Editing Nobledark Imperium Imperial Forces (section)

== Oficios and Adepta ==

=== The Assassins ===

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> '''''Monsters Of Our Own Making:'''''

The Officio Assassinorum was one of the oldest arms of the Imperial Government, and its roots date back to the barbarity and cruelty of the Old Night. Perhaps it was fitting that, as the Warlord became the Steward and the Unification became the Great Crusade, the ancient orders of assassins were finally brought to heel and integrated into the Imperium proper.

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The Rebuke at Mount Vengeance is the common story of the Officio Assassinorum's founding. In those days, the young Imperium was mired in battles far and wide, but one particular front was facing opposition that none seemed able to counter. Here, commanding officers and vital figures were dying at an alarming rate, even in the safety of their secured rear; although their deaths were suspected to be the work of the enemy, all of them seemed to have died of natural causes. The Warlord simply appointed new generals and ordered veteran bodyguards for the ones already in theatre, but in response his loathsome foes only grew bolder. Ever more evidence of their activities was left behind, seemingly taunting the Imperium for their inability to protect their own; clean killings becoming vicious slaughters of officers and civilians alike. Many commanders were found butchered in their headquarters with a single bodyguard left alive, usually little more than a traumatised wreck stammering about technological sorcery beyond even that of the Warlord's Mechanicus allies.

Incensed at the atrocities inflicted upon his people, the Warlord made war on the Assassin Temples of the Salt Spires. Little is known about the Spires or their mercenary and heartless Masters, for many archives of their history were lost in the anarchy of the War of the Beast (although this may well have been Vangorich's objective all along). The Warlord did his best to spread his own view — that the assassins were little but cowardly shadows who thought they could behead the Imperium — but even his presence and words did little to bolster armies plagued by fear and paranoia, and so he began using the antithesis of their own doctrine to plot their downfall. There were no grand offensives, no bold strikes, nothing that seemed major enough to warrant the assassins moving against it; yet suddenly they found their supplies of everything from ammunition to promethium — and most importantly, water — were perilously low. In their weakened state, the Temples knew they could not face the Warlord's forces, and so they came before him to seek treaty.


At Mount Vengeance, the Temple Masters met to offer peace to the Warlord.
At Mount Vengeance, they received his full scorn.
The Warlord was not content with their mere offer of fealty. For the atrocities the Masters had inflicted on his people — for the lives they had taken so cruelly — the Warlord would not be content with a glorified armistice. He gave them an offer of his own: total surrender, or total annihilation. Those were their only choices.

Some of the Temple Masters, emboldened by hubris, unwisely struck the Warlord. They died. Some fled. They died, later. But on the mountain and around it — for many assassins had followed their Masters, perhaps out of loyalty or some morbid curiosity — others remained, bowing in total capitulation to the Warlord and the futility of resisting this god amongst men. For his part, the Warlord acted rather appropriately in that role, passing judgement on each Master and their assassins. Some were found guilty of crimes beyond forgiveness and were slain — often by their peers as a test of loyalty. Others were granted the "clemency" of banishment into the salt wastes. Only one was judged pure enough to be worthy of leadership — and, as the new Grandmaster of Assassins, he was assured that the temples that surrendered would remain intact, albeit in service of the Imperium under the watchful eye of Malcador.

Thus was formed the Officio Assassinorum. Malcador was pleased with the Warlord's mercy, for it showed no amount of fury would blind him to true talent. A few thousand years later, the assassins proved that such talent brought risks, especially from those as secretive as the assassins.

In 546.M32, the Grandmaster of the Officio Assassinorum attempted to assassinate the High Lords of Terra. The Beheading, as it has since come to be know, was shrouded in mystery; with events restricted to the Imperial Palace, motive, means, and for some figures even identity have been lost to the shrouds of time. All that has survived to this day is that the Inquisitorial Representative, the Master of the Astronomicon, the Paternal Envoy of the Navigators, and the Fabricator-General of the Adeptus Mechanicus were all killed before the Steward was able to stop Grandmaster Vangorich's terror.

Naturally, many asked how Vangorich was able to get as far as he did. Perhaps the sheer scale of the events already taking place at the time (especially the rising threat of the Beast) was responsible, since it was one of the few periods in Imperial history where the High Lords were forced to abandon their usual backstabbing and power plays that kept the Officios and Adepta in check, in favour of (relative) unity. However, others believe such planning and preparation had to have taken decades, and the timing an unfortunate consequence of Vangorich demanding so much care be taken to make the deaths of his fellow High Lords look like accidents.

All sources agree, however, that once his treachery was revealed Vangorich unleashed the assassins on the entire palace. The halls ran with the blood of the highest of Lords and the most lowly of servitors alike. Yet there was one figure the assassins would not touch, ''could'' not touch, out of fear of what he had done to their forefathers: the Steward, who had vowed to personally put a stop to the killing spree desecrating the home of the Golden Throne. Vangorich, infuriated at the apparent incompetence of his underlings, took it upon himself to do the job they would not, attempting to slay the Steward with a vortex grenade as he emerged from his personal transport.

This went about as well as one would expect.

Even less is known about the outcome. Historians have waxed poetically about the Grandmaster facing an agonizing death, eternal torture, exile into the depths of the Webway with nothing but the clothes on his back, or any other number of tall tales. The most reliable account, however — attributed to the Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes — states that the Steward simply broke Vangorich's neck as comfortably as one would a twig, mere moments after his ill-advised attempt on the Steward's life.

For their part, the assassins were right to be fearful; for unlike their predecessors on Mount Vengeance the Steward gazed upon them with ''disappointment'' as well as fury. The Beheading had been undertaken by Vangorich, but the Steward noted with no small distaste that his orders had not been questioned by any under him. Malcador had managed to maintain the delicate balancing act between accountability and unflinching loyalty necessary in an organisation such as the Assassinorum, and without him it seemed the assassins were falling back on their bad habits.

Any other time he would have dismantled the Assassinorum then and there, but the Steward was more concerned with reinforcing the wider Imperium against the coming onslaught of the Beast. In a time when every second was precious, the Steward could only set aside a day to scour the assassins' much-reduced ranks. Those found wanting of moral character were incinerated where they stood if they had acted on Vangorich's orders, or pressed into a penal legion if they had not. One assassin that the Steward found was of solid loyalty, and aided him in his purge of the temples. They were declared the new Grandmaster. The first decree they were to issue, however, was a warning — a warning to be spread through every temple, to every assassin from the depths of the Imperial Palace to frontline fighting against the Orks. A warning that, if the Steward was ever forced to intervene again, he would simply dissolve the Assassinorum instead of wasting more time on leniency.

Four thousand years later, the Steward was once again forced to intervene — although this time it was because of a crisis of his own making.

To her credit, the Grandmaster the Steward had put in place had served honorably, loyally, and carefully. Within the temples, long overdue reforms were undertaken, training formalised, and generations of assassins raised to revere the Imperium as a whole more than their temple. The Grandmaster, when she felt her time came, passed the title on to one she felt she could trust; and he continued her work, standardising material provisions and improving survivability. When he was lost in a warpstorm, his successor was well chosen, and worked to streamline chain of command and requisition. This continued, the Officio slowly evolving into an organisation capable of keeping up with the rapid changes of the galaxy, until the reign of Goge Vandire. Emperor Goge Vandire.

Goge Vandire was, initially, the ideal servant of the Imperium. Intelligent yet humble, decisive yet wise, he was familiar with all the intricacies of every part of the Imperium's government — save the assassins. Naturally, he was curious. At his first meeting with the High Lords of Terra, they each took their own oaths of loyalty and explained their roles. The Grandmaster of Assassins, on the other hand, explained the history of the Beheading to the new Emperor, and explained why since then the Assassinorum has always chosen to swear loyalty to the wider Imperium instead of a particular individual. An explanation that would end up nearly tearing it apart.

"...hence, our loyalty is to the Golden Throne and its guardians rather than the one sitting upon it. A mere technicality, of course—" The Grandmaster offering a thin smile at this point, "since I personally doubt we will ever receive liquidation orders from the archaeotech itself... but still."

The other High Lords had long ago learned not to question inner workings of the Assassinorum, while Emperor Vandire merely gave a hearty chuckle. They moved onto other, more pressing matters, and it appeared that that was the end of that. And it was, for the most part, but there was a small corner of Emperor Vandire's mind where those words echoed endlessly. "The Golden Throne and ''its guardians''," the Grandmaster had said, but it seemed clear to him that there was only one guardian that mattered; the one who had appointed him to the position in the first place. Over the years of Emperor Vandire's reign — too many hard decisions, too many threats to the Imperium from within and without, perhaps too many treatments of juvenat — the echo rose in his mind until it was deafening, a mild irritation over semantics growing into full-blown paranoia.

Of course they were faithful to the Imperium, but the hypocrites chose the Steward to venerate as a figurehead! Even in the Palace, his own home, all the oaths in the galaxy would not change the fact that each soul's allegiance lay with the Steward rather than himself. They only trusted him because the Steward trusted him, had appointed him. Oh, yes, his reign and countless years of selfless service were all very good and well appreciated, but they were all nought against those of that living god. Everything he did was overshadowed by that ''guardian;'' his words judged against the Steward's, his actions compared to those of the Steward, the ''Steward'', the '''''Steward''''', who was never more than a moment away from the lips of Vandire's own people; as if he had been usurped before he was ever appointed to the throne.

Still, Vandire was still as talented as he always was, and soon managed to find an assassin willing to aid him; a Callidus by the name of Tziz Jarek. By that point he was in direct control of every aspect of the Imperium thanks to a thousand emergency powers and Imperial edicts; yet frustratingly, the Grandmaster remained steadfastly insistent on the stance that had tormented Vandire since their first meeting. Jarek, on the other hand, was simply angry with the Assassinorum's reforms, and made sure to stay well out of range of Vandire's spittle and foam when he began to rant — although over time she found herself believing in more and more of his firey rhetoric.

The assassination was textbook perfection; the Grandmaster's long list of security measures outdone by Jarek's longer-still list of fall-backs and contingencies. However, the lifeless corpse that was quietly fed into a plasma generator was only a body double of the Grandmaster — even as Jarek disguised herself with polymorphine and assumed the seat of Grandmaster of Assassins — had already made her getaway, rallying those loyal to her from Terra and beyond. With the Assassinorum now firmly under his thumb, Vandire used the shadowy assassins as another weapon with which to prosecute what was rapidly becoming a reign of terror; opponents political and military alike disappearing or found butchered in cruel and unusual manners.

When the reign of Emperor Vandire was coming to an end, he began to use his assassins more openly against rebel forces — and it was at that moment, when they emerged from the shadows, that the true Grandmaster struck. Jarek had used the forces of the Assassinorum masterfully, always knowing which figures to ''liquidate'' to maximise disorder and panic — yet she had no experience of the same tactics being used against her, and could do little but order her own assassins to focus on the new threat.

The resulting battles were devastating. Assassins loyal to Vandire and to the Grandmaster both used long-forgotten, forbidden technologies on the other side, for each was (rightly) convinced that the victory of the other would see them exterminated to the last. Gene-sympathetic nerve gases, neutronic warheads, entropic broadcasters, pan-chronal disruptors, and other terrors were all used; some dating back to the nightmare of the Old Night. These were the Wars of Vindication, and they would be repeated again and again from Terra to the furthest reaches of the Imperium as assassin turned against assassin to purge the ones they saw as traitors.

When the Steward finally returned to Terra from his self-imposted exile, the Temples were little more than smoking, hellish ruin. The palace, too, was scarred by battle; and there he found the Grandmaster — who pointed to her lifeless doppelganger and declared that the traitor was dead.

The Steward was unamused.

The Grandmaster offered her life by way of apology, and begged the Officio Assassinorum be spared. She knew all too well of the warning passed down from each Grandmaster to the next, and of the possibility of her and her own suddenly being abandoned by an Imperium that had no other place for them. For his part, the Steward was bitterly disappointed with Emperor Vandire's descent into madness — yet this time he could not truly fault what had historically been the most troublesome of the High Lords' domains. One Grandmaster had fought with unwavering loyalty for the Imperium, while the other had done so in the name of the Emperor. Perhaps he was a little ashamed of his own poor judgement, for he was merciful; the Grandmaster was allowed to disappear into exile, and the remnants of the Assassinorum were to return to Terra for their final judgment.

The Steward of the Golden Throne retreated into the Imperial Palace for the last time, and when the Emperor of Mankind emerged, first and final orders to the ancient Officio Assassinorum were as follows:

*All assassins were to be granted a window of clemency, where an amnesty would be offered regardless of allegiance. They were misled, but had still fought with ferocious loyalty to their superiors — against some of the best in the Imperium, no less. Any who ignored this opportunity would be declared outlaws of the Imperium of the Golden Throne, for both the Grandmaster and her doppelganger had kept close eyes on their respective assassins (lest they defect). Huge bounties were offered, of course, but the most sought-after reward was the opportunity for the hunter to take the place of the assassin they defeated, becoming one of the Imperium's shadowy elite.

*After the grace period, the Officio Assassinorum would be completely and utterly dissolved. The Temples would remain, but only as individual institutions with no power and little role; all masters would stripped of formal office and all survivors either absorbed into the reborn order: the Officio Tactitum. No more secret handshakes or shadowy meetings lit by incense, no unaccountable Grandmasters operating without question. Civilian control would slow the Tactitum, perhaps even hamstring it, but this was the price to be paid to avoid the mistakes of the past.

*Perhaps most importantly, the Ordo Securitas of the Inquisition would be formed to monitor not only the assassins but the other highest echelons of the Imperium. These Inquisitors would be the guardians of the guardians, watching each Officio and Adeptus for corruption and abuse, wary of another Vangorich or Vandire emerging.

*However, due to their power to render judgment of even the highest figures of the Imperium, the Sicarius were only permitted to advise and regulate, never taking direction — at least, in theory. In reality, many Securitas Inquisitors found rather...creative ways to circumvent the decree that they may not maintain "men under arms".


The Emperor had spoken, and these were his commands.


The Officio Tactitum is a far more modern organization nowadays. Though it primarily is still famed for its assassins, it also produces operatives specialised in sabotage and covert warfare far from home. They are often assigned to the command of the Astra Militarum or individual Inquisitors; and each lone assassin is still a finely honed killing machine, but they now serve as spectacular force multipliers rather as ends in themselves. The Ordo Sicarius is satisfied with this arrangement, as it avoids the high risk and cost of the traditional lone wolf operations, and allows them to keep an eye on any assassins deployed.

The Temples? They are far less superstitious and shadowy than they once were, although the name of "Temple" has stuck in defiance of every reform that has been attempted. Each of them has diversified, yet maintained their core roots in their quest to perfect the art of murder.

Temple Vindicare, who reach out far longer than all but the highest of psykers to deliver their kiss of death.

Temple Venenum, who can find a thousand toxins to kill a man from the gentlest of paradise worlds, each one exquisite to the palette in their own unique way.

Temple Eversor, who can scythe through men, orks, eldar and even Astartes with the horrifying ease of a power sword through flak armour.

Temples Culexus — who hunt down their prey with soulless eyes — and Callidus, who have no face to call their own.

Temple Vanus, which according to popular belief ha[EXPUNGED]oes not exist. The Ordo Sicarius has confirmed this, and will not allow any dispute.

The primary headquarters of the Tactitum, including the Temples, lies on Terra, although across each segmentum there are localised, lesser temples that train assassins, liaison with other Imperial Forces, and seek recruits from outside the Schola the Temples traditionally draw from. The Ordo Sicarius also work closely with segmentum command to permit proper coordination if Tactitum assets are needed, although on a smaller level they are surprisingly good at scouting talented assassin candidates. With proper Inquisitorial oversight, the assassins are kept well in check, and well out of politics.

The High Lords of Terra still retain a seat for the Grandmaster of Assassins, but it has been left vacant ever since the reign of Emperor Vandire. Few imagine it will ever be filled again.

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=== Adeptus Astronomica ===

“''We are the ones who give of ourselves so that others may walk in the light''”<br>
— Motto of the Adeptus Astronomica

Of all the professions available to psykers of the Imperial Schola, perhaps none is more honored than those of the Adeptus Astronomica. These are the people who make daily life in the Imperium possible with literally nothing more than their sheer force of will. The Astronomican represents one of the first major cooperative efforts between humanity and the Eldar. Although originally of human creation, its design was improved by the Eldar as a gift of gratitude for humanity’s participation in the raid on Nurgle’s mansion, greatly improving the efficiency of the Astronomican and strength of its beacon. Although original estimates based on the average ability of a human psyker suggested that twelve thousand people at once would be needed to power the beacon, Eldar modifications decreased the actual number of psykers needed by an order of magnitude, while drastically reducing the amount of stress on an individual psyker.

However, at the same time, no profession is more tragic than that of the Adeptus Astronomica. Creating a psychic “bonfire” that can be seen by the entire Imperium is taxing on the individual, even with twelve hundred other psykers to share the burden. As a result, the psykers of the Adeptus Astronomica are rotated out in shifts in an attempt to maximize their health, with a third of the choir being rotated out every four months. However, even this is not enough to prevent long-term damage. Few psykers live more than a year, and almost none have survived more than eighteen months. In the Halls of the Astronomican, right before one enters the Chambers of the Astronomican itself, there is a small, grassy courtyard, nearly empty save for a stele made of the hardest adamantium. On it is inscribed the names of every psyker who has died in the course of powering the Astronomican, a testament to their bravery so that the Imperium will never forget their sacrifice.

==== Origin of the Astronomican ====

''"Only humanity would think to solve the complex and intricate issue of interstellar travel by building a giant psychic bonfire"''<br>
— Finarion, specialist bonesinger from Biel-Tan sent to examine the Astronomican, circa M31.

When the Great Crusade started, there wasn’t any need for an Astronomican. The Steward was a Man of Gold, originally designed to link human worlds together during the days of the Great and Bountiful Empire, and as a result was a fairly effective psychic landmark in his own right. Combined with the fact that the Imperium had access to the Void Borns’ maps and the knowledge of the relatively safe Warp currents, it was possible to reach many of the nearby systems using short (but very slow) warp jumps.

Having delegated most of the Legion running and Great Crusading to the primarchs, the Steward was free to try and figure out a long-term solution to the navigation issue. The Steward made no secret of this fact, and the primarchs didn’t complain about it because they themselves were starting to notice as they were getting further and further from Earth it was getting harder and harder to navigate. Indeed, some of the primarchs were actually trying to convince the Steward to stay on Earth, because if the Steward got killed it meant no Astropaths and the nascent Imperium would likely tear itself apart over succession crises, especially after the Steward was taken by surprise and nearly killed by a super-Ork on the nascent Attack Moon of Gorro.

The Steward hit upon the idea of the Astronomican when the Imperium had at least several hundred worlds under its belt. He found that if he could get the beacon started other psychics can maintain the “fire”, but it would take a lot of them working together and they'd have to rotate in shifts. Thankfully the Imperium is big enough now to provide those numbers. Unfortunately, while it wasn’t as dangerous at first, as the Astronomican grew in response to the need from the Crusade it becomes increasingly lethal and difficult to handle. The warp-flow goes "lumpy" and the lumps are dangerous proportional to the size of the "flame” you are trying to generate. Given that the flame is bright enough to see across lightyears, the lumps are pretty lethal.

When the alliance with the Eldar happened, the Eldar sent their specialists to Old Earth as part of the deal with humanity to look at the thing. Then they backed out of the hall slowly at the sheer insanity of what these mon-keigh were trying to do. The Eldar started attaching shock absorbers and buffering jars and shit to it, and the lifespan of resident psychics jumps up dramatically. Nowadays, maintaining the Astronomican is considered an actual job rather than a death sentence, albeit one with a greatly reduced quality and length of life even compared to baseline humanity. Eldar and human technicians continued to tinker with the Astronomican, adding more devices to it, like lenses and spectrum filters. And that's where the Astronomican is at now. It can't be tweaked any more, having hit the hard upper limit on what is possible with a single, giant psychic lighthouse.

Theoretically other alternatives are possible, and in hindsight it would have been easier to just make [[Imperium_Secundus#Mustering_Forces_to_Himself|a bunch of small lighthouses]] instead of one big one, in a similar vein to what the Great and Bountiful Human Empire did with the Men of Gold and likely what many other races did back during the Dark Age of Technology. Such devices would not only be more efficient, but would greatly — though not entirely — reduce the issues with the potential lethality of the job. Unfortunately doing so would require resources that the Imperium doesn’t have, either in the form of Iron Minds/Men of Gold or psykers that are desperately needed by the big Astronomican on Old Earth. And it it not possible to simply put out the Astronomican and start over, because the loss of the Astronomican, even temporarily, would be catastrophic for the Imperium.

=== Adeptus Sororitas ===

==== Rough Notes from the Threads ====
*Formed in the aftermath of the reign of Vandire and the Civil War along with the Ordo Securitas
*They receive some cybernetic and biological enhancements, putting them roughly on par with a Spartan from Halo
**A group of 3 Sisters is roughly equal to 1 Space Marine, winning about 5 times out of 10. However, the Marine has a significant advantage in melee due to much better physical attributes and the Sisters are encumbered by their Power Armor due to lack of a Black Carapace. To win, the Sisters would need to leverage numbers and teamwork.
*I believe we said they mostly operate with the Inquisition, though their organization and exact scope of duties is unclear/undiscussed at the moment.

==== Daughters of Russ ====

The Daughters of Russ, better known as the Valkyries, are a organization similar to the Adeptas Sororitas unique for only recruiting from Fenris and the Fenrisian colonies. The Daughters claim to be matrilineal descendants of Leman Russ via his many daughters, but given the size of Leman Russ' family and the amount of time that has passed since Russ came to Fenris, it is likely that everyone on the Fenrisian Worlds can trace their ancestry back to Leman Russ in some way.

The Daughters of Russ are best known for their ferocity. Although the Sororitas are well known for their aggression and their single-mindedness, the Valkyries fight with a viciousness that seems almost inhuman. In addition, the Valkyries exhibit senses and other abilities that seem beyond standard Sororitas-level augmentation, leading some to suspect that the Sororitas enhancements either enhance the effect of the Canis Helix genes present in the general Fenrisian population or reawaken Canis Helix genes that were formerly dormant. Surprisingly, the Daughters are otherwise rather conservative for Sororitas, looking down on the sisterhoods who add additional augmentations like kill-glands. To the Valkyries, such additions mock and taint the skill of an individual in battle.

At the same time, the Daughters are also well-known for their talents in medicine. The Valkyries have close ties with the Sisters Hospitaller, and often find themselves being sent to reinforce flagging battalions and save as many of the wounded as they can. It is these practices that led the first leader of the Daughters of Russ to say “it is our job to look Morkai in the eye and tell him, ‘you will not touch them today’”, which eventually became shortened into the motto of the order.

Editor's Note: Needs to be seen how they relate to Sororitas. Are they actual Sororitas, the female equivalent of Space Wolves, or what? It was pointed out that the concept is good, but they don't seem to function like the Sisters (as internal police).

=== Navis Nobilite ===

See [[Nobledark Imperium Writing#The Saga of Fedor Jiao|The Saga of Fedor Jiao]]