Editing Star Wars vs Warhammer 40K

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'''Star Wars vs. Warhammer 40K''' is, as the name suggests, a [[fanfic]] in the form of multiple narrated videos on YouTube telling the story of what happens when an [[Imperium]] refugee fleet is accidentally hurled through the [[Warp]] on a one-way trip to another galaxy... the galaxy of [[Star Wars]] in the tail end of the Clone Wars, and the bloody events that ensue.

If you want to read (well, listen to) the Imperium effortlessly curbstomping the galaxy far, far away and rolling over everything with no troubles whatsoever, look elsewhere. The Republic has a LOT of military disadvantages, but they're not going down without a fight, and the Imperials learn the hard way that these xenos aren't as soft as they look. Expect lots of blood, guts, bravery and death on both sides of the battlefield.

=Synopsis=
It is the time of the [[Indomitus Crusade]], and the isolated, largely Warp Storm-concealed Subsector Xek-Tek is under assault by a [[Tyranid]] Splinter Fleet. Whilst the Imperium initially dispatched forces to defend its holdings, the realization that this was part of a trap by [[Drukhari]] combined with the subsector's status as underdefended and strategically unimportant has made [[Roboute Guilliman]] issue new orders: the entirety of the subsector's population are to abandon their worlds and flee, burning their homes behind them to starve the Tyranids of biomass.

Sadly, the order comes too late, and the tenuous "breach" in the tumultuous Warp Storms enveloping the subsector is sealed by Drukhari manipulation. Desperate to escape, at the command of Skywatch Chapter Master Orion Phatris, the entire refugee fleet - the entirety of the [[Space Marine]] Chapters known as the Skywatch, the Crimson Razors and the Tempered Hands, nearly a thousand other Astartes from various other Chapters, the entire Sector Battlefleet, thousands of Astra Militarum regiments, and various supporting elements of the Adepta Sororitas, Adeptus Mechanicus, and Imperial Knight Houses, as well as the refugees of all the once-inhabited worlds - is ordered to try and make a Warp Jump by piercing through the "weakest part" of the ring of Warp Storms: the Cicatrix Maledictum.

Naturally, it goes horribly fucking wrong.

The refugee fleet arrives on the distant rim of an entirely separate galaxy, beyond the light of the [[Astronomicon]], and unbeknownst to them straying into the territory of the Galactic Republic. Sensing their arrival, Supreme Chancelor/Secret Sith Lord/All-Around Douchebag Palpatine dispatches a small fleet to investigate. When the first Imperial ship arrives, Palpatine secretly contacts a Clone Trooper in command of one of the ships and uses one of the bio-chip encoded orders to force him to make a hyperdrive-boosted kamikaze strike on the vessel. It doesn't finish off the ship, but when the Jedi Knight commanding the fleet as a whole sends several more ships in to rescue the survivors, the Imperials panic and detonate their Warp Core to commit suicide.

Cue the ''rest'' of the Imperial Refugee Fleet asrriving, being less than thrilled with what they see, and... well, things get really messy, really quickly.

=Forces of the Xek-Tek Refugee Fleet=
==Homebrew==
* '''Skywatchers:''' An [[Ultramarine]] Successor Chapter. Fleet-based, with a philosophy basically akin to the Recongregators faction of the [[Inquisition]] - they specialize in putting down insurrections and cleaning up governmental corruption, nepotism, and general incompetence.
* '''The Crimson Razors:''' An [[Imperial Fists]] Successor Chapter. Picture a cross between the [[Black Templars]] and the [[Space Sharks]].
* '''The Tempered Hands:''' An [[Iron Hands]] Successor Chapter. Said to specialize in blitzkrieg tactics. Don't really do anything until Chapter 40.
* '''Vastellen Irregulars:''' A conscript-based Imperial Guard regiment from the ice world of Vastellen. Noted for high numbers, lackluster training, and notoriously apathetic and borderline incompetent officers. Troopers are loyal to each other... not so much to the chain of command. [[Catachan]]-esque "fragging incidents" are reputed to be a major problem.
* '''Colambian Patriots:''' An Imperial Guard regiment hailing from the [[Hive World]]/[[Death World]] hybrid of Colambia, a place that... look, we'll give this its own entry below. The Patriots are specialists in assymetric and unconventional warfare, honed over generations of repelling [[Ork]] raiders. Favor autoguns over lasguns.
* '''Karkosan Untouchables:''' An Imperial Guard regiment made up of penitent sanctioned [[mutant]]s, hailing from a desert world once highly valuable for its bounty of minerals used to make adamantium alloys. Notorious for their brutality. Armed with Volkus Pattern Magma Guns, which douse foes in molten, quick-hardening stone.

==Canon==
* [[Adeptus Soritas]]
* [[Adeptus Mechanicus]]
* [[Space Wolves]]
* [[Salamanders]]
* [[Death Korps of Krieg]]
* [[Cadian]]s

=Subsector Xek-Tek=
Details on the home subsector of the Imperial Refugees are brought up in passing during the story, with larger exposes on various topics occuring during the post-episode "aftertalks".

Subsector Xek-Tek was never troubled by [[Chaos]], even during the [[Horus Heresy]]. Its major threats have instead been threefold. Firstly, when colonized, it was home to an alien coalition similar in nature to the [[T'au]]... if the T'au were [[psyker]]s who focused on assimilating alien races and then fielding wildly un-homogenized forces with a unique array of technologies and abilities instead of on being the [[Mobile Suit Gundam]] Rip-Off Faction. Secondly, [[Ork]]s have been a recurring threat throughout the subsector's history. Finally, the last major threat faced before the subsector was abandoned and burned to the proverbial ground was, of course, the [[Tyranid]]s.

Let's talk a moment about '''Colambia''', and how it's possible to be both a [[Hive World]] and a [[Death World]]. At first glance, Colambia seems lush and green despite the fifty hive cities scattered around the place. This is because of [[archeotech]] terraforming devices in each Hive... which was deemed necessary because Colambia is too close to the sun to support life normally. So, to maintain their functionality, every so often, when certain conditions are met, the hives ''shut off the artificial atmosphere''. Cue the denizens fighting to get to the safety of the hives before they get cooked. Then, as the systems reactivate and begin terraforming the planet back to its beautiful state, a series of environmental disasters start up and begin killing all of the surviving Hivers who haven't made their way into the cities' survival bunker, with each one only able to hold a million people. The whole process takes about forty years and leaves only a few hundred thousand survivors in total each time.

=The Warp vs. the Force=
Naturally, you're probably wondering how these two stack up, since that's kind of a big thing in crossovers like this. Well, nobody in universe has really sat down and 'talked shop', but the author has commented on it in their episodic "after talks".

Basically, the [[Warp]] and [[the Force]] are two sides of the same coin - in essence, the Warp is the Force's Dark Side ''after'' it's been bloated to hell and back on the collective suffering, rage and negativity of the War in Heaven, to the point it has spawned self-perpetuating consciousnesses within itself. As a result, outside of the Milky Way, the Force is far more peaceful, which ironically makes it a lot easier for [[psyker]]s to do their thing.

This means Jedi and Psykers are basically the same thing, though filtered through their respective cultural lenses. And, of course, it's much safer to use psychic powers in the far-flung galaxy than it was in the Milky Way!

Whilst Imperial Psykers have a far greater arsenal of offensive psy-powers, as well as uses for psionic energy that the Jedi have either forgotten or never dreamed about, the Jedi have far greater control, dexterity and confidence with their powers than the average Imperial Psyker. When facing anything short of a [[Space Marine Librarian]], a Jedi can easily disrupt, dispel or nullify a psyker's powers because it is easy for them to "break the wrist", as it were. Space Marine Librarians, on the other hand, have far greater wills, far more experience, more raw power and, frankly, lack the crippling self-loathing of the average Imperial Psyker, so Jedi find it all but impossible to pull this trick on them.

Soritas "Miracles", incidentally, are described as resembling the reverse of a Sith technique where a powerful Sith would absorb the psionic energies of weaker underlings to empower themselves; instead, the Soritas subconsciously taps into and draws upon the vast psychic reserves of the Emperor himself. Because of this, the Jedi can't "disable" a Faith Power the way they can a psyker's spell.

=Strengths of the Republic=
Let's not mince words here; the Imperial Refugees ''drastically'' outclass the Republic when it comes to their respective specialist forces. [[Space Marine]]s curbstomp pretty much anything that isn't a Jedi, and the Crimson Razor [[Space Marine Librarian|Epistolary]] takes on over a ''hundred'' Jedi simultaneously, kills dozens, wounds dozens more, and causes one to Fall to the Dark Side before being brought down with a lightsaber through one heart and two lungs, and he might have survived if he hadn't given the Jedi Council's High Librarian the chance to core him like an apple with a Sith War-era energy blaster. Imperial Ships are far bigger and more heavily armored than their Republic counterparts, outrange them with their arsenals, and are far more durable in a ramming incident. The Imperials are far more battle-hardened and zealous than the Republic is. But despite this, the Republic aren't defenseless, either.

One for one, Clones are easily equal to the Imperial Guard. Blasters are on tier, power wise, with Lasguns - in fact, their specialization to make them better at defeating [[Robot|droids]] makes blasters surprisingly deadly to [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] forces - but they do have the drawback of being much easier to dodge. Clone Trooper armor actually completely nullifies lasguns... well, the ''first'' hit, anyway, after which it becomes useless.

Adding to their technological parity, Clones have the benefit of far greater tactical creativity and freedom compred to the Imperials. It's not that the Imperial forces are ''stupid'', it's just they tend to be... hidebound. There are consequences to having [[Commissar]]s and [[Adeptus Soritas]] constantly watching you for unacceptable mental deviancy; Imperials are usually rather rigid in their thoughts, though the exceptions are deadly. In cointrast, the Republic gives the Clones full freedom, and they excel at tactical innovation on the battlefield.

The Jedi/Space Marine disparity is also unfairly stacked in the Space Marine's favor only because the Jedi have grown rusty over thousands of years of peace. Back in the last Sith War, they used ''armor'' and wielded far more destructive weaponry and techniques; now they just run around in robes waving lightsabers and using only the most basic Force manuevers. And even then, if a Space Marine finds themselves up against a properly battle-hardened Jedi, things are a lot less stacked in the Imperial's favor than they seem - lightsabers go through ceramite like they were [[Power Weapon]]s. If the Jedi shake off the dust and start getting back into Sith War-tier condition, things are only going to get worse for the Imperials.

The Republic also may have crappier weapons-tech in blasters, but that's only because of the centuries-old treaty from the end of the last Jedi/Sith War, followed by centuries of widespread peace. With the Imperium goading them, the Republic is being pushed to expand their arsenal, both by dusting off some of the really nasty shit they used in the last great war, and by inventing entirely new ways to fuck people over. And when it comes to innovation, the Republic has the Imperials beat hands down - the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] may be geniuses in their own right, but their focus is on reverse-engineering, not creating from scratch, and even then they move at a pace ranging from "sluggish" to "glacial". The Republic-turned-Empire was able to build the first Death Star in 21 years, and the second was over halfway complete in just 4 years - in contrast, it takes the Mechanicus about a century or so to make ''one'' ship. And even an Imperial ship vs. a fully functioning Death Star is not exactly a fight stacked in the Imperium's favor.

Which brings up the least flashy but also perhaps the most vital strength the Republic has: logistics. The Imperial Refugees are alone; their arrival in the galaxy was a complete fluke, they can't even perceive the [[Astronomicon]] to begin navigating back home, they can't contact home, and nobody is coming for them. Even if the [[Imperium]] ''knew'' where the Xek-Tek Survivors had ended up, they would almost certainly not bother coming to get them because they simply can't spare the manpower - remember that little thing called the [[Indomitus Crusade]]? Honestly, you have to suspect that [[Roboute Guilliman]] would have some pretty choice words for the poor sap who calls him on the Astropathic Choir and tells him they went and picked the Imperium a fight with ''an entire second galaxy''. So that means that the refugees, as massive as their initial numbers are, don't have the greater bulwark of the Imperium's reserves to replenish their casualties and supplies. Which also highlights the Imperium's biggest logistical issue even in the Milky Way: their extraordinarily wasteful and inefficient resupply rate. Even with a fully functioning manufactorum, it canonically takes the Imperium ''years'' to make even heavier equipment, like [[bolter]]s. And then there's their elite forces; it takes decades and well over a thousand aspirants to get ''one'' rookie [[Space Marine]]. And one Space Marine facing the equivalent of a hundred-thousand Imperial Guardsmen armed with Tau Plasma Rifles is... well, it's not likely to end very well for the Space Marine, is it? And that's assuming the Republic hasn't reverse-engineered [[Power Armor]] by then! The Imperial Refugees, then, are literally at risk of being bled dry, as the Republic has more manpower, more resources, and will both advance its basic tech ''and'' replenish its losses far faster than the Refugees. It might be a slow, lingering death... but it wouldn't make them any less dead.

=Playlist=
* https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzgscHwzoNQqL9m9zp9puZK129MN42h2c

[[Category: Stories]]