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Bioware

2017-06-07T06:48:24Z

2001:8003:2B47:ED00:7C8D:CC5A:5E56:46C0: /* Mass Effect 2 */

{{/vg/}}

[[Image:Orig 320200 1 1257581825.png|750px|center|thumb| Remember, class, templates are the beginning of truth, not the end of it. (In other words, take it to the Discussion tab, James!)
]]

A major computer game studio primarily driven by two lead designers; their names are Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V.

One of the most popular RPG game makers of modern day, making titles such as Baldur's Gate , Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age. They are currently working on making a [[Warhammer Fantasy]] MMORPG and possibly xenophiles, going by SWTOR AND ME.

==The Rise of Bioware==
Founded by three Canadian doctors in the 90s, Bioware didn't start out publishing RPGs. In fact, it ''started'' doing medical software, before the founders decided to act on their mutual passion for games. Their first game was a [[MechWarrior]]-style simulator game, with the serial numbers filed off. But the founders were all fans of tabletop RPGs, and their second game began life as an independent RPG, but publisher Interplay saw potential in it for hosting their next D&D game, and it became [[Baldur's Gate]], Baldur's Gate became history, and Bioware became renowned as the savior and shining new light for the CRPG.

==Bioware Games==

===Shattered Steel===
A MechWarrior 2 knockoff with less customizability and weirder enemies. No one, not even diehard Bioware fans and video game history nerds, cares about it, so moving on.

===[[Baldur's Gate]]===
The game, the legend, the start of it all. The title that single-handedly saved the CRPG genre from its gloomy slide into irrelevance and [[Blizzard|Diablo-clones]] with smart writing, clever dungeon design, and attempts to actually let the player role-play instead of just throwing in tons of mindless hack-n-slash. Uses a cutdown version of [[AD&D|Second Edition AD&D]] rules, and is generally regarded as one of the best things about the [[Forgotten Realms]] setting. A recent "Enhanced Edition" remake brought it more in line with the sequel, graphics and gameplay-wise, and is well worth a look for the curious.

===Baldur's Gate II===
The second game, the even more legendary legend. From dating your adventuring co-workers to taking the piss out of the situation in dialogue, if you love Bioware's stuff it probably has its origin here. Also a pretty badass follow-up/finish to the saga of the first game, and using a fuller set of the game's rules. Don't play it first, you'll fucking ''ruin'' the original for yourself. Recently got an "Enhanced Edition" too, following in the footsteps of the first.

===Neverwinter Nights===
On the one hand, the story and characters are generally regarded as forgettable at best. On the other hand, a pretty good recreation of [[Dungeons & Dragons|3rd Edition]] rules in video game form, and enough fan-made modules and content to make that last complaint rather moot. If you want to try the official stuff, read a summary of the core game and play the "expansion" stories instead (''Shadows of Undrentide'' and ''Hordes of the Underdark''), which start from level one, tell a continuous story, and have Deekin, who is one of the best things about the game.

===Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic===
One of the first [[Star Wars]] RPGs ever made, KOTOR received widespread praise and acclaim for its complex story and well-written characters, including one of the most famous twists in gaming history. Gameplay-wise, a mostly-fun conversion of [[Dungeons & Dragons]] rules into the Star Wars universe. Faggots will complain about "binary moral choice" systems because that's the trendy thing to do right now, but it broke ground at the time for actually ''incentivizing'' roleplaying and staying in character in a way few other games had before. Sure, the villain's a bit lame, the finale is just an endless swordfight against armies of piss-easy droids, the level cap's way too low considering the levels you can accidentally essentially waste before you can become a jedi, but on the other hand, ''holy shit I can slice through an army with a lightsaber''. To this day, often held up as one of the best things about the Star Wars brand as a whole.

===Jade Empire===
Kung-fu ''wuxia'' action brawler glued to a pretty sweet story with ''another'' great video game twist that plays with the "formula" mentioned above more than the chart would suggest. Bioware's first original role-playing setting was something of a sleeper, not selling in great numbers compared to previous efforts, due in part to cutbacks and restraints, but in the present day is well-regarded by most players. If you haven't tried it, give it a whirl. If nothing else, it's a rare RPG that lets you [[Fist of the North Star|punch someone's pressure points until they explode in a shower of gibs]].

===Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood===

...Yeah, it happened. Story's okay, the character writing is a highlight, and the gameplay mechanics are at the very least quite creative, but the soundtrack is a goddamn ''abomination'', balance is a distant dream on both sides of the screen, and there's just not enough content to justify its existence. Better than the average 3rd party ''Sonic'' title, but... well, that's not exactly a high bar to clear. And the plot ends on a blatant sequel hook that will never amount to anything.

Behind-the-scenes development drama is the chief culprit: Bioware started out on the title as a bit of a passion project for one of the founders, but after working with Sega turned out to be a pain, Ken Penders kicked up a lawsuit against both SEGA & EA, and ''Dragon Age'' started looming on the horizon, they ultimately rushed the whole thing out under the door partway through to fulfil their contract and breezed away, never looking back.

===Mass Effect===

A cosmic horror story-space opera with much potential; handled properly from start to finish, it could have been to video games what Star Wars is to movies and Star Trek is to television. Arguably Bioware's magnum opus, the series ended up being a microcosm of the company's gradual rise and fall. On a side note: it's sad how many people [[RAGE|rage]] about the ending of the third game and forget the high points in the first two (and the supplementary material) that made them love the franchise, if understandable given the pall it casts over the rest of it. [http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect3/mods/66/?| So... here ya go.] Thank me later.

====Mass Effect 1====
The first game in the series was excellent, with top-notch characters, setting (so many interesting alien races...) and story. The presentation... not so much; the graphics and gameplay could be awkward, clunky, and even glitchy at times (ie; sniper rifles have a large hit area where even an intentional close miss would somehow result in a hit, seemingly joint-less ragdolls that often resulted in everyone being in bone-breaking positions even while alive, periodically lulzy physics that can sometimes unintentionally impede your progress, the unpatched overheating bugs that potentially rendered non-soldier classes utterly weaponless... you get the picture). It was still good. There were plenty of interesting side missions to do, most of the characters had decent development so you could like/hate them better (Hell even the side characters were given brief but good backstories), it had a lot of RPG elements that made RPGs lovable, tech and especially biotic powers were hella-fucking-balls fun to use because they were geared towards being more overpowered but mad fun to throw around instead of being stringently balanced (Like in ME2, though ME2 introduced [[Awesome|things such as invisibility tech and the biotic charge]]. ME3 worked a bit to make powers more fun.), and overall you had more control of how you want your Commander Shepard to be through dialog and actions (ME2 gave you slightly less control though it introduced "interrupts" where you push a button to trigger an alternate scene, such as "hug Tali" or "kill jerkass mercs". ME3 made it worse).

There was a gripping DLC mission, "Bring Down the Sky" which involved stopping an anti-human Batarian terrorist from using an asteroid to destroy the human colony of Terra Nova. Of course, while you did have to pay for it in the past (Now it's free), Bring Down the Sky had very little in the way of the story as a whole, so even if you missed out on it, you aren't really missing out on the plot. But then, EA realized this wouldn't make them money, so they turned up the antee in ME2 and Emperor damn them in ME3 for literally making all the important plot-points DLC. It also had "Pinnacle Station," which... existed. (Its smoldering wreckage can be scanned in ME3, an apology to all the fans who bought it.)

Also famous for the indestructible (until you meet a Thresher Maw)-flying-never-run-out-of-ammo armoured exploration vehicle, the MAKO.

====Mass Effect 2====
Mass Effect 2 was a great game, arguably the best of the series (according to fans and critics alike). However, while presentation and gameplay improved it did (debatably) show a drop in character and mission quality compared to the first game; though given how high the first set the bar the second was still good on these counts.

To be fair, ME1 had lots of characters, and it's the job of a good sequel to continue the story while fleshing out existing characters and introducing new ones. ME2 accomplished both, though some characters were better developed than others. At the very least, your squadmates get the full package on character development. Also, something many gamers overlook, there's a limit to much data you can put on a disk and ME2 still required TWO DISCS to fit in all the content (not counting DLC) in a day and age where that kind of thing was not often done anymore. This game also introduced several more alien races such as the Drell (fish/reptile people who live on the Hanar homeworld when they overpopulated theirs), the Vorcha (goblin-like aliens who can re-generate and live on average only 20 years) and the Yahg (big, burly aliens with eight eyes, a pack mentality and armor-plated bodies).

The other shift in direction was that gunfights were ''heavily'' given emphasis, a good chunk of which went in the wrong direction. Long story-short they reduced the effectiveness of power-heavy classes (mostly the adept) by making them largely redundant in the face of combat classes in higher difficulties.

There was quite a change of scope of the story: where ME1 had a mystery to solve and a villain to beat, in ME2 it is your goal to assemble an elite team of the galaxy's best mercenaries, criminals, and specialists to stop a race of aliens called the Collectors abducting humans from their colonies (the Collector's motivation is pretty epic, but explaining that would be a spoiler reveal). The main story is told via a series of side missions that are flung at you now and then (up to a mission aboard a certain derelict where things progress more as an RPG should), but the game keeps telling you that you ABSOLUTELY NEED these people and should recruit them all to improve your chances of survival (some [spoiler: such as your returning two squadmates from the first game] ARE essential, others not so much). Then again, as a character-focused story, some of the best parts of the game came from going on "loyalty" missions with the crew on adventures to different corners of the galaxy, and the "fragmented" nature of the main plot, almost as a side effect, gives the player immense freedom in choosing what order to do them in.

Of course, in regards to DLC, EA ''really'' left their mark. While the minor DLCs (Weapon and armor sets, an old veteran merc out for revenge and a [[Blood Ravens|master thief]] as squadmates, plus an optional story that involves you trying to shut down a rogue AI/Human hybrid before it sets off a technological apocalypse) were decent, EA took three things that should have been in the original game and rendered them DLC: being able to drive vehicles (A hover-IFV this time) in short side missions and two stories that heavily influences the plot of the next game (Liara taking over the Shadow Broker's position and the Reapers' arrival). Overall however, if you don't mind those 3 things, ME2 is still full of boundless amusement from the immersive setting and multitude of ways you can approach the story.

====Mass Effect 3 (The Downfall)====
Mass Effect 3, while it had some good elements, like stream-lining combat, was a big step down from the first two Mass Effect games. Some of the biggest complaints are that it trivialized several choices from the first two games, such as whether you chose to reprogram or destroy a Geth faction in ME2. Also, story-essential characters were reduced to DLC. The first was the sole-survivor of a race thought to be extinct and even then, said character should have been included in the game by default anyway (especially since a lot of the character was on the disc). The second was the remnants of the Reapers' creators, who you were forced to ally with despite the fact that they were obviously evil (They could control the minds of entire populations, [[Eldar|saw themselves as the apex species and everyone else being inferior to them]], and had a massive God complex. Their MO was [[Vlad von Carstein|"serve us willingly or serve us via mind control"]]. Never mind the fact that their own creation bit them in the ass and caused this whole Reaper problem). Surprisingly the game never addresses the fact that, once the Reapers are defeated, their creators will try to take over the galaxy again, something the previous games would have addressed. The most hated part was a sub-par ending that caused massive complaints from players for leaving literally all the plot threads hanging. However, these problems with the third game were because [[EA|most of the development team for the first two games (including several of the writers and head writer Drew Karpyshyn) quit partway through developing the second game/did not return to work on the third game. Their reasons for this were internal strife with Bioware as they were subsumed into EA, conflicts of interest and disagreement over the direction they wanted the story to go]].

Apart from all that bullshit, the gameplay from ME 2 was finetuned to something pretty fun to play (tho still lacking the depth of a true RPG), including melee, new weaponry and powers, and while widely assumed to be an unneeded addition, the multiplayer 'Horde Battles' did have a few good things, like being able to be a fucking Krogan Warlord with a four-meter long Thunderhammer and a cranky temper, or simply win any Bronze game automatically by playing a Geth Prime. A few characters were added and old ones came back, being generally pretty well written, or fucking amazing, if playing the Citadel DLC, and small things, like the "I'm in the middle of some calibrations." social bullshit was removed and made more interactive with the crew. These points are, however, only a few shining lights compared to the black holes of failure the above paragraph details, and are generally not mentioned when discussing ME 3 - And often for good reason.

After the game was released Bioware eventually caved in and produced a free replacement DLC ending that made a bit more sense (and even then the ending is still bollocks and still made little-to-no sense when you add up your whole journey from ME1 to ME3. It did more to explain the fates of the people and races you met and little on how the plot as a whole ended up). Some argue that the series devolved into a Gears of War clone with more dialog options, complete with multiplayer mode. Bioware is making some new game in the franchise, but many say that the main plot of the original trilogy was not resolved well, and said resolution is so broad-based as to make a new game's story... difficult, to say the least; then again, as mentioned before, the change in plot and quality was due to disagreements and rearranging of the games development team. This hasn't stopped them from announcing work on a sequel anyway.

====Mass Effect: Andromeda====

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
[[FAIL]]. Popular idea states pretend it does not exist. Be careful if you collapse this tab.
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If you really want to know about this game, its an intergalactic travel plot that was shoehorned into the original trilogy where people cross the galaxy in Ark ships to escape the Reapers and colonize the Andromeda galaxy. While there, the Milky Way races meet a few alien races, such as Halo Forerunner-expies who don't appear in the game and may have left behind a living [[Eye of Terror|Negative Space Wedgie]] that attacks anything near it [[Grimdark|and can shatter planets]], overemotional furless cat people with genetic memory who struggle to trust aliens after their first contact went badly and a race of rocky-looking, pseudo-religious extremists who worship a scientific genetic assimilation process who, [[Skub|of course]], are the villains (and two-dimensional ones, while [[Skub|possibly]] serving as thinly-veiled negative allegories of certain ideologies and beliefs in real life).

The squadmates are watered down versions of the ones you know and love from the original trilogy and the few interesting characters barely get fleshed out. A few characters from the original trilogy make cameos, but several well-liked ones make no appearance save their voice actors playing a minor NPC. There are also many glitches, bugs and instances of sloppy animations (such as infamously bad facial expressions and running). Good animation is there, and the environments while lacking in uniqueness are visually appealing and very open. On top of the animation issues, the game was bogged down as the writers were clearly trying to push several agendas (it's debatable whether the writers realize there's a difference, for example, between being inclusive towards gay people and pandering to them). In closing, the game reinforces the following quote; “In trying to please all, he had pleased none.”
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===Dragon Age===
The Dragon Age series is a more blatant example of this degradation.

====Dragon Age: Origins====

The original, Dragon Age: Origins, was a game six years in the making, which shows in good ways (immense depth and craft to the situations encountered) and bad (wonky graphics that looked worse than ''Mass Effect'''s, despite coming out nearly a year later.). While far from being the grimdark spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate that Bioware hyped it as, the story of Dragon Age: Origins was above average and possessed an interesting character creation mechanic where your background changed numerous parts of the storyline, the character development was good - but evidence that things were starting to fall apart were obvious right when you met the questgiver who forced you to buy a DLC pack if you actually wanted to do the quest, but only after giving you the sales pitch. The "expansion pack" Awakening wasn't too bad either, at least if you ignored the fact that it had been visibly rushed and was loaded with gamebreaking bugs.

====Dragon Age II====

The most tragic game on the list. A perfect storm of wrongheaded design and corporate mismanagement, Dragon Age II was dead on arrival - the story veered from one plot thread to the next without any rhyme or reason while being completely disconnected to the previous game, most of the characters were either idiots, one-dimensional, or just plain unlikable, and both clearly put trying to be "different" and "unconventional" on a pedestal over being good. [[Star Trek#Films|'Cause it worked sooo well in ''Generations'', right?]] Gameplay was the worst kind of busywork, consisting of [[Dawn of War 2|running through the same not-even-reskinned maps over and over again]], pressing the same buttons to do the same things to the same generic enemies as they teleport in out of nowhere. All these problems might've been ironed out as development went on, if not for the fact that their [[EA|corporate overlords]] had them rushing the game out in '''less than a year''', in their endless quest to have ''all'' their properties work like the Madden and FIFA games they're used to bankrolling. And when, thanks to ''their'' interference, the game under-performed, EA promptly scrapped the expansion they were building to wrap up the dangling, jangling plot threads.

The game can be skipped entirely without missing anything; the narrator appears again in the third game and summarizes all of the important parts in one conversation. It's actually sort of the point of the story that despite Hawke and company winning every battle they were subsumed by greater forces, everything in their lives falls apart anyway, and nothing they did had any lasting effects.

====Dragon Age: Inquisition====

Dragon Age: Inquisition picked things up... a little. It's certainly the best Bioware game for a while, but a lot of that is because literally everything about the game is risk-averse. Both the story and the gameplay are assembled from pure fantasy cliche and the [[grimdark]] city-based environmental art style prevelant in the previous two games has been replaced with a glorious [[noblebright]] mostly-outdoor setting. The storyline is based on the player character accidentally becoming the [[Mary Sue|Chosen One]] by accidentally picking up a shiny green thing which allows them to fix tears in the fabric of reality. The villain has some interesting implications about the lore of the setting, but the writers never really actually commit to any of that lore, preferring to have it remain as hearsay, and the villain becomes boringly one-dimensionally evil because of that. Gameplay-wise, Inquisition started as an MMO, and you can still feel the MMO influence; you explore about ten wilderness zones which are very large and pretty but have very minimal interaction, spend most of your time running fetch quests, and only hit story beats every three levels or so. Combat is a game of managing cooldowns and throwing particle effects everywhere.

That said, unlike some of the past games from Bioware's decline-and-fall period, Inquisition is actually fun to play. Most of the characters in your party are well-rounded (except for Vivienne and to a lesser extent Sera), there's a ridiculously large amount of party banter, and the romance quests actually feature involving character development instead of being something to add to the checklist. There's even some series-essential lore locked away in some of the romances (in particular, Solas's romance reveals absolutely vital information about the history of the Elven race). The gameplay, cliched and MMO-ey though it may be, is actually involving and fun at times, and the quest to hunt down all ten High Dragons is pretty awesome (as well as being pretty much the only way to get value-for-money from the game's otherwise superfluous crafting system; pretty much every piece of gear you can craft is outclassed by the loot you find from monsters, except for crafted items which use Dragon Bone, which are hilariously overpowered). Certainly not a great game, but it's quite good if you aren't overly sensitive to cliche.

*'''Alternate Opinion:'''
:: The above opinion is way too naive. If its an improvement, it's only because they hit rock bottom in the prequel and had nowhere else to go but up. Both the story and the gameplay are assembled from pure fantasy cliche and the grimdark city-based environmental art style prevalent in the previous two games has been replaced with a cookie-cutter outdoor setting that looks like it was directly copied from Skyrim. The storyline is based on the player character accidentally becoming the Chosen One by accidentally picking up a shiny green thing which allows them to fix tears in the fabric of reality, and despite claims to the contrary the choices made in prior games have minimal impact; the fact that all of these choices can be preselected and modified via the use of an application released with the game causes the marketing of "your choices matter" to fall flat on its face. The villain was a character who was introduced in the DLC of Dragon Age 2, which will confuse everyone who didn't happen to buy that particular DLC as his presence in the plot is never foreshadowed even though the player is expected to know who he is. Gameplay-wise, Inquisition started as an MMO, and you can still feel the MMO influence; you explore about ten wilderness zones which are very large and pretty but have very minimal interaction. Nearly every quest boils down to "get this crap for me", and the story progresses in fits and starts (and once again ends on a barely coherent cliffhanger where no plot threads are tied up, because that worked so well with Mass Effect 3). Combat is a game of managing cooldowns and throwing particle effects everywhere.
::Most of the characters in your party are only marginally less one-dimensional than they were in Dragon Age 2, and the dialog can go from dull to pants-on head retarded ("You want to ride The Bull" comes to mind, among many others). The romance sidequests are often tacked-on and seem to cater mostly to yaoi fangirls who don't comprehend the fact the average player of a CRPG doesn't appreciate characters whose entire romance subplot can be summed up as "I am a homosexual, now let's buttfuck each other". The gameplay is copypasted from virtually every MMORPG there is, and while it's not as aggressively bad as Dragon Age 2 that's not saying very much. Overall, it's sad how a supposed successor to Baldur's Gate devolved into a shallow batch of cliches held together only by a colossal marketing budget.

==Associated Games==
Often grouped with Bioware's games, and highlighted as the pinnacles of Bioware's talent, these games were actually made by other, completely-independent, studios: Black Isle Studios and Obsidian, both of which included lot of the same staff. These games used engines developed by Bioware and were licensed by shared publishers, which resulted in graphical and interface similarities. Thus, many players believe that they were made by Bioware when this was not the case.

* [[Planescape: Torment]]
* [[Icewind Dale]]
* Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords
* Neverwinter Nights 2

Both of those last two were rushed out for Christmas, NWN2 with only around nine months development, resulting in whole chunks of the game missing and bugs out the ass. Obsidian wasn't allowed to patch either, though much of the lost content has since been restored by fans.

==The Decline of Bioware==
In 2007, Bioware was bought by [[EA]] and since then their games have been slowly declining in quality. It began between the release of the first Mass Effect game and Dragon Age: Origins (note how EA isn't shown in the opening credits for ME1). More on this can be found in the entries for those two franchises. Simultaneously, their games since have been characterized by rushed output, bullshit predatory business practices, and terribly prevalent DLC. Then the founders all left because it just wasn't fun anymore with the glowing eye of Jon Madden/Sauron looking over your shoulder and trimming away all the fat until only a skeleton was left. They haven't yet been sucked bone dry and thrown on the pile like so many other studios "acquired" by the Men From Redwood City yet, but everyone knows it's coming. The only question is when.

So in short, if you want a good Bioware game, look to the past.

Bioware

2017-06-07T06:45:04Z

2001:8003:2B47:ED00:7C8D:CC5A:5E56:46C0: /* Mass Effect: Andromeda */

{{/vg/}}

[[Image:Orig 320200 1 1257581825.png|750px|center|thumb| Remember, class, templates are the beginning of truth, not the end of it. (In other words, take it to the Discussion tab, James!)
]]

A major computer game studio primarily driven by two lead designers; their names are Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V.

One of the most popular RPG game makers of modern day, making titles such as Baldur's Gate , Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age. They are currently working on making a [[Warhammer Fantasy]] MMORPG and possibly xenophiles, going by SWTOR AND ME.

==The Rise of Bioware==
Founded by three Canadian doctors in the 90s, Bioware didn't start out publishing RPGs. In fact, it ''started'' doing medical software, before the founders decided to act on their mutual passion for games. Their first game was a [[MechWarrior]]-style simulator game, with the serial numbers filed off. But the founders were all fans of tabletop RPGs, and their second game began life as an independent RPG, but publisher Interplay saw potential in it for hosting their next D&D game, and it became [[Baldur's Gate]], Baldur's Gate became history, and Bioware became renowned as the savior and shining new light for the CRPG.

==Bioware Games==

===Shattered Steel===
A MechWarrior 2 knockoff with less customizability and weirder enemies. No one, not even diehard Bioware fans and video game history nerds, cares about it, so moving on.

===[[Baldur's Gate]]===
The game, the legend, the start of it all. The title that single-handedly saved the CRPG genre from its gloomy slide into irrelevance and [[Blizzard|Diablo-clones]] with smart writing, clever dungeon design, and attempts to actually let the player role-play instead of just throwing in tons of mindless hack-n-slash. Uses a cutdown version of [[AD&D|Second Edition AD&D]] rules, and is generally regarded as one of the best things about the [[Forgotten Realms]] setting. A recent "Enhanced Edition" remake brought it more in line with the sequel, graphics and gameplay-wise, and is well worth a look for the curious.

===Baldur's Gate II===
The second game, the even more legendary legend. From dating your adventuring co-workers to taking the piss out of the situation in dialogue, if you love Bioware's stuff it probably has its origin here. Also a pretty badass follow-up/finish to the saga of the first game, and using a fuller set of the game's rules. Don't play it first, you'll fucking ''ruin'' the original for yourself. Recently got an "Enhanced Edition" too, following in the footsteps of the first.

===Neverwinter Nights===
On the one hand, the story and characters are generally regarded as forgettable at best. On the other hand, a pretty good recreation of [[Dungeons & Dragons|3rd Edition]] rules in video game form, and enough fan-made modules and content to make that last complaint rather moot. If you want to try the official stuff, read a summary of the core game and play the "expansion" stories instead (''Shadows of Undrentide'' and ''Hordes of the Underdark''), which start from level one, tell a continuous story, and have Deekin, who is one of the best things about the game.

===Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic===
One of the first [[Star Wars]] RPGs ever made, KOTOR received widespread praise and acclaim for its complex story and well-written characters, including one of the most famous twists in gaming history. Gameplay-wise, a mostly-fun conversion of [[Dungeons & Dragons]] rules into the Star Wars universe. Faggots will complain about "binary moral choice" systems because that's the trendy thing to do right now, but it broke ground at the time for actually ''incentivizing'' roleplaying and staying in character in a way few other games had before. Sure, the villain's a bit lame, the finale is just an endless swordfight against armies of piss-easy droids, the level cap's way too low considering the levels you can accidentally essentially waste before you can become a jedi, but on the other hand, ''holy shit I can slice through an army with a lightsaber''. To this day, often held up as one of the best things about the Star Wars brand as a whole.

===Jade Empire===
Kung-fu ''wuxia'' action brawler glued to a pretty sweet story with ''another'' great video game twist that plays with the "formula" mentioned above more than the chart would suggest. Bioware's first original role-playing setting was something of a sleeper, not selling in great numbers compared to previous efforts, due in part to cutbacks and restraints, but in the present day is well-regarded by most players. If you haven't tried it, give it a whirl. If nothing else, it's a rare RPG that lets you [[Fist of the North Star|punch someone's pressure points until they explode in a shower of gibs]].

===Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood===

...Yeah, it happened. Story's okay, the character writing is a highlight, and the gameplay mechanics are at the very least quite creative, but the soundtrack is a goddamn ''abomination'', balance is a distant dream on both sides of the screen, and there's just not enough content to justify its existence. Better than the average 3rd party ''Sonic'' title, but... well, that's not exactly a high bar to clear. And the plot ends on a blatant sequel hook that will never amount to anything.

Behind-the-scenes development drama is the chief culprit: Bioware started out on the title as a bit of a passion project for one of the founders, but after working with Sega turned out to be a pain, Ken Penders kicked up a lawsuit against both SEGA & EA, and ''Dragon Age'' started looming on the horizon, they ultimately rushed the whole thing out under the door partway through to fulfil their contract and breezed away, never looking back.

===Mass Effect===

A cosmic horror story-space opera with much potential; handled properly from start to finish, it could have been to video games what Star Wars is to movies and Star Trek is to television. Arguably Bioware's magnum opus, the series ended up being a microcosm of the company's gradual rise and fall. On a side note: it's sad how many people [[RAGE|rage]] about the ending of the third game and forget the high points in the first two (and the supplementary material) that made them love the franchise, if understandable given the pall it casts over the rest of it. [http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect3/mods/66/?| So... here ya go.] Thank me later.

====Mass Effect 1====
The first game in the series was excellent, with top-notch characters, setting (so many interesting alien races...) and story. The presentation... not so much; the graphics and gameplay could be awkward, clunky, and even glitchy at times (ie; sniper rifles have a large hit area where even an intentional close miss would somehow result in a hit, seemingly joint-less ragdolls that often resulted in everyone being in bone-breaking positions even while alive, periodically lulzy physics that can sometimes unintentionally impede your progress, the unpatched overheating bugs that potentially rendered non-soldier classes utterly weaponless... you get the picture). It was still good. There were plenty of interesting side missions to do, most of the characters had decent development so you could like/hate them better (Hell even the side characters were given brief but good backstories), it had a lot of RPG elements that made RPGs lovable, tech and especially biotic powers were hella-fucking-balls fun to use because they were geared towards being more overpowered but mad fun to throw around instead of being stringently balanced (Like in ME2, though ME2 introduced [[Awesome|things such as invisibility tech and the biotic charge]]. ME3 worked a bit to make powers more fun.), and overall you had more control of how you want your Commander Shepard to be through dialog and actions (ME2 gave you slightly less control though it introduced "interrupts" where you push a button to trigger an alternate scene, such as "hug Tali" or "kill jerkass mercs". ME3 made it worse).

There was a gripping DLC mission, "Bring Down the Sky" which involved stopping an anti-human Batarian terrorist from using an asteroid to destroy the human colony of Terra Nova. Of course, while you did have to pay for it in the past (Now it's free), Bring Down the Sky had very little in the way of the story as a whole, so even if you missed out on it, you aren't really missing out on the plot. But then, EA realized this wouldn't make them money, so they turned up the antee in ME2 and Emperor damn them in ME3 for literally making all the important plot-points DLC. It also had "Pinnacle Station," which... existed. (Its smoldering wreckage can be scanned in ME3, an apology to all the fans who bought it.)

Also famous for the indestructible (until you meet a Thresher Maw)-flying-never-run-out-of-ammo armoured exploration vehicle, the MAKO.

====Mass Effect 2====
Mass Effect 2 was a great game, arguably the best of the series (according to fans and critics alike). However, while presentation and gameplay improved it did (debatably) show a drop in character and mission quality compared to the first game; though given how high the first set the bar the second was still good on these counts.

To be fair, ME1 had lots of characters, and it's the job of a good sequel to continue the story while fleshing out existing characters and introducing new ones. ME2 accomplished both, though some characters were better developed than others. At the very least, your squadmates get the full package on character development. Also, something many gamers overlook, there's a limit to much data you can put on a disk and ME2 still required TWO DISCS to fit in all the content (not counting DLC) in a day and age where that kind of thing was not often done anymore.

The other shift in direction was that gunfights were ''heavily'' given emphasis, a good chunk of which went in the wrong direction. Long story-short they reduced the effectiveness of power-heavy classes (mostly the adept) by making them largely redundant in the face of combat classes in higher difficulties.

There was quite a change of scope of the story: where ME1 had a mystery to solve and a villain to beat, in ME2 it is your goal to assemble an elite team of the galaxy's best mercenaries, criminals, and specialists to stop a race of aliens called the Collectors abducting humans from their colonies (the Collector's motivation is pretty epic, but explaining that would be a spoiler reveal). The main story is told via a series of side missions that are flung at you now and then (up to a mission aboard a certain derelict where things progress more as an RPG should), but the game keeps telling you that you ABSOLUTELY NEED these people and should recruit them all to improve your chances of survival (some [spoiler: such as your returning two squadmates from the first game] ARE essential, others not so much). Then again, as a character-focused story, some of the best parts of the game came from going on "loyalty" missions with the crew on adventures to different corners of the galaxy, and the "fragmented" nature of the main plot, almost as a side effect, gives the player immense freedom in choosing what order to do them in.

Of course, in regards to DLC, EA ''really'' left their mark. While the minor DLCs (Weapon and armor sets, an old veteran merc out for revenge and a [[Blood Ravens|master thief]] as squadmates, plus an optional story that involves you trying to shut down a rogue AI/Human hybrid before it sets off a technological apocalypse) were decent, EA took three things that should have been in the original game and rendered them DLC: being able to drive vehicles (A hover-IFV this time) in short side missions and two stories that heavily influences the plot of the next game (Liara taking over the Shadow Broker's position and the Reapers' arrival). Overall however, if you don't mind those 3 things, ME2 is still full of boundless amusement from the immersive setting and multitude of ways you can approach the story.

====Mass Effect 3 (The Downfall)====
Mass Effect 3, while it had some good elements, like stream-lining combat, was a big step down from the first two Mass Effect games. Some of the biggest complaints are that it trivialized several choices from the first two games, such as whether you chose to reprogram or destroy a Geth faction in ME2. Also, story-essential characters were reduced to DLC. The first was the sole-survivor of a race thought to be extinct and even then, said character should have been included in the game by default anyway (especially since a lot of the character was on the disc). The second was the remnants of the Reapers' creators, who you were forced to ally with despite the fact that they were obviously evil (They could control the minds of entire populations, [[Eldar|saw themselves as the apex species and everyone else being inferior to them]], and had a massive God complex. Their MO was [[Vlad von Carstein|"serve us willingly or serve us via mind control"]]. Never mind the fact that their own creation bit them in the ass and caused this whole Reaper problem). Surprisingly the game never addresses the fact that, once the Reapers are defeated, their creators will try to take over the galaxy again, something the previous games would have addressed. The most hated part was a sub-par ending that caused massive complaints from players for leaving literally all the plot threads hanging. However, these problems with the third game were because [[EA|most of the development team for the first two games (including several of the writers and head writer Drew Karpyshyn) quit partway through developing the second game/did not return to work on the third game. Their reasons for this were internal strife with Bioware as they were subsumed into EA, conflicts of interest and disagreement over the direction they wanted the story to go]].

Apart from all that bullshit, the gameplay from ME 2 was finetuned to something pretty fun to play (tho still lacking the depth of a true RPG), including melee, new weaponry and powers, and while widely assumed to be an unneeded addition, the multiplayer 'Horde Battles' did have a few good things, like being able to be a fucking Krogan Warlord with a four-meter long Thunderhammer and a cranky temper, or simply win any Bronze game automatically by playing a Geth Prime. A few characters were added and old ones came back, being generally pretty well written, or fucking amazing, if playing the Citadel DLC, and small things, like the "I'm in the middle of some calibrations." social bullshit was removed and made more interactive with the crew. These points are, however, only a few shining lights compared to the black holes of failure the above paragraph details, and are generally not mentioned when discussing ME 3 - And often for good reason.

After the game was released Bioware eventually caved in and produced a free replacement DLC ending that made a bit more sense (and even then the ending is still bollocks and still made little-to-no sense when you add up your whole journey from ME1 to ME3. It did more to explain the fates of the people and races you met and little on how the plot as a whole ended up). Some argue that the series devolved into a Gears of War clone with more dialog options, complete with multiplayer mode. Bioware is making some new game in the franchise, but many say that the main plot of the original trilogy was not resolved well, and said resolution is so broad-based as to make a new game's story... difficult, to say the least; then again, as mentioned before, the change in plot and quality was due to disagreements and rearranging of the games development team. This hasn't stopped them from announcing work on a sequel anyway.

====Mass Effect: Andromeda====

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
[[FAIL]]. Popular idea states pretend it does not exist. Be careful if you collapse this tab.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
If you really want to know about this game, its an intergalactic travel plot that was shoehorned into the original trilogy where people cross the galaxy in Ark ships to escape the Reapers and colonize the Andromeda galaxy. While there, the Milky Way races meet a few alien races, such as Halo Forerunner-expies who don't appear in the game and may have left behind a living [[Eye of Terror|Negative Space Wedgie]] that attacks anything near it [[Grimdark|and can shatter planets]], overemotional furless cat people with genetic memory who struggle to trust aliens after their first contact went badly and a race of rocky-looking, pseudo-religious extremists who worship a scientific genetic assimilation process who, [[Skub|of course]], are the villains (and two-dimensional ones, while [[Skub|possibly]] serving as thinly-veiled negative allegories of certain ideologies and beliefs in real life).

The squadmates are watered down versions of the ones you know and love from the original trilogy and the few interesting characters barely get fleshed out. A few characters from the original trilogy make cameos, but several well-liked ones make no appearance save their voice actors playing a minor NPC. There are also many glitches, bugs and instances of sloppy animations (such as infamously bad facial expressions and running). Good animation is there, and the environments while lacking in uniqueness are visually appealing and very open. On top of the animation issues, the game was bogged down as the writers were clearly trying to push several agendas (it's debatable whether the writers realize there's a difference, for example, between being inclusive towards gay people and pandering to them). In closing, the game reinforces the following quote; “In trying to please all, he had pleased none.”
</div>
</div>

===Dragon Age===
The Dragon Age series is a more blatant example of this degradation.

====Dragon Age: Origins====

The original, Dragon Age: Origins, was a game six years in the making, which shows in good ways (immense depth and craft to the situations encountered) and bad (wonky graphics that looked worse than ''Mass Effect'''s, despite coming out nearly a year later.). While far from being the grimdark spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate that Bioware hyped it as, the story of Dragon Age: Origins was above average and possessed an interesting character creation mechanic where your background changed numerous parts of the storyline, the character development was good - but evidence that things were starting to fall apart were obvious right when you met the questgiver who forced you to buy a DLC pack if you actually wanted to do the quest, but only after giving you the sales pitch. The "expansion pack" Awakening wasn't too bad either, at least if you ignored the fact that it had been visibly rushed and was loaded with gamebreaking bugs.

====Dragon Age II====

The most tragic game on the list. A perfect storm of wrongheaded design and corporate mismanagement, Dragon Age II was dead on arrival - the story veered from one plot thread to the next without any rhyme or reason while being completely disconnected to the previous game, most of the characters were either idiots, one-dimensional, or just plain unlikable, and both clearly put trying to be "different" and "unconventional" on a pedestal over being good. [[Star Trek#Films|'Cause it worked sooo well in ''Generations'', right?]] Gameplay was the worst kind of busywork, consisting of [[Dawn of War 2|running through the same not-even-reskinned maps over and over again]], pressing the same buttons to do the same things to the same generic enemies as they teleport in out of nowhere. All these problems might've been ironed out as development went on, if not for the fact that their [[EA|corporate overlords]] had them rushing the game out in '''less than a year''', in their endless quest to have ''all'' their properties work like the Madden and FIFA games they're used to bankrolling. And when, thanks to ''their'' interference, the game under-performed, EA promptly scrapped the expansion they were building to wrap up the dangling, jangling plot threads.

The game can be skipped entirely without missing anything; the narrator appears again in the third game and summarizes all of the important parts in one conversation. It's actually sort of the point of the story that despite Hawke and company winning every battle they were subsumed by greater forces, everything in their lives falls apart anyway, and nothing they did had any lasting effects.

====Dragon Age: Inquisition====

Dragon Age: Inquisition picked things up... a little. It's certainly the best Bioware game for a while, but a lot of that is because literally everything about the game is risk-averse. Both the story and the gameplay are assembled from pure fantasy cliche and the [[grimdark]] city-based environmental art style prevelant in the previous two games has been replaced with a glorious [[noblebright]] mostly-outdoor setting. The storyline is based on the player character accidentally becoming the [[Mary Sue|Chosen One]] by accidentally picking up a shiny green thing which allows them to fix tears in the fabric of reality. The villain has some interesting implications about the lore of the setting, but the writers never really actually commit to any of that lore, preferring to have it remain as hearsay, and the villain becomes boringly one-dimensionally evil because of that. Gameplay-wise, Inquisition started as an MMO, and you can still feel the MMO influence; you explore about ten wilderness zones which are very large and pretty but have very minimal interaction, spend most of your time running fetch quests, and only hit story beats every three levels or so. Combat is a game of managing cooldowns and throwing particle effects everywhere.

That said, unlike some of the past games from Bioware's decline-and-fall period, Inquisition is actually fun to play. Most of the characters in your party are well-rounded (except for Vivienne and to a lesser extent Sera), there's a ridiculously large amount of party banter, and the romance quests actually feature involving character development instead of being something to add to the checklist. There's even some series-essential lore locked away in some of the romances (in particular, Solas's romance reveals absolutely vital information about the history of the Elven race). The gameplay, cliched and MMO-ey though it may be, is actually involving and fun at times, and the quest to hunt down all ten High Dragons is pretty awesome (as well as being pretty much the only way to get value-for-money from the game's otherwise superfluous crafting system; pretty much every piece of gear you can craft is outclassed by the loot you find from monsters, except for crafted items which use Dragon Bone, which are hilariously overpowered). Certainly not a great game, but it's quite good if you aren't overly sensitive to cliche.

*'''Alternate Opinion:'''
:: The above opinion is way too naive. If its an improvement, it's only because they hit rock bottom in the prequel and had nowhere else to go but up. Both the story and the gameplay are assembled from pure fantasy cliche and the grimdark city-based environmental art style prevalent in the previous two games has been replaced with a cookie-cutter outdoor setting that looks like it was directly copied from Skyrim. The storyline is based on the player character accidentally becoming the Chosen One by accidentally picking up a shiny green thing which allows them to fix tears in the fabric of reality, and despite claims to the contrary the choices made in prior games have minimal impact; the fact that all of these choices can be preselected and modified via the use of an application released with the game causes the marketing of "your choices matter" to fall flat on its face. The villain was a character who was introduced in the DLC of Dragon Age 2, which will confuse everyone who didn't happen to buy that particular DLC as his presence in the plot is never foreshadowed even though the player is expected to know who he is. Gameplay-wise, Inquisition started as an MMO, and you can still feel the MMO influence; you explore about ten wilderness zones which are very large and pretty but have very minimal interaction. Nearly every quest boils down to "get this crap for me", and the story progresses in fits and starts (and once again ends on a barely coherent cliffhanger where no plot threads are tied up, because that worked so well with Mass Effect 3). Combat is a game of managing cooldowns and throwing particle effects everywhere.
::Most of the characters in your party are only marginally less one-dimensional than they were in Dragon Age 2, and the dialog can go from dull to pants-on head retarded ("You want to ride The Bull" comes to mind, among many others). The romance sidequests are often tacked-on and seem to cater mostly to yaoi fangirls who don't comprehend the fact the average player of a CRPG doesn't appreciate characters whose entire romance subplot can be summed up as "I am a homosexual, now let's buttfuck each other". The gameplay is copypasted from virtually every MMORPG there is, and while it's not as aggressively bad as Dragon Age 2 that's not saying very much. Overall, it's sad how a supposed successor to Baldur's Gate devolved into a shallow batch of cliches held together only by a colossal marketing budget.

==Associated Games==
Often grouped with Bioware's games, and highlighted as the pinnacles of Bioware's talent, these games were actually made by other, completely-independent, studios: Black Isle Studios and Obsidian, both of which included lot of the same staff. These games used engines developed by Bioware and were licensed by shared publishers, which resulted in graphical and interface similarities. Thus, many players believe that they were made by Bioware when this was not the case.

* [[Planescape: Torment]]
* [[Icewind Dale]]
* Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords
* Neverwinter Nights 2

Both of those last two were rushed out for Christmas, NWN2 with only around nine months development, resulting in whole chunks of the game missing and bugs out the ass. Obsidian wasn't allowed to patch either, though much of the lost content has since been restored by fans.

==The Decline of Bioware==
In 2007, Bioware was bought by [[EA]] and since then their games have been slowly declining in quality. It began between the release of the first Mass Effect game and Dragon Age: Origins (note how EA isn't shown in the opening credits for ME1). More on this can be found in the entries for those two franchises. Simultaneously, their games since have been characterized by rushed output, bullshit predatory business practices, and terribly prevalent DLC. Then the founders all left because it just wasn't fun anymore with the glowing eye of Jon Madden/Sauron looking over your shoulder and trimming away all the fat until only a skeleton was left. They haven't yet been sucked bone dry and thrown on the pile like so many other studios "acquired" by the Men From Redwood City yet, but everyone knows it's coming. The only question is when.

So in short, if you want a good Bioware game, look to the past.

Bioware

2017-06-07T06:35:54Z

2001:8003:2B47:ED00:7C8D:CC5A:5E56:46C0: /* Mass Effect: Andromeda */

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[[Image:Orig 320200 1 1257581825.png|750px|center|thumb| Remember, class, templates are the beginning of truth, not the end of it. (In other words, take it to the Discussion tab, James!)
]]

A major computer game studio primarily driven by two lead designers; their names are Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V.

One of the most popular RPG game makers of modern day, making titles such as Baldur's Gate , Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age. They are currently working on making a [[Warhammer Fantasy]] MMORPG and possibly xenophiles, going by SWTOR AND ME.

==The Rise of Bioware==
Founded by three Canadian doctors in the 90s, Bioware didn't start out publishing RPGs. In fact, it ''started'' doing medical software, before the founders decided to act on their mutual passion for games. Their first game was a [[MechWarrior]]-style simulator game, with the serial numbers filed off. But the founders were all fans of tabletop RPGs, and their second game began life as an independent RPG, but publisher Interplay saw potential in it for hosting their next D&D game, and it became [[Baldur's Gate]], Baldur's Gate became history, and Bioware became renowned as the savior and shining new light for the CRPG.

==Bioware Games==

===Shattered Steel===
A MechWarrior 2 knockoff with less customizability and weirder enemies. No one, not even diehard Bioware fans and video game history nerds, cares about it, so moving on.

===[[Baldur's Gate]]===
The game, the legend, the start of it all. The title that single-handedly saved the CRPG genre from its gloomy slide into irrelevance and [[Blizzard|Diablo-clones]] with smart writing, clever dungeon design, and attempts to actually let the player role-play instead of just throwing in tons of mindless hack-n-slash. Uses a cutdown version of [[AD&D|Second Edition AD&D]] rules, and is generally regarded as one of the best things about the [[Forgotten Realms]] setting. A recent "Enhanced Edition" remake brought it more in line with the sequel, graphics and gameplay-wise, and is well worth a look for the curious.

===Baldur's Gate II===
The second game, the even more legendary legend. From dating your adventuring co-workers to taking the piss out of the situation in dialogue, if you love Bioware's stuff it probably has its origin here. Also a pretty badass follow-up/finish to the saga of the first game, and using a fuller set of the game's rules. Don't play it first, you'll fucking ''ruin'' the original for yourself. Recently got an "Enhanced Edition" too, following in the footsteps of the first.

===Neverwinter Nights===
On the one hand, the story and characters are generally regarded as forgettable at best. On the other hand, a pretty good recreation of [[Dungeons & Dragons|3rd Edition]] rules in video game form, and enough fan-made modules and content to make that last complaint rather moot. If you want to try the official stuff, read a summary of the core game and play the "expansion" stories instead (''Shadows of Undrentide'' and ''Hordes of the Underdark''), which start from level one, tell a continuous story, and have Deekin, who is one of the best things about the game.

===Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic===
One of the first [[Star Wars]] RPGs ever made, KOTOR received widespread praise and acclaim for its complex story and well-written characters, including one of the most famous twists in gaming history. Gameplay-wise, a mostly-fun conversion of [[Dungeons & Dragons]] rules into the Star Wars universe. Faggots will complain about "binary moral choice" systems because that's the trendy thing to do right now, but it broke ground at the time for actually ''incentivizing'' roleplaying and staying in character in a way few other games had before. Sure, the villain's a bit lame, the finale is just an endless swordfight against armies of piss-easy droids, the level cap's way too low considering the levels you can accidentally essentially waste before you can become a jedi, but on the other hand, ''holy shit I can slice through an army with a lightsaber''. To this day, often held up as one of the best things about the Star Wars brand as a whole.

===Jade Empire===
Kung-fu ''wuxia'' action brawler glued to a pretty sweet story with ''another'' great video game twist that plays with the "formula" mentioned above more than the chart would suggest. Bioware's first original role-playing setting was something of a sleeper, not selling in great numbers compared to previous efforts, due in part to cutbacks and restraints, but in the present day is well-regarded by most players. If you haven't tried it, give it a whirl. If nothing else, it's a rare RPG that lets you [[Fist of the North Star|punch someone's pressure points until they explode in a shower of gibs]].

===Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood===

...Yeah, it happened. Story's okay, the character writing is a highlight, and the gameplay mechanics are at the very least quite creative, but the soundtrack is a goddamn ''abomination'', balance is a distant dream on both sides of the screen, and there's just not enough content to justify its existence. Better than the average 3rd party ''Sonic'' title, but... well, that's not exactly a high bar to clear. And the plot ends on a blatant sequel hook that will never amount to anything.

Behind-the-scenes development drama is the chief culprit: Bioware started out on the title as a bit of a passion project for one of the founders, but after working with Sega turned out to be a pain, Ken Penders kicked up a lawsuit against both SEGA & EA, and ''Dragon Age'' started looming on the horizon, they ultimately rushed the whole thing out under the door partway through to fulfil their contract and breezed away, never looking back.

===Mass Effect===

A cosmic horror story-space opera with much potential; handled properly from start to finish, it could have been to video games what Star Wars is to movies and Star Trek is to television. Arguably Bioware's magnum opus, the series ended up being a microcosm of the company's gradual rise and fall. On a side note: it's sad how many people [[RAGE|rage]] about the ending of the third game and forget the high points in the first two (and the supplementary material) that made them love the franchise, if understandable given the pall it casts over the rest of it. [http://www.nexusmods.com/masseffect3/mods/66/?| So... here ya go.] Thank me later.

====Mass Effect 1====
The first game in the series was excellent, with top-notch characters, setting (so many interesting alien races...) and story. The presentation... not so much; the graphics and gameplay could be awkward, clunky, and even glitchy at times (ie; sniper rifles have a large hit area where even an intentional close miss would somehow result in a hit, seemingly joint-less ragdolls that often resulted in everyone being in bone-breaking positions even while alive, periodically lulzy physics that can sometimes unintentionally impede your progress, the unpatched overheating bugs that potentially rendered non-soldier classes utterly weaponless... you get the picture). It was still good. There were plenty of interesting side missions to do, most of the characters had decent development so you could like/hate them better (Hell even the side characters were given brief but good backstories), it had a lot of RPG elements that made RPGs lovable, tech and especially biotic powers were hella-fucking-balls fun to use because they were geared towards being more overpowered but mad fun to throw around instead of being stringently balanced (Like in ME2, though ME2 introduced [[Awesome|things such as invisibility tech and the biotic charge]]. ME3 worked a bit to make powers more fun.), and overall you had more control of how you want your Commander Shepard to be through dialog and actions (ME2 gave you slightly less control though it introduced "interrupts" where you push a button to trigger an alternate scene, such as "hug Tali" or "kill jerkass mercs". ME3 made it worse).

There was a gripping DLC mission, "Bring Down the Sky" which involved stopping an anti-human Batarian terrorist from using an asteroid to destroy the human colony of Terra Nova. Of course, while you did have to pay for it in the past (Now it's free), Bring Down the Sky had very little in the way of the story as a whole, so even if you missed out on it, you aren't really missing out on the plot. But then, EA realized this wouldn't make them money, so they turned up the antee in ME2 and Emperor damn them in ME3 for literally making all the important plot-points DLC. It also had "Pinnacle Station," which... existed. (Its smoldering wreckage can be scanned in ME3, an apology to all the fans who bought it.)

Also famous for the indestructible (until you meet a Thresher Maw)-flying-never-run-out-of-ammo armoured exploration vehicle, the MAKO.

====Mass Effect 2====
Mass Effect 2 was a great game, arguably the best of the series (according to fans and critics alike). However, while presentation and gameplay improved it did (debatably) show a drop in character and mission quality compared to the first game; though given how high the first set the bar the second was still good on these counts.

To be fair, ME1 had lots of characters, and it's the job of a good sequel to continue the story while fleshing out existing characters and introducing new ones. ME2 accomplished both, though some characters were better developed than others. At the very least, your squadmates get the full package on character development. Also, something many gamers overlook, there's a limit to much data you can put on a disk and ME2 still required TWO DISCS to fit in all the content (not counting DLC) in a day and age where that kind of thing was not often done anymore.

The other shift in direction was that gunfights were ''heavily'' given emphasis, a good chunk of which went in the wrong direction. Long story-short they reduced the effectiveness of power-heavy classes (mostly the adept) by making them largely redundant in the face of combat classes in higher difficulties.

There was quite a change of scope of the story: where ME1 had a mystery to solve and a villain to beat, in ME2 it is your goal to assemble an elite team of the galaxy's best mercenaries, criminals, and specialists to stop a race of aliens called the Collectors abducting humans from their colonies (the Collector's motivation is pretty epic, but explaining that would be a spoiler reveal). The main story is told via a series of side missions that are flung at you now and then (up to a mission aboard a certain derelict where things progress more as an RPG should), but the game keeps telling you that you ABSOLUTELY NEED these people and should recruit them all to improve your chances of survival (some [spoiler: such as your returning two squadmates from the first game] ARE essential, others not so much). Then again, as a character-focused story, some of the best parts of the game came from going on "loyalty" missions with the crew on adventures to different corners of the galaxy, and the "fragmented" nature of the main plot, almost as a side effect, gives the player immense freedom in choosing what order to do them in.

Of course, in regards to DLC, EA ''really'' left their mark. While the minor DLCs (Weapon and armor sets, an old veteran merc out for revenge and a [[Blood Ravens|master thief]] as squadmates, plus an optional story that involves you trying to shut down a rogue AI/Human hybrid before it sets off a technological apocalypse) were decent, EA took three things that should have been in the original game and rendered them DLC: being able to drive vehicles (A hover-IFV this time) in short side missions and two stories that heavily influences the plot of the next game (Liara taking over the Shadow Broker's position and the Reapers' arrival). Overall however, if you don't mind those 3 things, ME2 is still full of boundless amusement from the immersive setting and multitude of ways you can approach the story.

====Mass Effect 3 (The Downfall)====
Mass Effect 3, while it had some good elements, like stream-lining combat, was a big step down from the first two Mass Effect games. Some of the biggest complaints are that it trivialized several choices from the first two games, such as whether you chose to reprogram or destroy a Geth faction in ME2. Also, story-essential characters were reduced to DLC. The first was the sole-survivor of a race thought to be extinct and even then, said character should have been included in the game by default anyway (especially since a lot of the character was on the disc). The second was the remnants of the Reapers' creators, who you were forced to ally with despite the fact that they were obviously evil (They could control the minds of entire populations, [[Eldar|saw themselves as the apex species and everyone else being inferior to them]], and had a massive God complex. Their MO was [[Vlad von Carstein|"serve us willingly or serve us via mind control"]]. Never mind the fact that their own creation bit them in the ass and caused this whole Reaper problem). Surprisingly the game never addresses the fact that, once the Reapers are defeated, their creators will try to take over the galaxy again, something the previous games would have addressed. The most hated part was a sub-par ending that caused massive complaints from players for leaving literally all the plot threads hanging. However, these problems with the third game were because [[EA|most of the development team for the first two games (including several of the writers and head writer Drew Karpyshyn) quit partway through developing the second game/did not return to work on the third game. Their reasons for this were internal strife with Bioware as they were subsumed into EA, conflicts of interest and disagreement over the direction they wanted the story to go]].

Apart from all that bullshit, the gameplay from ME 2 was finetuned to something pretty fun to play (tho still lacking the depth of a true RPG), including melee, new weaponry and powers, and while widely assumed to be an unneeded addition, the multiplayer 'Horde Battles' did have a few good things, like being able to be a fucking Krogan Warlord with a four-meter long Thunderhammer and a cranky temper, or simply win any Bronze game automatically by playing a Geth Prime. A few characters were added and old ones came back, being generally pretty well written, or fucking amazing, if playing the Citadel DLC, and small things, like the "I'm in the middle of some calibrations." social bullshit was removed and made more interactive with the crew. These points are, however, only a few shining lights compared to the black holes of failure the above paragraph details, and are generally not mentioned when discussing ME 3 - And often for good reason.

After the game was released Bioware eventually caved in and produced a free replacement DLC ending that made a bit more sense (and even then the ending is still bollocks and still made little-to-no sense when you add up your whole journey from ME1 to ME3. It did more to explain the fates of the people and races you met and little on how the plot as a whole ended up). Some argue that the series devolved into a Gears of War clone with more dialog options, complete with multiplayer mode. Bioware is making some new game in the franchise, but many say that the main plot of the original trilogy was not resolved well, and said resolution is so broad-based as to make a new game's story... difficult, to say the least; then again, as mentioned before, the change in plot and quality was due to disagreements and rearranging of the games development team. This hasn't stopped them from announcing work on a sequel anyway.

====Mass Effect: Andromeda====

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%">
[[FAIL]]. Popular idea states pretend it does not exist. Be careful if you collapse this tab.
<div class="mw-collapsible-content">
If you really want to know about this game, its an intergalactic travel plot that was shoehorned into the original trilogy where people cross the galaxy in Ark ships to escape the Reapers and colonize the Andromeda galaxy. While there, the Milky Way races meet a few alien races, such as Halo Forerunner-expies who don't appear in the game and may have left behind a living [[Eye of Terror|Negative Space Wedgie]] that attacks anything near it [[Grimdark|and can shatter planets]], overemotional furless cat people who struggle to trust aliens after their first contact went badly and a race of rocky-looking, pseudo-religious extremists who worship a scientific genetic assimilation process who, [[Skub|of course]], are the villains (and two-dimensional ones, while [[Skub|possibly]] serving as thinly-veiled negative allegories of certain ideologies and beliefs in real life).

The squadmates are watered down versions of the ones you know and love from the original trilogy and the few interesting characters barely get fleshed out. A few characters from the original trilogy make cameos, but several well-liked ones make no appearance save their voice actors playing a minor NPC. There are also many glitches, bugs and instances of sloppy animations (such as infamously bad facial expressions and running). Good animation is there, and the environments while lacking in uniqueness are visually appealing and very open. On top of the animation issues, the game was bogged down as the writers were clearly trying to push several agendas (it's debatable whether the writers realize there's a difference, for example, between being inclusive towards gay people and pandering to them). In closing, the game reinforces the following quote; “In trying to please all, he had pleased none.”
</div>
</div>

===Dragon Age===
The Dragon Age series is a more blatant example of this degradation.

====Dragon Age: Origins====

The original, Dragon Age: Origins, was a game six years in the making, which shows in good ways (immense depth and craft to the situations encountered) and bad (wonky graphics that looked worse than ''Mass Effect'''s, despite coming out nearly a year later.). While far from being the grimdark spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate that Bioware hyped it as, the story of Dragon Age: Origins was above average and possessed an interesting character creation mechanic where your background changed numerous parts of the storyline, the character development was good - but evidence that things were starting to fall apart were obvious right when you met the questgiver who forced you to buy a DLC pack if you actually wanted to do the quest, but only after giving you the sales pitch. The "expansion pack" Awakening wasn't too bad either, at least if you ignored the fact that it had been visibly rushed and was loaded with gamebreaking bugs.

====Dragon Age II====

The most tragic game on the list. A perfect storm of wrongheaded design and corporate mismanagement, Dragon Age II was dead on arrival - the story veered from one plot thread to the next without any rhyme or reason while being completely disconnected to the previous game, most of the characters were either idiots, one-dimensional, or just plain unlikable, and both clearly put trying to be "different" and "unconventional" on a pedestal over being good. [[Star Trek#Films|'Cause it worked sooo well in ''Generations'', right?]] Gameplay was the worst kind of busywork, consisting of [[Dawn of War 2|running through the same not-even-reskinned maps over and over again]], pressing the same buttons to do the same things to the same generic enemies as they teleport in out of nowhere. All these problems might've been ironed out as development went on, if not for the fact that their [[EA|corporate overlords]] had them rushing the game out in '''less than a year''', in their endless quest to have ''all'' their properties work like the Madden and FIFA games they're used to bankrolling. And when, thanks to ''their'' interference, the game under-performed, EA promptly scrapped the expansion they were building to wrap up the dangling, jangling plot threads.

The game can be skipped entirely without missing anything; the narrator appears again in the third game and summarizes all of the important parts in one conversation. It's actually sort of the point of the story that despite Hawke and company winning every battle they were subsumed by greater forces, everything in their lives falls apart anyway, and nothing they did had any lasting effects.

====Dragon Age: Inquisition====

Dragon Age: Inquisition picked things up... a little. It's certainly the best Bioware game for a while, but a lot of that is because literally everything about the game is risk-averse. Both the story and the gameplay are assembled from pure fantasy cliche and the [[grimdark]] city-based environmental art style prevelant in the previous two games has been replaced with a glorious [[noblebright]] mostly-outdoor setting. The storyline is based on the player character accidentally becoming the [[Mary Sue|Chosen One]] by accidentally picking up a shiny green thing which allows them to fix tears in the fabric of reality. The villain has some interesting implications about the lore of the setting, but the writers never really actually commit to any of that lore, preferring to have it remain as hearsay, and the villain becomes boringly one-dimensionally evil because of that. Gameplay-wise, Inquisition started as an MMO, and you can still feel the MMO influence; you explore about ten wilderness zones which are very large and pretty but have very minimal interaction, spend most of your time running fetch quests, and only hit story beats every three levels or so. Combat is a game of managing cooldowns and throwing particle effects everywhere.

That said, unlike some of the past games from Bioware's decline-and-fall period, Inquisition is actually fun to play. Most of the characters in your party are well-rounded (except for Vivienne and to a lesser extent Sera), there's a ridiculously large amount of party banter, and the romance quests actually feature involving character development instead of being something to add to the checklist. There's even some series-essential lore locked away in some of the romances (in particular, Solas's romance reveals absolutely vital information about the history of the Elven race). The gameplay, cliched and MMO-ey though it may be, is actually involving and fun at times, and the quest to hunt down all ten High Dragons is pretty awesome (as well as being pretty much the only way to get value-for-money from the game's otherwise superfluous crafting system; pretty much every piece of gear you can craft is outclassed by the loot you find from monsters, except for crafted items which use Dragon Bone, which are hilariously overpowered). Certainly not a great game, but it's quite good if you aren't overly sensitive to cliche.

*'''Alternate Opinion:'''
:: The above opinion is way too naive. If its an improvement, it's only because they hit rock bottom in the prequel and had nowhere else to go but up. Both the story and the gameplay are assembled from pure fantasy cliche and the grimdark city-based environmental art style prevalent in the previous two games has been replaced with a cookie-cutter outdoor setting that looks like it was directly copied from Skyrim. The storyline is based on the player character accidentally becoming the Chosen One by accidentally picking up a shiny green thing which allows them to fix tears in the fabric of reality, and despite claims to the contrary the choices made in prior games have minimal impact; the fact that all of these choices can be preselected and modified via the use of an application released with the game causes the marketing of "your choices matter" to fall flat on its face. The villain was a character who was introduced in the DLC of Dragon Age 2, which will confuse everyone who didn't happen to buy that particular DLC as his presence in the plot is never foreshadowed even though the player is expected to know who he is. Gameplay-wise, Inquisition started as an MMO, and you can still feel the MMO influence; you explore about ten wilderness zones which are very large and pretty but have very minimal interaction. Nearly every quest boils down to "get this crap for me", and the story progresses in fits and starts (and once again ends on a barely coherent cliffhanger where no plot threads are tied up, because that worked so well with Mass Effect 3). Combat is a game of managing cooldowns and throwing particle effects everywhere.
::Most of the characters in your party are only marginally less one-dimensional than they were in Dragon Age 2, and the dialog can go from dull to pants-on head retarded ("You want to ride The Bull" comes to mind, among many others). The romance sidequests are often tacked-on and seem to cater mostly to yaoi fangirls who don't comprehend the fact the average player of a CRPG doesn't appreciate characters whose entire romance subplot can be summed up as "I am a homosexual, now let's buttfuck each other". The gameplay is copypasted from virtually every MMORPG there is, and while it's not as aggressively bad as Dragon Age 2 that's not saying very much. Overall, it's sad how a supposed successor to Baldur's Gate devolved into a shallow batch of cliches held together only by a colossal marketing budget.

==Associated Games==
Often grouped with Bioware's games, and highlighted as the pinnacles of Bioware's talent, these games were actually made by other, completely-independent, studios: Black Isle Studios and Obsidian, both of which included lot of the same staff. These games used engines developed by Bioware and were licensed by shared publishers, which resulted in graphical and interface similarities. Thus, many players believe that they were made by Bioware when this was not the case.

* [[Planescape: Torment]]
* [[Icewind Dale]]
* Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords
* Neverwinter Nights 2

Both of those last two were rushed out for Christmas, NWN2 with only around nine months development, resulting in whole chunks of the game missing and bugs out the ass. Obsidian wasn't allowed to patch either, though much of the lost content has since been restored by fans.

==The Decline of Bioware==
In 2007, Bioware was bought by [[EA]] and since then their games have been slowly declining in quality. It began between the release of the first Mass Effect game and Dragon Age: Origins (note how EA isn't shown in the opening credits for ME1). More on this can be found in the entries for those two franchises. Simultaneously, their games since have been characterized by rushed output, bullshit predatory business practices, and terribly prevalent DLC. Then the founders all left because it just wasn't fun anymore with the glowing eye of Jon Madden/Sauron looking over your shoulder and trimming away all the fat until only a skeleton was left. They haven't yet been sucked bone dry and thrown on the pile like so many other studios "acquired" by the Men From Redwood City yet, but everyone knows it's coming. The only question is when.

So in short, if you want a good Bioware game, look to the past.

C. S. Lewis

2017-06-07T05:35:53Z

2001:8003:2B47:ED00:7C8D:CC5A:5E56:46C0: /* On His Writing */

[[Image:CSLewis.JPG|thumb|Right|250px| ]]
'''Clive Staples Lewis''' (better known as "C. S.", not to be confused with [[C. S. Goto]] (how dare you confuse the two), nor with Lewis Carroll) was [[J. R. R. Tolkien]]'s good friend and another influential early modern fantasy writer. He was also an essayist and a theologian; one of his essays "Religion and Rocketry" discussed hypothetical ideas and how the existence of aliens would not clash with Christianity. In the modern day, he's best known for The Chronicles of Narnia series.

== His Fictional Works ==
*The Space Trilogy
**Out of the Silent Planet (1938)
**Perelandra (1972)
**That Hideous Strength (1974) (AKA That Hideous Book, according to JRR Tolkien).
*The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-1956)
**The Magician's Nephew (actually a prequel to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)
**The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
**The Horse and His Boy
**Prince Caspian
**The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
**The Silver Chair
**The Last Battle
*The Screwtape Letters
*The Pilgrim's Regress
*The Great Divorce
*Till We Have Faces

== Why He Was Influential ==
With the Narnia series, C. S. Lewis brought to the table the "everything in mythology but the kitchen sink" approach to fantasy writing. Norse, Greco-Roman, Folklore, Judeo-Christian (more on that later), even modern things like Santa Claus got worked in. If Tolkien gave modern fantasy [[RPG]]s [[Halfling]]s, [[Orc]]s and Dark Lords, Lewis gave them [[Centaurs]], [[Minotaur]]s, [[Merfolk]], and talking animals. Narnia also included one of the earliest examples of the "secret magical world parallel to our own" trope.

Lewis' books about the afterlife are particularly unique. The Screwtape letters, for example, is a fictional series of letters written by a demon, Screwtape, to his nephew Wormwood, giving him advice on seducing a man to the ways of [[Heresy|sin]] and [[Chaos|damnation]]. In it, [[Warp|Hell]] isn't depicted as a brutal prison as in Dante's Inferno, but more like a [[Administratum|diabolical bureaucracy]]. [[Dark Eldar|Demons consume human souls as we would consume wine]], and the more evil they are, the finer their vintage. Screwtape gives excellent advice on how to manipulate good intentions into bad deeds, and the book's unusual point of view lends itself to some creative ideas. Suffice to say it's an excellent read for [[GM|GMs]] wishing to run a particularly [[Tzeentch|cunning]] or [[Slaanesh|seductive]] demon.

== On His Writing ==
Tolkien had his beliefs and viewpoints and they manifested in his writings. His, religious beliefs, preference for the English Countryside and Forests, his dislike of pollution and the destruction of wild spaces by Industrialists all come up in [[The Lord of the Rings]] and [[The Hobbit]], though they come up as background details and a component of greater world building. In contrast, for Lewis wrote his works with the intent to expose his viewpoints to the audience. They are far more preachy, often in a literal sense as they preach Christianity. The Narnia series is basically the Bible in fairytale land with Lion Jesus and female ice magic Satan. That being said, his writing is generally more readable than Tolkien's, as he doesn't feel the need to include songs on every other page, or detail the name and lineage of every single person who participated in each battle.

There is also The Space Trilogy which is arguably the earliest example of Christian science fiction (a genre that exists but seldom receives media attention these days for... [[Skub|reasons]]). The first book (Out of the Silent Planet) is about a man named Ransom being kidnapped and taken to a planet (called Malacandra by its inhabitants, the one we call Mars) where he meets aliens, the angel in charge of Mars under God and learns more about the way the universe works and the situation of Earth. The second book (Perelandra) is about Ransom being taken to the planet Perelandra (the one we call Venus) to stop a demon from recreating The Fall of Man with Venus' equivalent of Adam and Eve. In the third book (That Hideous Strength) the main characters Ransom and Mark have to work together against a scientific institute which is actually a front for sinister supernatural forces.

[[Category:Writers]]

C. S. Lewis

2017-06-07T05:31:31Z

2001:8003:2B47:ED00:7C8D:CC5A:5E56:46C0: /* On His Writing */

Inquisition

2017-06-07T05:21:25Z

2001:8003:2B47:ED00:7C8D:CC5A:5E56:46C0: /* See Also */

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf_Y4MbUCLY '''NOBODY EXPECTS THE IMPERIAL INQUISITION!''']
 - ''Lord Inquisitor Ximénez''

 ''It does not follow that because the devil has been given power over someone on account of his sins, that power must come to an end on the cessation of the sin.''
 - Malleus Maleficarum

 ''[https://youtu.be/zOERyX3xnHQ?t=29s "My chief weapons are surprise and fear!"]''
 - Inquisitor Adrastia. She did it, boys! She did it, she said it! *AIRHORNS*

[[File:Inquisitorial_Symbol.png|thumb|100px|right|The official seal and symbol of the Inquisition. Variations exist.]]
Also known as the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor]]'s pet psychopaths - at least according to [[Commissar]] [[Ciaphas Cain|Cain]]. Strange how he gets away with this [[heresy]]. (It was because the Inquisitor writing it was his lover, he was probably dead when it was published and she probably agreed with him on the matter in regards to many of her colleagues.)

MP jokes aside, the Holy Orders of the Officio Inquisitorus, or just Inquisition, are the "secret" police and internal investigators of the [[Imperium of Man]], the eponymous hunters of the alien, the mutant and the heretic. The inquisition is a semi-omnipotent organization that has authority over every other organization and watch every single life in the Imperium for the slightest signs of heresy 1984-Big Brother style. On the plus side, though, literally ANYONE can become an inquisitor if they really impress and win all their FOR THE EMPRAH rolls; really, even hab worker #343332791984. The Emperor and his guards are the only people in the Imperium beyond their jurisdiction; even the High Lords can be (and were) subject to Inquisitorial investigation. Plus they're FUCKING ASSHOLES! (Most of them, but there are a couple that are sympathetic. Key word being COUPLE.)

==History==
[[Image:Inquisitors.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Bet you weren't expecting that.]]

So when it became obvious that the Emperor's plan to starve the [[Chaos Gods]] with [[Imperial Truth|atheism]] was a failure due to the [[Horus Heresy]], the Big E ordered [[Malcador the Sigillite]] with the formation of the Inquisition. Charged with finding "men of character" to seek out the [[heresy|heretic]], the [[xenos|xeno]], the [[daemon]], and the unexpecting, the Inquisition serves as the secret protectors (or murderers) of the [[Imperium of Man]], guarding it from those who would destroy it from within, from without, and from [[Warp|beyond]].

The Inquisition began with the [[Knights-Errant]], a group of proto-Grey Knights drafted from Loyalist Space Marines (including those formerly from Legions that had turned traitor) that were active during the Heresy, forming the beginnings of the Ordo Malleus (the Ordo Malleus wouldn't form proper until the Inquisition also made the Ordo Xenos). Over time, the other ordos were added; the Ordo Xenos after the [[War of The Beast]] (partly to manage the brand new [[Deathwatch]]), the Ordo Sicarius after [[The Beheading]], and the Ordo Hereticus after the [[Age of Apostasy]], and so on. Over time, the Inquistion's overall mission became less about fighting the machinations of Chaos so much as preserving the status quo as much as possible, as deviance was to be interpreted as disloyalty, and therefore, Heresy.

As part of their duties, [[Inquisitor]]s have damn near unlimited power, up to and including [[Exterminatus|the destruction of worlds]]. If they have good cause, they can demand service from anyone, from lowly citizens to the [[High Lords of Terra]]. The only people officially exempt from this are the [[Adeptus Custodes]], who can legitimately say they have a more important job in guarding the Emperor on the Golden Throne. In practice, though, Inquisitors tend to at least say "please" and "thank you" when they require service from the more powerful Imperial organizations, especially [[Space Marines]], since they tend to get turfy about taking orders from any non-Space Marine save the Emprah. Those who don't tread lightly tend to get a close encounter with a [[chainsword]].

"''Innocence proves nothing.''"

Inquisitorial motto

==On the Tabletop==

In the past, the Inquisition was represented by three different armies, that being the [[Daemonhunters]], [[Witchhunters]], and <s>[[Alienhunters]]</s> Okay that last one doesn't have any genuine tabletop representation. However, these armies ended up being split apart, with their chambers militant effectively becoming independent armies with their own codices as the [[Grey Knights]], [[Sisters of Battle]], and [[Deathwatch]] respectively. The disadvantage to this move was that these new armies suffered from a lack of unit choices, especially the Sisters of Battle, who lack the variety in vehicle and infantry support normally enjoyed by other factions such as the Space Marines. Realistically, unless you're up against an equally under-equipped enemy, allying up with another force is practically a necessity.

As for the Inquisitors themselves, you could still field them, but only as an allied detachment to a mainline army, such as the Imperial Guard. And like the factions mentioned above, they lost not just their chamber militants, but also their basic troops in the form of Inquisitorial [[Stormtrooper]]s (in fact the Inquisition can't field troops at all, only elites in the form of henchmen). They do have a few unique units like [[Jokaero]] and [[Crusaders]], but without some cheap units to help screen the enemy you'll end up with an expensive and easily outnumbered army, as you can only take 36 henchmen at most per inquisitor. However, they do come with a number of transports (including the nominally [[Space Marine]]-only [[Land Raider]]), which can be a boon to armies lacking in vehicle options. And if you want to bring [[Officio Assassinorum|assassins]] with you, you'll get them through the inquisitor. Besides, fluff-wise an Inquisitor would normally want plenty of meat-shields to do the shooting for them anyways.

After getting reorganized into Codex: Imperial Agents, Inquisitors can now play closer to their original incarnation if you so choose. Inquisitors can now easily call upon detachments from other organizations, including Grey Knight Terminators, Sisters of Battle, or Deathwatch, depending on the Inquisitor's Ordo. They can also utilize astropaths, enginseers, assassins, etc.

== Organization ==

[[File:PPI.jpg|thumb|right|300px|[[Heresy]], [[chaos]], and [[xenos]]. These were the most dangerous threats to the [[Imperium]] that were foreseen, but the [[Emprah]] of Mankind suddenly foresaw something more threatening than the three: EXTRA HERESY. Thus, the Inquisition was born! Using their ultra abusive authority, the [[Ordo Malleus]], [[Ordo Hereticus|Hereticus]], and [[Ordo Xenos|Xenos]] have dedicated their lives to defending the Imperium, and killing the enemies of the Emprah!]]

The Inquisition is unique among Imperial departments in that it has no formal definition of a hierarchy or structure. However, [[Inquisitor]]s with common interests tend to band together to tackle issues too large for a single Inquisitor, and over time, these coalitions have coalesced into bodies called ''Ordos'' which specialize in handling a particular class of threat to the Imperium. Inquisitors will also form looser, smaller groups called ''conclaves'' to handle specific threats -- for example, a single [[Tyranid]] invasion, or threats pertaining to a particular planet. Conclaves usually include members of a single Ordo, but there's no rule against having multiple Ordos represented, and some Inquisitors actively form conclaves with experts in diverse fields.

There are three ''Ordos Majoris'' in the Inquisition:

*[[Daemonhunters|Ordo Malleus]] - They are guys who hunt [[daemon|daemons.]] This branch works with the [[Grey Knights]].
*[[Witch Hunters|Ordo Hereticus]] - Guys who like to hunt [[wizard|witches]], [[heresy|heretics]] and [[furry|mutants]]. This branch works with the [[Sisters of Battle]].
*And the [[Alienhunters|Ordo Xenos]] - The guys who fight aliens. All the time. This branch occasionally works with the [[Deathwatch]].

Several ''Ordos Minoris'' exist as well, although their exact number is uncertain (especially because an Ordo is only as big as the number of Inquisitors who care about its particular issue -- the factor that separates the major Ordos from the minor ones is that there are always plenty of daemons, heretics, and xenos to go around, while other threats rise and fall in prominence). The best-known (relatively speaking) are as follows:

*Ordo Aegis- They help with keeping the Cadian Gate secure (given the fall of Cadia their jobs just got exponentially harder).
*Ordo Astartes- They try to keep some degree of control over the [[Space Marines]], with "try" being the operative word. Some recent breakthroughs have been made with the introduction of [[Vindicare|Ork Sharpshooters]] and [[Minotaurs|dickery]].
*Ordo Astra- They keep stellar maps up to date.
*Ordo Barbarus- They watch over pre-industrial worlds to make sure Chaos cults can't spring up on them.
*[[Ordo Chronos]] - They specialize in the possibility of time travel (particularly because time in the Warp doesn't flow normally), and they sought to deal with temporal anomalies, such as a ship reaching its destination before it actually left its starting point. Unfortunately for them, they just up and vanished without a trace. Nobody knows where they went and as a result this Ordo has been essentially forgotten by the rest of the Inquisition.
*Ordo Custodum- They make sure Holy Terra stays secure and devoid of heretics.
*Ordo Desolatus- Purpose unknown. For some odd reason it only has one member.
*Ordo Excorium- They make sure nobody tries to call in an [[Exterminatus]] without having a good reason for it first. The Imperium could probably use more of them, seeing as Exterminatus seem to happen all the time for things that could probably have been resolved in other ways. They are doing their job since by official statistics, over 90% of Inquisitors who declared a single Exterminatus were stripped of their rank and declared heretics for this exact reason. But they really need to put some effort to prevent such kind of behavior. Print some guidelines or something.
*Ordo Machinum - They ensure that the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] properly integrate STC variants (and the occasional piece of xenos tech) into Imperial technology while also trying to keep their hoarding tendencies to an acceptable level.
*Ordo Militarum - Their role is to ensure that the Imperial armed forces remain loyal. The [[Commissar]]iat is their child organization.
*Ordo Necros- Nobody's entirely sure what they do, but since they apparently needed an entire Ordo to supervise them (The Ordo Vigilus), it must be really important. Something to do with the [[Necron]]s, maybe? (Looking after the [[C'tan|Void Dragon]]?) Something to do with a nature of death and the afterlife? In any case, someone was and is really fucking worried about them and whatever the hell they're doing (These came through after multiple worlds fell to Nurgle's plagues which resurrected the dead as warriors and the Inquisition said "Well fuck, we better assign someone to look after the trillions of dead guardsmen we left in this field Grimdark)
*Ordo Originatus- They act as the Inquisition's historians, attempting to sift through ten thousand years' worth of myths and legends for the few grains of truth that remain.
*Ordo Obsoletus- only mentioned in the fluff a few times, the Inquisitions official department of What The Fuck just happened here? Tends to chase up inexplicable events like the Legion of the Damned turning up. Basically the 40th millennium's X-Files. Tend to be suspicious about miracles.
*Ordo Redactus- The Inquisition's equivalent of the Ministry of Truth, which makes sure that the secrets of the Inquisition's past stay secret. Naturally, this can be quite a problem for the Ordo Originatus if the two don't work together.
*Ordo Thanatos - Unknown purpose. Considering though they are named after the Greek word for death, it points to their purpose having some relation to death, perhaps investigating means of immortality?
*Ordo Sanctorum- This branch keeps a close eye on the [[Ecclesiarchy]] so a second Reign of Blood doesn't occur.
*Ordo Scriptorum- Like a grimdark version of the NSA, they examine and investigate written records and communications and try to cut through the Administratum's red tape when doing so would keep the Imperium safe and secure. Occasionally referred to as the Ordo ISO 9000.
*Ordo Scriptus- Oversees official historical records on Terra. Since they only have 6 (Inquisitorial) members, they most likely make use of great amounts of administratum resources, and even then they are constantly and horribly out of date.
*Ordo Senatorum- Unknown purpose. Perhaps it has something to do with the [[High Lords of Terra|Senatorum Imperialis]] and their staff?
*[[Ordo Sicarius]] - They watch over the [[Officio Assassinorum]] to make sure that they don't try to repeat [[The Beheading]].
*[[Zombiehunters|Ordo Sepulturum]] - They're dedicated to fighting plagues and diseases, but mainly the Zombie Plague and the zombies that result.
*Ordo Vigilus - their purpose is to keep an eye on the Ordo Necros. Someone must have been really concerned by Necros to make an Ordo for the sole sake of keeping an eye on an Ordo.

And nice red uniforms OH DAMN.

Most of the Ordos are very straightforward, doing jobs that are necessary to keep the Imperium running and acting as checks and balances to other powerful organizations in the Imperium, making sure at least most of the various factions play nice while they're around to do important things.

(More or less how they act on /tg/ - [[Media:I.png]]

==Hierarchy==
[[Dark Heresy]] gives us a look at the inner workings of the Inquisition in how they operate and recruit people. Many of them come from nearly every other organization of the Imperium, with a few criminals and death cultists thrown in.

*Acolyte - these are the guys who get recruited (or press-ganged) into the Inquisition's service, for the long term that is. While an Inquisitor can commandeer anyone they need for a particular mission, these agents officially belong to the Inquisition and have received training for their part in the organization. Reasons for recruitment can vary between a person's skills being seen as valuable, to the person in question has seen too much but can be put to use instead of purged, or if the person in question is simply expendable. Acolytes are often servants or meatshields for inquisitors, but if a particular agent shows a high degree of resourcefulness, they may be selected for becoming an inquisitor's personal retinue.
*Throne Agent - An Inquisitor's trusted aides, they tend to be more experienced than acolytes and aid in investigations. Throne Agents who are especially talented with a history of success may be recommended to become Inquisitors themselves.
*Explicator - Apprentice Inquisitors, they train directly under an Inquisitor on how to investigate.
*Interrogator - Inquisitors in training sent out into the field. They have their own rosettes and can order people around, but still lack the authority to perform independently. Once they have enough field and leadership experience they get promoted by the approval of three Inquisitors or one Inquisitor Lord.
*Inquisitor - the full monty. These are the guys who get to root out Heresy, order Exterminatus, rope entire armies into service, and so forth.
*Inquisitor Lord - Not a rank per se, rather a title that recognizes the power and influence of an individual inquisitor. Invitation-only and requires the agreement of three existing Inquisitor Lords. They tend to be the oversees of a particular conclave.
*Master - One of, if not the Head Honcho for a sub-sector.
*Grandmaster - Like the master, but for an entire sector.
*Inquisitorial Representative - The elected representative to the [[High Lords]]. Oddly, it's not considered a desirable final career stage for an Inquisitor, and tends to be a figurehead for whatever shadowy conclave is on Terra at the time.

==Philosophies==

The Inquisition is a big and complicated place, and many have different philosophies on how to protect the Imperium and stop [[Chaos]]. While there are dozens of doctrinal and philosophical disputes, the two important branches are either Puritans or Radicals. Both are fucked up assholes.

===Puritans===
'''''[http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Commander_Shepard I'll find a way to stop the Chaos Gods. But I won't sacrifice humanity's soul to do it.]''''' 
- Inquisitor Shepard's rebuke to a Xenathist radical. 

Puritans, simply put, are those who refuse to employ the measures of the enemy, such as xenotech or the Warp. They believe that associating anything with the enemy will inevitably bring corruptible influences that will only lead to damnation for all of humanity in the end, which isn't so far-fetched given the circumstances humanity faced throughout the millennia, although it has the inevitable drawback that a puritians will eventually start to see ''everything'' as alien and chaotic influences, which only leads to even more problems down the line. Most Inquisitors start out as Puritans or on the spectrum of Puritanism, but a number of them fall into Radicalism eventually (which can be classed as lesser heresy in its most extreme forms). Puritanism can fall among three major philosophies:

*{{anchor|Amalathianism}}'''Amalathianism''': The most conservative form of Puritanism in the Inquisition, Amalathians (named after Mount Amalath, where its tenets were first set down at an Inquisitorial conclave) believe that the Emperor has some sort of divine plan for the Imperium, and the Inquisition's purpose is to protect the Imperium as that plan becomes visible. Change is considered the greatest enemy (which may have [[Tzeentch|some sense to it]]), with the exception that they seek to overcome the factionalism so common within the [[Adeptus Terra]]. The irony that the Amalathians are themselves technically a faction is not lost on them. You'd think that a group which holds the Imperium at present is perfect would be off its rocker, but they're actually a fairly reasonable group who prefer to [[/tg/ gets shit done|get shit done]] rather than bicker and bitch over territorial disputes. [[Gregor Eisenhorn]] was once a staunch Amalathian, but he eventually fell into Radicalism in his later years.
*{{anchor|Monodominant}}'''Monodominant''': The most extreme form of Puritianism in the Inquisition, Monodominants are basically [[Humanity Fuck Yeah]] taken to its illogical extreme. They believe that humanity, and ''only'' humanity, should be allowed to continue to exist. Given that the average inhabitants of the galaxy are [[Eldar|space pansies who would abandon you in a heartbeat]], [[Dark Eldar|space pansies who would torture and rape you in a heartbeat]], [[Ork|green hooligans who would fight and kill you in a heartbeat]], [[Tyranid|giant spacebugs who would eat you in a heartbeat]], [[Necron|undead robots who would atomize you in a clock tick]] and [[Chaos|things much worse]], this is [[Grimdark|an understandable worldview]]. Unfortunately, the Monodominants take things a few steps further, wanting to eliminate all [[mutant]]s, including the [[Psyker]]s ([[Astropath]]s and [[Navigator]]s) that humanity needs to keep functioning, as well even [[Space Marines]]. 
*{{anchor|Thorianism}}'''Thorianism''': The most radical form of Puritanism, Thorians are named after [[Sebastian Thor]], the hero of the [[Age of Apostasy]], and believe that Thor held part of the power of the Emperor within him. The Thorians thus believe that it is possible to reincarnate the Emperor of Mankind into a new body, allowing him to rebuild the Imperium and launch a new [[Great Crusade]]. As a result, Thorians closely study the nature of the human consciousness and the Warp, while also keeping a close eye on individuals that show enough power to be potential hosts for the Emperor's soul (such as Living Saints). They are extremely close to the [[Ecclesiarchy]]. 
**{{anchor|Anomolian Beholders}}'''Anomolian Beholders''': A conservative branch of Thorianism which takes a more passive approach to the resurrectionist ideology; they are more content with observing humanity for signs of the God-Emperor's return than actively trying to bring him back. 
**{{anchor|Ardentites}}'''Ardentites''': A variation of Thorian belief that claims the power of the Emperor was dispersed throughout humanity as a whole rather than being concentrated in any one individual. Derisively referred to as "miracle chasers" by the rest of the Inquisition for their many failed attempts at proving their beliefs.

===Radicals===
'''''[http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Illusive_Man Salvation comes with a cost. Judge us not by our methods, but what we seek to accomplish.]''''' 
- Inquisitor Jack ''"The Illusive Man"'' Harper. Founder of the Xanthism cell, codenamed "Cerberus". 

Radicals are those Inquisitors who believe in fighting fire with fire--specifically, using the weapons of the enemy against the enemy. According to [[Gideon Ravenor]], Radicalism is an inevitable product of an Inquisitor's ideology being tested, as the more one learns about the nature of the enemy, the more they realize that the enemy has a lot better toys than the Imperium. However, given that most Inquisitors will face Chaos at some point, and given the inherently corrupting nature of the Warp, Radicalism may lead to one hoping to fight the Archenemy with its own tools before brought into the service of the Chaos Gods instead; consequently, an accusation of Radicalism is only slightly less serious than an accusation of outright heresy. Radicalism can fall into a lot more branches than Puritanism, and the following is merely a list of the most common forms it can take:

*{{anchor|Horusians}}'''Horusians''': One of the most dangerous forms of radicalism, Horusians (named after [[Horus|Horus Lupercal]]) believe that power the Chaos Gods imbued Horus with to fight the Emperor can be used to create a new body for the Emperor. Mostly consists of older Inquisitors who have become angry with the other resurrection theories failing to get shit done.
*{{anchor|Istvaanism}}'''Istvaanism''': One of the most violent forms of Radicalism, Istvaanians (named for the virus-bombing of Istvaan III, which began the Horus Heresy) believe that conflict is desirable, and mankind only grows in a state of violence (while it is said that "necessity is the mother of invention", the culture in 40k minimizes technological advancements). In practice, this leads to various conflicts that would otherwise remain minor suddenly becoming unmanageable because an Istvaanite was covertly funneling resources to one or both sides. Possibly the only group in the galaxy who views the Imperium's biggest problem as too ''few'' wars.
*{{anchor|Recongregationism}}'''Recongregationism''': Radicals who believe that the Imperium has become stagnant and corrupt, and needs to be rebuilt lest it collapse further. Unfortunately for them, they aren't entirely sure about how to do this, or how it should be rebuilt after tearing down the old order. Some of the more extreme Recongregators end up like Lilean Chase, an Inquisitor who fell to Chaos and founded the Cognitae (or at least its ''40K'' incarnation), arguably these inquisitors may be the closest thing to <s>the modern views of western society</s> Inquisitors giving a crap about ordinary people, as shown in a small story one of them used a cadre of Xenos Hunters composed of Space Marines from dubious chapters ([[Black Dragons]], [[Flame Falcons]], etc) to simultaneously stop a [[Necron]] incursion and topple an oppressive planetary government with the hope something better will go out of the consecutive population uprising.
*{{anchor|Revivificationism}}'''Revivificationism''': Essentially the radical form of Thorianism, Revivificators believe in studying the effects of death and dying so that they can reverse the process and revive the Emperor of Mankind. Revivificators have a deep interest in studying the Eldar as a result, and have less ties to the Ecclesiarchy. Also occasionally try to summon angels (daemons) of the Emperor, with predictable results.
*{{anchor|Xanthism}}'''Xanthism''': The most overt and well known form of Radicalism, Xanthians (named after Lord Inquisitor Zaranchek Xanthus, executed for heresy in M32) believe that using Chaotic artifacts such as possessed swords and Daemonhosts are viable weapons against the Archenemy which should be used whenever possible. They hold that only by controlling the power of Chaos can Chaos be defeated. Eisenhorn eventually followed Xanthism after being forced to use Cherubael to save the lives of his retinue. (Most of the time, this ends up spectacularly backfiring when their tools rebel at the worst possible time- or worse, corrupt them into the service of Chaos. The Ruinous Powers hate each other, but they aren't always complete idiots about it, and when you play with fire, you only have to drop it once to set the whole house ablaze.)
**{{anchor|Phaenonism}}'''Phaenonism''': A splinter group of Xanthism, considered extreme even by other Radicals. Their dabbling with tech-heresy alongside the traditional Xanthite methods led them to openly deny the Emperor's divinity and embrace the powers of the Warp, seeking to rebuild the Imperium in their own image. Despite being declared Excommunicate Traitoris, there are still some Phaenonites in the Inquisition, although they have taken great caution to conceal their allegiances from their fellow Inquisitors.
*{{anchor|Libricars}}'''Libricars''': An extreme version of Amalthianism that insists that even the smallest deviations from the status quo warrants purging. Unlike the Amalthians, they will do absolutely ''anything'' to ensure the status quo. Needless to say, the Recongregators hate them.
*{{anchor|Oblationists}}'''Oblationists''': Bizarro Monodominants that insist that the truly righteous (i.e. themselves) must allow themselves to be damned through the use of the Warp, the xenos, and the unclean to keep humanity safe. At the same time they believe that anyone else using these things will be hopelessly damned and ought to be purged. The hypocrisy of this is lost on them.
*{{anchor|Ocularians}}'''Ocularians''': A minor faction obsessed with learning how to predict and divine the future, no matter the cost of doing so.
**{{anchor|Antiquarti}}'''Antiquarti''': A subgroup of Ocularians that seek to predict the future by discovering patterns within events in the past. That wouldn't be hard if anyone allowed them to see the few books on the past, since no one teaches history in the grimdark future.
*{{anchor|Polypsykana}}'''Polypsykana''': A group that believes humanity is evolving into a fully psychic race (which appears to be true) and that it is a good idea for them to do everything they can to accelerate this process (which is clearly arguable). They do this by trying to protect nascent psykers from their Puritan colleagues, though they have also been known to harbor witches and other rogue psykers as well.
*{{anchor|Seculos Attendous}}'''Seculos Attendous''': A minor faction that views the [[Ecclesiarchy]] as an obstacle to mankind's progress and seeks to weaken it wherever they can. They're probably the only group of people in the Imperium who have realized that fact. A shame that they can't agree on what to replace it with on the absurdly tiny chance they succeed.
*{{anchor|Casophilians}}'''Casophilians''': Another branch of Thorianism interested in learning how to summon a deceased soul back to the Materium in the hope that doing so could be the first step to resurrecting the Emperor. (In practice, this would probably resemble a form of "reverse daemon summoning".) Relatively conservative by Radical standards, they are one of the few factions that can be considered open to new ideas and are known to work especially well with the Anomolian Beholders.
*{{anchor|Xeno Hybris}}'''Xeno Hybris''': A small group which sees strict anti-alien policies as being counter-productive to the Imperium of Man. They feel that sometimes Xenos can be useful or be learned from, especially when working against chaos. Many inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus in particular will do this to deal with the forces of chaos every now and again, but the Xeno Hybris makes seeking said cooperation their hat. At the very least, these guys are not tempting fate to the same extent by as other Radicals since their toys are much less likely to eat their souls. Even so, this position would most likely be more popular if the aliens the Imperium deals with on a regular basis were less of a bunch of dicks themselves or consists of [[Slaugth|Humanoid Maggots]] and other horrors that not even the Tau will try to convince to join the Greater Good.

==Song==
([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUMkcBctE7c tune])

 The eye that sleepth not.
 The Inquisition (Let's begin)
 The Inquisition (Look out, sin)
 We have a mission
 To kill all the Heretiiiiiics~ (Heretics, He-he-he-heretics~)
 We're gonna teach them (Wrong from right)
 We're gonna help them (See the light)
 And make an offer that they can't refuse.
 (That the heretics just can't refuse)

 Confess (confess), don't be boring
 Re-peeeent~ (Repent), don't be dull
 A fact you're ignoring
 It's better to ditch the skull throne than your skull

 The Inquisition (What a show)
 The Inquisition (Here we go)
 We know you're wishing that we'd go away
 But the Inquisition's here and it's here to stay

 The Inquisition (Oh boy)
 The Inquisition (What joy)
 The Inquisition (Oi oi)

 I was posting down in /tg/, I was minding my own business
 I was about to post some Loli Daemonette.
 Then these Ordos Hereticus plunge in
 And they throw me in a dungeon
 And they shoved a revved up chainsword up my ass.

 Is that considerate?
 Is that polite?
 And not a tube of Preparation H in sight.

 I'm sittin' flickin' daemons
 And I'm lookin' through the thickens
 When suddenly these guys break down my walls.
 I didn't even know them
 And they grabbed me by the scrotum
 And they started playing Ping Pong with my balls

 Oh, the agony!
 Ooh, the shame!
 To make my privates public by a game!

 The Inquisition (What a show)
 The Inquisition (Here we go)
 We know you're wishing that we'd go away
 But the Inquisition's here and it's here to-

 Hey, Torquemada!
 What do you say?

 I just got back from the autos-du-fe,
 Autos-du-fe? What's the autos-du-fe?
 It's what you oughtn't to do but you do anyway!

 Skit scat doodlebac doodle be bay

 Will you convert?
 NO NO NO NO!
 Will you confess?
 NO NO NO NO!
 Will you revert?
 NO NO NO NO!
 Will you say YES?
 NO NO NO NO!

 Now I asked in a nice way
 I said pretty please
 I bent their ears
 Now I'll work on the knees

 Hey Torquemada
 Walk this way
 We got a new game you might want to play!
 Pull this handle, try your luck
 Who knows, Torq, you might win a buck! (All right)

 Put it in the ship.
 (In the ship In the ship!)

 How we doing? Any Heretics repent today?
 Not a one! Nay Nay Nay!
 We've flattened their fingers,
 We've branded their buns.
 Nothing is working!
 SEND IN THE NUNS WITH GUNS

 The Inquisition (What a show)
 The Inquisition (Here we go)
 We know you're wishing that we'd go away
 So come on all you Heretics and you Xenos
 We got some big news for all of yous
 You'd better change your point of views today

 'Cause the Inquisition's here and it's here to stay!

(bet you weren't expecting that song, either!)

==Codex==

They`re currently in codex Imperial Agents. [[Games Workshop|Jerks...]]

==See Also==
*[[Daemonhunters]]
*[[Witch Hunters]]
*[[Spanish Inquisition|Their completely serious, (and more Noblebright by comparison) historical inspiration/predecessors]]
*[[Alienhunters]]
*[[Zombiehunters]]
*[[Ordo Sicarius]]
*[[Ordo Chronos]]
*[[Dark Heresy]]
*[[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Inquisition(7E)|Tactics/Inquisition]]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isw7nLOdYXM A video showing one of the more feared inquisitors]

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

Ecclesiarchy

2017-06-07T05:11:03Z

2001:8003:2B47:ED00:7C8D:CC5A:5E56:46C0:

"''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]].

[[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 science 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. 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]]

Ecclesiarchy

2017-06-07T05:05:05Z

2001:8003:2B47:ED00:7C8D:CC5A:5E56:46C0:

"''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]].

[[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 science and reason 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. Suitably embarrassed, the Emperor politely informed Lorgar to stop the bullshit. 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. 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]]

Illiyan Nastase

2017-06-07T04:52:02Z

2001:8003:2B47:ED00:7C8D:CC5A:5E56:46C0: /* Why this is bullshit today */

{{Oldschool}}

[[File:1255136711848.jpg|thumb|Rawr! I hate this!]]
==How it was back then==
Some older fluff mentions that Eldar and Humans both were created by the Old Ones, and therefore should be able to give birth to Eldar-Human hybrids. This, of course, is mad old fluff that can't be trusted to function anymore, and you can be sure that your friends at the Inquisition will tell you that mating with an Eldar will result in corruption, mutations, and <s>one hideous baby</s> no baby at all, before promptly blamming you.

Suffice to say, back in the old [[Rogue_Trader_(Sourcebook)|Rogue Trader]] days there were not only Human-Eldar halfbreeds, but some openly found their way into the upper echelons of the [[Imperium]].

'''Illiyan Nastase''' was born on Badab towards the end of the [[Badab War]] in M41.912 to a human mother and Eldar father. After genetic testing, he was taken into Imperial Custody and when he was twelve years old was sent to Terra because he was a psyker.

He was then ''Soul-Bound'' to the Emperor and worked for the [[Administratum]] as an [[Astropath]] where he rose in rank to "Secundus Prefect" and held the position of "Consul" for four years where he was an advisor to the Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica.

THEN he was attached to the [[Dark Angels]] for a further two years.

After which he was promoted to Chief of the Macragge communications link and somehow holds the rank of Chief Librarian within the [[Ultramarines]].

==Why this is bullshit today==
First, eldar & human hybrids are extremely unlikely; despite possibly [[Xenology|sharing a common ancestor]], the two species are probably so far apart that offspring are not viable, especially since eldar DNA contains considerably more base pairs ''(which are used to determine amino acid structures)'' than humans do, and their DNA contains more helices (and therefore binds to itself differently). Not to mention whether or not they have the same number of chromosomes, and Eldar reproduction to create a zygote involves roughly five different stages, so either the woman [[Slaanesh|gets it on with several other partners]] and makes a mixed baby OR the male partner [[Love Can Bloom|tries over and over again to make it work]]. So basically one-night-stand pregnancies are out of the question... Unless human sperm is more manly than the Eldar's, which is pretty obvious.
*[[Genestealers]] can get both species pregnant, albeit invasively and using [[tyranid]] shenanigans, so there is ''some'' limit to how different their DNA is, but that's a special case.

Secondly, any such offspring would be considered an abomination under Imperial Law and by the [[Ecclesiarchy]], and would be put to death. Oh, speaking of, did we mention that he was born on Badab during the Badab War? And thus likely didn't actually have much contact with Imperial Law or the Ecclesiarchy: [[Lugft Huron]] was a political secessionist at that time (not the raving chaos lunatic that he would later become). So any official sanction of a Human-Eldar hybrid would be extremely unlikely, and if it ''were'' sanctioned, would definitely not have been accepted when the Imperium returned to the world after the war.

Thirdly, do you really think they'd let a human-eldar hybrid all the way back to Terra and be soul-bound to the Emperor? I mean COME ON?! THEN let him rise all the way up the ranks to become an advisor to the Adeptus Astra Telepathica?

Fourth, the [[Dark Angels]] are constantly mentioned as having proclivities for disdaining mutants and abhumans, meaning if they knew about him [[Blam|they'd have something to say about his continued existence]]. Although, that makes even ''less'' sense today, as the Dark Angels have mostly moved past this, and it was [[Derp|actually the older lore]] where they held such disdain for mutants and abhumans.

Fifth, this assumes that Gene-seed is compatible with Eldar DNA. Since [[Blood Angels|some]] [[Space Wolves|Primarchs]] Gene-seed would come with side-effects, it makes it unlikely it would bond with Illiyan's DNA. As Gene-seed doesn't even work on human women, it won't work on DNA dramatically different from human DNA.

Sixth, after all this... holding the rank of Chief [[Librarian]] means he'd have authority over the Librarium and therefore other space marines. Though in the days when the article was written the Ultramarines were pretty cool about having non-Astartes throughout the ranks. So Nastase was explicitly ''not'' a Space Marine which is one saving grace for the whole article.

And that's not even getting into the views of the eldar on human/eldar offspring. While GW hasn't fleshed out the eldar as much as their precious Imperium, considering how most eldar consider humans to be no better than monkeys, they'd probably view having sex with a human as [[FATAL|bestiality]].

Not so much bs today with the new happy feely Eldar smurf love Robbie now has.

===Conclusion===
[[File:Illyian Nastase minature.jpg|300px|thumbnail|right|Now in miniature version.]]
But, knowing 40K and GW, this is unlikely to be canon, especially since [[Varro Tigurius]] is the [[Librarian|Chief Librarian]] during the dates that Nastase supposedly also holds the same rank...

Also, in the same article, the Ultramarines of Macragge were said to be a chapter of the THIRD FOUNDING raised to replace the [[Ultramarines|13th Legion]] [[Who_Watches_Them|who had turned traitor]] and fled to the Eye of Terror, and this new chapter received all of the paraphernalia of the old legion. '''ULTIMATE HERESY''' {{BLAM}}

On the other hand, didn't they explicitly state that all official fluff is debatable and subjective, often portraying [[Ultramarines|whoever are the heroes]] to their favour?

Love might just be able to bloom anyway. {{BLAM|NOOOOOOOOO NO NOOOOO. *BLAM**BLAM**BLAM**BLAM* HERESY!!!}}

[[Space Wolves|RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]]

==Codex Illiyan Nastase ==
Now you can bring him back on the table to fight alongside the Ultramarines.

{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="left"
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Illiyan Nastase ''' || 150 || 5 || 5 || 3 || 3 || 2 || 5 || 3 || 10 || 3+
|} 

'''Unit Type''':
* '''Infantry (Character)'''

'''Unit Composition''':
* '''1 Unique'''

'''Wargear''':
* '''Sword of The Telepathica'''
* '''Archeotech Laspistol'''
* '''Armour of The Chief Astropath'''
* '''Frag Grenades'''
* '''Krak Grenades'''

'''Special Rules''':
* '''Chapter Tactics (Ultramarines)'''
* '''Independent Character'''
* '''Psyker (Mastery Level 2): Illiyan Nastase generates powers from the Biomancy, Daemonology, Divination, Pyromancy, Telekinesis and Telepathy disciplines.
* '''Adamantine Will'''
* '''Eldar Bloodline''': Illiyan's life was all but easy to him due to him being an impure bastard offspring between a human and an Eldar. To this day he wonders how he managed to survive in a civilization that would see him get purged on sight. On the other hand this doesn't seem to bother his brethren that adopted him, and he discovered some good things about having an Eldar bloodline...
:Due to Illiyan Nastase's origins, all non-Ultramarines Space Marines (except for those who are successors to the Ultramarines) in an allied detachment become '''Allies of Convenience'''. Inquisition and Sisters of Battle allied detachments become '''Desperate Allies'''. Illiyan also gets the '''Ancient Doom ''' and '''Battle Focus''' special rules (see Codex: Craftworld Eldar). Additionally, Illiyan gives '''Battle Focus''' to any squad he joins.
;'''Chief Astropath'''
:Although not a Space Marine, Nastase is a skilled psyker in his own rights, yet his telepathic abilities are even more impressive, as befits of a previous member of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica.
::When manifesting and casting powers from the '''Telepathy''' discipline, Nastase gets a +1 to his rolls. Similarly, he gets a +1 to his rolls when he suffers Perils of The Warp if he fails to properly manifest or cast a power from the '''Telepathy Discipline'''.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;'''Sword of The Telepathica'''
:A unique Force Sword that was given to Nastase while he was still a Consul and advisor to the Master of The Adeptus Astra Telepathica. This blade is both well balanced and improves Illiyan's combat capabilities.
::The '''Sword of The Telepathica''' is a Master Crafted Force Sword that grants Illiyan Nastase the '''Counter-Attack USR'''.
;'''Archeotech Laspistol'''
:An ancient design of Laspistol that pre-dates the Great Crusade, this weapon has enough power to make a mockery of Chaos Marine Power Armour.
::The '''Archeotech Laspistol''' is an S6, AP3 Laspistol.
;'''Armour of The Chief Astropath'''
:Nastase's unique suit of Power Armour. At first glance it looks like a simple MK.VI Corvus Pattern Power Armour, but in reality it has additional systems designed to better protect him against danger, but especially against psychic powers.
::The '''Armour of The Chief Astropath''' is a suit of Power Armour that has a Psychic Hood included and grants Nastase a 5++ Inv Save, which becomes 3++ when saving against a Psychic Power.

{{Marines-Characters}}

Illiyan Nastase

2017-06-07T04:48:29Z

2001:8003:2B47:ED00:7C8D:CC5A:5E56:46C0: /* Why this is bullshit today */

{{Oldschool}}

[[File:1255136711848.jpg|thumb|Rawr! I hate this!]]
==How it was back then==
Some older fluff mentions that Eldar and Humans both were created by the Old Ones, and therefore should be able to give birth to Eldar-Human hybrids. This, of course, is mad old fluff that can't be trusted to function anymore, and you can be sure that your friends at the Inquisition will tell you that mating with an Eldar will result in corruption, mutations, and <s>one hideous baby</s> no baby at all, before promptly blamming you.

Suffice to say, back in the old [[Rogue_Trader_(Sourcebook)|Rogue Trader]] days there were not only Human-Eldar halfbreeds, but some openly found their way into the upper echelons of the [[Imperium]].

'''Illiyan Nastase''' was born on Badab towards the end of the [[Badab War]] in M41.912 to a human mother and Eldar father. After genetic testing, he was taken into Imperial Custody and when he was twelve years old was sent to Terra because he was a psyker.

He was then ''Soul-Bound'' to the Emperor and worked for the [[Administratum]] as an [[Astropath]] where he rose in rank to "Secundus Prefect" and held the position of "Consul" for four years where he was an advisor to the Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica.

THEN he was attached to the [[Dark Angels]] for a further two years.

After which he was promoted to Chief of the Macragge communications link and somehow holds the rank of Chief Librarian within the [[Ultramarines]].

==Why this is bullshit today==
First, eldar & human hybrids are extremely unlikely; despite possibly [[Xenology|sharing a common ancestor]], the two species are probably so far apart that offspring are not viable, especially since eldar DNA contains considerably more base pairs ''(which are used to determine amino acid structures)'' than humans do, and their DNA contains more helices (and therefore binds to itself differently). Not to mention whether or not they have the same number of chromosomes, and Eldar reproduction to create a zygote involves roughly five different stages, so either the woman [[Slaanesh|gets it on with several other partners]] and makes a mixed baby OR the male partner [[Love Can Bloom|tries over and over again to make it work]]. So basically one-night-stand pregnancies are out of the question... Unless human sperm is more manly than the Eldar's, which is pretty obvious.
*[[Genestealers]] can get both species pregnant, albeit invasively and using [[tyranid]] shenanigans, so there is ''some'' limit to how different their DNA is, but that's a special case.

Secondly, any such offspring would be considered an abomination under Imperial Law and by the [[Ecclesiarchy]], and would be put to death. Oh, speaking of, did we mention that he was born on Badab during the Badab War? And thus likely didn't actually have much contact with Imperial Law or the Ecclesiarchy: [[Lugft Huron]] was a political secessionist at that time (not the raving chaos lunatic that he would later become). So any official sanction of a Human-Eldar hybrid would be extremely unlikely, and if it ''were'' sanctioned, would definitely not have been accepted when the Imperium returned to the world after the war.

Thirdly, do you really think they'd let a human-eldar hybrid all the way back to Terra and be soul-bound to the Emperor? I mean COME ON?! THEN let him rise all the way up the ranks to become an advisor to the Adeptus Astra Telepathica?

Fourth, the [[Dark Angels]] are constantly mentioned as having proclivities for disdaining mutants and abhumans, meaning if they knew about him [[Blam|they'd have something to say about his continued existence]]. Although, that makes even ''less'' sense today, as the Dark Angels have mostly moved past this, and it was [[Derp|actually the older lore]] where they held such disdain for mutants and abhumans.

Fifth, this assumes that Gene-seed is compatible with Eldar DNA. As Gene-seed doesn't even work on human women, it's less likely to work on Eldar making it less likely Illiyan would be able to get Gene-seed.

Sixth, after all this... holding the rank of Chief [[Librarian]] means he'd have authority over the Librarium and therefore other space marines. Though in the days when the article was written the Ultramarines were pretty cool about having non-Astartes throughout the ranks. So Nastase was explicitly ''not'' a Space Marine which is one saving grace for the whole article.

And that's not even getting into the views of the eldar on human/eldar offspring. While GW hasn't fleshed out the eldar as much as their precious Imperium, considering how most eldar consider humans to be no better than monkeys, they'd probably view having sex with a human as [[FATAL|bestiality]].

Not so much bs today with the new happy feely Eldar smurf love Robbie now has.

===Conclusion===
[[File:Illyian Nastase minature.jpg|300px|thumbnail|right|Now in miniature version.]]
But, knowing 40K and GW, this is unlikely to be canon, especially since [[Varro Tigurius]] is the [[Librarian|Chief Librarian]] during the dates that Nastase supposedly also holds the same rank...

Also, in the same article, the Ultramarines of Macragge were said to be a chapter of the THIRD FOUNDING raised to replace the [[Ultramarines|13th Legion]] [[Who_Watches_Them|who had turned traitor]] and fled to the Eye of Terror, and this new chapter received all of the paraphernalia of the old legion. '''ULTIMATE HERESY''' {{BLAM}}

On the other hand, didn't they explicitly state that all official fluff is debatable and subjective, often portraying [[Ultramarines|whoever are the heroes]] to their favour?

Love might just be able to bloom anyway. {{BLAM|NOOOOOOOOO NO NOOOOO. *BLAM**BLAM**BLAM**BLAM* HERESY!!!}}

[[Space Wolves|RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]]

==Codex Illiyan Nastase ==
Now you can bring him back on the table to fight alongside the Ultramarines.

{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="left"
! || Pts || WS || BS || S || T || W || I || A || Ld || Sv
|-
| '''Illiyan Nastase ''' || 150 || 5 || 5 || 3 || 3 || 2 || 5 || 3 || 10 || 3+
|} 

'''Unit Type''':
* '''Infantry (Character)'''

'''Unit Composition''':
* '''1 Unique'''

'''Wargear''':
* '''Sword of The Telepathica'''
* '''Archeotech Laspistol'''
* '''Armour of The Chief Astropath'''
* '''Frag Grenades'''
* '''Krak Grenades'''

'''Special Rules''':
* '''Chapter Tactics (Ultramarines)'''
* '''Independent Character'''
* '''Psyker (Mastery Level 2): Illiyan Nastase generates powers from the Biomancy, Daemonology, Divination, Pyromancy, Telekinesis and Telepathy disciplines.
* '''Adamantine Will'''
* '''Eldar Bloodline''': Illiyan's life was all but easy to him due to him being an impure bastard offspring between a human and an Eldar. To this day he wonders how he managed to survive in a civilization that would see him get purged on sight. On the other hand this doesn't seem to bother his brethren that adopted him, and he discovered some good things about having an Eldar bloodline...
:Due to Illiyan Nastase's origins, all non-Ultramarines Space Marines (except for those who are successors to the Ultramarines) in an allied detachment become '''Allies of Convenience'''. Inquisition and Sisters of Battle allied detachments become '''Desperate Allies'''. Illiyan also gets the '''Ancient Doom ''' and '''Battle Focus''' special rules (see Codex: Craftworld Eldar). Additionally, Illiyan gives '''Battle Focus''' to any squad he joins.
;'''Chief Astropath'''
:Although not a Space Marine, Nastase is a skilled psyker in his own rights, yet his telepathic abilities are even more impressive, as befits of a previous member of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica.
::When manifesting and casting powers from the '''Telepathy''' discipline, Nastase gets a +1 to his rolls. Similarly, he gets a +1 to his rolls when he suffers Perils of The Warp if he fails to properly manifest or cast a power from the '''Telepathy Discipline'''.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
;'''Sword of The Telepathica'''
:A unique Force Sword that was given to Nastase while he was still a Consul and advisor to the Master of The Adeptus Astra Telepathica. This blade is both well balanced and improves Illiyan's combat capabilities.
::The '''Sword of The Telepathica''' is a Master Crafted Force Sword that grants Illiyan Nastase the '''Counter-Attack USR'''.
;'''Archeotech Laspistol'''
:An ancient design of Laspistol that pre-dates the Great Crusade, this weapon has enough power to make a mockery of Chaos Marine Power Armour.
::The '''Archeotech Laspistol''' is an S6, AP3 Laspistol.
;'''Armour of The Chief Astropath'''
:Nastase's unique suit of Power Armour. At first glance it looks like a simple MK.VI Corvus Pattern Power Armour, but in reality it has additional systems designed to better protect him against danger, but especially against psychic powers.
::The '''Armour of The Chief Astropath''' is a suit of Power Armour that has a Psychic Hood included and grants Nastase a 5++ Inv Save, which becomes 3++ when saving against a Psychic Power.

{{Marines-Characters}}