The very hero of the Imperium, doin' his best

Who is the biggest Chad in Warhammer 40k?

Jurgen was an unwashed porn addict who was also a null and had the two jobs of making tea and carrying a giant blowtorch around for the express purpose of incinerating things at his own discretion. He never elaborated on anything in his life and died of old age. That motherfucker won 40k, as far as that setting goes. Absolute gigachad behaviour the entire time.

Ciaphas Cain, summed up.

Commissar Cain

by Jan Drenovec

All I know of Cain is the TTS episode but what a relatable dude. and voiced by takahata101 no less

I’m going to make everyone look at my bad takes.

I like to think about theoretical scenario where Ciaphas Cain meets Celestine but he doesn't realize because she's not in the middle of being a Living Saint.

Say. She didn't die recently and is not being miraculously summoned somewhere so they just transport her like regular mortal.

There's no fuss because the Adepta Sororitas want to make it a secret and she's not wearing the armor and just bumps into Ciaphas on the transport ship.

She could even introduce herself to which Cain could reply that - no offense but he's probably met over 20 Sororitas with that name - as it is extremely popular name among the Orders.

The looks, the haircut. Forgive him his honesty but they put too much effort into resembling the real Celestine.

Now imagine his internal panic once he meets her on the battlefield in the finale and realizes how he criticized it all while talking to an actual REAL, authentic 100% Emperor approved Saint Celestine.

Speaking of martial competence, do you have any examples of characters that are actually written with this in mind?

Loads. Some actually even make good on that.

So, there's different kinds of martial competence. There are characters who are proficient in combat directly, there are well written strategists, there are characters who excel at military leadership, and when they're written well, you can actuallylearn some things from them.

I'm going to give some examples, and at least one cautionary example.

For, just, raw combat prowess, I still go back to Robert E. Howard's Conan short stories. It's easy to meme on the character, especially 90 years after the fact, with the cultural persona that's grown around him, but Howard's original writing is excellent. The character would not have survived Howard's early (and, frankly, tragic) death if it was just the one note gag you might expect, if your only exposure to the character was through cultural osmosis and the films.

Howard's fight scenes were shockingly well written. To the point that it is still absolutely worth reading if you want to write a fantasy fighter.

For strategists, three characters come to mind, but only two are literary, and all are Science Fiction.

Grand Admiral Thrawn is probably one of the best villains Star Wars has ever produced, it's part of why he's one of the few characters that's migrated from the original EU to the Disney era. My personal take is, as a character, he's lost a lot over the years, but the original incarnation from the early 90s novels is a very solid model for a strategist. Particularly in how he takes time to understand his opponents while looking for potential weak points to exploit.

His practice of studying a culture's art to understand their psychology might sound a bit goofy, but the concept does have a real basis. (At least, until it metastasized into a superpower, in later adaptations of the character.) Being able to psychologically assess your foe is an incredibly valuable element of strategy, and one that you probably want to consider when you're writing a character who is supposed to be a “strategic genius.”

When writing fiction, you want to consider all of your characters as if they were people, rather than as hollow, plastic toys. And, yes, the obnoxious villain who knows exactly what your heroes will do because of authorial fiat is going to be a more compelling character than the ambulatory goldfish villain who exists as a prelude for your heroes showing off how badass you think they are.

Granted, even in Heir to the EmpireThrawn was already drawing strategic insights that strained credibility, but understanding your foe is an element of strategic thinking that is often forgotten in literature. So, even as a villain in a tie-in novel (we're not done with tie-in fiction yet), he is worth looking at. At least when written by Timothy Zhan, Thrawn was a well written character, and even if he bordered on a Mary Sue at times, he escaped a lot of that stigma by justifying his competence.

It's also probably worth mentioning in passing that he's one of the few Imperial leaders in Star Wars who isn't also criminally incompetent.

The non-literary example of a strategist would be John Sheridan from Babylon 5. Unlike Thrawn, Sheridan's main strategic focus is on situational exploitation. A little of that comes from his knowledge of enemy procedures and psychology, but at lot of it comes from a rather ruthless approach to technical limitations. An alien race is using technology that blocks human targeting systems? Set up a nuclear mine and then send out a fake distress single to lure them in. Need to deal with a significantly larger, more dangerous ship? Lure them into a gas giant and and let the planet's gravity well drag them past crush depth. Bruce Boxleitner's performance helped sell the character, but Sheridan is a really solid science fiction strategist, who really exemplifies how technical limitations can have enormous strategic considerations.

I'm not citing Sheridan as an excellent example of a leader per se,it's certainly there, but it is harder to unpack from Boxleitner's performance. It does have some good payoffs much later in the series when he starts making some orders that cause his subordinates to sit up and stop what they're doing. And that is a consistent theme even back to his introduction, but, it's a tangible consequence to an intangible cause.

The last example is a negative example, both for strategy and leadership. And, as much as it pains me to say this, at least Orson Scott Card understood that Ender was a bad leader. At least in the original novel. To be blunt, Ender is a mediocre strategist at best. His highlights in the book involve, “inventing armor,” and creative movement in micrograv. That's setting the bar exceptionally low, and while it is reasonably within the range of what you could expect from a pre-teen, that's not much of a justification.

Again, I'm not a fan of Card, and I'm reallynot recommending Ender's Gameto anyone. However, if I didn't mention it, you know there'd be a reblog going for twelve hundred words about how Andrew Wiggin is the best strategist in literature, which, yeah, no.

Do you want a goofy, tie-in fiction, literary suggestion for the best leader in sci-fi? Too bad, because I'm pretty sure Ciaphas Cain is not that person. The Ciaphas Cain novels by Sandy Mitchell are unusual as leadership recommendations, because of how much Cain internally processes the social manipulation involved in military leadership. He's not a great leader, but he is exceptionallygood at explaining to the reader how he's creating that illusion to motivate the soldiers around him. In fairness, some of that is an intrinsic character flaw, he is incredibly insecure, and desperately trying to hide that fact. And the difference between being a great leader, and effectively creating a comprehensive illusion of a great leader is: There is no difference. As a serious complement, it is one of the few times I've seen an author treat leadership as an actual skill, and not simply an extension of a character's charisma. Which is why I'm singling this one out. It might sound like a joke inclusion initially, and the books are quite funny in a Warhammer 40k kind of way, but there is quite a bit of  value to be had.

-Starke

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Hight of humour: Police Squad memes.

There's something I really love about the Ciaphas Cain novels. Something about a man who can never see the good in himself, even when he actively chooses kindness in a universe that seems intent to destroy the kind at every opportunity, really stuck with me for some reason.

Ciaphas Cain but he defects accidentally to the Tau

Cain spends two full pages of the new novel weeping over a bowl of oatmeal that has actual flavours in it

Memes that I forgot my oven on for two hours for.

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Hero Of The Imperium

by krit_vat

The hunt is on!

Hilarity pitching into ridiculousness ensues as Cain, against all odds, manages to keep evading the Overlord of Solemnace, while Trazyn continuously produces comically larger and larger nets to try to pen him in.