Editing Nobledark Imperium Notes (section)

== Sisters of Battle ==

Notes on the general concept of the Sisters of Battle so they don't get forgotten. Hopefully this should not be here too long as an anon has this partly written up.

* After the Age of Apostasy, it was clear that the Imperium needed more oversight
* Additionally, there’s a problem with a large number of talented female candidates piling up who would have made good Astartes had they been born men.
** Gene-seed was in part reverse engineered from what little they could out of Oscar, who was of course male, and the researchers had a hard time figuring out what parts of the gene-seed were sex-linked and which were not. Sadly though no Women of Gold survived the Age of Strife that could be used as comparisons. Oscar didn't see a problem with this at the time, he had rather traditionalist views having been raised by Malcador and didn't feel comfortable with women being put in do or die situations that super soldiers would be expected to be in. And the fact that men are stronger than women and so there was no reason to spend precious gene-seed and equipment to produce inferior super-soldiers when the male ones tended to die a lot in battle anyway.  Changing that would have meant further changes to the women which would be both an increase in time and expense and an increased wash-out rate to produce someone who was basically a man with a womb to then be augmented as Astartes.  It would have probably taken decades or more to create a unisex geneseed, time the Imperium didn't have and wasn't worth the extra expenses and time.
** However, by the time of the Age of Apostasy, Oscar's views had softened a bit and it was clear that not doing something with them the was a waste of talent.
* Specific idea and organization for the Sisters comes from Sebastian Thor and Alicia Dominica (who was either Thor's bodyguard, turned from Vandire by Thor, or both)
* Ended up forming the Adeptas Securitas (but see below). Job is to act as internal affairs for the Imperium itself and deal with rebels, insurgents, cultists, and even the occasional rogue Space Marine. Also tend to be called up when Inquisitors need extra muscle, as they are some of the strongest soldiers the Imperium can field short of an outright Space Marine or pulling out even bigger guns.
** Bit of a debate going on as to whether the Ordo Securitas and Adeptas Securitas are the same thing (using the No Men Under Arms loophole because Internal Affairs needs reliable muscle), whether the Ordo Securitas is a separate institution and just works closely with the Adeptus Sororitas, etc. Even the name is a little loopy. Securitas is what was generally agreed upon in the threads, though there had been a significant amount of disagreement.
* Although officially secular, strong faith and/or political fanaticism are actually considered a plus for this line of work, as faith acts as a mild Chaos deterrent
** There are Reasonable Sisters of Battle, it's just the crazy ones tend to be better known. Indeed, the reasonable ones are known to play up their reputation in a good cop, bad cop routine to get people to talk.
* Receive discrete cybernetics and limited gene forging, much tougher than an Imperial Guardsman but nowhere near as tough as an Astartes (often compared to Halo SPARTANs, augmented but closer to peak human than walking tank)
** General rule of thumb is terms of raw strength, a Sister is worth about three unaugmented human guardsmen (and Sororitas armies tear through unaugmented troops easily), and a (Mark III MP) Astartes is worth about three Sisters or ten guardsmen. Eldar are harder to place, Guardians are closer to Sister level but Aspect Warriors are closer to Space Marine level due to bulking up from selective gene expression and extreme training (obviously more skilled individuals being more dangerous).
** Augmentations for Sororitas include things like increased muscle strength and bone density, microdermal mesh, artificial glands that produce endorphins and artificial hormones. However the augmentations are discrete enough that the Sisters can easily pass as a normal human, albeit one that's a bit on the tall side for their planet of origin.
** Augmentation process also has a tendency to cause bleaching of the hair and possibly increases aggression (don't play with testosterone kids), though the AdBio claims the latter is a placebo effect due to the nature of the aspirants.
* Have a weird interservice rivalry with the Space Marines, who they feel a little resentful of getting the “better” upgrades and getting to fight the “better” enemies; really resent being considered “diet space marines”.

Some debate over the Dialogous, Familis, and the like, given that the Remembrancers and such still exist in this timeline. General agreement that they are associated with the Ordo Securitas in some way. Ordo Hospitalier was founded by a retired Sister who felt there had to be a better way to provide stability for the Imperium than suppressing rebellions with force and decides to focus on humanitarian efforts and treating the wounded (happy, healthy, and well-fed people are less likely to go to Chaos). The order retains close connections with the militant Sisters and a lot of crippled Sisters who want to serve but can no longer fight end up there. Anyone can join because fighting isn't an issue, but they tend to associate themselves with the Sororitas because their founder was a Sister. The Valkyries are an offshoot of the Ordo Hospitalier who readopted aggressive battlefield tactics due to their nature as first-responders and battlefield medics (as in, to heal someone sometimes you have to shoot the bastard standing on top of them).

There was talk of a not![[Valkia the Bloody]] in this timelime who's a Valkyrie that fell to Khorne.