"I'm sure most of the men in the galaxy are familiar with the sinking feeling that accompanies the words 'Do you think you could do me a little favour, darling?', but when the woman asking the question is an Inquisitor, it's even less wise than usual to say 'No'." Ciaphas Cain talking about Amberly

Ciaphas Cain: using the carrot and stick method of not being an ass and offing guardsmen for the smallest mistake and actually rewarding good behavior.

the guardsmen: ''he's the second coming of the emperor, all hail Ciaphas Cain''

The best way to describe how different Caiaphas Cain from the rest of 40k is is this:

In the Gaunt's Ghosts series, Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt is your standard grimdark hero saying things like: "Men of Tanith, do you want to live forever?"

Meanwhile from the Cain books:
"'Come on, men! Do you want to live forever!'

"The noncom in charge of the squad must have been on something, I thought. Nobody spoke like that outside of badly-written combat novels."

"Then the prophet spake: saying 'Frak this, for my faith is a shield proof against your blandishments!'" - from The Book of Cain, Chapter IV, Verse XXI

It reminds me of Ulysses S. Grant. 5 star  US Army general and the 18th president of the United States and the only person to be given a 5 Star rank outside of George Washington. He carried the weight of every failure of every missed moment, yet refused to take any credit. He suffered from severe Imposter Syndrome. To the point it's sad to see some of the masterful tactics he implemented and constantly refused to give himself a shred of credit. Even through the little things he never gave himself credit. Yet this man was so beloved even by the Rebel soldiers he defeated when he died he was receiving letters of heart felt support from soldiers who he had beaten. Because he never allowed his soldiers to humiliate them, degrade them, he made sure they were allowed to return home unimpeded and with every last scrap of their personal property. Even allowing his defeated foe to return home on their horse's. He saw them as his countrymen who had lost their way.

15:29 As far as i remember, it was only brought up once by Amberley Vail's annotations. It was something alone the line: Cain was familiar with this because he was constantly requested to attend newborns naming, who usually were named by guardsman parents in his honour.
I'v read thouse books years ago, but i think it was in relation of Cain saying that "*something* was like getting puked on by a toddler." or something like that.

Nephi Belisarius crawl is approaching sanity from the long way round he was very much insane at multiple points in the past

1:01 Nephi, Cawl can be both insane AND cool and good... Him being a collection of different minds does not make him what we today would call "sane"

HIGHLY  RECOMMEND The audio books, its near full cast and MAN it is soooooo good ( Amberly "editorial notes" just add the prefect humor and context to the novels as a whole).

and in many ways, the writing is well done to the point you can see the joke/ stupid situation coming

12:41 It must be noted that the Necrons in this book, Caves of Ice, weren't quirky but dangerous lunatics. They were what are known among the community as 'Oldcrons', from back when they were all emotionless monsters whose only interest was purging the galaxy of all life. Back then, Flayed Ones weren't infected by a virus, they simply stayed awake during 'the great sleep' and went insane because of it, plus Pariahs existed. I miss Pariahs.

Amberly also gets very petty whenever Cain talks about other women. Her adnotations get visibly more tense and jealous.

Read the nightlords trilogy very entertaining. "Sir the ship is on a attack vector. What the hell does a attack vector look like! I don't know sir but if I had to guess it looks like that."

You know how some people say "Oh it's ___ but Warhammer?" Ciaphas Cain is 'Blackadder Goes Forth' but Warhammer.

The composition of regiments, in a lot of ways including genders, was mostly up to the world providing them to the Imperial Guard.  All the Guard cared about was that they met appropriate minimum size, training, and equipment standards.  As such, composition varied highly depending upon the world they originate from, with some only producing single-gender regiments, others only producing mixed-gender regiments, and some worlds having other schemes.

Apparently the Demon Princess once tried to mess with Cain by looking like what he desiresost and we don't specifically see what it says but instead Cain shoots her in the face and just says.
"Impersonating an Imperial Inquisitor is a Capital Offense.*

This is second hand knowledge but I hope it's true.

The thing is, it can be really hard to tell the difference between sufficiently enlightened pragmatism and heroism at times, just as sufficiently enlightened self-interest tends to resemble benevolence. Example: in the 40k setting somebody is shooting at you. The distance between you and something that might provide decent cover from the shots is twice that of the distance between you and them. Therefore, the correct choice to preserve your own life is to CHARGE: you probably aren't surviving this anyway but you're safer rushing them down than trying to run away. Both of those options were cowardly but one was also stupid.

And if you're making the correct choice to preserve your life enough times then you've survived longer than average and thus had a greater impact on the world around you than average. A sufficiently idealistic and stupid person will see somebody litter and immediately start a fight to the death to get them to pick that litter up and throw it away properly: this is not a very effective way to prevent littering because at best you're probably now adding bodies to the litter and at worst you also only get to do this once. Cain is smart, is surviving, and happens to be helping preserve the Imperium as it's better than the available alternatives: this is enough to make him a HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!!

Cia, Cia, Ciaphas Cain! Hero of the Imperium!

16:35 THE GOAT IBRAM GAUNT DETECTED

56:58
So, she used to be human and tried to seduce Cain while starting her ascension to Daemon Princess. He shot her dead, but the process was far enough along that she ended up finishing it and returned to the mortal world at least once before this, still wanting what was denied to her (i.e. Cain in her bed).

One of my favorite little facts about Cain is that he would often pull babysitting duty. 90% when he wasn’t out on the field he was in the most fortified section of the base during a battle. So that is also where people would put the babies and small children when battles were raging and their parents were fighting. And if something went wrong he would always make sure the kids were well taken care of. He would brush it off as just his duty, but safely tucked away in his office there are whole stacks of children’s drawings and letters addressed to him. Cute drawing of him and Jergen playing with them or thanking him and telling him how much they loved hanging out with “Uncle” Cain.