Planetary Analysis: Fenris

Prospero Burns is a rather esoteric book, and I liked the interpretation of wolves near the very end. Adding to the motif of animal shamanism and transhumanism, the wolf in such a far future is not merely man acting like a beast, but a literal mutation of the population. To make Fenrisians and Legion not merely acting, looking or being lycanthropes, but the flesh itself being man making the transition is a fascinating reversal. For the monster or animal to be a warping of human flesh and the opposite of a monster barely reflecting a human veneer to prey upon them and terrify them engages both horror and the heroic myth.

The Lukas the Trickster short story, creating a laughing, outcast Loki like archetype, of a prepubescent body groaning under the strain of a bleeding body, walking the ice and avoiding being devoured by monsters carries the hard bitten iciness of this kind of landscape. The fictional planet blends two popular ideas for planets; areas inspired by Norse mythology, and the ice world. The impossibility of a sub-zero environment, and imaginatively dangerous beasts. This is the reality of the Fenrisian culture, every one of 40Ks Space Wolves carries this location as part of their “ascension”. It’s the warrior initiation ritual, a means of proving worthy before the symbolic transition to both the adult life, and the superhuman.

I know World Spirits are pretty divisive among 40K fans, and won’t get into that theory (or a discourse on the Warp). But I do believe that certain planets are not only given a deliberately rich culture, but one that is quite literally the mould for the narrow dimensions and archetypes of the Leigiones Astartes, and the demigods that lead them. Why not review Fenris as a character, when in-universe the obsession around this one world is the myth-mother of an army, to the point of mockery by outsiders?

And as a science fantasy setting, there is some neotraditional philosophy that can be explored, and the use of technology to represent what a star empire would reasonably use, one shining settlement among the frequent ice ages, krakens and beasts that shatter whole continents. The Aett is where the Space Wolves call home, the single selective sign of 41^st century civilisation, placed as a means to incorporate the Imperium’s ownership of the planet, limit cultural incohesion, and siphon the Space Marines born and bred here to ‘sail’ the stars.

There is an appeal in the contrast of a self-sufficient bastion, a home carved out of ice and rock- in actuality another similarity to the King under the Mountain idea and The Rock of the Wolves rival faction the Dark Angels. In hewing a settlement from the unbearable, if one has the wisdom, time and traditions to hold people within such a fortress, those elements of a harsh word ultimately become a cloak and natural defence against outsiders. Inside this complex the outsider narrator Kasper Hawser becomes transformed, culturally and physically by the competitively advanced technology which is carefully hoarded. A visiting academic becomes a space skald, listening and then relaying the rich oral tradition the Fenrisian culture values and glorifies. Barbarism in the physical sense is a biological reality, much like cold, much like a raiding party being a danger. But as one observes within Pagan concepts such as the Elder and Younger Futhark runic languages, the expression of polarised concepts, natural and mental archetypes and unconscious symbols run very deeply and are intended to be understood on an intermediate or experienced level. Danger and the visual is easily understood, much like a wolf is a notable memorable animal totem. The Space Wolves, being berserker warriors howling and bearing axes are a faction that can be easily understood. But the level of their intellect, language, and customs are old and primal, reflecting the landscape they inhabit. Space Wolves, or in their language Vylka Fynrika cry out the name of Fenris while fighting, the name Fenris also being a slight adaptation of Fenrir, one of Odin’s wolves in Norse mythology.

Fascinatingly, as technology is present and many Fenrisians have humour depending upon not being unintelligent warriors, a brief reference to somewhat explain why this clearly fantastical world may have in-universe been cultivated in such a way is stated to have been an experiment specifically, by the Emperor of Mankind in the novel Wolfsbane. This novel in particular opens up an intentional divide between how an outsider perceives Fenris from a scientific perspective, and the reality. Much as the audience does, in-universe and faction fan interpretations speculate why this world is special, besides being a breeding ground of hardy individuals who can be taken to augment and deploy elsewhere. Part of the really satisfying Underverse climax and Rogue Trader callback is Russ, ‘Primarch’, essentially demigod and father of all his kind being interrogated by a spectre reflecting his Terran (Earth) self.

Especially in the militantly atheistic Great Crusade era Imperium of Man, and with the knowledge of a genetically engineered demigod, Russ finds the theatricality of the sagas and superstitions to be useful to cultural cohesion, but closer to the place and with his peers feels it to be less and less an affectation.

Fenris is a world that somehow is more openly inhospitable than most, yet less terrifying than the ecumenopolis of Holy Terra, not as haunting as the Deamon Worlds, or destined to suffer the doom of Caliban. In hearkening to Nordic lore, the pursuit of blood, glory, and honour is woven through with mockery, the notion that it is essential to ridicule oneself as much as to boast your name and achievements. And the sense of achievement, or ruddy pride, of intentionally fooling people as to what you are and what is real stems from a home where the landscape is always more imposing, where no large human settlements are possible, and the persistence to survive in spite of the fantastical blurs the lines between logic and story.