Editing Gardinaal (section)

==Society==
{{Topquote|[[Tau|A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.]]| Aldous Huxley, [[Imperium of Man|Brave New World]]}}

Though the Gardinaal were technologically advanced, they had chosen to abandon warp travel at some point during the Dark Age of Technology, preferring to remain in their own solar system. Even though they knew other races and colonies of humanity existed, they had effectively been isolated for many thousands of years. 

The Gardinaal home system had eleven planets that were heavily industrialised and extremely heavily populated; one world alone was said to have 100,000,000,000 people, which was supposedly greater than Terra at the time. They clearly held some [[STC]] designs as they were capable of building their own [[Thunderbolt Fighter]] craft for use in their air defense forces, were capable of building large walker constructs, and also had beam technology more sophisticated than that of the Imperium. However, what was most interesting about their technology and society was how they had adapted the genetics of their citizens. 

Due to the extremely high population and no trade from outside sources, resources were at a premium; therefore the entire population had been subjected to eugenic manipulation and psychological conditioning. Every person was designed for their role over thousands of generations of selective breeding and separated according to a caste system like something out of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, with the smarter castes occupying higher positions while the dumber castes were happy in their ignorance. The Gardinaal leaders ''were'' aware of genetic engineering (one was suitably impressed upon encountering an Astartes for the first time, and was able to relate to the notion of a Primarch) but they had either implemented it into the castes so far back in their history it no longer mattered, or had chosen not to waste resources on it and stuck with the long route via pure eugenics. The castes were different enough from each other to be almost unrelatable: the "ogreish" Warrior-Caste were raging testosterone junkies, while the Enforcer-Caste were emotionally disconnected. There was even the Void-Caste who had hands instead of feet ''(much more useful for zero-G)'' and a Consular-Caste who were bred for their psychic ability, but they all remained effectively human. 

This was on top of the conditioning and propaganda that each person was exposed to. Even though the lower castes were a bit dim and ignorant, obedience to the state was absolute; all it took was a command from a senior and the lower castes would throw themselves at Astartes warriors without hesitation. Every person had his worth, and once their worth to the state was exceeded by their burden they readily accepted euthanasia so that their resources could be recycled and reused elsewhere. It is not exactly described what happens to these "Expired", but one of the Consular-Caste admits it would be an honour to be interred ''inside'' one of the High Lords; whether this means being eaten or having their organs and cells harvested and distributed is left to the reader to decide.

On the topic of those "Immortal" High Lords: they were nothing like the [[Emperor]], nor were they [[Perpetual]]s. They were effectively Uber [[Dreadnoughts]], being kept alive by machinery even after their bodies had failed them. Though they had remained in this state for many thousands of years, they had not gone completely mad or unresponsive the way that space marine dreadnoughts are often expected to become with advancing age. One high lord was described as being one and a half times the size of a Deredeo Dreadnought with three times the firepower, though they were capable of changing chassis and occupying smaller, more discreet forms where necessary.

The Gardinaal had only one encounter with outside races; they were invaded by [[Orks]] 2500 years before the Great Crusade rolled along. The Gardinaal had the military might to see off the Ork invasion successfully, and the victory was used in ongoing propaganda to perpetuate the notion that they were undefeatable. The soldiers would maintain this even as they were losing to the Imperium, which clearly caused them some mental dissonance.