The Scottish Play... IN SPACE!

[MaltonNecromancer]

If you've clicked on this, you probably get the idea. Seven out of the last eight years, I've taught Macbeth now, and every time, I'm struck by two things:

1.) How easily it would translate into 40K. The whole story is about one man's slide into Chaos, after all.
2.) The lack of a suitable film to use as a teaching aid for 14 year olds.

So my thought was:

You have to convert The Scottish Play into the 40K universe (for the next Codex film if you like - if they carefully sold it to UK schools, it would be a moneyspinner for the next thirty years; every school in the UK alone has at least two copies of the Hugh Hefner one from the 70's, and tends to need a new one every five years or so).

Anyway: Scotland is replaced with The Imperium; the thanes (dukes) are replaced with ranking members of one of the Imperium's numerous fighting forces, King Duncan becomes Commander Duncan (or possibly Planetary Governor Duncan), the Witches... well, they stay Witches, yes? :)

If you were going to convert models to this, what would you use, and why? Would you have Duncan's forces as marines, guard, or something else?

[gwensdad]

Is this a chainfist I see before me?

ahem, anyway I'd keep it all guard. UNLESS our title character was a chapter master (who got that by killing the chapter master before him)

You're going to make me go read it again, aren't you?

[SotonShades]

Guard would certianly be more relatable, and maybe take the title character as a Commissar, ashamed and confused by some of the executions he has had to undertake (maybe a more senior commissar) and worried that his fate will be the same? Or a commissar killing a ranking commander, taking over theatre command and thus putting himself in the same situation, with Duncan as his understaffer.

You may be able to tell, it has been a few years since I have watched or read any version of the Scottish play.

[Grailkeeper]

It'd work very well with the imperial nobility, they're always schemeing and counterschemeing- ditto Dark Elves. Perhaps too well- it might be too similar to the original and not interestingly different.

I don't think it could translate very well with marines- Lady Macbeth is too central, and the nature of her relationship with her husband would not translate to asexual Space warriors.And if its aimed at 14 year olds some kid is going to be the smart alec. teh Children would have to be Neophytes- Banquos son would be in a very different position to a child if he was a scout.

Dryad/ent models would work well for the final battle scene

Wh not show the Hefner version- my teacher showed it to us, it kept the attention of a class of 14 year old lads. He was a brilliant teacher (this is very off topic but he died over the weekend, I'm 5 years out of the school and I'm still very upset about the whole thing- perhaps a sign of the effect he had on me)

[Grailkeeper]

Actually now that I think about it, It'd work-REALLY well in the inquistion- Different inquisitors/ interrogators all vieing for power, the slow corrupting power of magic and chaos.

An ork version would have an elegant simplicity

"Did you stomp Da Old Boss?"

"Yer I did, which Makes me da new boss"

"Fair enuff"

[Lockark]

I think the story would work better for a Space marine chapter then a Guard Regiment. Marine chapters are more dedicated to tradition and reclusive. A marine captor that's more like a brother hood then a chain of command works alot better, then IG who have strict chain of command and organization.

The basic plot points could be better told, and that's what you need most for it to work. The fact that marines are more like extended families also works well.

The only problem would be female characters. Many have them as human advisers kept by the chapter, and play down any thing remotely romantic?

With a IG regiment, I don't think it would work quite as well. Unless it was about a Lord Commissar killing the commander and taking over.
=P

[Fellend]

"Sometimes you'll just have to kill your commander to save the rest of your men" - Captain Nordberg
Ah, the good ol days in the swedish army.

My point here is that sometimes people do kill their commanders to assume control, SM wouldn't really fit in unless you wanted to make a big change of script.

[Lockark]

"Sometimes you'll just have to kill your commander to save the rest of your men" - Captain Nordberg
Ah, the good ol days in the swedish army.

My point here is that sometimes people do kill their commanders to assume control, SM wouldn't really fit in unless you wanted to make a big change of script.

Erm. I'm not a millitary historian or anything. But most times I think of troops killing there commanders in a more "modern" army it was called a revolt..... Macbeth was also mostly the story of the royal families of Scotland infighting.
>___>

Setting wise it just wouldn't work with the Imperial Guard. With the marines it works better since there a brotherhood they have more of a sense of family. Instead of the relations being "son" just make them apprentice. Make Lady Macbeth and Lady Mcduff into human advisers instead of wives, and your set.

[Fellend]

This was my superior officers quote after hearing me and my plutoon mutter about how incase of war we'd put the first bullet in our incompetent immidiate superior.
It wasn't as much a revolt as a necessary measure to change the chain of command.

While it's possible, I think IG and the fact that they are normal humans make it easier to comprehend by people that aren't familiar with 40k. Just the simple question about can the marines mate with the females or not can kind of destroy the focus of any 14 year old boy

[Grailkeeper]

Fragginbg is apparantly more common than people imagine. The Blood Gorgon book (in as little detail as possible so as to avoid spoilers) is about the struggle for power over a chapter after one such incident

[JamesP]

GW did an adaptation* of MacBeth for 2nd edition WFB, you could always try drawing from that:

http://boardgamegeek.com/image/481269/the-tragedy-of-mcdeath

( * By adaptation I mean an excuse to have a pretty funny series of linked WFB with a lot of MacBeth or generic Scottish jokes/puns. They even worked in the Miners' Strike (a dwarf miner called "Arka Zargul", etc.) and Clint Eastwood (don't ask).

Slaying someone who cannot be killed by "none of woman born" was helped by having non-human participants and the equivalent to Great Birnam Wood really did walk to the castle. )

I think to have a 40K situation which is vaguely analogous to the dynastic struggles of the play, you would have to step away from most 40k armies and move towards Imperial Nobles and Governors. A less obvious alternative would be to replace the struggle for kingship (Imperial Governorship) with a struggle for a Rogue Trader warrant or perhaps a senior position in the Imperial Navy, which also has its fair share of dynasties. Castles could be replaced with ships, the ancient and labyrinthine nature of Imperial vessels being quite appropriate and the Imperium even builds its ships with ornamental battlements, so why not? Use Guard rules for the Naval personnel and Inquisitor rules for Rogue Traders and their retinues.

Or you could borrow from the first Gaunt's Ghosts novel and have a bunch of feuding Lord Generals fighting to see who becomes Warmaster of a Crusade.

My favourite, though, would be to set it in the Administratum! McScrivener is a mid-level Tertiary File Ordinate who chances upon the Three Typing Witches of DataLoom Sub-Stack Seven. They forsee his rise to the dizzy heights of Senior Rubricator-Adjunct, with a larger than average workstation, corner office and custom transcription servitor no less! His habwife has long pushed him to be more ambitious and, learning of the prediction, presses him to invite the current Senior Rubricator-Adjunct to visit. Will McScrivener mis-use the plasma setting on his dataslate (for opening securely-stapled files) to murder his guest and be Senior Rubricator-Adjunct hereafter?

[Drew da Destroya]

James, you're a genius. Brilliant.

[MaltonNecromancer]

My favourite GW comedy thing in the "None of Woman Born" thing was in Thrud The Barbarian.

Wizard: Thrud is in terrible danger! this dragon cannot be killed by the hand of man!
Female Barbarian: By the hand of MAN you say? But I'm a woman! Wizard! I know how Thrud may defeat this beast!
Wizard: That's right my dear! HE'S GOING TO HAVE TO USE HIS FEET!

*Cut to a shot of Thrud kicking the dragon to death*

Back on-topic, I do think it works better as a Guard story, but it could work with marines if you assume something a bit like Space Wolves, who seem to have a better sex life than their less raucous Brothers. Plus, Fenris is an icy wasteland, like Scotland's supposed to be in the play...

[Night System]

Alas, poor Yarrick ;) I knew him well....

[Grailkeeper]

Even if you can find a sexually active marine- can you imagine him being under the thumb? Because macbeth is very much so.

[MaltonNecromancer]

Even if you can find a sexually active marine- can you imagine him being under the thumb? Because macbeth is very much so.

Not if he's an Ultramarine, no. But what if he's not?

"When you durst do it, then you were a man" - Macbeth's under the thumb because he's obsessed with being seen as the perfect warrior; he's completely enslaved to a view of a certain type of behaviour as "manly". Kind of like marines; they have such high standards; i it so unreasonable to assume that not all of them live up to the impossible demanded of them on a daily basis? The "Ultramarines" film was built around a character with a desperate need for glory - where he got over it, Macbeth never did.

He does fit very nicely as a Marine; also as a nice deconstruction of how a Marine might fall to Chaos - call his bravery into question. Marines define themselves by manly deeds; you can't tell me a chapter like the Flesh Tearers or Space Wolves couldn't easily produce a Macbeth. The Blood Claws are defined by insecurity; they're young, and desperate to prove themselves. Macbeth could easily be one (especially given his predilection for hacking me physically in half...)