 Hello, and welcome along to the Oculus Imperial Q&A for 2020. It's been quite a while since I've done one of these, so it felt about time to do another one because I like doing them, and it's been a while. Thanks everyone for submitting your questions. I did try and answer as many of them as I could, given the time, but hopefully you'll be satisfied with the answers. So without further ado, let's take it away. What sparked your interest in the 40k universe? What piece of lore made you decide, yeah, I'm going to learn as much as I possibly can about this universe? When I was 13, a friend of mine let me an issue of White Dwarf. In it, Phil Kelly had written the Index of Starties article for the Night Lords. It was so ludicrously, deathlessly gothic that I was hooked immediately. There's one side text box where a force of space marine scouts encounter a world totally purged by the modern day night lords, and I encourage you all to track it down if you can. It just is a type of violent, dark, and hopelessly apocalyptic writing that I'd never encountered in my life before that point, and I mean what 13 year old loner isn't going to find that just totally rad as hell. Since 40k has many parallels with the Dune saga, do you think we'll see a return of the men of iron like was the case with the thinking machines? Well, we already have with UR025, but if you mean the like a big mainline big bad threat sort of thing, I kind of doubt it. The setting in the game have already two very machine focused factions, arguably a third with the Tao, so making a fourth one that's all of them, but so much better would likely not be super interesting. Just imagine how much a men of iron faction if you had to have it in terms of a tabletop playable force would probably clash with the necrons in terms of reason for existing. I think we'll see some here and there, more likely in the lore than on the tabletop, but the gates have been opened, so I guess we should watch this spot. What's your favorite niche piece of lore you've discovered while doing video research? My favorite is, at least recently, the fact that the Adeptus Custodes had to intervene to stop a war between petitioner clans of people in Terra's endless queues from getting even more fighty and out of hand. It's essentially a footnote, but the sheer ideas behind it just give this excellent glimpse at the hideous human insanity of life in the Imperium, so it's so flavorful that I couldn't help but love it. Do you have a favorite Moortark? Catacross and Lady Olinder are entirely tied. The former is absolutely badass and has one of the coolest centerpiece models I've seen in years, and the latter is actually probably the best mini-games workshop I've ever made, I mean, look at her. Much video had the most interesting research period. The Pilgrimage for Holy Terra video was my favorite here, because I got to read so much of Chris Wraith's excellent writing in the Watches of the Throne and Vols of Terra series, but also because it so much embodied my favorite aspects of the insane grim dark Warhammer future. It's getting to fully immerse myself in visceral, incredible descriptions of this gothic nightmare. It was just a delight. All my research tends to involve pretty heavy deep dives, but I think this one was just so much more aesthetically appealing than some others can be. Is it possible we'll learn more about the life of the Oculus? Will Moortark's backstory be fleshed out? I've got pretty big plans for something real soon. I just have to write it, because it's challenging creatively in the best possible way, and I want to get it right. So watch this space. Why Budstaff Kaiju? What's the origin? My sadly late and lamented Twitter handle, as a frankly stunning amount of you have pointed out in the comments, was in fact based off one comic book author Matt Fraction. He had a handle on Halloween when you traditionally will rename your Twitter handles into kind of spooky stuff, which was Budstaff Werewolf. Which is very spooky, right? I loved it so much that I just wanted it, so I adapted it to sound even dumber, but also more me. I kept it for the longest time because it was always something that gave people a chuckle, or riled people up which gave me a chuckle, but alas I had to surrender it for the necessities of online branding and to jump on the Oculus Imperial handle before someone else did. So I apologize to everyone who has been disappointed by the loss of it, but needs must. Is the fall of the Imperium of Man inevitable? Yes and no. A lot of 40k is so compelling because it's this minute to midnight forever on the precipice kind of universe, where the battles you fight with your friends, if you'd like, can have huge importance to the setting, in your own head, of course. It's why people who used to complain about Games Workshop not furthering the plot, which is in retrospect ironic considering the last few years, were missing the point. It's an evolving setting, it's not a plot. Wedded to that is a means to travel that literally annihilates true chronological reckoning, meaning Games Workshop doesn't forward the plot so much as expand the setting. The fall of the Imperium is inevitable in the sense that how could it possibly not fall to all of its enemies, but at the same time never possible because it simply won't. Because the forever upon midnight's precipice situation is one of the things that makes the setting so compelling. I mean that's just my take on it anyway, but yeah, that's how I feel. What is your mindset when scripting your videos and how often does your mindset affect the script or topic of your videos? My mindset, such as it is, is entirely dependent upon the subject matter, and just how I'm feeling at any given time when I'm pounding out the sentences on this keyboard. Obviously, if I find the topic personally engaging, I'm going to be more engaged and enthusiastic. Which trains me towards exploring aspects of the lore I personally adore, as opposed to doing stuff that feels like a chore. From that, anything from the state of the world to the news to anything going on in my personal life might have an impact. My recent video on the Imperial Truth was written at a time when I wasn't feeling especially well-disposed to organised religion, and I think it shows. The COVID pandemic, at least the height of it in Canada a few months back, let me tap into some emotions I never personally thought I'd have to feel with this looming biological apocalypse and ongoing total social isolation, letting me bring some appropriately 40k-esque hopelessness in the language that I was using. These are just two examples. Writing is a fascinating and deeply personal thing, which is one of the reasons I love doing the channel so much. I get to explore it all through creativity. I hope that's not too awfully an answer, or maybe even too personal, but it's kind of the truth. What do you do to relax after a hard day? Is there a series or movies that you enjoy re-watching, or do you have a favourite book to listen to or read? Relaxation for me is entirely dependent on seasons, which if you lived or live where I go up in Ireland, seasons are not really so much of a thing. You get rain, and in some cases, warmer rain. Summer in Canada is glorious, and winter is abysmal. So right now, in August, relaxing for me is hopping on a bike when I'm not working and just heading to the trails or the lakeshore or the park, just being outdoors amongst green and growing things in the heat wherever I possibly can, because those things are finite, and there comes a time in this country when everything is dead and brown and grey, and it goes on for months. Generally, I'm out there with friends, or reading. The latter, actually, I've been making a big effort in recent years to kind of re-engage with. Every creator ever will tell you to consume more of the things you want to create, so I gotta read more. The Warhammer hobby itself is another thing, which is all year round. It does tend to lapse a bit in summer compared to winter, but I'm always painting or building some new project, whichever is most engaging at the time. I don't strictly tend to re-watch or re-read stuff these days, not like I used to, only because there's so much good stuff out there to discover. Now, that all being said, though, I recently did finish a re-listen to my favorite book ever, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clark, on audio. And currently, while painting my Age of Sigmar trolls, Star Trek Voyager is some nice background watching. As other well-known Laura YouTubers continue to craft and expand on their own characters, can we expect to see more collaborations with these individuals? Not just the actual people, but with their characters as well. I am utterly open to this idea. It's unreal how much I would love this to be a thing. It's entirely dependent on how much they want to lean into the thing that I feel I do more, not better, just more than they might do. Watch this space, however. Could you tell us a bit more about the hardware you use to make your wonderful videos? Well, first off, thank you for the compliment. Secondly, my current PC is a three-year-old, but fairly robust, tower that I'll be upgrading to get a better one because I want to play Cyberpunk 2077 on whatever the highest graphic settings I can. The software I run is Adobe After Effects for the actual video creation, Adobe Premiere for the editing, and Audacity for audio capture. My microphone is an Audio Technica AT-2020 cardioid, which is plugged into a Focusrite Scarlet solo audio interface. If you want me to tell you about how that's good versus what your mic might have, I am genuinely ignorant about how. I asked people who are much better than me at audio stuff to help me with this upgrade this year. So a big shout out right now to Stringstorm for being a wonderful human being and always happy to lend a hand. Have you or will you do a video on Olaneus Person or the Perpetuals as a whole? Absolutely. I'm just biding my time until the Siege of Terror series is complete, as that will not only likely involve Olaneus in a huge way, but as the recent revelations in Saturnine showed, there's plenty more perpetual stuff that might be unveiled. So I don't want to jump the gun too early, only to have to redo the video any year's time. The Fantasy Flight Games rogue trader states that ships must travel to the edge of the solar system before engaging warp drives, lest a catastrophic interaction occur with the star. What edge they're discussing is not mentioned. Can you shed some light on this? This is in 40K what is called the Mandeville point. There are generally accepted to be only one or two within any particular system. For example, the Sol system has two, the Elysian Gate and the Katonic Gate. The Mandeville point is literally just that, an area of space where the interaction of reality and unreality can safely occur to allow starship translation. In Star Trek, warping within a system threatens severe, gravitic-based anomalies, whereas in Warhammer, you've got that risk, but also the whole demonic invasion warp rift thing and far weirder stuff. You're crashing what is and what cannot be but also is together through technological means. So it can only really happen in specific locations, at least safely. There's no rhyme or reason as specifically to where in the system a Mandeville point may be, just that it is generally pretty far from any big stellar or planetary bodies. There's no reason or sense to this because the warp doesn't make sense. So hope that answers your question. Now that you've made space for both 40k and Age of Sigmar lore in your videos, have you ever considered making a video that muses on Sigmar being one of the last Primarchs? I will leave a lot of the theorizing to Remlias, but in this particular case, while the theory itself is a fun one, it doesn't personally to me hold a lot of weight. The Age of Sigmar or fantasy universe in general and 40k are links only in really the broadest thematic sense. And even in universe, the idea that they're connected is only through the most kind of arcane omniversal type of connection. One of those ones that relies on sentient ideas and stories and tales being foundational reality. The idea that Sigmar fell through the warp and landed on the Warhammer world and then laterally became a god in the mortal realms in any sort of direct sense. It doesn't hold up for me. And it kinda, at least to me, would be much less fun as two worlds if it did. That's just me. Sorry to disappoint on this one. Any plans for digging into homebrew lore in a similar vein to 40k theories? I will leave this one open to you guys. Is this something that you would like to see? Cause if so, let me know below. Does the Remembrance a character not like a startys or am I reading too much into it? It seems like he talks about them with a certain unease. I think any baseline human in 40k who has either met or read enough about the startys would be suitably terrified of them. They are machines engineered to kill with maximum brutality and efficiency. And whatever about their statuses, holy icons, as angels of death, you have to remember that they are humans bred to slaughter and destroy. In much the same way that anyone in this world with a lick of sense and experience in actual violence, a human in 40k would just be afraid of encountering that in any fundamental level. It would be something that they would do their utmost to steer clear of. This is reflected in the lore too. Most recently in the region Shadow by Chris Wraith where even the High Lords are completely against the idea of employing space marines on Terra and anyone who sees them in combat is utterly traumatized. They are terrifying. So yeah, Oculus has an unease about them, especially because he, more than a lot of other people in the 40k timeline, will have full knowledge of the sweep of a startys atrocities in Imperial history. What is your current opinion of Age of Sigmar? Is it worth investing into? I am a huge fan of Age of Sigmar. I'm delighted to have the chance to talk about it here. From a gaming aspect, having sat out 40k except for the Horus Heresy since the end of 6th edition, to me it feels more accessible. It's open yet streamlined and is simply more fun to play in a hobby store basement for an afternoon. My preferred style of gaming has always been the one that places a high degree of value on just pure enjoyment of the engagement and all the kind of intense in-game moments that happen. And Age of Sigmar lends itself to those kind of massive swings in the flow of battle, while never seeming to be too random and making it all just unfun because of it. Hobby-wise, its minis are some of the most insanely impressive in the hobby. Just look at her, look at how she is walking. I'm floating. So on that end, it's very satisfying. I recently put together some Rock God Tragots for my all troll army, and they have been some of the most wonderfully characterful models I've ever made. And well, as for the lore, I realize a lot of people love the Old World. I'm among them. I really adored the Baroque fantasy of the thing, like the traditional Tolkien-esque stuff run through the lens of Albrecht Durher. And it's still there though. It's still alive and it's coming back on the tabletop. Age of Sigmar is kind of this fullest realization of a gigantic magical sandbox where anything and everything can and will happen. It's this your dude setting. The lore has always been in there to flesh out your games. It's what gives these matches you play in your living room or on your floor or in hobby store basements or even at tournaments. It's character. The lore and Age of Sigmar, I understand, is still being worked on. But it has come on in leaps and bounds since those first few years. And I would love nothing more than for people to actually just give it some time. Check it out. Pick up the core rulebook and give it a read. There's a lot more in there than I think you might realize. It's all crammed full of these wonderful little tidbits. Like, Nagash's dread sight harrows are the souls of doctors and healers who Nagash has cursed simply because he's so petty that he hated them for keeping people alive for longer and not giving him the souls he is due. That's just one unit of one army. So how can you not love stuff like that? So yes, if you like fun and like having fun, I would say it's totally a system to get invested into. What's a misconception in the lore that always gets you scratching your head? There's a few things in the lore that have kind of been memed to death that just make me wince a bit when I hear them presented as hard truth. It's constant repetition that the tower, space communists, is immediately invalidated by the fact they have a caste system, not to mention just about every other aspect of their lore. The Imperial Guard is not entirely made up of meat grinder regiments fed to the slaughter by generals who don't care with guardsmen who have a life expectancy of however many minutes. Yes, those do exist and war zones with attrition rates like that also exist. But if it were not for the professional and well-led regiments of the military, the Imperium would simply have ceased to exist thousands of years ago. The Chaos Gods do not have good benevolent sides. They are raw, elemental, and ultimately, anathema to the material universe, not to mention selfish as all hell. Yes, they can in certain ways reflect noble characteristics, at least at the beginning, but those will inevitably be tainted and fall into deepest corruption because this is the way of chaos. It is evil. It is the big bad. It is the fundamental cosmic force of bad. Ultimately, the lore is still just, well, that, you know, lore, fiction, and thus is subjective. But that isn't prevented from having ways in which it should sort of coherently operate. The misunderstanding of which does have an impact. I don't go in for pedantry by any means. In fact, it generally tends to annoy the hell out of me, but there are some things I will fully argue with you upon. What will be the next legions that you will talk about and which one will it be? So it will be the first, The Dark Angels. I'm genuinely just waiting for the next Forge World heresy book, Crusade, to drop, and then they will have a video as soon as I can get one out. I have to give them the same degree of attention and respect that I have given every other legion I've done videos upon. So this book is vital for that. As for the other legions missing from my series, I was hoping to collect them into Calf and Prospero mini series, respectively. Although that has been substantially delayed from when I originally intended to do it because I wanted to kind of expand it into other lore videos. I want them to be coherent and kind of work like mini seasons because I feel that's the way we can get the most depth and enjoyment out of them. So they will just have to wait just a little bit longer. How did you come up with this Oculus Imperial character? Have you become bored with it? Oculus did not in any way start as he is now. When I wrote my first few scripts, I had this loose idea for a Remembrance or character, one that had seen the Great Crusade in the Horus Heresy firsthand, reporting from it from the direct aftermath. This was, however, meant to generally just be a little bit of flavor for the video, not any sort of fully-fledged persona because I genuinely thought people would not go for such a thing and would consider it kind of arrogant for me, an upstart creator, to just be injecting myself into the lore. But boy, did you all prove me wrong on that one. The response to the Remembrance or character was so positive that, over time, he evolved. And eventually, through both the desire of the audience and of myself to talk about more 41st millennium era lore, he got transplanted from this vague notion of being post-heresy directly into the present timeline and found a ready home with the logos Historic Avertia, which also serves as an in-universe justification for why Oculus has such sweeping access to privileged information. I have in no way become bored with it. If anything, I love the Oculus character more now than I ever possibly did beforehand. He's shown me through his eyes sides of the Warhammer universe you just can't quite contextualize when you're speaking of it as if it's fiction. To him, it's real. And that lends the narration a weight that it seems a lot of you genuinely love. And that really makes me happy. What faction overview video so far has been the most fun to make? This is a tough one, honestly, but it would probably be the nature of chaos video that I did. That one was not a straight shot like some of the others were in terms of sources. I had to dig deep, like original realm of chaos books deep and read a bunch of author interviews where chaos was elaborated on. Not only was this a fascinating glimpse into the process of writing Warhammer itself and into Warhammer history, but it also let me kind of cut loose and pour what I wanted to onto the page. I got to go full cosmic horror insane with it. And when I was writing that finale, it just felt like these nightmare visions were sort of pouring out of my mind and into words. It was a really unique creative experience just banging out sentence after sentence and it just feeling right. I guess this is exactly what you want to say and the order you want to say it in and it all seems to totally work. Writing is rarely something that gets done right on the first time but when you feel it, you know what, it works. This was one of those occasions. Not sure if I'll ever have something quite like it again or if I'll ever be able to recapture that but I certainly hope to. That is why that one was my favorite. I'm afraid that is just about all we have time for but thank you all for your excellent questions as always. I really enjoy doing these with you guys. Even if they are never the videos that pull in the big views, they're still a very welcome and quite fun change of pace. Be sure to check the channel next week for yet more delicious Warhammer lore. As ever, any likes, comments and shares all do the utmost to ensure that the channel grows, continues to flourish and grows the community. Maybe so kind as to keep doing all that wonderful stuff you'll find me as always incredibly grateful. So until then, thank you so very, very much for watching. Thank you for supporting the channel. Thank you for supporting the work that I do here. Ave Imperator Gloria and Excelsis Terra. Terra. This video and this channel were made possible thanks to the very kind donations and support from my Patreon subscribers. If you'd like to help support the channel, head on over to patreon.com slash Oculus Imperia. If you'd like to receive more updates about the channel and any future videos, you can contact me or follow me on Twitter at Oculus Imperia. Otherwise, please like, subscribe, comment, let me know your feedback. And as ever, thank you very much for watching.