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Asdrubael Vect

2017-06-14T07:52:44Z

2001:8003:2A17:F00:F878:7B2F:1123:D473: /* Dark Times Ahead? */

[[File:Bild22.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Asdrubael Vect in all his bitch-getting glory.]]

[[Image:Blackholeinabox.jpg#file.png|thumb|right|And you thought Eldrad was a prick. (This is canon, by the way.)]]

'''Asdrubael Vect''' is the biggest [[troll]] to ever walk the [[Warhammer 40,000|40k]] universe. He is also a [[Dark Eldar|sick]] [[Honsou|fuck]].

Vect is the [[Archon|Supreme Lord]] of the [[Kabal of the Black Heart]] and the Pimp Master General of [[Commorragh]]. He spends most of his time plotting how to troll people hundreds of years in the future. Some people even go so far as to say that the Fall was just one big practical joke on his part. Basically, he does it for the [[lulz]].

He's also one really old son of a bitch. Apparently older than a [[Slaanesh|FUCKING GOD]]! He gives [[Eldrad]] penis envy.

He's also a close combat monster on the tabletop, being one of the few characters who can reliably go toe to toe with [[Abaddon|Abaddon the Despoiler]] and win, something he shares with [[Mephiston]] and the [[Swarmlord]]. Entire armies suffer critical existence failure the moment he gets within reach. I mean Jesus Fucking Christ.

== Being one of the oldest pricks in history, predating even Eldrad ==
Asdrubael Vect is bigger than a [[Eldrad|dick]], he's a prick. He is constantly bringing things to an unprecedented level of dickishness allowing himself to steeple his fingers and cackle "[[Just As Planned]]!" while, [[Indrick Boreale|simultaneously]] having his cock sucked by his twin blonde lesbian sex slaves. Yeah, he's just that much of a boss.

In fact the only reason he managed to last this long is because no one has ever been able to out-prick him. And, considering Commorragh is a place where rape is considered as exciting a pastime as eating a ham sandwich, that's fucking saying SOMETHING. There have been numerous occasions where the various Archons of other Kabals have tried to assassinate him in order to gain lordship over all of Commorragh. So far Vect has managed to trump each of them in the most dickish ways possible. Just a small example: he planned for the invasion of Commorragh by three [[Space Marine]] chapters in order to [[Just_as_planned|kill off all of the other major Archons]] in Commorragh except for himself, ensuring he would be unopposed and unbeatable in the Dark City. Vect also disposed of one of his rivals, Archon Qu, by getting Qu's daughter to betray him; she was one of Vect's sexual conquests. Archon Qu was then flayed and his essence trapped in the flayed skin. Vect probably brings Qu's daughter down there so she can suck Vect off in front of her father and he can't do anything but watch. What a prick!

==List of Asdrubael's greatest achievements==
•Captured a strike cruiser of the [[Salamanders]] in order to bait the Imperium into attacking Commorragh, and made sure to set things up so the fight'd drag out and lure his direct obstacles; the houses of the aristocracy, into fighting amongst themselves to claim this prize. The Imperial Navy and Salamanders strike force, including two more cruisers and a Battle Barge, that barged in afterwards, took the captured ship back and killed the nobles before retreating from the Dark Eldar's retaliation, ensuring Vect ruled unopposed. "[[Just As Planned]]!".

•Killing more of his own allies than [[Kharn|this other pretty cool guy to be around]].

•Being a dick PAST [[Eldrad]] and [[Creed]]'s level WITHOUT Eldrad's psychic powers.

•Having a pimpier throne than the Emprah.

•Crashed a Space Hulk full of daemons into a fortress of the only Archon who came to really threaten him, turning his entire realm into a daemon-infested hellhole.

•Tricked a Dark Eldar Lord of a webway realm who refused his rule into opening a present from him with a BLACK HOLE in it. Surprise!

•To elaborate on the daughter example above; Vect defeated Archon Qu, Lord of the Iron Thorn, by persuading Qu's daughter to betray him. Vect's Kabal didn't have the military might to guarantee victory, so he got Qu's daughter to betray her father and deliver the realm into Vect's hands. [[Just As Planned|What Qu didn't know was that his daughter had become one of Vect's courtesans long before]].

•Somehow maintaining control of hordes of crazy Dark panzees without being killed or tortured (or both at the same time) FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS AND COUNTING.

•Turning devious plots of his rival Archons against themselves. Especially if those plots involve daemons.

•Stripped a small Craftworld of all wraithbone and soulstones, and used them to create a dark Wraithguard army, meant to be used as his own personal punisher army, and pushed all the blame (and eventual Harlequin revenge) on one of his expendable allies.

•Brought a human prisoner to him for a nice cup of tea and told him the story of The Fall. When asked why Vect was doing this, he simply replied that he liked telling the story and everyone else had already heard it. Then he stopped just before the end and sent the human away, ensuring he would constantly be bugged and tormented by not knowing how the story ends, but not before mentioning the tea they had causes extreme (as in 5-hour long stomach cramps) indigestion in humans.

•He also contributed part of his Kabal to the Eldar's joint effort from Iyanden and Biel-Tan to stop Hive Fleet Leviathan from annexing a part of Hive Fleet Kraken in the Valedor supplement (GASP: A warhammer 40K campaign that, for once, doesn't involve Space Marines!). This happened because the Tyranids had somehow managed to enter the Webway and [[Troll|to taunt the Eldar of Iyanden about their necromancy]].

•Just the fact that he's managed to stay alive for so long, being older than Slaanesh itself (at least in the material universe's concept of time, Slaanesh and the other gods are implied to always have existed in the Warp in some form) is a pretty huge feat. Although that there are several "old archons" that find the story of the fall familiar, so he's possibly not the only one pre-Fall survivor.

==Dawn of War Soulstorm==
Believe or not, Vect is one of those important figures in 40k that made an appearance in video game like Abbadon. However, no one seems to care because he was overshadowed by other [[Indrick Boreale|hilariously]] [[Carron|bad]] [[Commander Or'es'Ka|things]] about this game, even his own idiot apprentice [[Archon Tahril|Tahril]] made more appearance than he did. the only screentime the big V gets is from taking his Dais out for a spin as the Dark Eldar Relic unit of glass cannon doom.

He is also encountered in the Dark Eldar Stronghold, where he ran away on his pimp ride full of hoes like a little bitch, swore to rape Tahril for his failure but got his ride shot down by your troops (Vect most likely didn't die, however. According to Tahril after seeing Vect crash, "If he had died, I should have taken his place."). Overall, the presentation for Vect in this game is rather disappointing, for the fact he never really made any awesome quote or any smart dickery like [[Sindri]] other than just chilling on his pimpmobile like a couch potato.

Granted this is all form before 5th edition's revamp, before that Vect had no traits or backstory other than the leader of the Dark Eldar.

== Dark Times Ahead? ==
Due to Games Workshop not giving Vect a new model (and ignoring his old one); as of the 7th edition Dark Eldar codex [[FAIL|Asdrubael Vect is no longer a playable character]]! Think of the implications; that'd be like cutting Marneus Calgar from the Ultramarines (not that Games Workshop would ever do that), removing the Phoenix Lords from Craftworld Eldar or taking [[Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka|Ghazghkull]] out of Ork armybooks. It's possible that Vect may come back in a supplement (he damn well better), but for now, he exists only in the fluff (which is thankfully unchanged). On a completely unrelated note, suck our balls GW.

<s>While it's no big surprise the characters without models were cut from the rules, the reason for Vect's absence from the front lines in 7th edition is, apparently, because the Dark Eldar weren't quite going in the direction GW wanted them to. Having Big Daddy Vect lead his forces into battle like the aforementioned Marneus Calgar implied they function like any other army in the setting which they don't. They're scumbag pirates. They lash out from the webway in raiding parties to cause as much mayhem and misery as possible before legging it back to Commarragh with whatever booty they managed to grab. There's also there's the fact that if Vect left his city for any amount of time it wouldn't be his city by the time he got back because he'd find [[Lady Malys]] or some other ambitious Archon sitting in his chair.</s>

Those excuses are ''bullshit''. There are several instances in 7th edition codex fluff where Vect left Commrragh to personally led raids on realspace, yet when he came back Commorragh was still his city, so him being playable is still in keeping with the lore (if anyone thinks to take Vect's throne while he's away will get a [[Urien Rakarth|nasty surprise]] from Vect when he gets back). In addition, the codex states drinking in the wholesale agony from a realspace raid is they only way an Archon (which Vect is) can regenerate as they're so inured to pain it takes a true atrocity to reinvigorate them. The Dark Eldar 'Path of the...' novels also state that Vect makes use of loyal (brainwashed or controlled-by-threat-of-Haemonculi) body-doubles, so one could hold down the fort while he goes gallivanting around on raids. Third, even if it is old and clunky, Vect STILL has a model. The only reason for his removal is either they're planning to bring Vect back in a new (and expensive) expansion focused on the Black Heart Kabal or at least one of the people in the company doesn't like him and is using their power to serve their disapproval.

== Vect Decay ==

During the ''Gathering Storm'' campaign in which an Avatar of Ynnead is born, Vect isn't happy about this in the slightest, mostly because this triggers Khaine's gate to shatter and daemons to invade Commoragh. In the initial battle, Vect runs away like a bitch pretty much in plain view of every important person in the city. Later on he sends Urien Rakhart and the Haemonculi to hunt down Yrvainne, but they flee in terror after it is discovered that the Yncarne can perma-kill them. Vect then sends his Kabal after her, but Yrvainne has Harlequins help her keep one step ahead of Vect. He insinuates to his court and servants that the Dysjunction was [[just as planned]], but everyone knows that's BS (though Vect is still feared enough that no one calls him out on his obvious lie). By the end of the story Vect has failed to contain the threat, many of the Dark Eldar (including Lelith Hesperax) leave to go join the Ynnari, his entire court is pissed at him, and several Archons are talking about leading an overthrow with the loudest being Lady Malys. Insult to injury, it is the Mandrakes that finally manage to drive off the invading daemons, completely upstaging Vect. Basically, everything falls apart for poor Vect the second he has to deal with some rapid-fire not as planned, his ten millennia of magnificent trolling and tactical genius are forgotten and he's been reduced to an ineffective cartoon villain who will likely be killed off unceremoniously.

{{Template:Dark Eldar-Characters}}

Ecclesiarchy

2017-06-14T07:44:00Z

2001:8003:2A17:F00:F878:7B2F:1123:D473:

"''Hence Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant, a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point may be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely more because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.''"

-[[C. S. Lewis]]

"''Thought for the day: blind faith is a just cause.''"

The Adeptus Ministorum, or '''Ecclesiarchy''', is the state church of the [[Imperium of Man]] and works with the [[Inquisition]], making it ''the'' group which defines [[heresy]]. The name is derived from the book of the Bible ''Ecclesiastes'' (an understandable choice, since The title Ecclesiastes is a Latin transliteration of the Greek translation of the Hebrew Kohelet, meaning "Gatherer", but traditionally translated as "Teacher" or "Preacher", the pseudonym was used by the author of the book).

[[File:Cathedral.jpg|right|thumb|500px|The Imperium spares no expense on its houses of worship, unfortunately we can't say the same about civilian accommodations...]]

When the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] began setting up the Imperium, he began instituting the [[Imperial Truth]], which basically said "there are no gods and we're doing materialism and rationalism now." Yet even during the Great Crusade people began worshiping the Emperor as a "God-Emperor", including his own son [[Lorgar]], who wrote the Lectitio Divinatus. Which, ironically, proved effective at causing pain to demons when lines from it were spoken to them (since the Emperor had it backwards; faith and religion didn't give the Chaos God's power, faith and religion towards other things besides Chaos actually ''starved Chaos of power''). Suitably embarrassed, the Emperor politely informed Lorgar to stop that... by having the [[Ultramarines]] destroy a city the [[Word Bearers]] set up and then forcing Lorgar to bow down to Himself, [[Malcador the Sigillite]], and [[Roboute Guilliman]] in front of his legion. In an unfathomable and completely-impossible-to-predict act of [[Heresy]], this would lead to Lorgar worshiping the [[Chaos Gods]] and starting the [[Horus Heresy]].

And Rawbutt Girlyman is back, and he does not like the Ecclesiarchy (though it's their fundamentalism and reverence of the Emperor that Guilliman has issues with, not so much theism and religion itself; note his permissiveness of the Adeptus Mechanicus and Omnissiah and his alliance with the Ynnari, agents and an avatar of the Eldar god of death). However the words of Cawl, Celestine and several others have made him keep the peace.

==The Church Itself==

The Ecclesiarchy itself is, officially at least, the one true faith of the God-Emperor. It is the organization dedicated to teaching His truths and His will to the vast masses of humanity, and all are united under it's banner. Therefore, no matter where you go the Imperium, the Cult of The Emperor can be found uniting it's masses under His benevolent rule. The reality, of course, is a bit more complex. The problem is that the Imperium is vast. Like, really vast. So much so that no one really knows how big it is, and an empire that big couldn't even begin to manage a galaxy wide faith. Therefore, what actually happens is that the Church of the God-Emperor is split into many faiths that don't actually resemble each other in any way.

On some worlds, the Emperor is worshiped as a distant father, watching over his children from far away. Others associate Him with a force of nature, believing that the wind is His voice and when He is angry He shouts at them causing great winds. Others assign some sort of totem animal, usually a predatory bird, that is considered sacred in His eyes. Some practice hymns and chants that wouldn't be out of place in our modern age, others prefer ritualistic dances and animal sacrifices. Despite all this varied and at times bizarre forms of faith, one thing is certain; there is only one god, only one Emperor, and they are one and the same.

The Ecclesiarchy attempts to promote and maintain the Cult of The Emperor wherever it can, if it is possible, to shape the local faith into something a bit more orthodox. As such, any planet with an Ecclesiarchal presence will eventually begin to resemble other faiths. Chapels will be built, a hierarchy of priests will emerge (what that hierarchy or even the priests will look like is a different thing altogether), and more extreme or shocking practices slowly weeded out or shaped into different forms. Even human sacrifice is re-purposed for the Emperor's benefit, as a culture that practices such things is much more willing to give up psykers to the Black Ships.

Ironically, this makes the Ecclesiarchy oddly tolerant and open minded as they travel across worlds. They are trained to see past the individual beliefs to examine the core of the faiths they encounter, and therefore are unexpectedly tolerant of opposing sects, where more close minded citizens would be quick to denounce them as heretics and traitors. After all, the Emperor is a wise and benevolent god who loves all his subjects regardless of who they are, and the Ecclesiarchy follows His example.

The one area the Ecclesiarchy tends to butt heads is with the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]]. On the surface, the Cult of the Machine God runs completely counter to worship of the God-Emperor, especially since the Mechanicus' religion predates the Imperial Cult (and the Imperium itself) by a few millenia. However, there is little that the Ecclesiarchy can do about it, since 1. The Treaty of Mars guarantees not only autonomy, but religious exemption to the Mechanicus, and 2. Pissing off the Mechanicus is a bad idea since they control all the ships and tech. Because going to war with half of the Imperium would be monumentally stupid, they came up with a compromise that the Emperor is the physical avatar of the Machine God, bringing the Mechanicus closer in line to the Imperial Cult. This compromise isn't very satisfying for the more extreme fanatics, which can and does form conflict between the institutions beyond the political strife of two powerful organizations arguing over jurisdiction.

Less tense are the relations between the Ecclesiarchy and the [[Adeptus Astartes]]; Most Space Marines, the Black Templars excluded, do not officially embrace the Imperial Cult, having followed the older [[Imperial Truth]] that the Cult eventually supplanted. Instead most view the Emperor as a father figure than as a God. The Ecclesiarchy allows this since, in a manner of speaking, it's true that the Emperor is their father and they're not stupid enough to start a holy war against one of the most powerful military assets the Imperium has to offer; not to mention that few priests have the sheer balls to argue faith with a ten foot tall giant in heavy armor, although anyone else who denies the divinity of the Emperor is fair game. Still, as a show of good faith, the Ecclesiarchy presents Rosariuses to [[Chaplain]]s to demonstrate the supposed relationship between the Imperial Cult and the ancient spiritual traditions of the Astartes. The only exemption are the Iron Fathers of the [[Iron Hands]], who worship the Machine God of the Mechanicus instead, something that bitterly annoys the Ecclesiarchy.

==Age of Apostasy==

{{Main|Age of Apostasy}}

After the Emprah was hooked up to the Golden Throne, a "Cult of the Savior Emperor" (more often referred to as the "Imperial Cult", since every Imperial's a member) was set up and eventually became the state religion as the Adeptus Ministorum, declaring the Emperor's very own Imperial Truth as Heresy. Well, more like claiming that the Emperor was trying to protect them through encouraging their ignorance of daemons. After all, declaring the Emperor's laws to be heresy would ''not'' go over well with the Astartes and Custodes.

The Ecclesiarchy was able to seize real political power in the wake of the [[Nova Terra Interregnum]]; after secular politics failed to reunite the twin empires of the Imperium, the Imperial Cult was able to leverage the widespread religious belief in the Emperor to bring Nova Terra back into the fold. However, this did not go smoothly; the Cataclysm of Souls resulted in vast amounts of bloodshed for anyone who rejected the Imperial Cult. This paved the way for the Age of Apostasy, when rival factions within the Imperial Cult battled for control of the church.

The Ecclesiarch, the head of the Ministorum, eventually got on the [[High Lords of Terra]], eventually supplanting the Master of the [[Administratum]] ''(the guy who actually runs the government)'' as head of the Council. To show just how much power they could wield, the Ecclesiarchy moved from Terra to Ophelia VII at great expense, leaving Terra to rot, then moved back once they felt that they made their point.

After that, the Ecclesiarchy did what every powerful group does: become more interested in its own power than the people they're supposed to be ministering, and public funds and taxes ended up funneling their way into the church, religious officials were making decisions on national policy and the like, since the Ecclesiarchy figured that the church and the state should be pretty much the same thing. The Ecclesiarchy also had a standing army called the '''Frateris Templar''' which stood apart from the [[Imperial Guard]], but was presumably bad-ass considering how wealthy the church was at the time.

=== Reign of Blood ===
Things took a major turn for the worse when '''[[Goge Vandire]]''', the Master of the Administratum, became Ecclesiarch at the same time, making himself the single most powerful person in the Imperium and started the Reign of Blood. Even by 40k standards this guy was nutters: He convinced an all-female sect called the "Daughters of the Emperor" ([[Daughters of Terra|No,not them...]]) to rename themselves the "Brides of the Emperor" and become his bodyguards, they were also give the ''"finest weapons and armour"'' that the Administratum and the Ecclesiarchy could provide, which probably meant they were far better equipped than the later Sisters of Battle ever were.

He also instituted big brother policies of having [[Servo-skull]]s on every street corner listening for sedition, and engaged in mass executions/pillaging for the lulz, such as virus bombing planets, enslaving all female civilians of certain planets below the age of 12, melting polar ice caps etc, all the while claiming that he heard the voice of the Emperor himself.

A "rogue" preacher named [[Sebastian Thor]] and his "heretical" sect (the '''Confederation of Light'''), supported by a couple Space Marine Chapters and the Adeptus Mechanicus, went "fuck this" and invaded Terra to remove Vandire from the throne (so to speak). To the surprise of all present (except the Brides/Daughters), the defenders not only held off the invaders, but actually managed to give them a real beating. Before things got out of hand, the Adeptus Custodes took the leader of the Daughters to the Golden Throne to have a chat with the Emperor. She got insanely pissed off by something that happened there and cut off Vandire's head.

===Thorian Reformation===

Afterwards, Thor didn't actually sit still and started travelling the Imperium to put things back together again and preaching the Emperor's good name. Once Terra had recovered, they had only one person in mind for the job of Ecclesiarch: Thor, but he refused to come back until the Imperium [[What|declared him a traitor]] and sent an army to collect him.

Back at the Imperial Palace, the Captain of the Custodes took him aside for a quiet word, and told him that he should either take the job or end up [[Blam|vanished]]. Thus, as the newly appointed Ecclesiarch, Thor started the Thorian Reformation, in which the Temple of the Saviour Emperor was supplanted by Thor's Confederation of Light. The Ecclesiarchy was stripped of all military power and the '''Frateris Templar''' had their funding cut and were reduced to the '''Frateris Militia''' which were not allowed to be paid or trained under the Ecclesiarchy's budget, but, fortunately for them, since they were specifically banned from keeping "''men'' under arms", they [[Rules lawyers|reformed]] the Daughters into the [[Sisters of Battle|Battle Sisters]] of the Adepta Sororitas.

The [[Inquisition]] also set up the [[Witchhunters|Ordo Hereticus]] to make sure no one deviated from these new rules. The reformed Ecclesiarchy is only slightly less corrupt and divorced from reality as it was before, but now they feel guilty and beat themselves (and, unfortunately, everyone they minister to, which means every subjects of the Imperium) up about it! Occasionally, they even try (and fail) to fix it!

==Temple Tendency==

{{Main|Temple Tendency}}

Sadly, some people are still ''particularly'' abusive, and these people are accused of having a "temple tendency." Additionally, there's an ''actual'' heretic group called the Temple Tendency. They believe the Confederation of Light are the ''real'' traitors and (secretly) preach their creed in the hopes of turning back the clock. They employ preachers known as Vandiran Apostates, or Shade Priests, which is a much cooler name than "Confessor."

==Organisation==

At the top of the organisation is the Ecclesiarch himself, who is essentially the '''Space Pope''' and the equal-second (after the Master of the [[Administratum]] and along with the Fabricator-General of [[Mars]]) most influential individual in the entire Imperium.

Beneath him are the '''Cardinals''' of the '''Holy Synod'''. Although there are Cardinals all over the Imperium, each ruling their own Diocese ''(which is the religious equivalent to a '''sector''' in terms of size, but not organised the same way)'' the Holy Synod of Terra has a conclave of Cardinals who assist the Ecclesiarch in making religious decisions. Also, occasionally one of the members of the Holy Synod gets a seat on the [[High Lords of Terra]], which is essentially giving the Ecclesiarchy more influence in Imperial affairs (particularly if the Abbess of the Adepta Sororitas gets a seat at the same time)

Beneath the Cardinals it moves downwards through the varying ranks of preachers, clerics, bishops, vicars, abbots, ministers, confessors all the way down to the the guys who light candles at shrines.

Aside from everyday priesthood there are a number of spin-off organisations that operate under the auspices of the Ecclesiarchy in one way or another.

===Adepta Sororitas===
{{Main|Sisters of Battle}}

While the sisters of battle represent the military might of the Ecclesiarchy the other orders of the sororitas also play highly influential roles for the church.

The '''Order Dialogus''' keeps the records and curates the relics of the Ecclesiarchy and are some of the most well educated and respected people in the entire Imperium when it comes to researching histories, languages or customs.

While the '''Schola Progenium''' trains generations of orphans to become "ideal" Imperial citizens, the '''Order Famulous''' get the job of "attending" the next generation of the Imperial elite. Teaching and educating key figures in Imperial nobility, these individuals grow up to be some of the most devout followers of the Imperial Creed and inevitably strong supporters of the Ecclesiarchy.

===Schola Progenium===
{{Main|Schola Progenium}}

===Frateris Militia===
While the military might of the Ecclesiarchy was heavily curtailed by the '''Decree Passive''' that hasn't actually stopped them from summoning huge amounts of manpower when they need to.

All a cardinal needs to do is point somewhere and say the word: "Crusade" and inevitably people will show up voluntarily in their millions. Most of them untrained and ill-equipped. But when it comes to manpower, the Ecclesiarchy can usually rely upon numbers to rival that of the [[Imperial Guard]].

[[Games Workshop]] used to actually have rules for the Frateris Militia waaaay back in the 2nd edition Sisters of Battle Codex, but they vanished inexplicably, reappeared briefly as a Troops choice for Codex: Witchhunters in a White Dwarf trial rules article under the name "Zealots" which could equally have represented [[Redemptionist]]s as well as the Frateris.

They haven't been forgotten about though, and FFG published rules for playing one in [[Dark Heresy]], which is a decent way of giving more non-combat oriented careers the basic training in weapons and a few combat talents far earlier than they could have otherwise obtained.

===Crusader Houses===
{{Main|Crusaders}}
A breach of the '''Decree Passive''', Crusaders are professionally trained warrior-monks, equipped with specialist wargear.

[[Crusaders]] are trained in secretive warrior-lodges that are not directly associated with the Ecclesiarchy at all. According to the Codex: Adepta Sororitas the Crusaders associated with the Ministorum are recruited from the "Guard of the Cardinals Crimson". However, this may be a front, as many Crusader Houses are sponsored by the [[Inquisition]], though it is uncertain if the Ecclesiarchy itself actually knows about that. For its part, the [[Inquisition]] deliberately allows the Ecclesiarchy to possess Crusaders in small numbers - there are all manner of uses for having a provable crime always ready to hand that the Ecclesiarchy is guilty of.

Membership is by invitation-only, chosen from those who will make ideal hand-to-hand warriors. Within the house they are deeply immersed in the Imperial Creed and are trained to be perfect bodyguards, putting the well-being of their holy charges ahead of themselves.

===Battle Conclave===
{{Main|Ecclesiarchy Battle Conclave}}
Whenever a traveling priest (or sometimes an Inquisitor) wants a little more protection, they can form up an [[Ecclesiarchy Battle Conclave]]. Because they can't have too many men due to the Decree passive, many opt instead to go with the scariest, most righteously out-of-their-mind fanatics they can find. Mostly formed from [[Arco-flagellant]]s, Crusaders, and [[Death Cult Assassin]]s, this terrifying force would make anyone think twice about fucking with him.

===Missionarius Galaxia===
Not all of the priests tend shrines or preach at mass. One of the most well known functions of the Ecclesiarchy is bringing religion to the heathen humans beyond the territories of the Imperium.

Most of the missionaries accompany the Imperial Guard as they expand outwards, conquering or reconquering worlds, making certain that those who rebuild afterwards become loyal subjects of the Imperium.

Some Missionaries take it a bit further and don't even travel with Imperial Guard regiments, instead preferring to travel alone to hostile human worlds and bringing the light of the Emperor to them in more peaceful ways. These '''Torchbearers''' are expert survivalists and considerably more resilient than normal Ministorum Priests, having to live and prosper without any back-up at all.

===Confessors & Witch Finders===
Like the [[Inquisition]], the Ecclesiarchy concerns itself with rooting out heresy and apostasy. Unfortunately for the Ecclesiarchy it is not officially sanctioned to do so by the Imperium. However that has not stopped the ministorum from trying.

'''Confessors''' are loud, bombastic and charismatic priests of the Imperial Cult, but are not given specific duties like most members of the priesthood. Instead they are given carte blanche to travel freely from settlement to settlement and "cleanse" them of their sins. Typically by performing rousing soapbox rants about how wicked thoughts make the <s>baby Jesus</s> EMPEROR cry. So people are encouraged to come forward to confess their sins to the confessor where he can decide an appropriate penance for them to clear their consciences. Confessors can be like the 40k equivalent of celebrities, and there is often great anticipation of their arrival in town, and big crowds show up to hear them preach (and probably hear their neighbours salacious confessions too). Sometimes people don't want (or have sins) to confess, so the confessor has to take it a [[RIP AND TEAR|little bit further]] to coax the individual to think hard about their crimes. Usually to the point of the penance afterwards being more merciful than the coaxing itself.

'''Witch Finders''' fulfill much the same function, except are far more pro-active in "finding" sinners but are not necessarily required to be ordained priests, and many of whom are actually [[Inquisitor]]s-in-training. Results can vary in their effectiveness in finding heretics though, since they usually take a religious approach to determining the guilty rather than an investigative approach like normal "sane" people. Some examples of this crazy manner of determining guilt is to lock a suspect in an airlock and evacuate the air for an hour, Or to bury a suspect to his neck in sand and sew their mouth shut and leave them for a week... if they survive then they are deemed a witch and must be incinerated. While this is logically true, since if they survive they MUST be supernatural, it doesn't seem very hopeful for the innocent now does it? At least the Inquisition-proper occasionally gives you some intelligent form of investigation, even if you still die for being innocent.

==Notable Members==
* [[Arch-Confessor Kyrinov]], an Arch-Confessor who uses overt loud-mouthed preaching to conceal the fact that he's a cunning manipulator, often subverting heresies from within.
* [[Uriah Jacobus]], a belligerent old missionary who combines won't stop spreading the word of the Emperor to the darkest parts of the galaxy even though a sane person probably would've retired decades ago.
* [[Cardinal Armandus Helfire]], a bear of a man, Helfire can often be found leading Wars of Faith against Chaos forces near the Eye of Terror. Despite his station, he can often be found living and fighting amongst the soldiers he leads.

{{Template:Imperium}}
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Imperial]]

Communism

2017-06-14T07:33:50Z

2001:8003:2A17:F00:F878:7B2F:1123:D473:

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[[Image:Communismleaders.jpg|right|thumb|400px|Contrary to western propaganda, this is how communism has always worked.]]
:''"Under [[capitalism]], man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite."'' -Attributed to Yakov Smirnov

'''Short answer:''' Government gets to decide who gets what. Often touted as the supreme form of government by drunken poli sci majors.

'''Long answer:''' Communism is the economic and political system, and it works by screwing over the people and claiming it is in the benefit of the whole (the "[[Greater Good]]", so to speak) and the ownership of all industry by the workers. At least the bureaucracy has cool aesthetics when it shows up.

Throughout history there were various systems and methods based around the idea of not owning anything to various degrees (see also: Jesus Christ, the Paris Commune), but proper communism starts with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, a 19th century proto-SJW NEET and a rich kid, turned socialist college student, turned businessman and hypocrite. These two developed their economic theory as a response to the effects of the Industrial Revolution, particularly since OSHA and its analogues and a minimum wage weren't a thing. He observed that while the mechanization of production was a good thing since it generated a lot of wealth, it was [[Butthurt|grossly unfair]] since said wealth was accumulating in the pockets of only a few [[Games Workshop|fucking rich pricks]] and most other people lived in Victorian poverty. He viewed society as being on a very clear cut path of social evolution with clearly defined phases and stages based around competition between various socioeconomic classes, and came to the conclusion that soon a [[Horus Heresy|revolution]] would end the division between social classes entirely as a single centralized state claimed ownership of all property and land for the good of its people. While his motivated reasoning made a few leaps in logic, and he never made a clear explanation of how this all would be achieved, he considered such a transition to be inevitable.

Another controversial aspect of communism, since it's a moral system, is that it tends to be anti-religious; this is why communists are described by their detractors as "godless" (especially Marx's version, as Marx himself was outspokenly anti-theistic atheist, even calling religion "an opiate of the masses, the heart of a heartless world..."). Communism has either caused or played a role in the violent persecution of religion and religious people, and the violent propagation of atheism, from the 20th century onward (as can be seen with Stalin's "League of Militant Atheists" in Soviet Russia). This is also seen to a lesser degree in China, where religion is allowed but tightly regulated...[[Blam|three guess what happens to religious locals who don't adhere]]. Though religious foreigners who don't are just deported; all religious leaders must swear absolute loyalty to the party before anyone or anything else and open evangelism is forbidden. This has resulted in the hilariously terrifying law that the Dalai Lama can't reincarnate without the party's permission - the practical side being that the party will get to choose their own successor for the position. On a somewhat lighter note, Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Terk, was an aggressive atheist who wrote the Federation as an idealized communist economy and made the Klingons and Romulans expies of communist nations. However, today this tends to either [[Skub|generate much debate]] or [[Squat|be swept under the rug]] by society for reasons including increasing secularization of Western society, increased influence and popularity of aspects of [[SJW|leftism]], vehement denials by Libertarians and anti-communist atheists like the late Christopher Hitchens ([[Retcon|who was a former communist himself; an ex-Trotskyist]], and [[Derp|called Communism a ''religion'' in an attempt to misappropriate the term religion and then use the example to smear actual religions by association]]), secular states such as Sweden being heavily Democratic (contrary to some views, Sweden isn't an atheist state; while Sweden is in fact the only Nordic country without a state church, they do not enforce state atheism, approximately 18% are Christian, 5% are Muslim, 45% are agnostic with the remainder being mixed of religious and non-religious) while the last Marxist state, North Korea, formally erased all references to Communism and worships Kim il-Sung as the [[God-Emperor of Mankind]] while at the same time doing things like [http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/11/12/north-korea-publicly-executes-80-for-crimes-like-watching-films-owning-bible.html| killing people for having copies of the Bible].

To make a very long story that composes much of 20th century history short and would likely require a college-level economics course just to understand why events played out the way they did (which doesn't stop modern communists from claiming they understand), some of his ideas were good on paper, but which he forgot the old adage "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". In practice, having [[High Lords of Terra|so much power accumulated in the hands of just a few top-level ministers who weren't accountable to anybody]] didn't work out to the benefit of the people([[derp|who would have guessed]]). Despite aiming for a classless society, oftentimes the heads of the party simply became an unofficial aristocracy, leading to the Orwellian adage "All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others." And that's besides the very frequent and violent purges or political imprisonment. States that attempted to implement communist ideology either tended to devolve into dictatorships themselves (or degenerated worker's states according to Trostsky such as the USSR), got crushed by counter of revolutionaries [[Troll|if a dictatorship was not in place]] (Revolutionary Catalonia), or learned the hard way that collectively controlling an entire economy in every possible way without something going horribly wrong is impossible. A common feature of communist regimes have been famines and a lack of domestic goods due to poor planning and short-sighted top-down strategies. As a result, trying to get it to work made more variations of Communism than there are lasguns in the Imperium.

==Communism in Traditional Games==
In general there are three ways communism is used in fiction and board games:

1: '''''FILTHY GODLESS COMMIE-NAZIS''''': Dangerous, faceless enemies, ripped straight from the wettest dreams of the Cold War-era American John Birch society. These communists are the enemy; a vast, brutal, godless horde determined to take over the world that our heroes must resist. Nowadays, this attitude is usually played for comedy, as in ''[[Paranoia]]'' where Friend Computer's glitched-out personality has made it a paranoid wreck obsessed with a largely-imaginary adversary (while creating some actual communists in the process). By the way, if you want an example of literal CommuNazis, the East German Stasi are a good place to start, although the Nazi part is mostly aesthetic and the Communist ideology is what was dominant. No way would God Emperor Stalin let Nazism actually resurface.

2: '''Champions of the Proletariat''': The other side of the coin to what is listed above. These are either rebels against corrupt corporate overlords (frequently cyberpunk heroes) or a body of workers and soldiers fighting against fascist invaders (any game from the Russian perspective in WWII will count), and most [[That Guy|people]] who complain about [[Games Workshop|GeeDubs]] think they are being this. Occasionally this show up in Medieval settings as anachronistic peasant revolts or other politically-radical types out to pull down the social parts of [[Medieval Stasis]].

3: '''GLORIOUS COMMUNISTS''': Somewhere between the other two and generally played for laughs. Communist regimes are oppressive, but also able to do great things through sheer force of Industrial Might, Soviet Super Science, Stalinist Architecture and Will-Of-The-People and can be heroic just as easily as villainous. See Red Alert-II and III, and to a lesser extent a few parts of the [[Imperium of Man]]. This is as close to the glorious accuracy of communism as you can get, comrade.

Communism has also provided us with the Russian army, which is an awesome gaming resource and reference, in a drunken, drown your enemies with bodies and artillery sort of way in World War II or send in the hardened, manly Spetsnaz and tanks in the Cold War. It is a sacred law of [[/tg/]] alternate history [[/tg/'s homebrews|homebrew]] settings that there must be at least one communist faction and it must control at least 50% of the world's total landmass. Even [[Warmachine| Khador]] draws on the imagery of the Soviet armed forces, despite being more analogous to Tsarist/Imperialist Russia politically, aside from their Manifest Destiny "Why can't everyone else just roll over and let us conquer them?!" ideology that has... [[Nazi| other roots]].

Like all radical ideologies, communists are all over [[Shadowrun|the Sixth World]], mostly among the poor and disenfranchised who can't help looking up at the big fancy megacorp enclaves and wondering how ''that'' makes any kind of just sense. The Berlin Flux State was probably the biggest and most successful anarcho-communist enclave in-setting for a while, before it became such an embarrassment to the megacorps insisting they should be the only game in town that many of them (including the one run by the great dragon Lofwyr) had it dismantled somewhere around second or third edition.

People like to call the [[Tau]] communist. There's ''some'' truth to that, given they're a highly-collective society that generally values group achievement over personal accomplishment, but they're also a largely class-stratified society, with only the assurance that their leaders are theoretically cooperating for the [[Greater Good]] to keep them from being out-and-out feudalists with castes. Then again, that isn't too different from what many commie states became. There was also the [[Gretchin Revolutionary Committee]], a parody of the kinds of communist guerrillas of previous decades, who are armed grots out to demand equal treatment from their Ork masters with comical results. The Imperium, being a decentralized feudalistic empire, undoubtedly has many worlds that have communist governing bodies and economies, and maybe even a few where things worked out okay.

[[Pathfinder Roleplaying Game|Golarion]] has got a semi-hemi-demi communist nation in-setting: Galt, land of insane, constant revolution where the only winners are the ''final blades''. It represents the "messy revolutionary" kind of communism rather than any of the three flavors above, though there's some obvious mixing with the principals of the French Revolution that was its more-direct inspiration.

''[[Star Trek]]'' is complicated. On the one hand, the Federation has essentially a communist economy, but their advanced technology has created a post-scarcity economy, so it can be interpreted that the producers thought this would be a natural product of a society where everybody was self-sufficient. Conversely, their chief rivals, the Klingons and the Romulons, are transparent analogues of the USSR and Maoist China seen through the pre-détente eyes of an American lounge lizard. Similar post-scarcity communists are common in ''[[Eclipse Phase]]'', though with a much stronger anarchist bent. They are largely and uncomplicatedly perfect due to the game designers' raging stiffy for that kind of thing.

Any WWII or quasi-WWII game worth its salt will have a communist faction, including the classic ''[[Axis & Allies]]'' and the modern wargame ''[[Flames of War]]''. Additionally, many classic board games have attempted to tap into the forty-five year struggle for dominance between Amurica and the communists. The most famous and best is probably ''[[Twilight Struggle]]''. [[TSR]] also released an RPG set during the Cold War called ''[[Top Secret]]'', though, like most non-''D&D'' TSR products, no one under thirty-five has ever heard of it.

{{BLAM|This article has been marked as containing treasonous capitalist road sentiments. Please report to your local commissariat for re-education through labor.}}

==Gallery==
<center><gallery>
File:AK-47.jpg|Glorious Soviet Industries could be used to produce huge numbers of reliable and effective things which are still in high demand after a half a century...
File:Lada 1200.jpg|...Their cars are not on that list.
</gallery></center>

[[category:Not related]]