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Popular Culture Review
their own characters within the narrative. Cauldron o f Fire by ‘exituslO ’, for
example, tells a story that builds up to the canonical Twelfth Black Crusade’,
but sets the story on the non-canonical planet of Sordin II with a whole cast of
invented dramatis personae.8 Similarly, The Garras War by ‘M rK ibbles’ takes
place in the aftermath of the canonical Medusa V campaign (an event run by
Games Workshop in 2006) its narrative featuring, again, a range of invented
characters.9
Refocusing the Camera
In addition to seeking to fill gaps within the canon, a great deal of W40K
fanfiction also seeks to ‘refocus the camera’ within the W40K universe by
telling the ‘little stories’ that are, while implicit within the canon, again, never
fully explored in official sources. As ‘Rene’ and ‘Lee’ respectively explained:
Action is secondary. I mean, sure, you can write about the
great victory of the Cadian 7th against Hive Fleet Carcassone,
but what really is that battle? It can be, for example, the
nightmares of Trooper Enkoli each night after the battle, or
Colonel Farragut facing his own conscience and memory—did
he or did he not give the order to fire when his own men were
still in the targeted area?
Showing HOW the Battle of Maccragge impacted the rest
of the Ultramar beyond Maccragge is important. When you
see a story in the news about an ongoing war effort, it isn’t a
re-enactment of the battle or just a casualty report, but how the
war is affecting the people in the military and the civilians
around which the war is happening. The human interest so to
speak
In some ca ͕̰