, or a stroppy spoilt heiress) and partly because he met the love of his life, Amberley (and since she's [[StateSec an Inquisitor]], cheating would ''definitely'' put him in danger). |
| 450 | * GivingSomeoneThePointerFinger: Amberley confronting Governor Grice at the end of ''For The Emperor.'' She was wearing a ring concealing a lethal weapon on it at the time, so it's rather more serious than most examples of the trope. |
| 451 | * GlamorousWartimeSinger: [[spoiler:Amberley Vail's disguise when Cain first met her.]] Cain desperately tries to insist that she wasn't his type. |
| 452 | * GoKartingWithBowser: Por'el'hassai, the T'au ambassador that Cain saved in ''For The Emperor'' to keep a potential conflict from escalating, is nominally Cain's enemy (as much as any xenos is the enemy of the Imperium). Despite that, the two seem to have developed a distant if respectful rapport over the years. They even sit down in ''The Greater Good'' for [[SmartPeoplePlayChess a friendly game of Regicide]]. |
| 453 | * GoneHorriblyRight: Cain explains Chaos cults thusly in ''Cain's Last Stand'': |
| 454 | -->'''Cain:''' Cultists try to attract the attention of the Ruinous Powers. The lucky ones eventually reach high-end jobs through mundane means, so they can undermine the Imperium's proper working.\ |
| 455 | '''Cadet:''' And the unlucky ones?\ |
| 456 | '''Cain:''' They succeed. |
| 457 | * GoThroughMe: Invoked word for word in ''The Traitor's Hand'' [[spoiler:by Magot, as she moves into a Commissar's line of fire to shield Grifen]]. |
| 458 | * GracefullyDemoted: At the end of the short story "Sector Thirteen", the band of {{Military Maverick}}s Cain usually drags out of Arbites custody after overenthusiastic R&R have been promoted for their aid in defending against a genestealer cult. One of them comments that he finds the uniform uncomfortable, Cain reassures him by commenting he'll probably get demoted soon enough, which cheers him up. |
| 459 | * GratuitousLatin: As a favoured trope of the Imperium, Gratuitous Latin showing up should hardly be a surprise. Most notably in ''Caves of Ice'', where Cain and the tech-priest Logash are about to flood the mines with liquid prometheum from the refinery tanks. Important background note: Logash's superior Ernulph led a group of tech-priests into the mines a couple chapters ago [[spoiler:to worship the Machine God in the middle of the Necron tomb and got himself flayed for his trouble]], and Logash was the only survivor of that bit of idiocy. |
| 460 | -->'''Cain:''' In the name of the Emperor.\ |
| 461 | '''Logash:''' [[AndThisIsFor In nominae Ernulph!]] |
| 462 | ** Later, in ''The Greater Good'', Cain also pays several visits to a secret Mechanicus research facility named ''Regio Quinquaginta Unus'' - or, in plain english: ''Area51''. |
| 463 | * TheGreatestStoryNeverTold: The heroic exploits of Gunner Jurgen, acknowledged by few and told by none besides Cain himself. |
| 464 | * HandCannon: Cain deconstructs the usefulness of the Bolt pistol in ''The Last Ditch'', noting that it uses physical rounds which can be eaten up fairly quickly, while the laspistol he favors can be recharged and by pretty much any means. In addition, he points out that its appeal among Commissars is mostly due to it being loud and flashy. In a footnote, Amberley says that this is partly why Orks are [[MoreDakka attracted to Bolters]], but she also notes that a Commissar would take offense to being compared to an Ork. |
| 465 | * HappyFunBall: The Shadowlight. The core of it is naught but a slab of dark stone roughly the size of an Imperial data-slate. [[spoiler:It's really a psychic power-boosting ArtifactOfDoom.]] |
| 466 | * HardHead: Subverted in ''Duty Calls'', where a minor concussion puts Cain out of commission for three days and enlivens his life with nausea and dizziness after. He plays it up and down according to what looks useful, and other character are anxious to remind him that he does not in fact have a HardHead. |
| 467 | * HasAType: Cain prefers blondes (as he explains to Emeli as he shoots her, before she can {{mind control}} and sacrifice him). |
| 468 | * HatOfAuthority: Being a commissar comes with a very fancy hat. Cain repeatedly jokes that it's the only part of the job that he actually likes. By all indications, it's designed to be easy to spot from a distance so that troopers know they need to shape up quick because the commissar is coming. |
| 469 | ** Nevertheless, at one point the 597th's [[BadassPreacher Chaplain]] shows up, revealing that he's traded in the Church's own HatOfAuthority for a standard trooper's armored helmet, and the eminently practical Cain allows himself a [[HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic momentary pang of jealousy]]. |
| 470 | * HealItWithBooze: In ''Death Or Glory'', Cain has a tracker who's helping guide their convoy to safety give his stash of whisky to the vet they've got working as a doctor (both because he's probably running out of antiseptic and because he wants to keep their tracker sober). |
| 471 | * HedgeMaze: The climax of ''Choose Your Enemies'' takes place at the center of the hedge maze in Governor Fulcher's orbital residence. Rumours of disappearance cling to the place despite the maze being "childishly simple" to navigate according to a retainer. [[spoiler: It's where Fulcher's Slaaneshi cult holds rituals and sacrifices, ultimately summoning Emeli for another confrontation with Cain.]] |
| 472 | * HeroicSacrifice: |
| 473 | ** Techpriest Killian saving Cain in ''Echoes of the Tomb''. |
| 474 | ** Cain clearly views the destruction of his escape pod during a landing where the passengers survived as this, gushing about the autopilot's great valor. |
| 475 | ** [[spoiler:Astropath Clementine Drey at the climax of ''The Greater Good', who continually broadcasts a scrambling signal from a salvaged Tyranid bioship node to disrupt an invading fleet of Tyranids until the seizures she suffers become fatal. Her HeroicSacrifice is specifically recognised and lauded as such afterwards in the histories of the conflict.]] |
| 476 | * HeroicSelfDeprecation: Cain is a consummate master of this. There's a mixture of reasons for this: partly, it's because he knows that [[ThinkNothingOfIt brushing away compliments about his mighty reputation]] will make him look heroic ''and'' modest to boot, partly that the vital contributions of his aide Jurgen are always overlooked and Cain gets all the credit, and partly because he really feels he doesn't deserve to celebrated as such a hero when he was only ever trying to save his own skin ([[UnreliableNarrator or so he says]]). |
| 477 | * HeroicWillpower: What Cain calls his 'survival instinct' looks uncommonly like this when it enables him to throw off Chaos influences or brings him to his feet with chainsword humming when death seems inevitable. |
| 478 | * HeterosexualLifePartners: Jurgen becomes Cain's aide right at the start of his commissarial career and is ''still'' his aide over a century later in his retirement. Cain considers Jurgen the only person he's ever truly trusted. |
| 479 | * HideYourLesbians: Cain is fully aware that Magot and Grifen are lesbians, but occasionally goes considerably out of his way to not notice they're a couple. It's possible he does so to maintain PlausibleDeniability to avoid [[InappropriatelyCloseComrades having to break them up]], as he does much the same thing for a heterosexual couple in the 597th as well. |
| 480 | * HobblingTheGiant: During the final battle in ''Caves of Ice'', Cain spots (presumably necron-caused) battle damage on the ork gargant's left leg and orders all heavy weapons to hit that area. The gargant falls over, squishing large numbers of the attacking orks, and secondary explosions finish it off. |
| 481 | * HoistByHisOwnPetard: Beije brings in a squad of Tallarns to bring Cain in on charges of treason, incompetence and cowardice. All it does is let the Tallarns see firsthand exactly why Commissar Ciaphas Cain is a '''HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!''' |
| 482 | * HoldYourHippogriffs: Frequent references to things "going ploin-shaped" (as opposed to "pear-shaped," a British idiom interchangeable with "going to hell in a handbasket," [[Series/RedDwarf "brown trousers time,"]], and most importantly, "OH SHI--"). Amusingly, he also uses "Emperor's bowels" for that last one. |
| 483 | * HollywoodHistory: A rare in-universe example. In ''Cain's Last Stand'' we find out that the way Cain's first fight on Perlia is remembered sixty years later is a heavily romanticized account. The main element of this is the idea that his force was mostly armed civilians, when they were actually a small group among many more professional soldiers. Another example from Perlia involves the new governor heroically defending her hunting cabin from an attack, ignoring the squad of stormtroopers that were assigned to guard her and did all the fighting. And of course, Jurgen is rarely mentioned in any of the official histories of Cain's exploits, and then only in passing; outside of the Cain Archive there are no records detailing the significance of Jurgen's contributions (Amberley notes that, with the best will in the world, Jurgen isn't the sort of person you want to include in a heroic legend). |
| 484 | * HollywoodTactics: The fresh-out-of-the-schola Commissar Forres seems more concerned with driving troops to show their valor and be willing to sacrifice themselves for the Emperor than actual efficient strategy. Kasteen calls her out on this, pointing out that using ''actual'' tactics tends to result in higher damage inflicted on the enemy while incurring fewer casualties, which in the long run counts more than just trying to show off one's courage. |
| 485 | * HolyWater: |
| 486 | ** In ''The Last Ditch,'' the 597th's chaplain helps to repel a daemon with holy water he'd blessed himself. It causes the demon's flesh to melt as if it had been covered in acid. |
| 487 | ** Cain regularly references [[NoodleIncident the occasion he charged a daemon of Khorne with nothing more than a rusty bayonet and a vial of holy water.]] Since he survived the experience, it was presumably quite effective, with or without Jurgen's assistance. |
| 488 | * HologramProjectionImperfection: So common among the Imperium's holographic projectors that Cain rarely bothers to mention it, assuming that the reader already expects that. When he goes to a briefing hosted by [[HigherTechSpecies the T'au]] in ''The Greater Good'', he points out that they {{avert|edTrope}} this fairly strongly. He actually finds the high visual fidelity of T'au holograms and their projector's lack of a need for [[PercussiveMaintenance the occasional whack]] [[TheCoconutEffect a little distracting]]. |
| 489 | * HopeSpot: In ''For The Emperor'', [[spoiler:the BattleCouple among the Valhallan penal legion have apparently managed to miraculously escape the genestealer horde only somewhat disoriented...only for Cain to immediately execute them, recognizing their disorientation and impossible survival as telltale signs of [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong genestealer implantation]].]] |
| 490 | * HumanPopsicle: After an abortive encounter with the ork outbreak the 597th were sent to quell, in true Cain fashion the true enemy of ''The Last Ditch'' turns out to be [[spoiler:tyranids from a previously unknown hive fleet that had crash-landed millennia before and gotten frozen into the arctic glaciers and buried. Cain's troopship crashing knocks some of them loose and they start digging out their compatriots.]] |
| 491 | * HumanShield: Cain's professed motive for saving many people is that they will be between him and the guns. |
| 492 | ** This is subverted in ''Cain's Last Stand'', [[spoiler:where he (quite reasonably) realizes that everyone between him and Varan is one more person for Varan to turn against him, and that he has to exploit Jurgen's gift to limit the number of converts - especially as it becomes apparent that those freed from Varan's influence ''remain fanatic converts to the cause of Chaos'']]. |
| 493 | ** Subverted ''Film/BlazingSaddles''-style in ''The Devil You Know'', when during a duel Cain points his laspistol at his own head. It really does make sense; the Dark Eldar he's dueling freely admitted she wants to capture Cain for several years of ColdBloodedTorture. When she thinks Cain's about to kill himself to prevent that from happening, she lunges forward to stop him and leaves herself wide open for a chainsword through the chest. |
| 494 | * HumiliationConga: Poor, poor Commissar Beije. First, he comes to arrest Cain for cowardice and desertion, only to find out Cain has his hands full trying to prevent a daemonic summoning. Then a (male) cultist kisses Beije as he tries to interrogate him. Then it turns out Cain was right, that the summoning will turn the planet into a giant, permanent portal into the Warp, and that Cain is perfectly willing to talk back to a Greater Daemon. Then Cain defeats the daemon (Beije getting attacked and further tormented in the process), earning the admiration and respect of the Emperor-botherers Beije had brought with him, undermining his authority even further. ''Then'', once Cain is put on trial, the tribunal of commissars not only clears Cain of all charges, but starts looking into charges of incompetence for Beije given what could have happened if he'd actually stopped Cain and the ritual went off without a hitch. And when they're out of the courtroom, Cain reminds Beije that they still have a duel to fight (Beije having referred to Kasteen as a "petticoat colonel"), so Beije is forced to hastily apologize to her. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Tallarns he was with have started a seemingly sanctioned or at least ''tolerated'' splinter cult ''worshipping'' Cain as the Emperor's will made manifest, and Cain also pulls some strings after a couple of days to make sure Beije doesn't get ''executed'' or suffer some other terrible fate - if Beije is even ''half'' as smart as he pretends to be, he'll have realized that the only reason he's not dead or assigned to a penal legion is thanks to the very commissar he tried to have arrested and put on trial. |
| 495 | * HypocriticalHumor: |
| 496 | ** Anything Beije says, ever. |
| 497 | ** In ''Cain's Last Stand'' Cain and friends are laughing at a recorded speech by their enemy Varan composed entirely of trite cliches strung together... and then Amberley thinks that's a good place to add the speech Cain gave the same day where he does exactly the same thing. |
| 498 | * IAmNotLeftHanded: In ''The Emperor's Finest'' Cain manages to get permission to use an Astartes training chapel to practice his weapon drills in (mostly to get away from a very socially awkward situation) and Drumon, the Techmarine practicing there, volunteers to spar with Cain. Cain senses that Drumon is just humoring him after easily deflecting a few of his strikes, so Cain starts downplaying his own abilities, and intentionally fighting poorly. He then steps up his game suddenly, bypassing Drumon's defenses and taking a chip out of his armor with the teeth of his chainsword. Drumon is both surprised and impressed, and decides to not repair the chip in his armor so as to leave it as a reminder not to underestimate his opponents. |
| 499 | * ICanStillFight: Used by Cain after he suffers any apparent injury. Though {{subverted|Trope}}, because he knows that it will trigger admiration and sympathy in others, who will encourage him to take it easy for a while, which he will grudgingly go along with while inwardly reflecting that he just manipulated them into letting him stay out of danger without losing face. [[DoubleSubversion Of course]], these novels being what they are, [[CosmicPlaything the universe contrives to put him in even more danger anyway]]. |
| 500 | * IdealistVsPragmatist: Cain, versus any named one-book commissar, and Amberley Vail, versus any other Inquisitor she encounters (Rasmus Vekkman in ''Choose Your Enemies'' excepted), are the pragmatists. Cain is reasonable, brave, and steady-handed with his troops, hewing much more towards the "morale officer" part of his job than the "shooting retreating soldiers" part, ostensibly because commissars who ''don't'', tend to become the targets of UnfriendlyFire. Amberley, meanwhile, is a moderate who protects the Imperium from alien threats while causing as little collateral damage as she can manage, mainly by trying to arrange things so that the right people are in the right place at the right time. |
| 501 | * IJustShotMarvinInTheFace: In ''The Last Ditch'', "Jinxie" Penlan accidentally discharges her lasgun while using its buttstock to try to unjam another weapon. Fortunately [[SnipingTheCockpit it hits an Ork]] (which then crashes its flier into the middle of a swarm of Orks), so it works out for her in [[UnluckilyLucky her typical fashion]]. |
| 502 | * IKnowWhatWeCanDoCut: At the climax of ''Cain's Last Stand''. Cain tells them what they can do, tells us that they opposed it, but does not tell the reader until he actually does it: [[spoiler:he calls up Varan and proposes a meeting to discuss surrender terms. Specifically, terms for ''Varan's'' surrender]]. |
| 503 | * ImposterForgotOneDetail: In "The Little Things", Cain realizes that the man bringing room service to Amberley's room isn't really a hotel employee when he notices that the man's uniform didn't fit, when every other employee of the hotel he'd seen was wearing perfectly tailored outfits. |
| 504 | * InevitableMutualBetrayal: The temporary alliance between Cain and a Dark Eldar Succubus in ''The Devil You Know'' ends this way, to no one's surprise. |
| 505 | --> '''Malicia:''' I was expecting you to try to kill me before now.\ |
| 506 | '''Cain:''' Funny, I was thinking the same thing. |
| 507 | * IntergenerationalFriendship: Between Cain and Drumon, a [[SpaceMarine Reclaimers]] Techmarine. |
| 508 | * InterserviceRivalry: Between the Valhallans and the Tallarns in ''The Traitor's Hand'', of which Cain's rivalry with Commissar Beije is partly a microcosm. The Tallarns are HolierThanThou male chauvinists from a desert world, the Valhallans are a pragmatic mixed regiment from an ice world. Yeah, they don't get along. |
| 509 | * InvisibilityFlicker: Saves Cain's life in ''Duty Calls''. An invisible psyker loses control of his powers, first to Cain's taunting and second to the arrival of Jurgen, whose presence completely negates warp powers. |
| 510 | * ITakeOffenseToThatLastOne: In ''For The Emperor'', Cain needs to win over the members of a tribunal in a case, and goes over how to do so. |
| 511 | -->'''Ciaphas Cain:''' Bribery and threats are always popular, but generally to be avoided, especially if you're likely to attract inquisitorial attention as they're better at both and tend to resent other people resorting to their methods.\ |
| 512 | '''Editor's Note:''' This is, of course, entirely untrue. As His Divine Majesty's most faithful servants, [[BlatantLies we're most definitely above such petty emotions as resentment]]. |
| 513 | * IThoughtEveryoneCouldDoThat: Cain briefly forgets that not everyone has his tunnel instincts in an early book. |
| 514 | * IMeantToDoThat: |
| 515 | ** Most notably in ''Fight or Flight''. |
| 516 | ** The melee fight at the end of ''Death or Glory''. |
| 517 | ** A number of Cain's achievements involve things turning out better than expected for him, and then not correcting people who believe that he planned it that way. |
| 518 | * IfIWantedYouDead: The BigBad of ''Duty Calls'' says so to Cain. |
| 519 | * ImpossiblyCoolClothes: Mira owned a dress that was only held up by static cling. In Amberley's footnotes, she said that she used to own one of those, but it was wrecked in a firefight. She never bothered to replace it, because [[VictoriasSecretCompartment the few places you could hide a gun in a dress like that]] were rather uncomfortable. |
| 520 | * ImpossibleTask: As others have pointed out, ''Cain's Last Stand'' shows that Cain has reached a state almost mythically impossible in the 40K universe: ''he reaches retirement.'' Cain will have you know that ''this'' has been his objective all these years. |
| 521 | * ImprobableAimingSkills: Lampshaded and subverted in the first novel, where Vail accuses Cain of "showing off" when he scores a headshot on an enemy {{Mook}} with his laspistol. He goes on to reveal that he was aiming for a torso shot and fired right when his target had ducked. However, Vail reveals in a footnote that Cain ''does'' possess an uncanny accuracy with a laspistol when firing at long-distance targets. He often attributes this to his augmetic fingers, but no other character with augmetics seems to share this skill. |
| 522 | ** Amberley further addresses Cain's attribution of this to his augmetic fingers in a footnote, pointing out that the shaking is caused by heartbeat rather than the fingers themselves. She conjectures that his belief that his augmetic fingers give him better weapon handling is more psychological than physical. [[spoiler:Of course, shortly after getting those fingers he did most of his laspistol practicing in an Astartes training chapel, a rare honor which had a strong positive effect on his self-confidence.]] |
| 523 | ** In ''The Emperor's Finest'' he has Jurgen take a shot at a fuel tank which was too far for him to hit himself. Jurgen has to try a few times, but then it's revealed he actually aimed for (and hit!) ''the '''much''' smaller release valve'', having assumed that was what Cain meant. |
| 524 | * InappropriatelyCloseComrades: |
| 525 | ** Early in the first book, Cain struggles with the aftermath of a riot on a ship in which some provosts were killed. The captain of the ship is hellbent on having the murderers executed, even though it would be terrible for the morale of the regiment. Cain suspects his vehemence comes from having a relationship with one of the dead provosts that is beyond what would be appropriate for a commander, and Amberley confirms this to be the case in a footnote. |
| 526 | --->Strictly against regulations, of course, but boys will be boys... |
| 527 | ** The possibility of a relationship between Cain and Colonel Kasteen was mentioned by Cain, but neither pursued it as it could have given rise to the type of problems seen in the trope description ([[WomanScorned the fact that Cain is frak-buddies with Inquisitor Vail probably helped a little]]). That said, before he meets Vail he has no problem using his personal charm at any level of the Guard command, nor does he have a problem letting Kasteen go up the stairs before him so he can look at her ass (which incidentally saved their lives, as he wouldn't have noticed an incoming AttackDrone otherwise). |
| 528 | ** The Valhallan 597th is a mixed-gender regiment created from two different single-gender regiments, so it's mentioned in passing that pregnancies happen often enough that Cain is familiar with baby behavior. |
| 529 | ** Cain is also aware of a less-than-regular relationship between [[PsychoLesbian Corporal Magot]] and Sergeant Grifen, but chooses to stay well out of it, since he prefers to avoid being as much like harsher commissars (who tend to die of friendly fire far from enemy lines) as possible. This is a minor plot point in ''The Traitor's Hand'', as Cain notes that Beije probably suspects that he's in this relationship with Magot because he's being lenient with her (to avoid damaging the morale of her squad[[note]]And possibly a bit of favouritism since said squad's save his life several times.[[/note]]). Cain notes that even if she wasn't a lesbian, he already has enough dangerous women in his life (a clingy planetary governor's daughter, a daemon princess, and the aforementioned Inquisitor, who chooses to take it as a compliment). |
| 530 | * IndestructibleEdible: Imperial ration bars: unknown composition, palatable only to the desperately starving, capable of surviving some forms of Exterminatus, and [[TastesLikeFeet "tasting reassuringly like nothing that you could identify"]]. |
| 531 | * IndustrialWorld: Quadravidia is a Forge World depending on the proximity of Imperial fleets dropping by to rearm themselves for its protection. Ciaphas uses this as a bargaining chip to force them to allow a T'au diplomat on the planet: since they ''clearly'' don't need the Guard's help in fighting off the approaching Tyranids, [[BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord they'll find somewhere else to make themselves useful and leave the cogboys to deal with the 'nids themselves]]. |
| 532 | * IndyPloy: Cain pretty much makes everything up as he goes along, though he does ''try'' to plan to avoid getting into firefights and occasionally actually has a plan beyond "Get out alive", even if it rarely actually works out that way. |
| 533 | * InherentlyFunnyWords: PlayedForLaughs. Amberley occasionally provides translations of Orkish phrases that give a much more sophisticated explanation to the words than the Orks probably could articulate. For instance, she translates an Ork ship named "'Ard 'Nuff" as "Battle-Ready" when a more literal translation would simply be "Hard Enough". She also elaborates on "zogoff": |
| 534 | -->An orkish word, which translates roughly as 'go away', but which may also mean, 'leave it alone', or 'I doubt your veracity', according to context. |
| 535 | * InMediasRes: Some of the novels start out this way. |
| 536 | ** ''For The Emperor'' opens with Cain facing down the rioters in the mess hall, then backtracks to his request to be transferred away from brigade headquarters and back to a regiment, then moves through his arrival at the troopship carrying the Valhallan 296th/301st and works its way back to the riot. |
| 537 | ** ''Choose Your Enemies'' opens with an Eldar ambush on Drechia, then backtracks a month and spends nearly five chapters getting back to the ambush. |
| 538 | * InnocentFanserviceGirl: Rakel the psyker is too crazy for ideas like modesty, and her attire is repeatedly described as inappropriately revealing. Most characters find the crazy [[FanDisservice too disturbing to appreciate it]]. |
| 539 | * InsultBackfire: The Guardsmen characters constantly use "cogboy" as a mildly derogatory term for Tech-priests. In ''Death or Glory'' we find out that the Tech-priests themselves use "cog" as a compliment for someone who is essential to the smooth running of things but frequently not acknowledged. Given the Tech-priests assigned to the Guard are mechanics, most of them probably don't even know it's derogatory. |
| 540 | * InvisibleIntrovert: The title character once encountered an invisible assassin whose latent psychic powers had been discovered and amplified late in life. After dispatching him, Cain thinks he looks like [[BeneathNotice an unassuming functionary,]] which would explain the bitterness and resentment in his way of speaking while dueling Cain. |
| 541 | * IronicName: The forge world of Fecundia. While once upon a time it may have been verdant and fertile, by the time of the books it's a blasted wasteland. Anything not covered by hive cities, factories, or mines is either bare rock, deserts made from powderized slag metal, or oceans formed from industrial runoff. The air is so toxic and carcinogenic that even workers who will never see the surface are required to have augmetic lung replacements. |
| 542 | * {{Irony}}: For all his claims to be an abject coward and fraud, Cain actually ''is'' very good at his job, if for the wrong reasons. At one point Vail notes that his unorthodox swordsmanship is some of the best in the entire subsector (presumably among regular humans; the books make it quite clear that 'among the finest in the entire Imperium' is still not in the same league as Astartes or heavily augmented humans or aliens). While he was no match for a Space Marine in strength and endurance, he has defeated Ork Warbosses and Chaos Marines in personal combat as well as holding his own against Tyranid leader organisms of various types. In the tabletop game a Lord Commissar, which he explicitly is even if he refuses the title, has a better weapon skill than any other regular human and most Space Marines. |
| 543 | * IShallTauntYou: Being a CombatPragmatist, Cain isn't afraid to use this to his advantage if his plans to NOT have the enemy in his face go awry. For example, the amateur-ish assassin that gets sent after Cain in ''Duty Calls'' could have killed Cain if he'd just kept his mouth shut, as talking caused [[InvisibilityFlicker his psyker cloak to flicker]]. |
| 544 | * ISurrenderSuckers: A variation in ''Cain's Last Stand''. Also comes up again in 'Vainglorious' |
| 545 | * ItBeganWithATwistOfFate: Nearly every important plot event stems from Cain looking for a quiet, routine assignment away from the front line. All it does is allow him to run into the secret cult/the backdoor entrance into their base/ the unseen flanking attack which only leads him into greater danger as a result. Lampshaded to hell in the short story "A Mug of Recaff" where Jurgen considers it Cain's signature move, to the point it doesn't even occur to him it isn't deliberate. |
| 546 | * ItOnlyWorksOnce: At the climax of ''The Greater Good'', the heroes figure out how to broadcast a disruption signal being generated by a Tyranid cortical node they have captured for study. This breaks the Hive Mind's control of the Tyranid fleets assaulting the planet and leads to a crushing Imperial victory. Unfortunately, it also burns out the cortical node, and capturing another of those alive is going to be tricky. There was talk about experimenting to see if replaying data recorded from the original broadcast would work as well as a live transmission, but no mention of whether or not said experiment ever happened or if it worked. |
| 547 | * ItsAllAboutMe |
| 548 | ** A repeated gripe about Cain's memoirs from Amberley. |
| 549 | ** Cain is of the opinion that this is the case with Mira. Amberley {{lampshade|Hanging}}s the {{irony}} of that sentiment. |
| 550 | * ItsTheOnlyWayToBeSure: Used twice in the novels: |
| 551 | ** Cain advocates this in ''Caves of Ice'' to destroy [[spoiler:the Necron tomb]] on Simia Orichalcae. |
| 552 | ** Amberley calls in an orbital strike to wipe out the last Tyranids in ''Duty Calls''. |
| 553 | * JackBauerInterrogationTechnique: Subverted in ''The Traitor's Hand'', where the captured Slaaneshi cultists seem to [[TooKinkyToTorture actually be enjoying the treatment]]. |
| 554 | * JackOfAllTrades: The 597th is formed out of an all-male planetary assault regiment and an all-female garrison support regiment, both having been reduced to half-strength while battling tyranids on Corania. They're paired with Cain as their [[ThePoliticalOfficer regimental commissar]], a man who had previously served both with an artillery regiment and as a liaison to the Reclaimers chapter of the Space Marines, besides other useful skills such as an inerrant sense of direction underground. With a little prodding from Cain, the combination of skills present turns the 597th into a very well-rounded mechanized infantry regiment capable of handling a wide variety of missions, particularly counterinsurgency. |
| 555 | [[/folder]] |
| 556 | |
| 557 | [[folder:K - O]] |
| 558 | * KeepingTheHandicap: Cain gets into a friendly duel with a Techmarine where he manages to score a hit against the Techmarine's armor. Cain is aghast, but the Techmarine reassures him and even tells him he'll keep the notch left by Cain's chainsword as a reminder never to underestimate an opponent. |
| 559 | * KickedUpstairs: Inverted -- Cain ''wants'' a nice, quiet job with no real responsibilities that's away from all the action, but he's kept on the front lines because he's ''too good'' at his job despite his "best" intentions. |
| 560 | * KidHero: In ''Cain's Last Stand'', the students at the schola provide support. |
| 561 | * KillItWithFire: |
| 562 | ** The Salamander Cain often travels in is frequently equipped with a flamer, and it gets used frequently. |
| 563 | ** [[spoiler:at the end of ''Caves of Ice'', several million gallons of promethium are ignited to stop a Necron assault.]] |
| 564 | ** "Last Night at the Resplendent" ends with the title building engulfed in flames [[spoiler:after Jurgen uses the Salamander's flamer on the genestealer broodlord resident there]]. |
| 565 | * KillItWithWater: |
| 566 | ** In ''Death or Glory,'' [[spoiler:he takes out a large Ork army by destroying a dam. About 7000 Orks were counted as drowned.]] |
| 567 | ** Averted with Cain referencing a belief that witches have a problem with water. Amberley then notes that this is merely a folktale and has no basis in reality. |
| 568 | * KillMeNowOrForeverStayYourHand: In ''The Traitor's Hand'', how he stopped Beije from trying to arrest him. |
| 569 | * KnightTemplar: |
| 570 | ** Inquisitor Killian in ''Duty Calls'' is willing to stage a massacre and leave behind innocent civilians (and his own allies) to be massacred by aliens on the ground that what he is protecting is too valuable for the information to get out. |
| 571 | ** Played with in the same book. Certain Battle Sisters refuse to retreat to the line of their defenses because they must serve the Emperor; Cain finally points out that if the Tyranids outflank them, they will be responsible for the massacre of civilians in the Emperor's Temple. This not only persuades them to retreat but causes one of them to thank him later, for reminding them of their duty, and admit that their zeal had led them astray. Later, this takes on a grimmer note. The sisters realize they have sheltered a renegade inquisitor. Even his deception does not ease their guilt; they realized their zeal had blinded them from seeing the facts. In [[TheAtoner atonement]], they sacrifice their lives to ensure the escape of the Inquisitor who had told them the truth and her party. |
| 572 | * KnowWhenToFoldThem: Kasteen and Broklaw are initially opposed to Cain's proposal in ''For The Emperor'' to amalgamate their seperate regiments into one to avoid a repeat of the deadly riot they just had to deal with, but promptly change their minds when Cain points out the alternative is him doing what most Commissars would have by that point: carry out a round of mass executions to restore discipline, then reassign the survivors as a [[CannonFodder penal legion]]. |
| 573 | * TheKlutz: Penlan, aka "Jinxie." |
| 574 | * LadyLand: According to Vail, women are considered superior on Nusquam Fundamentibus. Indeed, the command echelon of its first Imperial Guard regiment, the planetary governor, and the past few generations of planetary governor are all female. The senior Magos from the Adeptus Mechanicus is one of the few males to hold a position of authority on the planet, as it's a part of the Imperial government. The Imperium trains female Commisars specifically to deal with this sort of regiment, since they "can't be expected to take orders from a mere man" as Amberley puts it. |
| 575 | * LampshadeHanging: Most of Inquisitor Vail's commentary is either this or additional {{backstory}}. Things brought up by fans are sometimes directly referenced in the introductions as being from her "Inquisitorial colleagues". |
| 576 | * LanternJawOfJustice: Most of the covers have Cain's CommissarCap obscure the top half of his head, leaving only his ComicBook/JudgeDredd-esque chin to inspire the masses. |
| 577 | * LaserGuidedKarma: Strangely combined with KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:Governer Fulcher in ''Choose Your Enemies'' is revealed to the be the head of Slaanesh cult attempting to summon a daemon with gathered Eldar soulstones. While his death by Emeli who used his body and other cultists to form her own daemonic body is LaserGuidedKarma, his posthumous reputation is KarmaHoudini, because the Inquisition's policy of covering up Chaos incursion means that they tell everyone that Fulcher is responsible for killing the Eldar leader with nukes in his orbital estate, thus driving the Eldar off. This is despite 1: it's Amberley's doing in order to cleanse Chaos taint, 2: The Eldar agreed to leave peacefully after Emeli's banished, and 3: Fulcher is responsible for nearly turning the planet into Daemon World.]] |
| 578 | * LastStand: Cain's gotten at least two of them in the same location... and he seems a bit annoyed that people keep calling them that. The valley itself is called that by the locals after the first one, and it's the name of the book where the second one takes place. In other words: Cain's last stand in ''Cain's Last Stand'' takes place in Cain's Last Stand, so named because it was the site of Cain's last stand. |
| 579 | * LeaningOnTheFourthWall: |
| 580 | ** One of Amberley's comments in ''The Last Ditch'' basically boils down to saying you should use the Lord Commissar rules to represent Cain on the tabletop. |
| 581 | ** In ''The Emperor's Finest'' a decidedly meta footnote in Chapter 7: [[spoiler:''The irony of this statement seems to have eluded Cain entirely, though not, I suspect, most of my readers''. In-universe this refers to fellow inquisitors but the passage this footnote refers to fits the most common complaint in RL about the Cain series.]] |
| 582 | ** Amberley is disappointed that her fellow Inquisitors treat Cain's memoirs as light reading instead of food for thought. Given that the real world readers would have no idea who Cain was before they picked up the book, they wouldn't be overly surprised to discover he seems to be a self-serving coward which would greatly surprise people who have been watching his work for decades. Also, the books are much, much lighter than other 40K books whose grim setting is supposed to be dramatic and thought-provoking, often times to make people examine human nature or just for the shock value the setting provides. Comparatively, the Cain series is light-hearted and tongue-in-cheek which is more "light" then the darker material. |
| 583 | * LeeroyJenkins: |
| 584 | ** Cain considers Lt. Sulla to be one, worried that in her eagerness to smite the enemies of the GodEmperor she is going to get herself and ([[ItsAllAboutMe more importantly]]) Cain killed. He also holds this opinion about Sisters of Battle, considering them [[KnightTemplar so fanatical]] as to be unreliable at holding to a plan, saying the best you can do is [[GivingSomeoneThePointerFinger point at the enemy]], yell "[[BerserkButton Heretic!]]", and let them [[AttackAttackAttack do their thing]]. |
| 585 | *** In ''Duty Calls'', Amberley's footnote to one such remark notes that though Sulla's platoons tend to have slightly higher casualty rates, they have even higher morale, because they get results. |
| 586 | ** The Nusquam 1st (and the PDF they recruited from) were a entire ''regiment'' of these. This green regiment and their equally green Commissar considered the more effective tactics used by the Valhallan 597th to be acts of cowardice, ignoring Col. Kasteen's pointing out that the Valhallans were doing twice as much damage as the Nusquams while taking only a third as many casualties. They wised up eventually. |
| 587 | * LeftItIn: A [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush Dubya]]-parodying character in one of the novels ends an atrociously bad speech with something like "You'll edit that out anyway... what do you mean it was live?" |
| 588 | * LegallyDead: Cain had been declared legally dead many times (most prominently in ''Death or Glory'') to the point where it was ''inverted''--there is a specific edict that prevents bureaucrats from calling him legally dead, so now he forever remains in active service even after being buried with military honours. |
| 589 | * LegendaryInTheSequel: "Fight or Flight," the original short story, features Cain's very first adventure as a newly minted commissar. The work which followed it, ''For the Emperor'', features Cain as an established '''HERO OF THE IMPERIUM'''. Due to the series' AnachronicOrder, subsequent works play up and down the scale. |
| 590 | * LetMeGetThisStraight: Cain invokes the spirit of this trope in ''For The Emperor'', while counting the cost of the riot between the 296th and the 301st. |
| 591 | -->'''Cain''': So what you're trying to tell me is that [[MurderArsonAndJaywalking three people are dead, fourteen still in the infirmary and a perfectly serviceable mess hall reduced to kindling]] because your men didn't like the plates they were served their meal on?! |
| 592 | * LifeOrLimbDecision: Cain nearly has to do this in ''The Greater Good,'' when a tyranid has his foot in its grasp. He'd lifted his sword to make the cut when the creature is killed in a [[BigDamnHeroes well timed intervention]] by Space Marines. |
| 593 | * LighterAndSofter: This is a ''comedy'' set in the ''Warhammer 40000'' universe. On top of which, Cain himself is a LighterAndSofter version of Harry {{Literature/Flashman}} InSpace. Whereas {{Literature/Flashman}} really is a DirtyCoward and all around {{Jerkass}} (he raped a woman in the first book), Cain generally comes across much more sympathetically. It's not at all clear that Cain is the [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation craven he bills himself as]].\ |
| 594 | \ |
| 595 | On the other hand, Sandy Mitchell is also quite adept using GRIMDARK subtly rather than beating you over the head with it and running into AMillionIsAStatistic like certain other 40k authors. As noted [[http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=158391&start=25#p3780382 here]] and [[http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=158391&start=25#p3779957 here]] (search on "page 111"), in ''Death or Glory'' for instance we see the aftermath of an ork attack where civilians were gunned down as they fled. Let no one say that ''Ciaphas Cain'' isn't serious or dark. (See also some of the points under DeliberateValuesDissonance above for further support.) |
| 596 | * LittleDidIKnow: Practically Cain's catchphrase. Every book starts with a variation and he repeats it regularly, as well as his commenting that he'd be "gibbering in terror" if he only knew... It's greatly toned down in the 4th and 5th books, and is worded a lot better. |
| 597 | * LivingGasbag: An offhand remark in ''Death or Glory''[[note]]right after Cain managed to get himself and Jurgen ejected from their troopship in an EscapePod[[/note]] mentions skywhales, which the accompanying footnote explains as a creature from Blease's World that lives on airborne pollen and produces hydrogen gas as a byproduct of its metabolism. The creatures are quite placid and the planet's human inhabitants have domesticated several subspecies to turn them into ZeppelinsFromAnotherWorld. |
| 598 | * LivingLegend: Cain really wishes he weren't (at least not the "legend" bit). |
| 599 | * TheLoad: Zig-zagged in ''Caves of Ice'' with the tech-priest Logash, whose sole contribution is to tell them a little bit about ambulls before just hanging around. Some 70% of Cain's narration about him amounts to "What an annoying man he was" and/or "The mission would have gone smoother if I had thrown him to the Orks/ambulls/[[spoiler:Necrons]]". However, he survived alone far better than any of the soldiers. In fact, without him they wouldn't have escaped near the end, or [[spoiler:been able to blow up the facility, stopping the Necrons and saving millions of lives]]. |
| 600 | * LordErrorProne: |
| 601 | ** Toren Divas, whose well-meaning enthusiasm gets Cain nearly killed at least three times that we ''know'' of. |
| 602 | ** Cain sees Sulla as this; she's really not that bad, just way too gung-ho for Cain's tastes. |
| 603 | * LosingTheTeamSpirit: Vail invokes it to explain why Cain would be a logical assassination target; Cain himself is oblivious to his effects on morale. |
| 604 | * LoveAtFirstSight: Cain explicitly denies believing it before admitting that he can, decades later, remember every detail of the first time he saw Amberley Vail. |
| 605 | %%* LovingDetails: See LoveAtFirstSight. |
| 606 | * LuckBasedSearchTechnique: |
| 607 | ** Most of Cain's most pivotal discoveries are made when he tries to run away from something else. |
| 608 | ** Another notable practitioner of this is "Jinxie" Penlan, who discovered an ambull tunnel in ''The Caves of Ice'' by falling through the floor into it and [[NoodleIncident once triggered a landmine by throwing away an empty food tin]]. |
| 609 | * MadBomber: Captain Federer, commander of the 597th's sappers, has quite a thing for big booms. Rumour has it that he was ejected from an Adeptus Mechanicus seminary because of it. |
| 610 | * MadeASlave: |
| 611 | ** Cain occasionally mentions being held captive by Dark Eldar reavers, an experience [[LetUsNeverSpeakOfThisAgain he is apparently loathe to recount]], even compared to all the other horrors he has experienced. |
| 612 | ** Most of the civilian members of his force in ''Death Or Glory'' were made slaves by Orks before he (read: the PDF squad he met up with) rescued them. |
| 613 | * MagicFeather: Cain credits his augmetic fingers for his excellent pistol aim, but Inquisitor Vail points out that most people with them ''lose'' ability with their hands. She suspects the real reason is all the time he spent training with a Space Marine right after getting them. |
| 614 | * MaleGaze: It goes with the narration being from Cain's particular perspective. One book had an assassination attempt foiled purely because he was looking in just the right direction while covertly checking out Colonel Kasteen's behind. |
| 615 | * MaliciousSlander: Stupid Beije. Good thing the dude got hit by the tribunal he thought would convict Cain. |
| 616 | * ManipulativeBastard: Cain, in the best possible way. This is a big part of why it's uncertain just how much of an UnreliableNarrator he is; the exact things that make some readers think he's being overly humble and too hard on himself are tactics he openly explains his fondness for and how he uses them in the narrative. |
| 617 | * MauveShirt: Several, most notably Sergeant Lustig, Penlan and Magot. |
| 618 | * MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: There are several cases that ''could'' be just good luck, but that sure look like the Emperor is giving Cain a hand. The most obvious in the end of ''Cain's Last Stand'' where a message that Imperial reinforcements are coming, which rallies the defenders and forces the invaders into an ultimately disastrous acceleration of their plans, turns out to be an echo from 60 years ago. While Cain shrugs it off as a coincidence, Vail points out how utterly unlikely the whole thing is. The fact that even Cain had earlier acknowledged that the stakes were high enough to justify the Emperor taking an interest adds fuel to the fire. |
| 619 | * MeaningfulName: |
| 620 | ** Ciaphas and Cain are the names of well-known villains from Literature/TheBible. One possible translation of "Caiaphas", according to Website/TheOtherWiki, is "rock that hollows itself out". |
| 621 | ** The SingleIssueWonk who wrote that FictionalDocument in ''For The Emperor'' is named Stententious Logar, a slight misspelling of a word meaning "addicted to pompous moralizing". |
| 622 | ** Inquisitor Vail's name could also be one; she is, after all, concealing ("veiling") Cain's true nature from the world at large. And her favorite investigation method starts off with "pick a cover identity to use". |
| 623 | ** Mira means "Look at that!"[[note]]Literally, it's the imperative form of ''mirari'', "to marvel at"[[/note]] in Latin. [[EatingTheEyeCandy Cain certainly does]], and then some. |
| 624 | ** It gets downright silly with some of the merely mentioned minor characters, such as the fencing instructor "Miyamoto de Bergerac" [[note]]Presumably from UsefulNotes/MiyamotoMusashi and Theatre/CyranoDeBergerac[[/note]] and the author of a book about the fungus-like features of Orks "Migo Yuggoth" [[note]]In the Franchise/CthulhuMythos, the fungoid insects known as Mi-Go come to Earth from Pluto, which they call Yuggoth.[[/note]]. See also the [[ShoutOut/CiaphasCain Shout Outs page]] for more examples of this sort. |
| 625 | ** Emeli [=DuBoir=]'s last name is a bastardization of the word "boudoir", which is a lady's bedroom. Given Ms. [=DuBoir=]'s actions in the stories in which she appears, this seems fitting. |
| 626 | ** The Ordo Dialogus representative in charge of translating tablets associated with the ''shadowlight'' in ''Cain's Last Stand'' is Sister [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone Rosetta]]. |
| 627 | ** Rogue Trader (and covert agent for Inquisitor Vail) Orelius's ship is named the ''Lucre Foedus'', a good approximation of "filthy lucre" AKA "dirty money". |
| 628 | * MegaNeko: An offhand comment from Cain in ''The Emperor's Finest'' reveals that some Guard regiments use cats as ''attack animals'' and ''cavalry''. |
| 629 | * MeleeATrois: |
| 630 | ** In ''Caves of Ice'', the Valhallan 597th is deployed to defend a promethium refinery against an ork incursion, only to discover a necron tomb beneath the glaciers that attacks both sides. |
| 631 | ** As might be expected from him, Cain takes full advantage of this trope in ''The Traitor's Hand'' when he needs to get past a barricaded group of Slaaneshi cultists guarding a Daemon-summoning ritual. By chance a group of Chaos Space Marines in service to Khorne have the same goal and choose this exact moment to show up. Cain decides to hang back and let them break the barricade for him and distract the cultists. Unsurprisingly, Beije calls him out on this and calls him a coward, to which he calmly suggests Beije lead the way. Beije [[HypocriticalHumor doesn't take him up on this offer]]. |
| 632 | ** In ''Cain's Last Stand'', Chaos invades Perlia and clashes with the Perlian Defense Force and Cain and his students at the MilitaryAcademy. However, Cain becomes suspicious that the Necrons are active in the system as well. [[spoiler:The necrons cut their way through the Chaos forces at the last minute, snatch up an artifact from the Imperial position, and then bug out, with the Imperials taking the opportunity to get the upper hand.]] |
| 633 | ** In ''Choose Your Enemies'', the 597th is deployed to a moon of an ice giant to drive away eldar raiders, who turn out to be from a craftworld hoping to reconquer the system entirely. Worse, they discover a cult of Slaanesh active in the mines, which are linked to a forge world in the heart of the system by the webway. The eldar, who blame themselves for SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll-ing Slaanesh into existence in the first place, pursue their own agenda throughout the book, alternately aiding and hurting the Imperials. |
| 634 | * TheMenFirst: Cain does this to inspire loyalty, which may extend his lifespan in battle. |
| 635 | * MenOfSherwood: It varies from book to book. Sometimes, almost all of Cain's escort troops and other companions get killed, but a lot of the time minor characters fare pretty well, like the militia soldiers, prison camp escapees and tank crew stragglers in ''Death or Glory''; members of the Valhalla 597th after their first two appearances; and the commissar cadets in ''Cain's Last Stand.'' |
| 636 | * MercifulMinion: In the first novel, a riot breaks out on the ship he's assigned to. In the aftermath he can't have anyone executed (since it would destroy morale, and more importantly make him likely to suffer an "accident" on the battlefield) but the captain wants blood (he was in a relationship with one of the military police killed in the riot). So, Cain lets the captain hold a tribunal (the defendants of which are found guilty) and sentences them to "death" by transferring them to a penal legion to die in battle. [[spoiler:Later on, Cain is press ganged by Amberley into going on a highly dangerous recon along with the most "expendable" soldiers she can find. Guess who she picks.]] |
| 637 | * MethuselahSyndrome: Cain (and Jurgen) are well over 100 years old by the time of the events of ''Cain's Last Stand'' |
| 638 | * MildlyMilitary: To various extents. Most of Cain's actual job description as a commissar consists of maintaining regimental discipline, but he's relatively laid-back about it since he's a decent guy who favors results over ironclad adherence to rules and regs. This especially includes Jurgen, a [[ThePigpen perpetually stinky and disheveled]] artilleryman whose surprising competence, literal-mindedness, and [[AntiMagic being a blank]] have saved Cain's ass many times. In ''Cain's Last Stand'', though, even Cain rolls his eyes at some PDF fighter pilots who get a little carried away in a target-rich environment and have to be reminded what part of the enemy fleet they're supposed to be attacking. |
| 639 | ** In ''The Traitor's Hand'' it becomes a major source of conflict when Commissar Beije becomes convinced that his more laid-back style is evidence of actual corruption. The man ends up interfering in operations several times as a result, nearly dooming the world they're defending in the process, and ends up bringing Cain before a tribunal on formal charges. Said tribunal dismisses the cowardice charges and then proceeds to indict Beije for incompetence. Cain has to call in favors to save Beije from getting shot by firing squad. |
| 640 | ** It's also often mentioned (and shown) that [[MiniMecha Sentinel]] pilots have a pretty ''laissez faire'' approach to discipline and orders, disobeying the letter of their superiors' messages if they think they have a better idea and speaking rather more informally than is considered proper on official channels. Cain notes that this is endemic to most Sentinel pilots and cracking down on them to bring them in line would restrict their effectiveness as recon and fast attack specialists; therefore, smart officers (and commissars) tend to look the other way in most cases. |
| 641 | * MilitaryMoonshiner: On his first assignment Cain jokes that the first thing most Guardsmen do when they hear their regiment is getting a new Commissar is dismantle the stills, shut down the card games, and get stores to tally with inventory for the first time ever. |
| 642 | * MillionToOneChance: Cain, and his reputation, practically live on this. It's not always ''good'' examples either--in ''Caves of Ice'', [[spoiler:though it's not quite a million to one shot, the chance of Cain and his squad stumbling across a Necron tomb are pretty damn low]]. This is justified later on when [[spoiler:Cain determines that the Adeptus Mechanicus deliberately positioned the mining facility over the Necron tomb, so finding it was just a matter of time.]] |
| 643 | * MirrorCharacter: It's surprising how close Cain and Vail are--both are apparently (by their own words) high ranking exceptions to the stereotypical, fanatical commissars and inquisitors who appear to care about the people in service to them, but are highly sarcastic in writing, and claim to only be acting heroic to gain benefits (or, in Vail's case, make sure the Empire does its duty). They both share a rather similar dislike for Sulla, as well. |
| 644 | * MisaimedFandom: [[invoked]] In-universe example--while Amberley is pleasantly surprised to find her publications of Cain's stories are unexpectedly popular among her fellow Inquisitors, she's slightly put out that many of them prefer to treat them as light entertainment rather than the "serious food for thought" she'd intended them to serve as. |
| 645 | * MissionBriefing: General Zyvan gives a few of these, as do Colonel Kasteen and other officers. |
| 646 | * MistakenForFlatulence: While scouting the Mechanicus shrine, Magot glares at Jurgen with the demand "Who let that one rip?". The smell was actually from the volcanic vents powering the shrine (though since we're talking about Jurgen, it wasn't a ''bad'' guess ...). |
| 647 | * MistakenForAnImposter: PlayedForLaughs--one of the few instances in Cain's later career where his name doesn't immediately evoke awe in the person to whom he's introducing himself is a moment when the other person thinks he's joking. |
| 648 | * ModestyTowel: {{Subverted|Trope}} in "The Little Things". The meat of the story takes place within the first couple of minutes after Amberley gets out of the shower, and she greets Cain wearing only a towel. However, she [[FullFrontalAssault has to use the towel as a weapon]] to stop one of the kidnappers from shooting Cain. |
| 649 | * MoreDakka: Cain insists on having a pintle-mounted heavy bolter put on any Salamander that he uses. Salamanders can mount a storm bolter or a heavy stubber in the game. Cain mentions that he tends to get heavy bolters mounted because they allow him to lay down extra cover fire if he needs to, and they look cool for the troops. They tend to get used a lot. |
| 650 | * MoreExpendableThanYou: Cain's professed motivation in his very first adventure. Also inverted in that Cain's true intentions were exactly the opposite. |
| 651 | ** Brought up in ''The Traitor's Hand'', when Cain claims that the Imperium needs its generals but can always get another commissar. Zyvan disagrees: "Not like you, Ciaphas," a comment which genuinely surprises Cain. |
| 652 | *** Similarly, in ''Duty Calls'' Cain expresses surprise that a psyker tried to assassinate '''him''' rather than Zyvan or the planetary Arbites chief. Amberley notes he doesn't seem to realize he's so popular with the Imperial Guard that his death would seriously damage morale. |
| 653 | ** Another example is partially acknowledged by Amberley. Cain is extremely useful as an asset to the Imperium as a whole, but competent heroes (whether or not their reputation is deserved) aren't especially rare. Ironically, Jurgen, as a blank, is far rarer and more valuable (at least, to the Inquisition). |
| 654 | * MortonsFork: Amberley and Zyvan explain to Cain that this is the situation on Gravalax in ''For The Emperor''. On the one hand, Gravalax isn't strategically valuable enough to justify getting into a protracted war with the T'au, so they want to avoid tensions escalating. On the other hand, the Imperium can't allow the T'au to simply annex Gravalax, since that will only embolden them to try conquering worlds that are even more valuable to the Imperium if they believe the humans won't put up a fight. |
| 655 | * MetaPower: The ''shadowlight'' (always written in italics in the text) is an artifact that can (among other things) greatly enhance the faintest of psyker powers even if the affected individual never manifested any psychic potential previously. Fortunately, they're prone to PowerIncontinence as well, and are still just as affected by [[PowerNullifier Blanks]] (as is the ''shadowlight'' itself). |
| 656 | * MyFriendsAndZoidberg: Cain's FakeUltimateHero reputation causes him to regularly apply this to ''himself'' in his narration. |
| 657 | -->'''Cain''': This was a job for Zyvan's tame psykers, and no business of honest men. Or me. |
| 658 | * MyGodWhatHaveIDone: The [[spoiler:brainwashed Battle Sisters]] have a terminal instance of this once [[spoiler:Varan's hold on them is broken and they realize that they were bodyguards to a ''Chaos agent'']]. |
| 659 | * NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: ''The Emperor's Finest'' hangs a lampshade on this when the space hulk that brought a genestealer brood to the planet Viridia is identified as the ''Spawn of Damnation''. |
| 660 | --> '''Cain (narration):''' Who chose it, and why they can't call these things something a little more cheerful, is beyond me.\ |
| 661 | '''Amberley (footnote):''' Traditionally space hulks are given their names by the Inquisition conclave responsible for the sector in which they first appear, and, as Cain points out, they do tend towards the melodramatic. |
| 662 | * NamingYourColonyWorld: While serious and usually MeaningfulName examples of Symbolica exist, e.g. Serendipita (where the Space Marines locate the ''Spawn of Damnation''), Sandy Mitchell has a good time parodying this, such as with Nusquam Fundimentibus[[note]]"arse end of nowhere"[[/note]], Simia Orichalcae[[note]]"brass monkey", as in "cold enough to freeze the balls off of"[[/note]], and Sodallagain.[[note]]as Amberley put it, "apparently charted by a very bored explorator"[[/note]] |
| 663 | * NarrativeProfanityFilter: A variation. The pornographic tapestries in a Slaaneshi brothel in ''The Traitor's Hand'' are left undescribed, other than one Guardswoman wondering aloud if a scene depicted is even anatomically possible. Cain says it isn't and that even if it was, it would be against regulations. |
| 664 | * NavelDeepNeckline: |
| 665 | ** When Mira introduces herself, she is wearing a [[ErmineCapeEffect stylized outfit]] resembling a [[BlingOfWar garish military uniform]] that is cut a little too tight around the chest for her [[BuxomBeautyStandard endowment]][[note]] And being the daughter of a planetary governor, it was almost certainly deliberately tailored that way[[/note]] which she resolves by leaving the top several buttons undone. According to Cain, other items of her wardrobe tend toward being [[ImpossiblyLowNeckline low-cut]], so this is something of a stylistic theme with her. |
| 666 | ** Rakel tends toward this as well, though with her it's (probably) accidental, the result of her clothing being a couple sizes too small. |
| 667 | * NewMeat: Referred to as "fungs", for [=FNG=]s (Frakking New Guys). |
| 668 | * TheNeidermeyer: Assiduously averted by Cain to avoid UnfriendlyFire; played to the hilt by Beije. Notably, however, Beije only adheres to the strict ''religious'' protocols of his office. He's never seen abusing his troops, his Colonel respects him, and he keeps up with the men in combat well enough (unless you count how ineffective his command style is against World Eaters). He is simply, in Cain's words, "green-eyed jealous." [[spoiler:which is foreshadowing for the story's ''real'' villain, who is green-eyed and petty to the extreme, far more so than Beije could ever be]]. |
| 669 | * NeverFoundTheBody: Cain was declared KIA at the beginning of ''Death or Glory'' as the result of a space battle (in which not finding a body would be perfectly understandable). His record wasn't corrected to MIA (due to his radioing in a month after being declared dead) until around the time he managed to fight his way through the Ork army back to Imperial lines, and the revision to declare him alive didn't happen until after the campaign ended. According to Amberley's footnotes, this happened to him so many times over the course of his career that eventually the Munitorium stopped trying to keep track and declared that he would be listed as alive and on active duty at all times--even after his death from natural causes and burial with full military honors. |
| 670 | * NightmareFuel: [[invoked]] Cain has three literal sources: Necrons, his time as a prisoner of the Dark Eldar, and [[spoiler:Emeli]]. |
| 671 | * NoBloodForPhlebotinum: ''Caves of Ice'' sees the 597th deployed to protect a valuable promethium refinery from an Ork attack. |
| 672 | * NoHeroToHisValet: Inverted; Cain actually ''is'' a hero to Jurgen, the closest thing to a valet he has. Amberley Vail's association with Cain has let her see the accuracy of his accounts, even though she thinks he may be too hard on himself. |
| 673 | * NoMrBondIExpectYouToDine: Done to Cain by the BigBad of ''Duty Calls''. |
| 674 | * NoOntologicalInertia: Averted, but specifically discussed in ''Cain's Last Stand''. [[spoiler:The people Varan controlled remain warped even after his death. Cain observes it would have been easier if they had been freed -- "but this wasn't some comforting fairy tale..."]]. In one rather extreme case, Varan's personal shuttle pilot is found dead after the final battle. He had been ordered by (the now deceased) Varan to wait for his return. The pilot took these orders literally and ''starved to death waiting for Varan''. |
| 675 | * NoTimeToThink: During the WireDilemma of disarming a car bomb on Adumbria, he is forced to guess because all the wires are the same color. |
| 676 | * TheNondescript: Malden in ''The Traitor's Hand''. According to Cain, the most noticeable fact about him is the fact that he's not all that noticeable. |
| 677 | * NondescriptNastyNutritious: |
| 678 | ** The vat-grown foodstuff "soylens viridiens" is nutritionally complete if completely unenjoyable. Ciaphas loathes the stuff, but the Techpriests appreciate its convenience. |
| 679 | --->'''Techpriest:''' ''Soylens viridiens'' is far more convenient, and provides everything necessary for continuing good health.\ |
| 680 | '''Cain:''' Except flavour and texture.\ |
| 681 | '''Techpriest:''' [baffled] Oh. Those. |
| 682 | ** The standard Militarium ration bars might not be "nasty", but certainly qualify on the other two counts. Cain refers several times to their "usual, and probably fortunate, lack of any clearly identifiable flavour", and definitely prefers real food, but is willing to eat ration bars if that's what's available. |
| 683 | * NoodleIncident: |
| 684 | ** Cain makes frequent cryptic references to his earlier adventures; some have been explored in short stories, others it is assumed the reader would have heard about. ''Cain's Last Stand'' has a ton of these due to being written well into the future of the series. |
| 685 | ** Cain also tries to convince Kasteen and Broklaw that "Jinxie" isn't really cursed, like the time she fell into a tunnel that led to finding necrons, or the incident with the grenade and the latrine, or... He trails off once he realizes just how deep he's digging himself. |
| 686 | ** One of the most hilarious/awesome of these, is when Cain is reflecting on some of the times that he took apparently crazy actions due to choosing the ''near''-certainty of death over the certainty of death, and off-handedly mentions "the time I charged a daemon of Khorne with nothing but a rusty bayonet and a vial of holy water." |
| 687 | * NotHowImDyingDeclaration: At one point in ''For the Emperor'', Cain, Amberley, and a recon squad have a quick meal of guard-issue ration bars before heading into Gravalax's undercity. Amberley takes one bite of hers, makes a face, and announces she's definitely surviving the mission because no way is '''that''' going to be her last meal. |
| 688 | * NotQuiteDead: A footnote in one of the books reveals that Cain has been listed as "killed in action" so many times that the Munitorum eventually gave up trying to keep track and decided to keep him on the payroll regardless--even long past his ''confirmed'' death and burial with full military honors. And even then, they aren't sure he's actually dead. Of course, Vail isn't going to tell anyone the full truth about it... |
| 689 | * NotSoOmniscientCouncilOfBickering: |
| 690 | ** Between them, the techpriests and Administratum functionaries in ''Caves of Ice'' are well on their way to forming one before Kasteen gets extremely annoyed by their utter dismissal of the Ork invasion and declares martial law (and Cain offers to shoot anyone who complains about it). |
| 691 | ** Adumbria, in ''The Traitor's Hand'', is being run by one of these thanks to a SuccessionCrisis. Zyvan tricks them into invoking the regent's emergency powers so he can shove them out of the loop. [[spoiler:Just as well, as one of them was a Chaos cultist.]] |
| 692 | * ObfuscatingStupidity: |
| 693 | ** [[spoiler:Governor Grice]] in ''For the Emperor''; everyone thinks [[spoiler:that he's merely a puppet being controlled by the T'au, but he's really a member of the Genestealer cult that thrives in Gravalax's underground, which is trying to play the T'au and the Imperium against each other to soften them up for the coming wave of Tyranid invasions]]. |
| 694 | ** [[spoiler:Inquisitor Vail]] when she first appears. |
| 695 | * ObliviousToLove: Cain takes nearly half the book to figure out [[TrophyHusband Mira's true objective]] in tagging along with him. And even when he figures it out, he still thinks she's trying to bag a SpaceMarine. When the full realization hits him, he wastes no time in trying to get rid of her. Too bad he'd already smiled and nodded his way through all her none too subtle hints, making it hard to suddenly explain his position makes it impossible to marry. Amberley {{lampshades}} how dense he was about getting the hint. |
| 696 | * ObstructiveBureaucrat: Usually a result of rigid incompetence instead of actual malice. |
| 697 | ** Both played straight and subverted in ''The Caves of Ice''. |
| 698 | ** Averted by Scrivener Norbert from ''Death Or Glory'', who is actually helpful and never even ''acts'' obstructive. |
| 699 | ** Amusingly subverted in ''The Traitor's Hand'', where the Council of Claimants unwittingly ''votes itself out of the loop''. |
| 700 | ** Also subverted in ''Cain's Last Stand'' with [[spoiler:Bursar Brasker]], who's also been using ObfuscatingStupidity "to conform to other people's expectations" and turns out to be something of a kindred spirit to Cain. |
| 701 | ** Jenit Sulla gets around a cabal of them in ''The Last Ditch'', among other things pressing back into service a small flotilla of shuttles that had been erroneously declared destroyed (to the relief of the crews, who had become UnPerson) via her authority as an Imperial Guard officer under a martial law declaration. The situation is fairly absurd even for the setting; the shuttles were earmarked to help the regiment disembark; the ship the regiment was on crashed on arriving at the system; the administratum then declared them lost with the ship, even though ''they never left the spaceport''. They then ordered the ships, which officially didn't exist, to vacate their berths to make room for ships that exist. |
| 702 | --->'''Sulla:''' Typical Administratum cock-up. |
| 703 | * OfficialPresidentialTransport: In ''Traitor's Gambit'', the Planetary Governor of Deepwater travels in his official space yacht, the ''Wavecrest''. |
| 704 | * OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Several of Cain's {{Noodle Incident}}s, like the time he was fighting a Chaos Dreadnought, or charged a daemon with nothing but a rusty bayonet and a vial of holy water, since he obviously survived all of them. |
| 705 | * OhCrap: |
| 706 | ** Cain gets into this situation early in ''The Greater Good'' when on the losing side of a conflict with the T'au, separated from friendly forces, his salamander wrecked, Jurgen wounded, and surrounded by a team of closing [[MiniMecha Crisis Battlesuits]] with only his laspistol and no cover to hide behind, and he realizes that there is no way he is getting out of this one. [[spoiler: Turns out that the T'au just wanted to ask him specifically to use his influence to get the beleaguered Imperial forces to agree to a cease-fire.]] |
| 707 | ** Cain gets this bad in ''Caves of Ice'' while trying to advocate evacuating Simia Orichalcae and calling in a naval flotilla to [[spoiler:wipe out the Necron tomb they found below the surface. The chief Mechanicus representative points out that even if they call in an orbital strike, it will take months for the flotilla to arrive, by which time the Necrons could be long gone. Kasteen and Broklaw agree that they have to destroy the warp portal inside the tomb to prevent that before they evacuate, and Cain, being one of only a handful who knows the tomb's location, grimly realises who's going to have to lead the demolition team back down there.]] |
| 708 | ** In terms of affairs for the Imperium, the end of ''The Last Ditch'' provides one: based on Cain's findings on Nusquan, [[spoiler:Amberley deduces that the Tyranids he encountered on that world had been in hibernation for over a thousand years, making them far older than either the Imperium's official first contact with the Tyranids or early encounters recorded by the Inquisition, suggesting that not only could the Tyranids have penetrated further into the galaxy than previously feared, other worlds in the Imperium could also have similar Tyranid presences in hibernation unbeknowst to them, the aliens simply waiting for others of their kind to awaken them.]] |
| 709 | * OhMyGods: |
| 710 | ** Cain occasionally uses "Emperor's Bowels!"; the modern equivalent should be obvious. |
| 711 | ** Felicia Tayber is fond of "Omnissiah's cogs!" |
| 712 | * OneRiotOneRanger: In ''The Devil You Know'' the Guard sends just Cain to save a flagging war, although Jurgen still tags along and Cain wrily notes that the supply drop he arrived with was probably more useful. He ends up wiping out the invading force almost singlehandedly through the usual cascade of unlikely events. His main given reason for seeking assignment with the 597th is because in his days as an independent Commissar command kept doing stuff like this to him. |
| 713 | * OneSteveLimit: Averted, with Magos Killian in “Echoes of the Tomb” and Inquisitor Killian in DutyCalls. |
| 714 | * OneWheeledWonder: One of the techpriests in ''Emperor's Finest'' and ''Caves of Ice'' had his lower body replaced with a single wheel. Made even worse by the fact that techpriests have huge metal dendrites attached to their backs and like to replace as much of their body with metal as possible, though Ciaphas mentions that he must have very good gyroscopes to work. |
| 715 | * OrbitalBombardment: Not a surprise, as it's a standard tactic of many factions in TheVerse at large. |
| 716 | ** ''Duty Calls'' has the Imperial fleet supporting the Imperial Guard's ground operations against a tyranid invasion by blasting any 'nid-held locations they find out about. The planet's weather patterns make finding out about them difficult, unfortunately. |
| 717 | ** In ''Cain's Last Stand'' Warmaster Varan's forces flatten the Perlian PDF headquarters with a battleship's lance batteries. The for-once-not-incompetent brass had already evacuated but we don't know the casualties. |
| 718 | * OOCIsSeriousBusiness: A seemly minor event, but when Jurgen and Cain find the [[spoiler:brain-washed Donal, Jurgen blank abilities start to free him from his mind-control]]. Jurgen ''hesitates'' and sheepishly ask Cain what's going on. He almost never does this even when he is fighting Chaos Space Marines, is in a Necron Tomb, or even when facing daemons. [[spoiler:Actually, anyone mind-controlled by Varan is completely changed from Emperor loving citizens to Chaos worshiping fanatics in ''seconds''.]] It's really quite disturbing. |
| 719 | * OurZombiesAreDifferent: [[spoiler:They can still talk and think and shoot lasguns, though they believe that loyalists are only following the False-Emperor rather than the "[[PlagueMaster True-Emperor]]"...]] |
| 720 | * OutrunTheFireball: In ''The Last Ditch'', [[spoiler: with their escape route destroyed and the geothermal power plant they rigged to explode in order to kill the Hive Ship co-ordinating the Tyranids on Nusquam Fundumentibus about to blow any second, Cain and Jurgen grab a couple of motorbikes and flee through tunnels the Tyranids burrowed beneath the power plant to escape, reaching the surface literally seconds ahead of the explosion]]. |
| 721 | * OverzealousUnderling: |
| 722 | ** In ''The Traitor's Hand'', the Imperial Guard finds evidence of a daemon summoning ritual, though too late to find anything useful. Another site is discovered, but the overly puritanical Tallarn soldiers and their commissar Beije completely destroy the site before the psykers can examine it. Because Beije believes Cain to be acting traitorously ([[TheResenter along with a big helping of resentment]]), he attempts to arrest Cain with a Tallarn squad as he investigates the final site, inadvertently providing Cain with reinforcements to defeat the daemon princess as she's summoned and character witnesses for his heroic behavior. |
| 723 | ** In ''Duty Calls'', a squad of Sororitas gets so caught up in burning Tyranids that they leave their position, leaving a gap in the line they're supposed to be defending and leaving the temple/refugee camp wide open. Cain gets them back in by pointing out that their noble sacrifices mean certain death for the civilians depending on them for protection. |
| 724 | [[/folder]] |
| 725 | |
| 726 | [[folder:P - T]] |
| 727 | * PainfulPersona: {{Zigzagged}}. Cain (who has a reputation as a fearless Hero of the Imperium) ''claims'' to be a DirtyCoward who would book it on the first shuttle out of a warzone if it wasn't for all the witnesses around and the loss of status and reputation it would entail, but multiple times throughout the series he does the right thing even when there's no one to see it. It doesn't help that every single time he tries to worm his way out of a fight (such as inspecting an out-of-the-way post, staying at the headquarters instead of joining the front, exploring abandoned tunnels, etc.) he ends up thwarting an enemy ambush, foiling an assassination attempt, or stumbling upon awakening Necron forces. He also mentions not being averse to being in the spotlight or being a LargeHam, and even Inquisitor Vail doesn't know whether he's a genuine hero with SelfDeprecation issues or a lucky coward. |
| 728 | * PaintingTheMedium: The ''shadowlight'' from ''Duty Calls'' is so ominous, it's never referred to with a capital letter and always in italics. This changes in ''Cain's Last Stand'', where they actually use Caps as Shadowlight (might be [=ShadowLight=]). |
| 729 | * PaperworkPunishment: Discussed. Cain once mentions that, theoretically, his authority as an Imperial Guard commissar to [[YouHaveFailedMe execute underperforming personnel]] extends even to Lord General Zyvan. However, besides the fact Cain has no reason to want to, the paperwork he'd have to fill out after executing a Lord General Militant would be a special kind of Hell all by itself. |
| 730 | * ThePardon: Amberley offers one to troopers sentenced to a penal legion in the first book, by dint of accompanying the esteemed Ciaphas Cain on an Inquisitorial recon mission to the maze-like depths of the city sewers...that may or may not be swarming with a rebel faction who has the upper hand and something horriblebadevil. Cain doesn't like it, since he'd rather not have to go onto the field accompanying five guardsmen who might still hold a grudge over the sentence (and of several he personally saw stab people to death, and one of which scared him deeply), but can't object--mostly because when an Inquisitor wants you to accompany them, ''you accompany them.'' |
| 731 | * PercussiveMaintenance: Apparently the most reliable way to fix the resolution on a hololith. If you're particularly good at it, it may mean you have a religious (i.e., [[MachineWorship techpriest]]) vocation. ''The Greater Good'' flat out states that there's a "Litany of Percussive Maintenance" used to get recalcitrant devices to work. |
| 732 | * {{Phobia}}: Not a phobia, per se, but Cain is utterly terrified of Necrons, and absolutely will not confront them unless there is no other choice available (see BadassDecay in [[YMMV/CiaphasCain the YMMV tab]]). He also fears the Dark Eldar, often cringing from remembering the time he spent [[FateWorseThanDeath as a prisoner in a Reaver]]. |
| 733 | * PillowPistol: Amberley says Cain does this ''everywhere''. |
| 734 | * PingPongNaivete: |
| 735 | ** When investigating a [[TheHedonist Slaaneshi]] hideout, Cain finds a room with a big pile of cushions in the middle, its purpose unclear. Amberley lampshades that Cain, a man of the galaxy, seems a little hypocritical here. |
| 736 | ** Cain also takes a while to figure out Mira's reason for going with him on a campaign. |
| 737 | * ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: Subverted. Cain is so different from the stereotypical commissar (leading by example [so to speak] rather than fear and intimidation, not being trigger-happy, etc.) that it would seem that he's ineffective at his job, but both Amberley's comments and the actual memoirs indicate that this is anything but true. Cain justifies this in his writings, noting that commissars who ''do'' lead via fear and shooting their own men tend to Die Gloriously in Battle (many [hundreds of]) miles from the front lines) more often then not. |
| 738 | * PlagueOfGoodFortune: Cain's entire career can pretty much be summed up as a repeating cycle of "Be thrust into danger" [=-->=] "Find greater danger while trying to escape first danger" [=-->=] "Become praised as a hero for defeating new danger." Naturally, as his fame increases, so do others' expectations of him, much to his chagrin. |
| 739 | * PlainPalate: Implied for the techpriests in "The Greater Good", when one can't figure out why Cain would prefer a steak to soylens viridiens because it provides everything he needs. When Cain says, "Except flavour and texture," the priest says in a baffled way, "Oh. ''Those''." |
| 740 | * PlayingPossum: Cain uses a variation (with himself as the bait) in ''Caves of Ice'' in order to ambush an Ork advance party and keep them from reporting the Valhallans' landing to the main horde. |
| 741 | * PoliticallyIncorrectVillain: [[UnknownRival Beije]] is a textbook case of a secondary character who goes from a minor obstacle for the heroes to deeply unlikeable after spouting off at the mouth. |
| 742 | * PopculturalOsmosisFailure: A footnote in ''Caves of Ice'' has Amberley completely confused about why the Ice World the book takes place on would be named the CanisLatinicus version of "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_monkey_(colloquialism) Brass Monkey]]". |
| 743 | * PopTheTires: Happens by freak accident in one novel: a frag grenade goes off near a Salamander that Cain's using, jamming the tracks and giving Cain quite the nasty concussion. |
| 744 | * PornStash: Jurgen is almost never without at least one "porno slate", while Cain's cadets are known to swap "salacious holo-picts" instead of paying attention in class. |
| 745 | * PossessingADeadBody: The first step in creating a daemonhost appears to be providing a dead body for the daemon to move into. In "The Beguiling", a Slaaneshi cult goes the HumanSacrifice route; in ''The Last Ditch'' a daemon possesses a servitor instead of one of the living crew members on the bridge. ''The Traitor's Hand'' strongly implies that Emeli sucked the souls out of her cultists before she could refashion their bodies into a suitable form for her. |
| 746 | * PostApocalypticTrafficJam: When the eponymous Commissar drives along a major highway on Perlia heading towards a town that was attacked some time ago to link up with reinforcements, the highway is jammed full of (wrecked) civilian cars that were attacked by the Orks who invaded the planet a few months ago. Cain notes that most of the cars stood no chance against the ordnance used by the Orks, mentioning the grisly sight of the occupants slouched dead in them, some of them killed weeks ago. |
| 747 | * PowderKegCrowd: The regiment, when he first joins it. |
| 748 | * PowerOfTrust: In general, Cain seems to be pretty cunning about this: he tries to build up trust with his subordinates because he knows that the more they appreciate him, the less likely they are to leave him hanging in a firefight. Ironically, as Amberley points out, it never occurs to Cain that this trust is genuine rather than fearing him more than the enemy. |
| 749 | * PrecisionFStrike: |
| 750 | ** Lord General Zyvan telling the [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Administratum]] people that if they aren't happy with his decisions they can bitch about it to the Tyranids. |
| 751 | ** InUniverse, "scumsucker" is apparently a ''very'' serious insult, at least in the hive Cain ([[UnreliableNarrator may or may not]]) be from. |
| 752 | * PreInsanityReveal: One of Amberley Veil's retinue is a permanently combat-drugged lunatic named Simeon who flinches every time he sees Cain's commissar uniform. When Cain asks what his deal is, she tells him he was in a [[TradingBarsForStripes penal legion]], snapped under pressure and started executing men for failing to salute a superior officer... while on the receiving end of an artillery barrage. Cain nods sympathetically, but notes that preventing that sort of breakdown is why they have commissars in the first place. [[spoiler:Veil then says Simeon ''was'' the commissar.]] |
| 753 | * PreMortemOneLiner: Replete with them, usually right before Cain kills someone with his laspistol. |
| 754 | ** "Sorry. I prefer blondes." (Cain to a Slaaneshi sorceress who tried to seduce him) |
| 755 | *** Amberley Vail is blonde, but Cain says this [[CallForward before meeting her]]. |
| 756 | ** "Consider yourself relieved of your position" (Amberley to the [[spoiler: Genestealer-hybrid]] governor of Gravalax) |
| 757 | ** "Blood for the Blood God!" "Harriers for the cup!" |
| 758 | ** "Impersonating an inquisitor is a capital offense." (Cain to a Slaaneshi sorceress who'd unknowingly disguised herself as Amberley) |
| 759 | ** "[[spoiler:Commissar Donal]] sends his regards." Especially appropriate in that, as he said it, he was doing '''exactly''' what [[spoiler:Donal]] had, as his last request, asked Cain to do. [[spoiler:"Kick his arse for me."]] Let us reiterate: [[spoiler:Cain killed a man by kicking him in the arse... over a large drop. Not just any man either, but a ''Chaos warmaster''.]] |
| 760 | ** ''Subverted'' in ''Duty Calls''. |
| 761 | --->"Enjoy your trip." |
| 762 | * PreserveYourGays: The [[AmbiguouslyGay implied lesbian]] couple in ''Caves of Ice'' are the ''only'' {{Red Shirt}}s who survive nigh-certain death going through the titular caves as well as a [[spoiler:Necron tomb]]. They do quite well afterward and are recurring minor characters in later books, and it's strongly suggested that it's specifically ''because'' of their love for each other that they make it through all of the various horrors they face. |
| 763 | * PropagandaHero: Cain's reputation is at least in part built on this (as well as on his extremely impressive--if accidental--actual heroism). |
| 764 | * PsychoLesbian: Magot is generally able to channel her destructive tendencies in a productive way, being a regimental hand to hand champion and highly regarded as a soldier by Cain. She is also one of the worst troublemakers in the 597th Valhallan, a VERY robust driver (highlights include running over a Tyranid Lictor that was menacing Cain) and perfectly willing to hunt down and beat a man senseless for sexist vocal offense. Also, she will point her gun at anyone threatening Grifen, repercussions be damned. Cain takes absolutely zero measures against her being in a relationship with her own sergeant out of fear of what she might do. |
| 765 | * PullYourselfDownTheSpear: In ''The Last Ditch'', an Ork Cain is fighting tries to do this when Cain impales it on his chainsword, but he cuts through its spine and kills it before it can get very far. |
| 766 | * PunnyName: All over the place. Several planets, including the ice worlds Simia Orichalchae and Nusquam Fundumentibus--respectively, pseudo-Latin for "brass monkey" [[note]]from the British expression "It's [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_monkey_%28colloquial_expression%29 cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey"]][[/note]] and "arse end of nowhere"[[note]]also British slang, for the middle of nowhere[[/note]]--as well as Sodallagain, a planet with apparently nothing of interest. In ''Cain's Last Stand'', there's Orelius's ship, the ''Lucre Foedus''... quite appropriate for a Rogue Trader. The Planetary Governor of Deepwater is named Landon Hoy. A lot of the {{Shout Out}}s also feature these. |
| 767 | * PurpleProse: |
| 768 | ** The excerpts from Sulla's books. Vail apologizes each time she has to add them, and makes rude comments about her writing ability. While they are somewhat florid, they aren't much worse than the writing of Cain himself, or something like Creator/RafaelSabatini's ''Literature/CaptainBloodHisOdyssey''. Vail's contempt presumably [[SarcasmMode has absolutely nothing to do with Sulla's (professional) admiration of Cain]]. |
| 769 | ** Stententious Logar's works are actually rather worse and with no apology. Perhaps Mitchell toned it down because, after all, he wanted the stuff read. |
| 770 | * QuicklyDemotedWoman: Averted. At the formation of the Valhallan 597th by merging one all-male and one all-female regiment that received crippling losses, the appointment of the female regiment's commander, Kasteen, to overall command does not sit well with the officers of the old male regiment. However, the sticking point is that while Kasteen is technically senior to her male counterpart (because her superiors got themselves killed and needed a field-promoted replacement three days before Broklaw's did), she is still the commander of a garrison regiment, while her counterpart has commanded line infantry in the field, and gender doesn't even come into it. She goes on to acquit herself admirably in the first book and remains the commander of the 597th for many years afterward. |
| 771 | * QuoteMine: InUniverse example. In ''Duty Calls'' [[spoiler:a rogue Ordo Hereticus inquisitor]] shrugs off [[spoiler:shooting desperate civilians who tried to escape a tyranid attack on his shuttle]] with the line "The path of duty is often a stony one." Cain is apparently quite fond of that text and recognizes the QuoteMine, and Amberley's footnote reveals that the back half of the sentence changes the meaning completely: |
| 772 | -->The full quotation ... runs 'The path of duty is often a stony one, made easier by thought for others.' |
| 773 | * RabbleRouser: |
| 774 | ** There's a particularly sinister variant in Warmaster Varan, who can instantly (and permanently) convert people to the forces of Chaos just by talking and being within line-of-sight of them. Oh, and it's mentioned [[UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler he has a holy book that only makes sense to his followers, looks nervous when talking, and has a ridiculous little mustache...]] |
| 775 | ** The first novel, ''For The Emperor'', features a planet which is on the brink of civil war thanks to tensions between pro-T'au and Imperium loyalist factions. Since neither side wants war to break out, they often have to [[CooperationGambit calm down their own examples]]. [[spoiler:In the end it turns out that [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong Genestealers]] have been serving this role the entire time to soften the planet up for invasion.]] |
| 776 | * RagtagBunchOfMisfits: |
| 777 | ** The penal squad in the first book, [[spoiler:none of which survive]]. Not to mention the rest of the 597th Valhallan, at least at first before Cain turns them into a BadassArmy. |
| 778 | ** As well as Cain's Liberators from ''Death or Glory'', who start out as just a squad of PDF and a few dozen civilians and end up with a few hundred troops and everything a mobile army needs but air support. |
| 779 | ** Perhaps the most impressive is Vail's retinue in ''Duty Calls''. Faced with a food vendor who had stumbled into some knowledge of the Inquisition--and picked up a gun when cornered by a Genestealer cult--Vail hires her. Others include a former commissar/member of a penal regiment, and a former arbite who had, while undercover, imploded a criminal organization with a judicious murder and frame. |
| 780 | * RaisedByNatives: Gue'vesa Au'lys Devrae, Facilitator of External Relations, who shows it by shaving her hair into a scalp-lock. She is from the world of Ka'ley'ath, or "Downholm" to use its Imperial name, a world annexed by the T'au prior to the Damocles Crusade. Her entire family line is understandably completely assimilated into the T'au way of life, having been there for generations. |
| 781 | * RammingAlwaysWorks: |
| 782 | ** Attempted by an Ork in ''Death or Glory'', didn't work because he's an Ork and Felicia just stepped out of his way (on a mecha, that is). |
| 783 | ** Attempted by one of the other Schola teachers in ''Cain's Last Stand''. It works, destroying the ram and the ship it hit, but it didn't destroy the ship they had hoped to. That said, the attack forces its original target to change course, preventing it from annihilating the Imperial headquarters via orbital bombardment and allowing the Imperials to evacuate. |
| 784 | ** Attempted by T'au infiltrators in "Traitor's Gambit," who [[spoiler:try to ram an Imperial warship with a planetary governor's yacht. The Imperials spot it well ahead of time and blast it]]. |
| 785 | ** Cain barely manages to avoid this fate in ''Vainglorious'' after his shuttle's servitor is subverted and tries to ram the flagship. He manages to turn it into ComingInHot instead. |
| 786 | * RashomonStyle: For times when Amberley was there in person, she'll note when she remembers things differently than Cain has written them. The extracts from other people's accounts diverge even more, as Jenit Sulla never sees Cain as less than a mighty hero and a personal mentor (after he's spent a while griping about her, her gung-ho tactics and her horse-like face). Tayber from ''Death Or Glory'' is probably the biggest example of this, as Cain describes fighting off hordes of Orks until he and Jurgen believe they're cornered and their luck has finally run out, only to be relieved in the nick of time by a PDF unit, while Tayber's account has Cain roll into town, kick Orkish arse, forge the PDF and civilians into an army and go on to liberate the planet exactly as he planned. |
| 787 | * {{Realpolitik}}: |
| 788 | ** The T'au justification for partially occupying the planet in ''For The Emperor'' is the protection of their trading interests. Cain doesn't buy it, as the Imperium has used a similar justification to gain a foothold before taking over. Of course, it's his job to shoot anyone rude enough to point this out. Also, he's told that the Imperium are desperately keen to avoid having to defend Gravalax from outright invasion by the T'au, as it would be a drawn-out war of attrition for a largely insignificant backwater, and a drain on resources needed to fight the Tyranids and Necrons, in contrast to the rhetoric that the Emperor's mighty forces will defend his territory anywhere in the galaxy. |
| 789 | ** The broader background behind ''The Greater Good'' is that the Imperium and the T'au have realized they need to work together to defeat the Tyranid hive fleets, but at the same time each is trying to arrange things so that the other power shoulders the brunt of the effort so that they themselves can more easily sweep up whatever's left in the aftermath. |
| 790 | * ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Cain generally has no patience with Imperial planetary/system governors, but in his travels, he meets a few good ones, notable for their rarity. [[spoiler:And for their tragic fates.]] |
| 791 | ** Landen Hoy of the Deepwater system, from the short story ''Traitor's Gambit'', strikes Cain as showing "a reasonable degree of competence and integrity", and proves a pleasant and amiable host. [[spoiler:He's murdered by tau-sympathizing insurgents during a combination robbery and assassination attempt on Lord General Zyvan.]] |
| 792 | ** Jonas Worden of Lentonia, from the novella ''Old Soldiers Never Die'', is an UnexpectedSuccessor with a dim view of the governing dynasty of his home world, uncomfortable with the trappings of his office and just trying to do the best job he can. [[spoiler:Ends up fatally infected during a ZombieApocalypse on his world; the final entry in his ApocalypticLog reinforces his hatred of his position and his determination to set a good example for his people.]] |
| 793 | ** Lio Trevellyan of Perlia, from ''Cain's Last Stand'', who is shown to be competent, understanding, and possessed of NervesOfSteel when the forces of Chaos invade his home. [[spoiler:Sadly, he's overmatched and forcibly turned to the side of Chaos Warmaster Varan the Undefeatable, doomed to be remembered as a traitor to his world. Fortunately, in the aftermath, his niece and heir Illyria ends up being just as competent as he hoped she would be.]] |
| 794 | ** Lord General Zyvan turns out to be unwilling to go to war with the Tau over a pointless backwater like Gravalax, something Amberley fully backs him up on. The Imperial loyalists on Gravalax aren't aware of this, of course. |
| 795 | ** Cain himself takes pains to be one (and to instill the need to be one to the commissar cadets he's teaching), repeatedly stating that hardass commissars who shoot troopers for the slightest offense are the ones who die heroic deaths [[UnfriendlyFire nowhere near the frontlines.]] |
| 796 | * ReassignmentBackfire: |
| 797 | ** Inverted repeatedly throughout the books, as Cain tries to get ''himself'' assigned to a nice, quiet job where he doesn't have to be shot at all the time, but always winds up in the worst possible situations--which gets him a reputation for being a thrill-seeker, causing him to end up in even ''more'' of these! The one time he ''does'' get a relatively quiet job? He goes on a routine patrol, and HilarityEnsues. |
| 798 | ** Played straight in the original short story ''Fight or Flight'', which ends with Colonel Mostrue assigning the odorous Gunner Jurgen to Cain as his personal aide, obviously intended as a practical joke at Cain's expense. Jurgen goes on to not only be a more-than-able aide to Cain, but also turns out to be a blank whose powers save Cain's life countless times. Cain himself mentions that even heroes of the Imperium like himself are a dime a dozen compared to a blank like Jurgen. |
| 799 | * {{Reconstruction}}: Of the ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' setting as a whole. The good Imperial leaders are portrayed as pragmatists [[AFatherToHisMen who care about their troops]] and work to rein in the excesses of their more zealous compatriots, and there isn't a single Exterminatus called in. It also avoids issues with TooBleakStoppedCaring by humanizing the tragedy of never-ending war, and even finds time to convincingly portray ''every'' side as badass, especially the Necrons, of whom Cain is flat-out ''terrified''. It also seems that on "normal" Imperial planets (i.e. ones other than crazy-overpopulated Hive Worlds, super-polluted Forge Worlds, and borderline uninhabitable {{Death World}}s), citizens enjoy a pretty decent standard of living when there isn't a war going on in the vicinity. Even WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture gets averted in one case, when Amberley points out that some factory jobs are both highly-paid and sought-after. |
| 800 | * RecruitTheMuggles: In ''The Traitor's Hand'', a Chaos battleship is destroyed when it tries to massacre a giant swarm of merchant ships. The Imperial cruiser present manages to wreck the battleship's main weapons when it's already committed to its course, and then the merchants swarm it and [[DeathOfAThousandCuts nibble it to death with their little defensive guns]]. |
| 801 | * RecurringDreams: Flashbacks, even. One of them is actually a plot point, though turns out it wasn't a normal kind of dream. |
| 802 | * RedheadsAreRavishing: Averted. Cain tells [[spoiler:Emeli]] that he prefers blondes [[spoiler:before he shoots her]], and later falls for the blonde Amberley. He does admit that he finds Colonel Kasteen, the red-haired colonel of the Valhallan 597th, to be quite attractive, but never follows up on it because of how that would complicate their working relationship. Finally, in ''The Traitor's Hand'', Commissar Tomas Beije seems to be assuming that Cain is having an inappropriate relationship with Corporal Magot, who is also a redhead. He's very wrong; Magot's [[PsychoLesbian "preferences ran in an entirely different direction"]], and Cain "only has room for one lethally dangerous woman in [his] life." |
| 803 | -->'''Amberley''' (in footnote): [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments Which I choose to take as a compliment...]] |
| 804 | * RedHerring: Several throughout the series. [[spoiler:Maxim Sorel in ''For the Emperor'' for one. Cain thinks the punished soldiers will betray him and he actively fears [[{{Sociopath}} Sorel.]] Turns out Sorel is the most loyal of the bunch. He just likes killing people, or at least doesn't see any reason not to kill people.]] |
| 805 | * RedShirtArmy: |
| 806 | ** Played with: the books seem to take delight in never having the escorts' survival -- or their total wipeout -- taken for granted. |
| 807 | ** Played straight ''and'' {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in the short story ''Echoes of the Tomb'' where the redshirts were troopers of the Adeptus Mechanicus -- and they wore red uniforms. They're even ''called'' redshirts by Cain. And, despite cybernetic augmentations and hellguns, they are all slaughtered when the Necrons wake up. |
| 808 | * ReflexiveRemarkOfReverence: |
| 809 | ** In ''Duty Calls'', the Sororitas characters and the Gavarronean militia automatically make the sign of the Aquila whenever the Emperor is mentioned. |
| 810 | ** The novella "Old Soldiers Never Die" has the Valhallan 597th working with a [[TheFundamentalist Tallarn]] regiment. By this point in his career, Cain is familiar enough with Tallarn customs to deliver a "Throne be praised" and Aquila sign at the same time the Tallarn colonel does. |
| 811 | * RefugeInAudacity: Cain uses this sort of logic to justify some of his more apparently "heroic" actions--confronting dangerous threats, while seemingly suicidal at the time, has a much better chance (he claims) of ensuring his survival in the long term than running away and allowing them to grow even ''more'' dangerous, not to mention adding to his reputation for [[FakeUltimateHero heroism]]. |
| 812 | ** For instance, the time in ''Death or Glory'' when he wanted transportation for the PDF squad he intended to use as bodyguards. He had ''them'' sneak into the enemy motor park quietly, while ''he'' barged in the front gate and started singlehandedly shooting the place up as a distraction (Jurgen was busy starting up the vehicles they'd take). |
| 813 | ** Cain's plan for taking out the big bad in ''Cain's Last Stand'' runs on this and [[spoiler:ISurrenderSuckers]]. |
| 814 | * RetCon: in the first story Cain implied Jurgen had died sometime between his adventures and the writing of the memoirs. In later books, Jurgen was there for Cain's funeral. |
| 815 | * RevealingCoverup: |
| 816 | %%** In ''Duty Calls''. |
| 817 | ** In ''The Smallest Details'', an attempt to kill Jurgen to prevent him from reporting the existence of a black marketing scheme (which he figured out was happening because the records were so scrupulously accurate) to the Commissariat resulted in it being discovered by the provosts. Jurgen actually had no intention of reporting the stolen goods; he didn't think that it was serious enough to be worth Cain's time. |
| 818 | ** In the first part of ''The Emperor's Finest'' the rebels give away that all their factions are really working together because their attacks on each other's artillery are not only suspiciously useless but also involve deploying it in ways that make no sense against each other. |
| 819 | * RobbingTheDead: At one point in ''Choose Your Enemies'', Cain discovers that the local militia has been ordered to take the spirit stones off Eldar dead and send them up the command chain [[spoiler:so the local governor can use them in a daemon-summoning]]. |
| 820 | * RoboSpeak: Lampshaded in ''Cain's Last Stand'', where he actually uses a trio of combat [[HumanResources servitors]]' tendency to repeat their directives out loud to track their locations. |
| 821 | * RoomDisservice: The villains of "The Little Things", a group of kidnappers seeking to kidnap a rich young noblewoman for ransom. Unfortunately for them, the noblewoman was an undercover Inquisitor, the room service she ordered was for a dinner for her and Cain, and Cain figured out they weren't really hotel staff the moment he saw them. |
| 822 | * RoyallyScrewedUp: Cain assumes that this applies to all planetary governors until proven wrong. Going into book ten, roughly half of all planetary governors to be depicted are incompetent, evil, or involuntarily corrupted by Chaos, so he might have a point. |
| 823 | * RugbyIsSlaughter: Cain was a keen [[CallARabbitASmeerp Scrumball]] player at the Schola Progenium and states that the only team that could regularly beat the Commissarial cadets was the [[AmazonBrigade Sisters of Battle]] cadets--not because they were better players, but because they seemed to be under the impression that the aim of the game was to hospitalise the entire opposing team. Beije never did well at it, possibly because he was enthusiastically tackled by everybody whether or not he had the ball. |
| 824 | * RunningGag: Many. |
| 825 | ** Holograms flicker and require PercussiveMaintenance. |
| 826 | ** Jurgen has noticeable body odor and halitosis and looks dirty. |
| 827 | ** Jurgen randomly offering Cain food and drinks. |
| 828 | ** Cain's obsession with tanna, along with Amberley wondering how anyone can drink the stuff. |
| 829 | ** Shrubberies find themselves destroyed very often by Jurgen's signature driving style. |
| 830 | ** Everybody loves Cain and makes sculptures and whatnot dedicated to him, always [[AdaptationDecay wildly inaccurate]]. Cain hates the very existence of such art. |
| 831 | ** Cain has to do something brave to maintain his heroic reputation. |
| 832 | ** Cain chooses between two missions--one investigative, one on the active battlefield. He chooses the former. It doesn't end well and he mentions that in hindsight he would have gladly chosen the latter if he had any idea. |
| 833 | ** The artwork usually depicts Cain with a bolt pistol instead of his preferred laspistol. This can be justified both in and out of universe by the bolter being the signature human weapon, and it just plain looks cooler than a laspistol. ''The Greater Good'' actually reveals the origin of the specific bolt pistol on the cover and its eventual fate. |
| 834 | ** In ''The Traitor's Hand'' in particular, people mocking the Khornates' "Blood for the Blood God!" BattleCry. |
| 835 | ** Cain's lack of knowledge of space ships, his contradicting descriptions of them, and his tendency to leave out their names confounds Amberley to no end. She always tries to determine the name and class of the ship he is describing, just to edit and revise her conclusion so many times that she simply gives up trying. ''The Greater Good'' being a good example where she literally says she gives up trying to determine which ship Lord General Zyvan commandeered for his base of operations. |
| 836 | ** Amberley's inability to determine Cain's planet of origin and determine his family history. |
| 837 | ** Cain running away or trying to run away while also trying to make himself look good. |
| 838 | ** Jurgen's simple-mindedness and his tendency to state the obvious. |
| 839 | ** Cain's tendency to run into, and deal with, people whose ideas he regards as insane and suicidal. He is particularly leery of Tech-priests and those who dabble in technology (the two Necron Tomb incidents, the Reclaimers' insistence on boarding ''[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast The Spawn of Damnation]]'', and [[spoiler:Kildhar's biological studies of the Tyranids]] from ''The Greater Good'' come to mind). |
| 840 | ** Sulla being too gung-ho and looking like a horse. |
| 841 | ** Amberley apologizing for Sulla's PurpleProse whenever she has to reference Sulla's memoirs in her footnotes. |
| 842 | ** Cain or someone kills something only to force the person under it (often Cain) to roll away before it crushes them. Usually the person "just barely gets away" as it "lands where I/he/she was a moment/second before". |
| 843 | ** Cain describing something as "too stupid to realize it's/he's/she's dead" at which point whatever it is (whether ork, Tyranid, human, etc.) collapses in a heap often with a stupefied/humorous look of its/his/her face.[[note]]In fact, one the times this is used for drama/horror is when a psyker uses her power to keep herself from dying from fatal wounds. It freaks Cain out for obvious reasons.[[/note]] |
| 844 | ** People's tendency to swear a lot, especially Cain. One such instance in ''The Greater Good'' has him thinking that if he is about to die, that at least it would be among friends and that he should say something heroic. All he manages is yell "[[PardonMyKlingon Frak off!]]" to a Tyranid. |
| 845 | * SacredHospitality: The Adeptus Mechanicus is bad at it, tending to forget things like comfortable beds, food that tastes like something, deactivating the guard servitors, and even ''that not everyone has augmetic lungs''. |
| 846 | * SamusIsAGirl: Inquisitor Vail gets to pull one on Cain in ''Duty Calls''. |
| 847 | * SavedByCanon: Inevitable due to the fact the stories are written out of order and have recurring characters. Inquisitor Vail and Ciaphas Cain are the most notable, since the very beginning of the first novel basically establishes that the novels could not exist without Cain surviving to write them and Vail surviving to edit them. Occasional one-book characters (and Sulla) also get this, as Vail could not possibly include excerpts from their memoirs if they didn't survive to write them. Averted, however, with one character's memoirs being listed as never being published foreshadowing the fact that he didn't live long enough to finish them). |
| 848 | * SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: And a scale of something that isn't even fictional: one of the few problems with Sandy Mitchell's 40K-verse is that his armies are incredibly ''small''. The Valhallan 597th are around 1000 troopers total, which is not so bad except that if that is the standard, would mean that Cain has defended planets of billions with a force around 5,000 people at the highest. During the events of the fourth novel, for example, he mentions that a few regiments were liberating the entire star system, so perhaps 10,000 soldiers. For comparison, the [[UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte Grande Armee]] was around '''800 000''' soldiers. In later books, the 597th has about 4,000 soldiers, so it's not so bad, but it's still bad. The American military in World War 2 had ten thousand-man divisions (typically composed of three brigades, each of three regiments, plus support formations), and that was when it had only a thirtieth of the planet's population of 2.5 billion. Especially aggravating because other Valhallan regiments in the fluff (the ones with the caricatural Soviet [[WeHaveReserves three-men-one-rifle]] human wave "tactics") have over a MILLION soldiers. |
| 849 | * ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Cain has tried to pull this on numerous occasions to try and save his own ass. Most of the time it hasn't worked as he ends up running into the sneak attack/heretofore unknown enemy/infiltration/ritual that is actually a much worse threat. |
| 850 | ** In his first appearance, his attempts to escape [[spoiler:a gargoyle attack on his regiment's position on Desolatia end up with him running smack bang into the main Tyranid attack coming from the flank. Fortunately, he is able to both get back to the regiment and raise the alarm, and manages to cover up his attempt to desert by claiming he suspected what was coming and went to scout the area.]] |
| 851 | ** In ''Caves of Ice'', upon discovering [[spoiler:a dormant Necron tomb on Simia Orichalcae]], Cain wastes no time in ordering a complete Imperial evacuation from the planet. While he admits (privately of course) his primary motivation is to save his own skin, Cain does correctly point out that [[spoiler:the Necrons in the tomb]] likely outnumber the Imperials hundreds to one, and if they do wake up, the Imperials will find themselves caught between [[spoiler:the Necrons]] and the Orks already invading the planet, so the best thing to do in the circumstances is get off planet, alert the Inquisition to what they've found and then [[ItsTheOnlyWayToBeSure call in an Imperial Navy flotilla to obliterate the place from orbit]]. It should be noted that this is one of the few times that Cain advises running away without going through the usual rigamarole of "Oh, I just want to get relocated back into the action," but openly states that "No, we don't stand a chance, we're leaving as soon as we can." |
| 852 | ** At the climax of ''Cain's Last Stand'', with their position about to be overrun by Varan's vengeful Chaos horde, [[FromBadToWorse matters swiftly go from bad to worse]] when [[spoiler:a force of Necrons teleports in behind the Chaos forces and begin annihilating the heretics. Realising the Necrons fully intend to fight their way through the Chaos lines to the Imperial position, and aware they're in no shape to fight such an enemy, Cain wastes no time in ordering a full evacuation and orders the Mechanicus adepts on site to detonate the facility's self-destruct mechanism. The Imperials succeed in escaping, but the Necrons sabotage the self-destruct and escape with a powerful artefact the site was housing]]. |
| 853 | ** In ''The Last Ditch'', [[spoiler: with the attacking Tyranids on Nusquam Fundumentibus [[ItCanThink becoming more co-ordinated]] due to the [[HiveMind psychic influence]] of a Hive Ship buried miles underground, Cain concludes that trying to reach it is a SuicideMission and their best bet is to pull all Imperial forces offworld until an incoming force of Space Marines can arrive to deal with the problem. Unfortunately, the local head of the Adeptus Mechanicus points out the Hive Ship will be fully awake long before the Astartes arrive, and once it is awake, it will start luring in other Tyranids from across the system to overrun the region. Cain and company resort to [[NoKillLikeOverkill detonating a geothermal plant directly above the Hive Ship to kill it]].]] |
| 854 | * SeaOfSand: In ''The Greater Good'', Fecundia is an Imperial Forge World of which virtually the entire surface outside the cities is a wasteland of sand-like mining and industrial particulates. Cain and Jurgen crash-land amid the dunes after their shuttle is damaged by tyranid ships and end up going in circles trying to walk out of it; they're eventually rescued by a Krieg Death Korps cavalry company on scouting duty (who actually says it's a good thing they stayed put). |
| 855 | * SeeTheWhitesOfTheirEyes: Averted and mocked in ''Death or Glory'': |
| 856 | --> Contrary to what you might see in an episode of ''Attack Run''[[labelnote:footnote:]]A popular holodrama of the 930s, about a squadron of fighter pilots in the Gothic War.[[/labelnote]], starships in combat seldom approach to within point blank range of one another, exchanging fire at distances of hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometres. |
| 857 | * SeekingSanctuary |
| 858 | * SeriesContinuityError: |
| 859 | ** In the earlier stories an auspex operator sees a large amount of warp portals opening, but is puzzled by the lack of metal, which alerts Cain to the Tyranid presence, since bioships contain no metal. Thing is, Tyranids can't enter the Warp ''at all'' (and thank the Emperor for that, otherwise they'd have already eaten the galaxy instead of moving at sub-light speed. However, an entry in the Tyranid Codex ''does'' speculate that some Tyranid fleets have entered the warp through things like the Eye of Terror or the Storm of the Emperor's Wrath, which would explain the appearance of Tyranids during the Great Crusade (10k years before the attack of Hive Fleet Behemoth). Still, they don't have conventional warp travel). |
| 860 | *** Though Tyranids do have a bio-ship (the [[http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Narvhal#.U7S2cXxOVdg Narvhal]]) that can create a kind of corridor of folded gravity, allowing Hive Fleets to move at FTL speed (though it's still much slower than Warp travel). What the operator was detecting may have been the bio-ships emerging from this gravity corridor. |
| 861 | ** Cain also tends to not have the best memories about things at times, for a great example of this, see the section where Amberley tries to figure out what type of ship he's on, but the contradicting details make her, an Imperial Inquisitor, throw her hands in the air and say "I give up." |
| 862 | ** One story mentions a Reclaimers armorer named Tobamorie, the character Toba Morie who shows up in ''Vainglorious'' is a brother-sergeant. |
| 863 | * SelectiveObliviousness: Mira, with whom Cain has spent the last few weeks being very close with, brings up with Cain how she is considering returning to her homeworld with a consort who is a heroic champion of the Imperium, discussing how this would be advantageous for her for succession and political reasons. Cain agrees with this assessment, showing support for the idea while completely ignorant that she was talking about ''him'' (he thought she was looking to bag a Space Marine), when this is otherwise transparent to the audience. Amberley {{lampshade|Hanging}}s Cain's missing this, saying that his experience with women to that point had been more "[[ReallyGetsAround broad than deep]]", and he did not yet have much experience with the dynastic considerations of Imperial nobility. Also, he knows he can't simply resign his commission with the Commissariat. If he were to attempt it, they would shoot him, and not even a planetary governor would be able to stop them. |
| 864 | * SensorSuspense |
| 865 | ** The fourth book has this, when he's in an escape shuttle that's being attacked by an Orkish fighter (since it most likely has very close ranged weapons its appearance on the pod's radar is the same as it would be for a missile). |
| 866 | ** Also present in ''The Emperor's Finest'', which sees Cain boarding a space hulk alongside a chapter of Space Marines. |
| 867 | * SeriousBusiness: Among the Valhallans; snow-sculpting, snow forts, {{Snowball Fight}}s... pretty much anything involving snow and/or the killing of Orks. |
| 868 | * ShadowArchetype: Lady General Jenit Sulla, to a certain extent. In battle, she's everything Cain is: decisive, (presumably) a deft hand with weapons and charismatic enough to get people to follow her into certain death. Both of them achieve high position and a fair amount of fame. Personally, she's everything Cain is ''not'': selfless, dutiful and loyal. She does from selflessness what Cain does for manipulation. And the best part? ''[[HoistByHisOwnPetard He created her]].'' It's just after their first conversation in ''For The Emperor'' that she begins her climb towards glory, spurred on by his ([[MotivationalLie fake]]) confidence in her. And she does it by imitating him. |
| 869 | -->'''Sulla:''' "I just asked myself what the commissar would have done."\ |
| 870 | '''Cain:''' "And then did the opposite, I hope." [{{beat}}] "That was a joke, lieutenant." |
| 871 | ** And her rise through the ranks began when he made an offhand comment that unlike all the platoon leaders of fifth company, ''she'' hadn't dropped the ball when forced to take over for her wounded company commander. Colonel Kasteen interpreted this as a recommendation and breveted her to captain. |
| 872 | ** [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking She's also a terrible writer compared to Cain]], often going on in [[PurpleProse excessive prose]]. Amberley often comments about this to her chagrin. |
| 873 | * ShrugOfGod: Sandy Mitchell says he doesn't know whether Cain is the DirtyCoward he claims to be or is selling himself short. |
| 874 | * SingingInTheShower: In "The Little Things", when Cain enters Amberley's hotel room, he can hear her singing in the shower, and hearkens back to when he first met her in her undercover role as, essentially, a nightclub performer. |
| 875 | * SingleBiomePlanet: |
| 876 | ** The Valhallans are ice-worlders and have a habit of setting their air-conditioning to levels that makes breath visible. Being assigned to Simia Orichalcae, the iceworld in ''Caves of Ice'', brings them evident joy. |
| 877 | ** It's mentioned in ''Cain's Last Stand'', though that Valhalla is a justified case; All of the inhabitants live near the equator, and "Gone North" (their equivalent of "Gone South" or, "Gone ploin-shaped") arises from the fact that the Northern part of the planet (and the southern part, Amberley is quick to point out) is a place you ''really'' do not want to go. |
| 878 | ** Adumbria is a three-biome planet, as it doesn't rotate on itself: one side is eternally dark SlippySlideyIceworld, the other a permanently lit ShiftingSandLand, and a thin band of habitable terrain all around. Fortunately, the forces being sent there are Space Russians and Space Arabs. |
| 879 | * SingleIssueWonk: In ''For The Emperor'', Amberley adds a wider view of the situation on Gravalax with excepts from a writer whose main failing is to blame ''everything'' on a conspiracy of rogue traders. |
| 880 | -->Perhaps one owed him money... |
| 881 | * SlaveToPR: (Supposedly) one of the few reasons why Cain doesn't chicken out at the first opportunity is that doing so would cause him to lose his reputation as a [[FakeUltimateHero Hero of the Imperium]], with all the benefits that brings. |
| 882 | * SlidingScaleOfContinuity: The novels are a fusion of level 4 (Arc-Based Episodic) and AnachronicOrder, numbered thematically rather than chronologically. The first trilogy tells the story of how Cain became attached to the Valhallan 597th Regiment and their early campaigns. The second covers much more ground timewise but is tangentially related to the ''shadowlight'', a mysterious pre-humanity artifact discovered on Perlia. The third involves an over-arching plot revealing a devastating weakness of the Tyranids, though it takes until the third book to bring the plot threads together. |
| 883 | * SmartPeoplePlayChess: |
| 884 | ** Cain is an expert player of 'Regicide', the 40k version of chess. |
| 885 | ** Averted to a point with General Zyvan, who can't win a single game against Cain, despite being a far superior strategist. |
| 886 | * SnipingTheCockpit: Noted as an effective tactic against Ork flyers in ''The Last Ditch'', especially since said fliers had no canopies to protect the pilots. |
| 887 | * SnowballFight: With an Ork WAAAGH! due in a day or so, the Valhallans decide to spend their down-time having one. You can't really blame them, since it's been a long while since the ice-world soldiers have found themselves in natural snow. |
| 888 | * SociopathicHero: [[ColdSniper Maxim Sorel]], who ends up stabbing a man to death in a brawl simply "because he didn't see any reason not to". Following the court-martial for the above infraction he is sentenced to death by taking on a suicide mission alongside Cain. This does not stop Sorel saving Cain's life and makes him [[spoiler:one of two convicts out of the original five who do not go rogue or get subverted by the enemy. [[RedShirt Which doesn't leave]] [[BoomHeadshot a lot of options]]]]. |
| 889 | * SoldiersAtTheRear: |
| 890 | ** Cain ''wants'' to be this; he's overtaken by events. |
| 891 | ** The all-female Valhallan 296th used to be this, causing no small amount of friction between them and the all-male planetary assault 301st. Cain gets both into shape as the 597th, which even eventually produces the first Lady General of the Imperium. |
| 892 | * SourSupporter: Kolfax in ''Death or Glory''. |
| 893 | * SpaceCadetAcademy: Cain was taught how to be a commissar at the Schola Progenium, and later goes on to teach at one on Perlia (where he has a rather understandable HundredPercentHeroismRating after single handedly breaking the back of an Ork invasion there) after retiring. |
| 894 | * SpaceIsNoisy: [[TakeThat Mocked]] in ''The Greater Good''. |
| 895 | -->'''Cain:''' "Any sign of--" I began, then broke off as something from a nightmare howled[[labelnote:1]][[/labelnote]] past the viewport.\ |
| 896 | '''Amberley Vail:''' 1. A clear figure of speech, as sound doesn't travel in a vacuum; something the producers of pict shows seem curiously unwilling to admit. |
| 897 | * SpannerInTheWorks: Cain is practically a walking one. For the rare situations where he himself isn't enough, there's Jurgen and his peculiar talents. Between the two of them there is practically nothing they don't bring to a gear-grinding halt. The trope is even mentioned by name. |
| 898 | * SpiderSense: Cain's palms itch when his subconscious is realizing something's amiss, but it hasn't hit the rest of his brain yet. |
| 899 | * SpoilerCover: The back cover for ''Choose Your Enemies'' is a seriously jarring example. A lot of the Cain books start with Cain and whichever military force he's accompanying being sent to deal with one enemy only to discover another more serious threat to be dealt with, but the blurb for ''Choose Your Enemies'' starts by describing how Cain and 597th start the story by [[spoiler:putting down a rebellion of Chaos cultists]]. This overlooks that the discovery of [[spoiler:Chaos involvement]] was actually the book's first big BaitAndSwitch moment, and the 597th were ''actually'' originally dispatched to deal with an attack of ''Eldar.'' The Eldar (who take up the first 70 or so pages of the book before [[spoiler:the Chaos cultists]] even appear and are still being treated as the main threat more than half-way through) don't even rate a mention. |
| 900 | * TheSquadette: The Valhallan 597th regiment Cain finds himself working with in the novels has nearly equal amounts of men and women thanks to incorporating the [[AmazonBrigade all-female Valhallan 296th]]. |
| 901 | * StayInTheKitchen: |
| 902 | ** In the first book, this is the attitude the male soldiers of the pre-597th amalgamated regiment have to their female counterparts after the two regiments have been merged (a brawl breaks out because the 296 wanted to use their regimental crockery to celebrate their founding day, which a male soldier undiplomatically referred to as "some mincing tart's front parlour tea service"). Even Broklaw has this attitude towards Kasteen (at least partly because he resents her being promoted above him on a technicality). Cain naturally spends the first act resolving this. |
| 903 | ** The female members of the 597th, including their Colonel, get this from a Tallarn regiment in ''The Traitor's Hand''. The fact that one of the female 597s looked for, challenged, and utterly dominated, their prize fighter didn't change this view. |
| 904 | ** It gets gender-inverted in ''The Last Ditch'' when the [[LadyLand matriarchal]] locals are extremely matronizing to the male officers; even Cain has a hard time being taken seriously, and the Governor makes several comments suggesting he and Major Broklaw are just there as Colonel Kasteen's eye candy. |
| 905 | * StealthPun: The author absolutely loves making these. See the [[ShoutOut/CiaphasCain Shout Out]] page for more details. |
| 906 | * StiffUpperLip: Cain manages to successfully convince others he has this. (See also PreMortemOneLiner.) |
| 907 | * TheStoic: |
| 908 | ** Jurgen. When Cain writes an emotive scene where they're stuck in a corner, about to torn apart by ravening hordes of tyranids, Jurgen will placidly comment "Bit of a mess", as if he's offering Cain a sandwich. This also makes Cain keep his cool, as the commissar can hardly appear less composed than his aide. |
| 909 | ** Malden the psyker from the third book never really raises his voice, though can can appear distraught or exasperated depending on the situation. |
| 910 | * StopWorshippingMe: Averted. Cain never finds out about the Tallarn fringe cult that worships him as the embodiment of the Emperor's Divine Will. |
| 911 | * StrandedWithEdison: In ''Death or Glory'', their makeshift convoy/militia (made up from the rescued survivors/slaves from a town looted by Orks) has just enough specialists to survive (a tracker to help them find water and supply dumps, a vet to serve as an impromptu doctor, a technopriest to keep their vehicles running and enough former police, gang members and PDF troops to form a militia and a former not-so-Obstructive Bureaucrat to manage their supplies). |
| 912 | * StrictlyFormula: Said formula being old Victorian and early 20th-century juvenile adventures such as the Literature/TomSwift series. [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools Not that that's a bad thing.]] |
| 913 | * StrictlyProfessionalRelationship: Cain mentions that at the end of his first assignment working with Colonel Kasteen, they exchanged a look that could have led to more than just friends, but neither pursues it because they don't want to deteriorate their working relationship. Besides, he prefers blondes. And more to the point, Amberley Vail would kill him. |
| 914 | * StylisticSuck: This pops up in multiple ways: |
| 915 | ** Much to Amberley's chagrin, she sometimes has to fill in background information with extracts from the memoirs of Jenit Sulla (and always makes comments sniping at her "one-woman assault on the defenseless Gothic language"). Where Cain's are erudite and well-written, Sulla lacks any literary talent and fills her own with dreadful nonsense and PurpleProse. |
| 916 | ** ''For The Emperor'' also features extracts from ''Purge the Heretics'', most notable for its author's overwhelming hatred of rogue traders (he blames them for ''everything'', and every excerpt is cut off just before he launches into another rant). |
| 917 | --->'''Vail''': Perhaps one of them owed him money. |
| 918 | ** For ''Death and Glory,'' set before Cain joined Sulla's regiment, we have the memoirs of Sergeant Tayber, which are nearly as unreadable. |
| 919 | *** Which is funny, because ''Cain's'' official autobiography ''To Serve the Emperor: A Commissar's Life'' is supposedly as equally unreadable (much like {{Literature/Flashman}}'s) because they are less candid. He would most certainly not admit to the public about how he views himself as a selfish man. Apart from two sentences at the start of ''Fight or Flight'', [[TakeOurWordForIt we never get to read passages from this book, however.]] |
| 920 | --->'''Vail:''' Perhaps it's something about the idea of setting their (veteran's) experiences down for posterity, which induces a kind of mental constipation in warriors used to solving problems in a rather more straightforward fashion. |
| 921 | * SuccessionCrisis: |
| 922 | ** One is happening in the background during ''The Traitor's Hand'', but Cain doesn't pay much attention to it (And given how little attention he pays to his briefing slates, may not have even known it was going on). |
| 923 | ** Cain accidentally sets off another one in ''Death or Glory''. When he kills Korbul, the rest of the Ork bosses become too busy fighting over who gets to take over the Waaagh! to bother with minor details like stopping Cain and his refugees from escaping. It's clear that Cain wasn't expecting that result, it's also clear he's not objecting. |
| 924 | * SuccessThroughSexAccusation: Commissar Beije suspects Magot (a trooper in Cain's regiment who punched out a boxing champion from Beije's misogynistic regiment when he refused a normal match) got off lightly due to sleeping with Cain. Cain doesn't bother to correct him, but Magot is a) a PsychoLesbian (who is having an inappropriate relationship, though with her female commanding officer) and b) who on occasion saved Cain's life, and he prefers not to be a discipline-happy martinet. |
| 925 | * SupremeChef: Zyvan employs one, and Cain often justifies accepting suicide missions because the alternative would leave him no longer invited to dinner by the general. |
| 926 | * SurprisinglyEliteCannonFodder: The superiors in this case may be completely innocent, but Colonel Mostrue often seems a bit too quick to call in artillery strikes close to where Cain is stationed during Cain's time with the artillery unit, and also frequently gets Cain sent off into dangerous situations. Cain suspects that Mostrue is aware of the fact that his first great triumph was really just a desperate attempt to get to safety and abandon the battery to its fate, but whatever Mostrue's intentions, his repeated survival of adverse circumstances only adds to the double-edged sword which is his reputation. Of course, everyone else in high command does this too, they're just not aware of the fact Cain really would rather they didn't. |
| 927 | * SwordAndGun: Laspistol and a [[ChainsawGood chainsword]]. |
| 928 | * TactfulTranslation: |
| 929 | ** "Frak this, for my faith is a shield proof against your blandishments!" is a bit more inspiring than "Frak this! My soul's my own, and I'm keeping it!" |
| 930 | ** It's implied that Cain's official biography is this compared to his memoirs that we read. Then again, "I strode forth against the xenos in the name of the Emperor" reads a lot better to imperial audiences than "I looked for a way to escape danger, then frakked that up too." |
| 931 | * TakeThat: |
| 932 | ** Governor Merkin W. Pismire the Younger's address is a stab at UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush. |
| 933 | ** Also internally: Vail can't seem to resist taking the occasional stab at the other Inquisitorial Ordos (especially the Ordo Malleus) in the footnotes. |
| 934 | ** In ''The Traitor's Hand'', an overeager young soldier cries "Come on, men! [[Literature/GauntsGhosts Do you want to live forever?]]" before charging a tank. Cain, upon hearing this, groans about what a vapid and totally unrealistic cliché it is. He's also amazed when it seems to inspire his companions rather than causing them to run the frak away. |
| 935 | ** ''The Last Ditch'' makes fun of the Tyranid Pyrovore, a.k.a. ''the'' worst unit in the game. To wit, Cain takes out a huge Tyranid swarm by killing the pyrovores instead. |
| 936 | * TakingTheBullet: In ''Echoes of the Tomb'', Magos Killian shoves Cain out of the way of a Necron Gauss Rifle. Cain has to watch as the Magos is vaporized, while clutching his hand that lost two fingers. |
| 937 | * TakingYouWithMe: Subverted in-universe. On at least three occasions, Cain orders an Imperial force to lock in on his signal and hit it with every weapon they've got. The person on the other end of the vox always assumes Cain is pulling one of these. Meanwhile, Cain is bugging out at maximum speed. In the audio dramas, he leaves his vox-bead behind to act as a homing beacon, in ''The Beguiling'' he gives the artillery just enough time to get the weapon-lock before departing. |
| 938 | * TallDarkAndSnarky: Although Cain prefers to pass himself off as the TallDarkAndHandsome in public, at heart he is this, as his memoirs amply demonstrate. |
| 939 | * TalkingInYourDreams: According to Vail, Cain occasionally suffers from nightmares about the Necrons and talks about them in his sleep. |
| 940 | * TalkingIsAFreeAction: A T'au diplomat instructs Cain on how to use one of the T'au's grappling and rappelling lines, which spool wire into the handle and can form a molecular bond from the handle to any surface it is placed on via a few buttons embedded into it. It is a simple device, and this would not normally take much time to explain. However, he explains it to Cain (at Cain's request) while Cain is desperately trying to fend off the attacks of a combat servitor with [[AIIsACrapshoot over-sensitive]] FriendOrFoe programming. |
| 941 | * TankGoodness: Played with: the Valhallan 597th is a mechanized infantry formation, not armored cavalry, so it's equipped with Salamanders and Chimeras, which, while tracked, are technically an open-topped troop carrier and an infantry fighting vehicle, respectively (though a Chimera does get [[TanksButNoTanks confused for a tank]] at one point). That said, in ''Death or Glory'', Cain ends up leading a refugee column across Perlia, which includes a legit Leman Russ main battle tank that he uses to great effect protecting the column from ork raids. |
| 942 | * TanksButNoTanks: An InUniverse example in ''Duty Calls''. A news report claims Cain used a tank to stop what was essentially the Hindenburg carrying an awful lot of promethium from crashing into a city. In reality, he used a Chimera (an APC). However, the Chimera's multi-role design and the Imperial Guard using slight variants on the same chassis for every common tracked vehicle in their arsenal muddies the issue a bit. In the game an APC is considered a tank, which gives them the very ability he used. |
| 943 | %%* TarotMotifs |
| 944 | * TastesBetterThanItLooks: In ''Death or Glory'', the breakfast Jurgen makes one day is described as "gray and lumpy". It smells appetizing, and Cain comments that after eating the whatever-it-was, he felt ready for anything the day might hold, so it must have tasted good. |
| 945 | * TemptingFate: Repeatedly, for example in ''Caves of Ice'': |
| 946 | --> '''Cain''': "Nothing to worry about, that's small-arms fire. The chances of anything actually hitting us at this range are astronomical."\ |
| 947 | '''Narration''': One day I'm going to learn to stop saying things like that. |
| 948 | * TextileWorkIsFeminine: One insult from the 301st was that the women of the 296th were doing needlework in the rear echelons. |
| 949 | * ThankTheMaker: An unnamed Tech-priest in ''The Greater Good'' sees Cain do something impressive and makes the mark of the Cogwheel while exclaiming, "The Omnissiah truly processes your data!" |
| 950 | * ThatCameOutWrong: In ''For the Emperor'' Cain concludes a pre-battle briefing with the line "The harder and faster you go in, the better." This causes Sulla (of all people) to whisper something inaudible to her neighbor (presumably something along the lines of "ThatsWhatSheSaid") and giggle, prompting Cain to glare at her. |
| 951 | * ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: At one point in ''The Traitor's Hand'', a World Eater Chaos Marine gets killed "with satisfying thoroughness" by two krak missiles and a lascannon blast, any individual one of which would be enough on its own[[note]]In the game, a single Krak Missile can cause [[ChunkySalsaRule instant death]] to any Space Marine character, as it's normally an anti-tank weapon. Same goes for the Lascannon. They effectively made Chunky Salsa of the Chunky Salsa of the berserker.[[/note]]. |
| 952 | * ThermalDissident: |
| 953 | ** Cain, who is ''not'' an iceworlder, often relishes being liaison to regiments from planets with less extreme temperatures. |
| 954 | ** The Valhallans are iceworlders, meaning they enjoy cold showers, always keep the windows open and the AC on full blast when not deployed in subzero temperatures. |
| 955 | * ThinDimensionalBarrier: In ''The Emperor's Finest'', the Reclaimers Space Marines are able to track the space hulk ''Spawn of Damnation'' between star systems by locating the weak points it leaves in realspace when it transitions into the Warp. |
| 956 | * ThinkNothingOfIt: Cain disclaims his own heroism, frequently, being aware that it will add the charm of modesty to his legend, and occasionally in an unsuccessful attempt to let him get by them and do something else. Sometimes, he is actually annoyed that Jurgen gets none of the credit he deserves, with all of it going to Cain. |
| 957 | * ThrowingYourGunAtTheEnemy: Early in ''The Emperor's Finest'', Mira resorts to throwing her lasgun at a purestrain genestealer when the powerpack runs dry. As a noblewoman whose military rank is purely honorary, it never occured to her to carry her own reloads -- she'd ordered one of the other [=PDF=] soldiers to carry them for her, leaving them out of reach when everything went ploin-shaped. |
| 958 | * TidallyLockedPlanet: Adumbria in ''The Traitor's Hand'' is mostly inhabited in the twilight zone, and its inhabitants have [[LanguageEqualsThought 37 different words for degrees of twilight]]. (Amberley Vail cites a FictionalDocument titled ''Sablist in Skitterfall'' whose title derives from this. Witty wordplay to an Adumbrian, nonsensical to an offworlder.) Cain's Valhallan 597th, being ice-worlders, are assigned to the perpetual winter of the night side, while the Tallarn 229th, from a desert world, cover the sunward side. |
| 959 | * TitleDrop: |
| 960 | ** "Cain's Last Stand" is used several times, as it's the name of one of the battles of his early career, the site of which he [[WhereItAllBegan returns to in order to make another stand]]. Another character remarks on this, saying most people only get ''one'' of those. |
| 961 | ** ''The Traitor's Hand'', once as a quotation, once by Beije--see MaliciousSlander. |
| 962 | * TomboyishPonytail: Jenit. |
| 963 | * TooKinkyToTorture: Lampshaded in ''The Traitor's Hand'', where Cain observes (to himself) that "torturing a masochist is singularly unproductive." Beije attempts it anyway, [[HilarityEnsues with humorous results]]. |
| 964 | * TookALevelInBadass: The Planetary Defense Forces on Imperial worlds are often disparagingly referred to as the "Imperial speed bump", a force that ''hopes'' it will hold long enough against any attackers for the Imperial Guard, Space Marines, or Sisters of Battle to show up and turn the tide. In ''Death or Glory'', however, when separated from his unit by a mishap with an EscapePod, Cain and Jurgen form up a convoy of refugees protected mainly by the remnants of destroyed PDF units, including a lone Leman Russ main battle tank and Earthshaker self-propelled howitzer, and leads them for months on a successful fighting retreat to Imperial lines. |
| 965 | * TortureIsIneffective: The aforementioned "humorous results"? Getting spontaneously kissed. By contrast Cain gets a captured smuggler to talk with a simple GoodCopBadCop routine. |
| 966 | * TrappedBehindEnemyLines: The plot of ''Death Or Glory'' has Cain and Jurgen land on the wrong side of a land bridge that's the only link between the ork-held continent and the Imperial Guard. He manages to make contact with survivors and by the end is leading a creditable army. |
| 967 | * TreacheryCoverUp: One of these is set up at the end of ''Choose Your Enemies'': the planetary governor is said to have been killed in the fighting when the eldar attacked the space station he was on, [[spoiler:rather than the eldar having been invited by Amberley and her Ordo Malleus counterpart to destroy the Slaaneshi cult the governor was part of]]. Cain isn't happy about it, but knows better than to contradict two Inquisitors. |
| 968 | * TruceTrickery: |
| 969 | ** {{Downplayed}} in ''The Greater Good''. The Tau Empire signs a truce with the Imperium of Man amidst a border conflict over a minor planet because they detected [[HordeOfAlienLocusts Hive Fleet Kraken]] entering the region. On the surface the t'au and humans try to collaborate on a joint defense against the tyranids; however, in reality, both sides covertly try to make the other bear the brunt of the 'nid invasion in hopes of taking advantage once the hive fleet is defeated. |
| 970 | ** The climax of ''Vainglorious'' involves Cain agreeing to continue to supply [[spoiler:a Necron lord]] with the raw material to build himself a superweapon. Instead he fills up the crates with [[spoiler:demo charges, skitarii and a Space Marine]], letting them turn the tables on the villain. |
| 971 | * ATrueStoryInMyUniverse: The series is presented as a group of extracts from Cain's memoirs edited by Inquisitor Vail. As such, he downplays his reputation for heroism, while she notes that he's being too modest. Vail also notes places where Cain seems to have mis-remembered the times of events, adds context and hindsight and edits out anything too specific about their relationship. |
| 972 | * {{Tsundere}}: |
| 973 | ** Sulla, in ''For the Emperor'', goes from showing opposition and dislike of Cain's decisions on the regiment in front of other officials to eventually ask privately him in a rather nervous and shy way for a chance to show her value as a soldier. Cain of course takes the opportunity to act magnanimously, [[ManipulativeBastard and get one more person disposed to cover his back]], which makes Sulla all the happier. |
| 974 | ** Mira in ''The Emperor's Finest'' is definitely a Type A, bouncing from coy and flirty to snippy and sullen with Cain depending on whether or not she's getting her way. |
| 975 | [[/folder]] |
| 976 | |
| 977 | [[folder:U - Z]] |
| 978 | * UnequalPairing: Cain and Amberley clearly care deeply about each other, but Cain is very aware of just where his place is in relation to her. |
| 979 | -->I'm sure most of the men in the galaxy are familiar with the sinking feeling that accompanies the words 'Do you think you could do me a little favour, darling?', but when the woman doing the asking is an inquisitor it's even less wise than usual to say, 'No.' |
| 980 | ** On the other hand, two of the most frequently recurring themes in Amberley's footnotes are Cain's self-centered nature and his unawareness of the effect his reputation has on others. While Amberley is plainly not starstruck in the way that, say, Sulla is, Cain never seems to have considered the possibility that she found it just as difficult to refuse him as he did her, albeit for different reasons. |
| 981 | * UnexpectedSuccessor: The planetary governor in ''Old Soldiers Never Die'' was a journalist descended from a branch of the ruling family that had renounced any direct involvement with politics. After the various abuses of the main branch caused a civil uprising that required the intervention of the Guard to restore order, they put him in charge because he was the one member of the ruling house that had nothing to do with the mess they had to clean up. |
| 982 | * UnfriendlyFire: Cain's main justification for treating the troopers well is avoiding this. He also suspects Colonel Mostrue, his first commander, of attempting TheUriahGambit from time to time. In ''Duty Calls'', he comes to suspect that some of the PDF ''did'' try this. [[spoiler:He's right--and they had orders.]] |
| 983 | * UnluckilyLucky: |
| 984 | ** Cain's attempts to dodge risky assignments always lead him into finding something much worse, yet the combination of his skill and luck means that he always manages to not only make it out alive, but to have his reputation enhanced. |
| 985 | ** "Jinxie" Penlan has, on more than one occasion, made important discoveries or saved herself or her fellow soldiers from harm, but these times are usually due to her klutziness having unexpectedly fortunate side effects. |
| 986 | * UnreliableNarrator: |
| 987 | ** The series purports to be Cain's private memoirs, written about a century after they happened and distributed by Amberley to her fellow Inquisitors for perusal and evaluation. Ciaphas himself is very much an egomaniac and focuses almost exclusively on his own actions, but is also either an abject coward or a hero with extremely low self-esteem and a self-deprecating sense of humor, meaning that his accounts are rarely entirely reliable and often full of holes. Amberley herself notes that Cain would say what he thought would suit him best and seems to either have unusually detailed memories about the events he's recounting[[note]]many of which would have been at least decades prior[[/note]] or he supplemented them with a lot of artistic license. |
| 988 | ** There are three supporting accounts in the tales: |
| 989 | *** The first is the memoirs of Jenit Sulla, who was one of Cain's subordinates during the events he describes. However, Jenit has entirely bought into the heroic myth surrounding Cain (which was one of the things Cain set out to dispel), writes in a [[PurpleProse prose so purple it's nigh unreadable]], and her narration makes it sound like Cain was a mentor-figure to her. Cain's narration, however, makes it clear he considers her nothing more than another snot-nosed butterbar and finds her eager "Emperor-and-Imperium"-idealism extremely annoying. |
| 990 | *** The second is a history of the sector in which Cain operated during the events in ''For the Emperor!''. It gets a lot of the facts right and provides a very good overview of the area and events surrounding the plot, but the author is a ConspiracyTheorist who blames everything from toenail fungus to Exterminatus on a (quite likely non-existent) conspiracy of rogue traders. |
| 991 | *** The third is Cain's official biography, which the man himself treats with an attitude varying from "confusion" to "amusement" to "would rather wipe my arse with a rusty poker than that rag", depending on which side of the bed he woke up on. |
| 992 | ** Finally, the editor, Inquisitor Amberley Vail, was involved in the events and a frequent collaborator (as well as sometime lover) of Cain's. While she is generally impartial, she's not above a little judicious editing and inserting a few footnotes implying Cain's memory of certain events is flawed to make herself look better. |
| 993 | * UnresolvedSexualTension: Subverted. While it's never said outright, statements peppered throughout the books, both in the text and in Vail's footnotes, all but confirm that the sexual tension between Cain and Vail is very much resolved. [[spoiler:This is outright confirmed in the short story ''The Little Things'', in which Cain arrives at Vail's hotel suite for a romantic rendezvous, only for unwelcome guests (read, incompetent hitmen) to make an appearance.]] |
| 994 | * UnwantedFalseFaith: Cain never found out, but one of the Tallarn witnesses to a battle where he beat down a Greater Daemon wrote a book about the experience and started a minor branch of the Imperial faith that worships him as a physical manifestation of the Emperor's will. Please note the words "minor branch" and not "heretical cult." ''This group was supported by the official religion of the Imperium.'' |
| 995 | * UpperClassTwit: Cain's opinion of nobility in general and planetary governors in particular. It's played with throughout the series, but especially with Mira in ''The Emperor's Finest''; while she's certainly arrogant, pushy, dense, and condescending, she's also capable of handling herself in a firefight, among other things. |
| 996 | * VaderBreath: Valhallan Janni Drere, who has a set of augmetic lungs that make an audible ''hiss! click!'' noise when she speaks. |
| 997 | * TheVamp: Emeli the Slaaneshi sorceress who eventually [[spoiler:ascends to Daemon Princess]]. |
| 998 | * VerbalJudo: In ''For the Emperor'', Cain defuses a riot in progress, when everyone's attention happens to focus on him so that he can't just sneak out, by confusing the participants by suddenly giving orders to clean up the mess. |
| 999 | * VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: In-universe there was a TV series called ''Cain's Heroes'' about Cain's adventures on Perlia. Cain hated it for a number of reasons, not least for totally ignoring Jurgen's involvement (as is always the case when people write about his adventures InUniverse). |
| 1000 | * VillainsActHeroesReact: Cain is generally sent on missions to repel invasions or suppress rebellions, as opposed to conquering new worlds. As a result, the strategic initiative in the stories always falls on the villains, whose actions are the reason he gets sent to whatever world they threaten. |
| 1001 | * VowOfCelibacy: Averted. According to one of Amberley's footnotes in ''Cain's Last Stand'', the Adeptas Sororitas are ''not'' actually required to be celibate, but most Sisters don't have many opportunities to take advantage so this trope is a common myth about the service. The footnote in question comments on Cain discovering that Sister Julien, one of his fellow instructors at the schola progenium, is [[spoiler:in a relationship with the bursar.]] |
| 1002 | * AWayOutOfACaveIn: In ''Caves of Ice'', an ambull is found wandering around the titular caves under a mining facility besieged by orks. A team is sent to investigate, as orks could easily use the backdoor into the facility. The fact that ambulls come from desert environments is brushed off until it turns out there's a dormant Necron facility with a working teleporter which the ambull probably wandered through... and then the Necrons start waking up. |
| 1003 | * WeAreStrugglingTogether: |
| 1004 | ** Invoked by [[spoiler:Inquisitor Killian in ''Duty Calls''; when Cain asks why an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor sabotaged a project operated by the Ordo Xenos, Killian explains that while the Inquisition likes to project an image of being united in their struggle against humanity's enemies, in truth, the Ordos are a lot more fractious and determined to one-up each other behind the scenes.]] |
| 1005 | ** Discovered to be the case in ''The Greater Good'' with [[spoiler:Tyranids]]; when the Adeptus Mechanicus in charge of research allow [[spoiler:two groups of hormagaunts from different swarms]] into one area, the two start killing each other instead of working together as the tech-priests expected. Amberley theorises that if the [[spoiler:Tyranids ever succeeded in conquering the galaxy, then the swarms would turn on each other until the strongest was left standing]]. |
| 1006 | * WeDoTheImpossible: Because of his reputation, Cain always gets the most important or dangerous tasks to accomplish, forcing him to triumph in suicide mission after suicide mission... which is exactly what he wants to avoid (the suicide missions, not survival). |
| 1007 | * WeaponBasedCharacterization: |
| 1008 | ** Cain's chainsword and laspistol. In the first book, Cain declines to replace it with a more powerful hellpistol because he's afraid that the extra weight would throw off his aim. See CoversAlwaysLie above for what the general Imperial population believes is the case. |
| 1009 | *** Although this is justified as to why they think he carries around a bolt pistol- a) because the Bolt Pistol is quite often associated with commissars, who ''do'' use the weapons often (though Cain explains why he prefers the laspistol in "The Last Ditch,"), and b) because in ''The Greater Good'', it's explained that Jurgen found a very, very nice bolt pistol, and Ciaphas uses this when posing for posters instead of his normal laspistol. |
| 1010 | * WhatTheHellHero: |
| 1011 | ** Cain gets one of these moments at the end of ''For The Emperor'', when he executes two Guard troopers--[[spoiler:the only survivors of a "special mission" other than himself and Inquisitor Vail]]--without forewarning or explanation. [[spoiler:As the rest soon discover--and confirming Cain's unvoiced hunch--the two executed troopers turn out to be [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong carrying Genestealer implants]].]] Cain, despite claiming he's only acting concerned so that the guardsmen don't shoot him dead, is not pleased at this. |
| 1012 | ** Earlier, Cain has to tell his squad to open fire on a squad of PDF loyalists trying to arrest them for transporting Tau diplomats. The thing is, the PDF are entirely in the right (the Imperial Guard leadership doesn't want to get dragged into a war for a worthless planet, hence the cooperation with the xenos), and Cain bitterly regrets that this had to be the integrated squad's first action. |
| 1013 | * WhereItAllBegan: The plot of ''Cain's Last Stand'', sort of. Perlia isn't his home, but it is where his reputation was first solidified and seems to be his favorite planet of all the ones he's visited in his long career. |
| 1014 | * WhoMurderedTheAsshole: "Three Questions" centers around the murder of a Commissar who routinely enacted the maximum penalties he could on minor offenses - which basically gave the entire regiment a motive for killing him. |
| 1015 | * WhoWritesThisCrap: |
| 1016 | ** Ciaphas wonders who comes up with Space Hulk names on learning he'll help clear out the ''Spawn of Damnation''. Veil clarifies that usually it's the first Inquisitor to find it, and that yes, they do have a touch of the melodramatic when doing so. |
| 1017 | ** Amberley has similar comments on other Imperial names like "flayed ones" or Sodallagain (a planet evidently named by a very bored Explorator Magos). |
| 1018 | * WholePlotReference: Several of his adventures take inspiration or borrow motifs from several popular fictional stories [[RecycledInSpace while adding a Ciaphas Cain twist.]] |
| 1019 | ** ''For the Emperor'' to ''Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth''. |
| 1020 | ** ''Caves Of Ice'' to ''Literature/AtTheMountainsOfMadness''. |
| 1021 | ** ''Death Or Glory'' to ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia''. |
| 1022 | ** ''Dead in the Water'' to ''Film/ApocalypseNow''. |
| 1023 | ** ''The Devil You Know'' to ''{{Film/Predator}}''. |
| 1024 | ** The last act of ''The Emperor's Finest'' plays out very similarly to an actual game of ''TabletopGame/SpaceHulk'', such as genestealers staying just out of sensor range or a Terminator getting ganked when his weapon jams. |
| 1025 | * WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Necrons are to Cain what snakes are to Franchise/IndianaJones, and with good reason, detailed in the omnibus-exclusive short ''Echoes of the Tomb''. [[spoiler:They're the reason for his augmetic fingers.]] Notably, every time he runs into them he urges for an immediate evacuation of the planet, reputation as Hero of the Imperium be damned. |
| 1026 | * WireDilemma: In ''The Traitor's Hand'', Cain discovers that the aircar a gang of Slaaneshi cultists had used to barge into General Zyvan's headquarters had been rigged to explode. When a techpriest tells him to disarm it by pulling the red wire, Cain has this to say: |
| 1027 | -->They're both purple! |
| 1028 | * WomanScorned: Taken to extremes in a manner only the ''[=40K=]'' universe could in the third novel. |
| 1029 | * TheWorfEffect: Whenever Cain ends up facing Tyranids or their Genestealer agents, he will ''always'' make a reference to the time he was on the space hulk ''Spawn of Damnation'' and saw Space Marines in Terminator armour get shredded by a bunch of purestrains, as a shorthand of reminding himself and the readers of how dangerous they are. [[note]]This only applies to accounts set chronologically after aforementioned adventure in the space hulk, of course.[[/note]] |
| 1030 | * WorfHadTheFlu: {{Inverted|Trope}} in regards to the 597th; there's a number of reasons the regiment performs substantially better than the average Guard regiment. |
| 1031 | ** It's mentioned in an off-hand remark that the Administratum never did quite catch on to the merging of the 296th with the 301st. As a result, the 597th received double the usual amount of replacement recruits and equipment, to the point that it never really had to deal with shortages. |
| 1032 | ** This abundance of equipment led to the 597th issuing com-beads to every member of a squad, giving them much higher unit cohesion. |
| 1033 | ** Either we don't see it, or the 597th managed to escape the usual bureaucratic incompetence of the Administratum and subsequently was deployed frequently to iceworlds to fight Orks, tasks Valhallans both relish and excel at. |
| 1034 | * WorkingForABodyUpgrade: |
| 1035 | ** A large chunk of ''The Greater Good'' is set on a heavily-polluted forgeworld. "The Tithe Worker's Survival Guide" discusses the need for body augmentation to survive work on the surface (which pays better) and suggests workers talk to their supervisors about the procedure to repay the cost of those augmetics. |
| 1036 | ** Most (though thankfully not all) of the [[spoiler:Adeptus Mechanicus]] in ''Vainglorious'' are collaborating with the villains in the hopes of [[spoiler:becoming fully robotic like the Necrons themselves]]. Cain doesn't believe they'll hold up their end of the deal, [[spoiler:and the BigBad confirms he couldn't even if he wanted to.]] |
| 1037 | * WorthyOpponent: From the first line in ''The Greater Good'': |
| 1038 | -->Say what you like about [[Characters/Warhammer40000TauEmpire the T'au]], and I've said plenty myself over the years, they know how to put on a good war. |
| 1039 | * WouldntHitAGirl: The Tallarns in ''The Traitor's Hand'', who refused to participate in an inter-Regimental hand-to-hand combat tournament because the 597th's team had women on it. To the surprise of exactly no one but the Tallarns and their commissar, the girl goes after their champion at the first opportunity. To the surprise of no one, Magot easily beats the warp out of the Tallarns' best fighter. ''He'' then gets in trouble because Magot has a higher rank than he does. |
| 1040 | * WrongGenreSavvy: In ''The Greater Good'', the Imperial Guard and the T'au military form a shaky truce, and they agree to send each other members of their groups to liaison with the others. Given Cain's good standing with the T'au after Gravalax, and his propensity towards both joining seemingly innocuous assignments and getting forced into knowingly dangerous ones, he'd be the obvious choice. However, he successfully palms the duty off to Donali, an experienced diplomat, with no blemishes to his reputation. |
| 1041 | * YouAreInCommandNow: Several people in the Valhallan 296th and Valhallan 301st got their ranks in the merged Valhallan 597th this way. Colonel Kasteen and Major Broklaw were the highest-ranking surviving officers of their respective units, but Kasteen got the colonelcy based on three days' seniority (in other works, Broklaw's superiors took three days longer to be eaten by the Tyranids). |
| 1042 | * YouHaveFailedMe: Cain fears he is going to be on the receiving end of this at the end of ''Cain's Last Stand'' [[spoiler:after the dangerous artifact called the ''shadowlight'' falls into the hands of the Necrons, noting that whatever their relationship, Amberley is still an Inquisitor first and foremost, and he has technically failed in his assignment to keep the artifact out of enemy hands. Fortunately for him, Amberley concedes that while not ideal, the ''shadowlight'' is safer in the hands of the Necrons than the forces of Chaos, and agrees with Cain's hypothesis that given how much effort they expended to recover it, the Necrons were clearly afraid of its power, and thus likely have no plans to use it against the Imperium.]] |
| 1043 | * YouKilledMyFather: Cain, to the kroot. Only an allusion, not leading to {{Revenge}}. This also may have simply been a lie as well, strengthened by the following footnote mentioning that Amberley still couldn't find any confirmation of Cain's actual past (becoming a commissar is an honor reserved for the children of Imperial heroes) and that he is exceptionally skilled at manipulating people. The Kroot shrugs it off and says he's sure they died well. Mind you, Cain doesn't care much for his parents. |
| 1044 | * YourFavorite: At the end of ''Caves of Ice'', Cain has spent the last several days helping Amberley deal with the aftermath of [[spoiler:his discovery, and destruction, of the Necron tomb]]. The last night before he leaves, he takes the liberty of ordering food, because she's been busy; he gets her ackenberry sorbet, which he indicated "hadn't been hard to remember" was one of her favorite foods. (Amberley, editing as usual, puts an abrupt end to Cain's narrative at this point, because though she admits that Cain continues for several more paragraphs, "[[SexyDiscretionShot it only covers personal matters of no interest to anyone else.]]") |
| 1045 | * YoureNotMyType: In "The Beguiling," Cain uses this as a BondOneLiner when he shoots a chaos cultist who tried to seduce (and allow a demon to possess) him. |
| 1046 | -->'''Cain:''' I prefer blondes. |
| 1047 | * YouthIsWastedOnTheDumb: Cain notes one cadet is not this in ''Cain's Last Stand''. |
| 1048 | * ZombieApocalypse: ''Old Soldiers Never Die'' has [[OurZombiesAreDifferent plague zombies]] as a result of a Nurglite bioweapon called the Plague of Unbelief, which a Tallarn regiment unwittingly spread to the Planet of the Week from their last deployment. |
| 1049 | [[/folder]] |
| 1050 |
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/context.php
FollowingContext Literature / CiaphasCain
Go To
- Show Spoilers
- Night Vision
- Sticky Header
- Wide Load
