Dawn of War/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• Retribution: In the mission on Calderis, no matter your faction, you have to kill the corrupt Blood Ravens attacking the village in order to get information on The Ascendant (like the Chaos sorcerer says, you can always destroy it yourself once you've got what you wanted). But this gets an additional advantage while playing Chaos, because the attackers are Space Marines in loyalist armor: What better way to gain cultists than save the villagers from the false emperor's betrayal?
• More Fridge Brilliance hit me while reading up on the Blood Ravens on Lexicanum, which says their battle doctrine relies on knowing what the enemy is going to do ahead of time and then hitting them at just the right moment with just the right combination of forces. That suits their psyker-heavy fluff, sure, but doesn't it sound just a bit like an RTS gamer playing their favourite scenarios over and over again?
• One of the characters that most annoyed me in Dawn of War II was Avitus, the violent, cruel Big Guy of your squad. But I grinded my teeth and ignored it, figuring it was part of all the GRIMDARK of the setting I've been hearing so much about. Then, as I was rifling through the Mood Dissonance and Crowning Moment of Heartwarming pages, the stuff written there helped me realize- everytime Avitus was acting in a particularly mean or spiteful fashion, the other squad sergeants angrily reprimanded him. His cruelty helped bring out the other Marines' inherent kindness and decency, which probably wouldn't show if it didn't resonate against his nastiness.
  • With Retribution it is generally accepted that Avitus is the canon Chaos Rising traitor. Relic was foreshadowing it the whole time.
• I suddenly realised that according to the Latin-based conventions of the human language in WH:40000, the name Avitus can be interpreted as A-vita = Non-life/anti-life. Basically, it means "Killer"! Now, that's an appropriate name for the bastard!-Gess
• When playing the Chaos Rising I decided to give Chaos a try, but it turned out eventually that Being Evil Sucks and that the majority of infernal powers were more of a liability than an edge, draining life force out of my men, costing me squad members or even entire squads, or having such long cooldowns I couldn't rely on them in the tactical sense. All in all an utter dissappointment. I felt betrayed. Ripped off. I initially blamed Relic for giving the new feature poor consideration, but then it hit me: I've stroke a Deal with the Devil, well, what exactly did silly me expect - fulfillment?-Gess

Fridge Logic

• Fridge Logic: Hang on. The Eldar's plan was to stall the Tyranid invasion on a few planets on the Eastern Fringe, because the swarm's next target would be Craftworld Ulthwé itself...which is orbiting the Eye of Terror on the other side of the galaxy. A possible Author's Saving Throw in Chaos Rising: When you go down to kill the Avatar, the Eldar make mention that there is a "ruined Craftworld" buried on Typhon that was uncovered by the Tyranid invasion.
  • It should be noted that the Eldar usually take the long view on events. So it's likely that they were thinking about a few centuries down the road. That's right, the Eldar planned on screwing over an entire sector because the Tyranids were going to attack one of their Craftworlds in a century or so. The Eldars are dicks like that.
  • Chaos Rising does address this, somewhat. The Tyranid attack on Typhon Primaris uncovered Eldar ruins buried beneath the surface. The Eldar wanted to protect something long hidden there, and if that something was a webway gate that they were unable to seal, that could spell disaster should the Tyranids get through it.
  • Retribution finally gives a straight answer. There was indeed a ruined Craftworld underneath Typhon. The Eldar are trying to access the ruins and retrieve buried Soulstones before they're eaten by Tyranids, Chaos finds them first, or the Inquisition decides to blow the planet. They fail due to your actions in all the campaigns.
    • Also, Taldeer's original prophecy, which gets this whole ball rolling back in Dark Crusade, was a prophecy about Necrons, not Tyranids, laying waste to Craftworld Ulthwe. The most logical assumption is either Idranel misspoke of the Tyranids causing all the damage, or she misinterpreted the prophecy.
  • Exactly what are the chapter relics from a dozen or more different Space Marine chapters doing, spread around on the recruiting worlds of the Blood Ravens? Logically, the invading orks, eldar and tyranids wouldn't be bringing those with them from where they came from, which meant they picked them up somewhere on the recruiting worlds during the campaign. Makes you wonder if that 'raven' should be a 'magpie', doesn't it?