Editing
Nobledark Imperium Notes
(section)
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
= Sociology and Culture of the Imperium = ==The Mechanicus and Dark Mechanicus== Indeed, I was going to bring this up back during the last Fulgrimdump, but we may need to do some expanding on how Mars joined the Imperium. It turns out in canon the union between Mars and Earth wasn't as cozy as most people thought it was. Mars sent a fuckhuge fleet to keep Earth from unifying, and the Emperor beat them so badly only one in ten made it back. Then the Emperor showed up with his fleet in Martian orbit, and the Mechanicum surrendered and got a peace with generous terms. The whole “were forced to join at gunpoint” was written out of history. It’s why the Dark Mechanicum were such an issue during the Horus Heresy. Obviously, this "fake treaty that was really signed at the barrel of a gun and was subsequently edited to be rosy by history" wouldn't fit with the themes here. We discussed in previous threads that the Unification of Mars happened about the same time as that of Earth, but the Warlord got done earlier and therefore got established in space and controlled most of the inner Solar System before Mars gets their shit together. I was thinking of what the Martian leadership was like during this period. The Fabricator-General during the Great Crusade is probably one of those figures like Jenetia Krole, Malcador, or Arik Taranis that despite not being a primarch was still an important figure in the early Imperium. I was thinking that maybe the Fabricator-General was someone who was relatively charismatic for a magos similar to Arkhan Land (but probably not the same guy, as Land was someone who hated sitting still), who saw the Imperium’s burgeoning empire as an opportunity to exploit rather than a crisis. If Mars joined up, they would be able to use the Imperium’s expansion to reconnect to all the lost forge worlds and get access to all the STCs that Mars didn’t have the resources to get to outside the Sol system. Obviously more factors contributed than this, but it might be one reason why Mars just didn’t dismiss the Imperium out of hand. It also didn't hurt that the Warlord didn't burn down the Antarctic Mechanicus enclaves in this timeline. But then you get some big schism in the Mechanicus. Possibly from the AdMech trying to enforce uniformity among groups that had not communicated for thousands of years. Possibly because some tech-priests resented joining the Imperium. Possibly because some of the other tech-priests resented MARS telling them what to do. Eventually some guy (maybe Anacharis Scoria) goes "You know what? I'll make my own Mechanicum. With mecha-blackjack and hooker servitors" and causes the Mechanicus to rip itself a new one. It ends up being a "minor" war in Imperial history, because it wasn't coupled with the WotB like the Schism of Mars was with the Horus Heresy, and the AdMech don't end up like the Assassins because the loyalists were enraged and fought as hard as the rest of the Imperium to stamp them out, but it means there are subsequently a lot more crazy tech-priests in the Eye of Terror. --------- >2 big powers in the Sol system, disorganized Mars and a long way behind it Voidborn Migrant Fleet >Warlord starts his campaign to unite Old Earth. laughing_cogs.pict good look with that. >Carves out a big nation by unifying/subjugating the smaller nations. laughing_adepts.holo enjoy getting Urshed >Starts kicking the shit out of Ursh >Wat? >Starts taking ground from Ursh and Pan-Pacific Empire >WTF! >Drives back Ursh to it's last strongholds and Americas brough itno the fold >OH FUCKINGSHIT UNIFY! UNIFY ALL OF THE THINGS! >Migrant Fleet joins Old Earth >FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-------------- >Luna follows because Voidborn >OH FUCKINGSHITTWATCUNTINGDICKNIPPLES!!!! >Old Earth is now out of fucking nowhere the dominant power in Sol. Mars a distant second. >Mars almost totally unified when Steward turns up at the head of the diplomacy convoy (ships borrowed from Horus). >Olympus Mons priesthood head of ~70% of Mars priesthoods. >Olympus Mons signs partnership agreement >~30% are salty as fuck. Piss of into the inky black to start their own Mechanicum without all these rules and shit >Mars Mechnicum piggybacks on the Expedition Fleets to bring the forgeworlds and old outposts back under Mars rule. It doesn't automatically follow that all of the 30% ran off straight to Chaos. Many would have founded little closed hermit brotherhoods of their own. Lets say that of the original Martians only 5% went to The Dark Side. There might also have been older brotherhoods on far flung forgeworlds and outposts that fell of their own accord during the Age of Strife also. In any case with cloning, forcible recruitment and intensive breeding programs there is not reason for them not to have built up their numbers considerably by the War of The Beast. Especially unconstrained by all notions of good and evil. The original bastards that came back to Mars during the War of The Beast were the real problem as they were seen by the more gullible idiots in the lower ranks as returning messiahs who had gone to the wilderness and found enlightenment. And they knew the land better and, armed with strange new knowledge, could open the locked away shit in the Labyrinth of Night. Void Dragon almost got accidently freed at this time. Oscar and Magnus used this as a great demonstration that not educating the plebs about Chaos is a really fucking stupid idea that will always, always result in colossal fuck ups. Zagreus Kane deposed the Fabricator General of Mars in the aftermath of the WoTB and set about a series of reforms. He has seen the previous order as betraying the principles of the priesthood by embracing ignorance with their withholding of vital information from the population in general. The ruination Mars was suffering was a direct result of this. His reforms had a prodigious body count as he servitorized or executed those he held responsible. It was in these reforms that the AdBio was inducted into the AdMech and then encouraged to set up shop some distance away. Zagreus Kane's reign for the next 1,500 years was hard but fair. He enacted no more purges of that nature, once was enough. ===Kelbor-Hal and Zagreus Kane=== The irony of the situation is that Kelbor-Hal and Zagreus Kane were complete opposites. Kelbor-Hal was outwardly pleasant, but internally was disingenuous and rather manipulative. Kelbor-Hal would tell you what you want to hear but not mean it, merely using people as a means to an end. He was politically savvy enough to realize that he could turn Mars’ situation with the Imperium into an advantage by using the Great Crusade to get access to the lost Forgeworlds and mountains of ancient technology, whereas the other AdMech loathed the idea of treating with the Imperium and feared a blockade of Mars, but he only saw the Imperium and the Great Crusade as a way to increase the power of Mars and the authority of the Olympus Mons Brotherhood over Mars. Even Horus wasn’t that slimy, while he may have been an oily bargainer Horus at the very least honestly believed in the ideals of the Imperium, even if he didn’t agree with the Steward’s vision for it. Indeed, Horus’ refusal to take side in the Earth-Mars conflict was partially due to his dislike of the Olympus Mons Brotherhood. Over morals. Sometimes things didn’t go as planned and Kelbor-Hal’s mask cracked. Case in point Savlar. When the Savlar Order proved completely immune to soft power the charming politician vanished and a spoilt child took his place. The Steward liked Kelbor-Hal, but that was in part because Kelbor-Hal had Arkhan Land as his representative to the greater Imperium, whose genuine optimism and enthusiasm for rediscovering lost technology mirrored the Steward’s own views. Land was also very good at selling Kelbor-Hal’s ideas to the rest of the Mechanicum due to honesty. When Land died, Kelbor-Hal no longer had his prime ambassador and salesperson to dress up his ideas in more appealing packaging, and his control faltered. By contrast, Kane, although brutal, harsh, and uncompromising, but had a strong sense of morals, believed in the truth above all else, rewarded those under him who performed beyond expectations, and was undeniably more honest. He believed in the truth above all else, and his fury at Kelbor-Hal was primarily because Kelbor-Hal hid the reason ‘’why’’ the Mechanicum exiles were supposed to be considered persona non grata (specifically, their “enlightenment” was Chaos worship, building Abominable Intelligences, and other such things). He also understood when it was necessary to be brutal and when it was not. Although Zagreus Kane had his predecessors deposed and recycled for incompetence, he only ever had to do so once, because that was all he needed to show he could and would do so if necessary. Finally, unlike Kelbor-Hal, he didn’t see the Imperium as tools to be used. He was one of the most pro-Imperial Fabricator-Generals, believing in balancing commitments to the Imperium and commitments to the Mechanicus in equal accord, which is more than even Oud Oud Raskian can say. Kane was much better liked by the general Imperium than by the AdMech, since the general Imperium was never on the receiving end of one of his purges. Even Oscar, who dreaded the idea of working with Kane, found himself surprised when Kane turned out to practice what he preached. Part of the reason Ferrus Manus didn’t start pushing back against the Fabricator-General until much later in life is that for all his faults Zagreus Kane was a good leader and someone who genuinely deserved respect. == The Imperial Aquila == The twin heads of the Imperial Aquila in this timeline are supposed to represent the alliance between humanity and eldar, the Eagle and the Phoenix, rather than the unification of Mars and Earth (especially since the Migrant Fleet joined as a third party equal in stature to the other two, which would mean the Aquila would have to have three heads if it had the same significance as canon). There is also a suggestion that the Aquila incorporates some sort of Eldar rune into its design. ==Hives== The Imperium has something of a contradictory relationship with its Hives. On the one hand, the Hive is the ultimate symbol of civilization. Indeed, the word civilization itself comes from an ancient word for 'city', and hives are the ultimate cities. The ultimate expression of man's triumph over nature. Defended like nearly nothing else, cosseted behind meter-thick adamantium walls, void shields fit for a battleship, anti-orbital weapon silos also fit for a battleship, PDF forces numbering in the tens of millions. Often nearly autarkic, immense farm-terraces, fusion reactors good for thousands of years, mines stretching out like roots clear down to the mantle. The Imperium in microcosm, enduring and ferociously spiky. At the same time, they are also among the most ungovernable place in the Imperium. The actual architecture of a hive stops bearing any resemblance to the blueprints within decades. The population escapes any census. A hive is larger than nations; many of them are, in fact, divided into multiple independent states. Even a well-ordered and centralized hive may have dozens of microstates hidden away in the wainscoting. Many poorly-educated people in the depths of the hives never realize that there is anything more to the universe than one giant, endless hive. Many, many, many people have remarked on this apparent dichotomy, that the greatest symbols of its might are often also where its control is weakest. Sometimes the Emperor has commented on this, and declared that there is no dichotomy. The Imperium does not depend on centralized control. It is the collective dream of its citizens, of collective security, of collective prosperity, of collective defiance of a universe that wishes them dead. The hives do not need censuses and blueprints to be part of the Imperium. They pay their tithes and send their children to die on distant battlefields without such things. == Important Books of the Imperium == Guilliman wrote a large number of documents, but his most famous was the ''Codex Astartes'', which was a thought experiment on how a post-Crusade Imperium might be better organized based on best practices he observed utilized by different legions throughout the Great Crusade. Although it started out as a thought experiment it eventually became the standard for Astartes organization across the galaxy (mostly, almost every chapter deviates from the Codex in some manner). Lorgar also wrote many books. His magnum opus was the ''Lecticio Divinatatus'', which reconciled the Katholian and Karathanite sects of the Katholian religion. It mostly focused on religious matters and so was a bit dry for people who aren't interested in that kind of stuff. His most famous book was the so-called "Book of Lorgar", which was essentially "How to Fight Chaos For Dummies" or "Chaos? In My Imperium? It's More Likely Than You'd Think." Typhus the Pilgrim wrote ''Crusading: The Templar Way'' Russ, First High King of Fenris, wrote a short book detailing how to run a detachment of the Imperial Army. It mostly focused on how to direct soldiers with the Canis Helix effectively so it was too specialized to be of much interest to anyone else. One of Perty's scribes wrote down an instructional book explaining the basics of long term garrison duty that is more or less applicable to any majority human world. It wasn't published until after Perturabo's death as it criticized a few things Perty had done and nobody was sure on how he would react to that. There are rumors that Curze made extensive notes on terror tactics. If true the book is on the prohibited list and not in general circulation. Magnus wrote extensively but mostly on the practical and theoretical nature and application of the Warp. The Imperium officially denies it, but rumour has it he wrote ''Gods and Daemons: A Spotters Guide'' after helping co-author the "Book of Lorgar" with Lorgar that dealt with more applied daemonology for the specialist. It's totally true. There are 3 copies. Grey Knights have one copy (which the Ordo Malleus sometimes borrow). KSons have the original. Exorcists have the final copy. Blood Ravens seem to have been "gifted" with an unofficial copy. Angron only wrote shit poetry he never intended to be published. Kharn the Oathsworn had to go through his stuff when he died and found the doodle pad he put it all down in. It mostly deals with having to do shit he doesn't want to do and how much his failing biology is pissing him off at time of writing. Sangy wrote down his collected visions that his Legion still sift through. Dorn particular brand of wisdom was preserved in ''De Omnibus Dorni'', which was a transcribed collection of Dorn's sarcastic and laconic sayings and conversations recorded by his followers over the years. Military commanders still like to quote it to this day. We have some quotes in the threads. ==The Throne== The introduction of the Imperial Throne as a single interstellar currency probably started as the coinage of the Void Born that was used in Sol that then worked it's way out along with the Expeditionary Forces of the Great Crusade. Originally it was Req. Almost certainly derived from Requisition tokens used by the Quartermaster Supreme of Luna used to allocate resources during the Age of Strife. 1 Req is just a Req, 10 Req was a DecReq, 10 DecReq (100 Req) was a CetuReq. Fraction and decimal Req only existed as hypothetical inside a bank account and had no real world counter part. Thrones are Reqs in all but name, presumably Horus had something to do with this or at least someone in his employ. Availability, acceptability and value of local currency varies greatly in the imperium even down to the scale of nation-states but every world in the Imperium, by law, accepts the Throne and accepts it at the value dictated by the Administrtum. The Throne (coin) and it's worth is seen to an extent as the glue that holds interstellar trade together. Debasing the coinage is officially treason and is one of the few things that will have the Arbiters kicking down your door. It doesn't matter if you're the head of a vast trader dynasty, a sector governor or an ambitious idiot in a back room making counterfeits. If you fuck with the thrones you fuck with the Throne and the Throne will fuck back. Eldar typically prefer to barter goods for goods and seldom accept local currencies. Some times they will use Throne Coin if they can't find an alternative. Big exception being Sreta Ulthran's branch of the Ulthran clan. Fucking with thrones would be an especially heinous offense, because the more you think about it, the more that a reputation-based currency (like banknotes and paper money) is the only way to go in a galactic economy. Human cultures in the past have mostly used gold and silver for their currency because they were one of the few elements that were rare enough to buffer inflation and counterfeiting but yet not rare enough that minting a currency was impractical. Most other elements either did not fulfill these criteria or were radioactive. But in space that is meaningless. There is enough gold and precious metals in asteroids to make gold coins effectively worthless. Gold becomes more valuable for its conducting ability than its power to represent a unit of demand. What becomes more valuable is whatever a system doesn’t have, whether that’s food or metals that aren’t common in the system for whatever reason. So we’re back to the barter system. Unless you have a strong central government able to impose its will and say “we say this token is worth so much and we will back this with our financial reputation”. If the central government is stable and not liable to collapse, this makes the currency a stable medium of exchange. Counterfeiting thrones is now a direct act of undermining the government’s reputation. Thrones are still probably metal in some way because gold is harder to counterfeit than paper. And since civilization as a whole is rolling in gold and other precious metals (particularly ones that are not in high demand like adamantium), why not put that metal to use? ==Blackstone Fortresses== So far, three Blackstone Fortresses have been discovered. In this timeline, the Blackstone Fortresses are clearly described as being Old One creations as opposed to being ambiguously eldar or Old One as in canon, though the Eldar still refer to them as the Talismans of Vaul. The first is the Tomb of Horus. It was first found by the Sons of Horus, the eclectic, semi-monastic bunch of mystics who serve as arbiters and settle disputes between the various Voidborn groups and Void Wolves successor chapters. They found the Blackstone Fortress orbiting an uninhabited planet around some nowhere star. Despite much effort they weren’t able to get it to turn on. Unable to get it to work on their own they went to the Eldar for help (suggested to be Lugganath, or whichever Craftworld has the “ancient lore” hat). Sadly although the Eldar knew of the Blackstone Fortresses due to their role in the War in Heaven, there was no one left alive who actually knew how to work one. After much pushing and prodding they finally managed to get the ship to move and activate the Fuck Your Shit Up short-range defense beams. Currently, the original Tomb of Horus and numerous Eldar wraithbone constructs have been amalgamated around the Blackstone Fortress, creating a one of a kind monstrosity of Eldar and Mechanicus technology wrapped around a fragment of Old One greatness. It doesn't move fast. But when it get somewhere it gets there hard. Rather tellingly, despite having only the “short range” point defense systems activated, the Tomb of Horus is considered to be on par with one of the Five Big Bastards. Chaos found the second, and Erebus has retrofitted it into his new war chariot he calls the Chariot of the Gods, known to the lesser mortals as the Planet Killer. It is flesh and blood and iron and warpstuff twisted into some horrific design, powered by daemons and strange things uncategorized by Imperial scholars and unnamed by the damned. Unbeknownst to almost anyone, the Tau have found a third Blackstone Fortress. They don't know what it is, who built it or what it does. They don't even believe it is as old as it appears because shit obviously can't be that old. They won't report it to the greater Imperium until they have something concrete about it to offer. Finding something that big and handing it over without even a basic understanding of it would make them loose face they feel. All they know is that it sings to them when they sleep. ===The Tomb of Horus=== To understand the Tomb of Horus, you have to understand the Mournival. The Mournival was an old Voidborn tradition, in which the leader of a clan would pick an advising council based on the wisest members of his close family. This was true even if the leader claimed the loyalty of multiple clans, like Horus. Many in the greater Imperium decried this as nepotism. The ever-clannish Migrant Fleet replied that this was simply Voidborn tradition, and told whoever thought otherwise to politely go fuck themselves. Abbadon was the closest to Horus, due to actually having been raised by him since he was about six. No Migrant Fleet tradition about this, just an uncle doing his fucking job and raising his orphaned nephew as if he were his own. We all know how Abbadon turned out. Garviel Loken was the only member of the Mournival who was actually an Astartes. Not sure if he was one of the lucky Sol Fleet Voidborn who were compatible with the procedure or one of the immigrants to the Migrant Fleet. Despite all this he tended to be the moderating voice among the Mournival whenever they butted heads. Loken went a bit loopy after Horus died. Started calling himself Cerberus and waged a PTSD and guilt-fueled one-man campaign on Chaos cults from Interex space to the Gothic Sector. Unfortunately, he ended up dying about the same time as Abbadon during the first black Crusade. No clue about Tarik. Not really sure what he was like. Horus Aximand, named “Horus” in honor of his uncle but more often referred to by his last name to avoid confusion, was the one who took after Horus the most. He was the charming diplomat, the shrewd politician and businessman, but unlike Horus he had enough enthusiasm that he came off as genuine. When Horus couldn’t negotiate in person, Aximand was usually the one with the job. Sometime between Horus’ death and his funeral, Aximand had found religion, or at least mysticism. Real fanatic about it too. It could have been from hanging around with the Diasporex too long, but he was no diasporite, or maybe a sit-down with Magnus at the peak of his teaching days, which tended to have such effects on people. So when Aximand’s fleet comes across this great, big impossibly ancient alien construct less than a month on the journey “home” from Horus’ funeral, he declares this to be a sign from the universe. Ends up sprucing it up, calling in the Eldar to help him figure out how to turn the lights on, and turns it into a big turbo-dreadnaught/mystic temple/tourist trap. Uncle Horus would be proud. And that’s how the Sons of Horus were formed. == Hive Worlds == Imperium is more Art Deco than Gothic in this canon, mimicking vague memories of the grace and absolution of their old technology, so it's aging structures would produce a megalithic Great Depression vibe. I imagine many golden Aquila and skulls would be replaced with gleaming winged humanoids and more varied sculptural conceits devised to fit the ship. The Mechanicus would still provide the hash, mechanical Gothic aesthetics. The millennia the high imperial architecture has stood would produce an appearance of grandly ornamented superstructures studding garden continents, all falling into dilapidation and disrepair but still populated, still functional, and in some places retaining the old luster and gleam, though mostly the beauty of the average imperial city is int graceful aging, being as fine to live in copper green, grown over with ancient trees, and covered with moss as they are in gleaming brass and stark, beautiful architecture. As the original, gracefully implemented systems have failed installations needed to either develop the technical know how to maintain and work their systems or turn to the mechanicus of the hadn't already, often leading to the old mechanicus gothic sort of architecture growing out of cities's technological installations and operations. A crusade era hive may now look almost like a lonely mountain, terraced with forest and tarnished but gleaming city and ringed with great chasms to its inner metropolis, great men and women in adamantine cast discernible as pillars supporting decks of mountainside, and spires of grey mechanicus machinery emerging from is sides, tending to the ancient generators and automanufactoties. The outlying country still bears the mark of Perturbo or some other artist of continents hand, and still bear monumental arcades and vista spanning leisure gardens, long since put to more practical use or left to grow wild. Hive Worlds are still polluted and horrible to live in, but not out of indifference. The Imperial era ones are derived from Perty's genius designed hives on Old Earth and the pre-Imperial ones had substantial work done on them. It's still quite shit because 10,000+ years of war economy will do that but it's out of necessity this time rather than indifference. The Imperium would love to renovate the Hive Worlds, but lacks the resources, knowledge, or time to be able to do so. Plus figuring out the reasoning behind anything created by Perturabo is a Herculean feat in and of itself. A lot of the "dark" aesthetic from mainstream Imperium hives in this timeline is supposed to be from a Great Depression-esque aesthetic. Bold and powerful designs that in economically active areas can still shine with its old glory, but which in many areas has become tarnished and fallen by the wayside because society doesn't have the resources to repair them. == Exodites and the Maiden Worlds == When the Eldar joined the Imperium, one of their key terms was that the Imperium recognize the Eldar’s prior claim to the Maiden Worlds. The Eldar put a lot of work into terraforming those worlds for future settlement, and they didn’t appreciate the idea of someone else coming in and snatching up the fruits of all their hard work. The Imperium agreed, on the condition that the Eldar do the same for any worlds that had been clearly terraformed by humanity. As a result of this agreement the Craftworlds drew up a list of all the known Maiden Worlds in the galaxy. To the Eldar, this let humanity clearly know which worlds were “theirs”, though the Imperium pushed for it as well so the Eldar couldn’t suddenly show up when humanity colonized a planet and claim “this was a Maiden World all along”. The Eldar's interest in keeping humans off Maiden Worlds was not entirely a matter of self-interest (though that was still the primary reason). It was also a matter of safety. Terraforming a Maiden World often involved such things as subtly tweaking the orbit of a comet to smack the planet to provide water, or causing massive supervolcanic eruptions to alter the planet’s atmosphere, which would be devastating to anyone on the planet’s surface. The Eldar didn’t want people to go squatting on an unfinished Maiden World, get wiped out by a preplanned terraforming event, and then go complaining it was the Eldar's fault, when the Eldar had warned them that unfinished Maiden Worlds were not safe. In the last few millennia (read: in the millennia since the romanticization of the alliance), the Eldar have allowed small numbers of other species to live on Maiden Worlds, but only after they have been extensively settled and colonized by Eldar first. To the Eldar, the Maiden Worlds are Eldar worlds first and foremost, and members of other races are only allowed on them because the Eldar permit it. The Eldar never allow Maiden Worlds to be settled by other races first. The only “exception” to this is New Tanith, but that was more due to Prince Yriel than anything else. Officially, New Tanith was given to Prince Yriel on behalf of Biel-Tan as a gift, who then in turn gifted the planet to the refugees of Tanith, as was his right. Yriel was both Eldar and crazy enough that Biel-Tan recognized he would not back down. Anyone else would have been told to go screw themselves. The Maiden Worlds themselves are typically allied with one of the Craftworlds, and these Craftworlds are typically the ones that speak for them when their voices need to be heard in the Imperium. The Exodites are kind of like a combination between the Amish and Sakoku Japan. There is perhaps one major settlement on the planet that allows advanced technology, primarily as a spaceport to allow trade with the rest of the Imperium. The rest of the planet is explicitly low-tech. In some cases the Eldar prefer human goods because although they are lower quality they are often cheaper and can be made more quickly. The Exodites take this a step further. Much like many simple living groups (e.g., Amish, Mennonites), the Exodites often prefer human goods because they are crappy, and thus force the Exodites to work harder for their living. In addition, trading for tools made offworld means that an Exodite does not have to break from their austere lifestyle to make the tools necessary for such a lifestyle to be possible, and can devote more of their time to work. The Exodites mostly trade for these goods with surplus food (what little they usually produce) and handmade goods. Any surplus food that cannot be used for trade or stored for hard times is generally donated to the war effort. The Exodites are rather picky about who they allow on their worlds. If an outsider wants to visit the world and watch the dinosaur jousting and is willing to do so respectfully and without disrupting the Exodite way of life (read: no high tech), fine. If one of their Craftworld kin gets fed up with the rigidity of the Paths and wants to adopt the Exodite way of life, fine. If a human wants to do the same, they may allow it, though the Exodites are often skeptical of the ability of a human to tolerate an Exodite’s low tech lifestyle. However, the Exodites do not tolerate anyone trying to industrialize their world and disrupt their way of life, whether it be a Craftworlder or a human. Those who try to do so are summarily booted off the planet at best. Trying to invoke the protection of the Imperium to protect you in these matters does not work, as Imperial representatives are quick to say that the Exodites are the ones who make the rules on their worlds, and if you break the laws you are on your own. The Exodites of the Maiden Worlds are very different from the enclaves the Craftworlders set up, which are essentially normal Eldar dwellings with all of their technology on an uninhabited Maiden World rather than dinosaur-riding space Amish. The relationship between the Craftworlds and the Exodites is kind of like that between the ancient Greek city-states and their far-flung colonies (e.g., Syracuse). Typically, one of the larger Craftworlds claims sovereignty over a Maiden World, and is expected to provide for their defense and represent them in Imperial politics. This is largely imperialism on the part of the Craftworlds. To be honest the Exodites like the idea of their Craftworlder cousins expressing sovereignty over them about as much as they would humans, but they aren’t foolish enough to look a gift horse in the mouth when they show up with military aid in their worst hour and the Craftworlds mostly avoid interfering. They can and will, however, go to another Craftworld and ask for their patronage if they feel their claiming Craftworld is being too overbearing. Most of the smaller craftworlds won’t mess with one of the big five, but Saim-Hann tends to be much more lax and is more than willing to politically tweak Biel-Tan or Alaitoc’s nose. They tend to not meddle with issues with the Maiden Worlds unless the native Exodite population asks them to. During the Great Crusade, the eldar were very proactive in keeping the Imperium and humanity off the Maiden Worlds.Even Biel-Tan, who sees the current Imperium is the rebirth and continuation of the Old Eldar Empire, in fact they were some of the loudest about it. Biel-Tan was always interested in rebuilding the Empire and this was in the days before the formation of the alliance. In those days the Maiden Worlds were seen as the future of the eldar people. Of course, in this timeline they don’t jump straight to genocide, instead they either tended to call up the Imperium and go “these are your people, they’re your problem” or just round the human population up and dump them on the nearest human-populated world regardless of their wishes. Even today Biel-Tan, pre-Kraken Iyanden, and Alaitoc are still twitchy about the idea of significant human populations on Maiden Worlds. Although Biel-Tan sees the Imperium as the New Eldar Empire the Maiden Worlds were the life’s work of many of the eldar people and by their reckoning it would be unfair for any other species to profit from the fruits of their labor. There are some planets with significant populations of coexisting humans and Exodites. Planets where either the native Exodite inhabitants either died out or significantly decreased in population and humans moved in, or human worlds where Exodites have planted wraithtrees after their own world was destroyed. Aghoru and the medieval world where Isha was nearly kidnapped by the Conservators are examples of the former. Rynn’s world is an example of the latter. There was a population of Bronze Age or Medieval-level Nocturne-descended humans on Caldera, who the Exodites freed during a counter-attack on a Dark Eldar raiding party and granted them asylum on the planet. The Nocturneans gratefully accepted and the two had been coexisting for centuries by the time the Great Crusade arrived. Both Biel-Tan and Vulkan called for the humans to be forcibly deported and resettled on Nocturne. The people who would actually be affected by this decision didn’t like it, the Exodites likewise felt that Biel-Tan was overriding their sovereignty and telling them what to do, whereas the humans on Caldera had lived there for so many generations that the planet was their home, Nocturne being but a distant memory, and they preferred to be on a planet that was not a tectonic time bomb. It has not been yet decided out-of-universe what happened to them. However, human-Exodite worlds are pretty rare. The general stereotype among the non-eldar parts of the imperium is that the Maiden Worlds are an idyllic place to live, a place where food grows from the ground at a whim and the inhabitants want for nothing. This is not the case. It is true that the Maiden Worlds were engineered to be a paradise for eldar by the Old Eldar Empire, with plentiful food and resources, perfect climate, no diseases, etc. However, properly Shaadomeiforming a world requires a lot of subtle tweaking and constant maintenance and the last time anyone checked to make sure these systems were maintained was thousands of years ago. Since the Fall, many of the climate and environmental systems intended to turn the Maiden Worlds into paradises have broken down. The Maiden Worlds were also intended to be settled by Eldar using Old Empire technology, with ‘modern’ medicine, agriculture, infrastructure, etc. No one expected a bunch of crazy Luddites to settle there and start raising the dinosaurs, especially given the forefathers of the Exodites deliberately picked the worlds that were half-finished and harshest to live on. This was done both because [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notes#Asurmen|it was the last place any roving raiders from the Old Empire would look for them]] and because they wanted their descendants to have to work to make a living to keep from falling into decadence. Starvation and want are not unknown on Exodite Worlds, and birthrates have to be maintained carefully to prevent overpopulation. Violent disputes between clans are not uncommon, though in general they are willing to resolve differences between ceremonial combat between dragon riders (which nevertheless can still result in death) than all-out warfare. In addition to seeing the Craftworlders as decadent and insufficiently distancing themselves from their old ways, Exodites [[Wood Elves (Warhammer)|also often see their Craftworld kin as soft and weak compared to them]]. == Feral/Feudal Worlds == When the Imperium discovers a feral or feudal world, they often like to uplift it as much as possible before they actually start recruiting from it. Even though a lasgun might be so simple an idiot can use it, the Imperium still likes it when the people holding know enough to know which end is the killy bit. Of course, given the state of the galaxy in M41, standards have started to slip a bit and the Imperium has become more desperate for manpower. As a result you get, for lack of a better term, Ascended Feral Worlds. Worlds that know about the galaxy beyond their door, but aren't super interested in giving up their way of life. As a modern example, think of the tribes in the Amazon or some parts of Africa today who are still living in the same ways their great-grandparents, the only difference being that they are wearing t-shirts, and carrying steel knives and electric lanterns instead of loincloths, stone tools, and torches. Not that they would tame the world, as such. Cretacia, for example, will always be a dinosaur infested shit heap, but the people are living rather than merely surviving. The Flesh Tearers are still brutal as fuck front-line high-speed meat grinders but they don't eat people. Blood rituals, but not actually gnawing the flesh from human bones. It's all about lifting up from the muck rather than letting thousands wallow because "muh super stronk child soldiers" that Vanilla operates on. There are plenty of worlds that are just "ooga booga, where da magiks at" short of just devolving back to nomadic society. The difference between vanilla and the AU is that the culture developed on these planets changed from "gas the Xenos, race wars now!" to "we must unite to kill anything threating" during the Great Crusade. Oscar specifically didn't want to see a civilization like Ursh developing in his Imperium. There is still fear of the unknown in these Death and Feudal worlds but nowhere near to the extent as in vanilla. Things considered barbaric are outlawed or at least regulated such as sanctioned ritualistic combat as opposed to pit fighting to the death or only using animal sacrifices. Their standard of living is raised, and they aren't savages, but they aren't interested in building hives or "going soft". Some are enticed by the bright lights of the greater galaxy and leave, but for others it would be too much culture shock. Only Kreig post-apocalypse kills any unauthorized xenos on sight. But that’s more because it’s Krieg than anything else. ==Technology== ===Banned Technology=== Although the technological level of the Imperium circa M41 is closer to 30k than canon 40k, there are still some technologies that are not used, not because they are lost but because their use is outright banned. [[Arco-flagellant]]s and [[Penitent Engine]]s are two of these, the Steward took one look at the design (which may have even come from Ursh or some place similar) and went "[[Meme|into the trash it goes]]". The Steward didn't see them as serving much of purpose other than perpetuating [[Dark Eldar|sadism]], and for the very worst crimes that were too severe for incarceration yet not bad enough to merit a summary [[Blam|BLAM]]-ing the existential fear of servitorization set enough of an example. [[Thallax|Thallaxi]], on the other hand, are still used, though the AdMech use methods that ensure a higher standard of life (slightly, less perpetual agony and more [[Wraithguard]]) and only take volunteers especially since [[drider|turning themselves into more machine than man is exactly what most tech-priests and Skitarii dream of]]. If they didn't survive the procedure then they obviously had insufficient faith in the Omnissiah. The Imperium also doesn’t use [[Exterminatus#Virus_Bomb|virus bomb]]s anymore. Or at least they did, up until they rescued Isha and she was able to give a [[/d/|graphic description]] of exactly what happened to Nurgle every time a virus bomb was detonated in realspace. Having just run through the personal demesne of that particular being, the Imperium were't exactly thrilled about the idea of making the owner of that fetid hellscape even stronger every time they used a virus bomb. ==Relations of Minor Xenos Races== The arrangement between the two dominant races of the Imperium and the minor xenos races is kind of like that between the Council and non-Council races in Mass Effect. Like the Council, the two dominant races make most of the decisions, and the others often get the hose. Is this fair? Who can say. It's one of the grayer areas of this Imperium's morality. The Imperium is often a human and Eldar show because 98% of the population is human and Eldar and so the Imperium's decisions are primarily going to affect those people. At the same time, the Imperium doesn't butt into the business of the minor races unless they're stirring up trouble, so it's not like they're dictating things to other races. As was mentioned in a previous thread (I think), this is one of the reasons the Tau seem so ambitious. They know that they're third in line in terms of population, and they know if things go good for the Tau and bad for the humans and Eldar there might be three races making all the decisions, rather than two. The population thing about Eldar versus Tau is actually based on canon. According to what I can find, Tau are at best in the hundreds of billions. Craftworld and Exodite Eldar together are at least a few trillion. Despite being a dying race in canon, there are surprisingly a lot of Eldar in the galaxy. Even with the Tau empire being larger than in canon (it's about the size of Ultramar) and the Eldar not dying so much, the Eldar still massively outnumber the Tau. This doesn’t even get into humans, which are so numerous that the Administratum in both timelines just plain gave up trying. There are some species of abhumans that are more numerous than many minor xenos races. ==The Navigators== With the possible extension in Navigator elder sanity, the relatively more tolerant attitude towards physical deviation, moving shop to the Jovian Orbitals and AdBio attention it could be seen that elder navigators remain active for longer. The mutations generally result in them looking like a cross between a Stage 2 Guild Navigator from Dune (possibly depicted by H.R. Giger) and a citizen of Innsmouth when the fish genes start to kick in but at least the mutations are more stable now and can be managed. No more constant crippling agony due to body changing shape unstably and no more brain functioning erratically. Down side is that there is still no cure. The more inbred Navigators also have it worse on the mutations, hence the constant drive to keep getting new blood in to the houses even if it does take the female navigators out of action for the duration of the pregnancy and takes a minimum of 4 generations to produce anything useful. The high nobility of the Imperium could be quite used to seeing navigator elders on state business, or at least not freak out too hard about their weirdness. Xeno citizens would either just assume that they are human in the same way that the Nova Beastmen are human (because humans are weird) or just assume that they are another type of xeno the Imperium met before them. Either way the Imperium is full of weird, this is not unexpected for them. Life span for Navigators should be longer than a baseline human. Baring illness or injury possibly as high as 400 years. With rejuvenant drugs and shit this can be extended to 750 years, or the same as the upper limit on baseline humans. Should be higher but the treatments were made for baseliners and the Navigators are weird on ever scale of their biology so they tend not to be too compatible with that shit. The rejuvenant drugs don't actually do anything to slow down or prevent the onset of the mutations as the mutations are not a sign of aging. If anything it allows an individual longer to live so that they can become more inhuman. It's also worth noting that there is a school of thought in the AdBio that their inherent longevity is a direct result of the mutations and that outward signs of aging mostly only resemble getting old at an aesthetic level. Nevigators don't in fact get old, they just get more navigatory. Presumably if one lived to be an estimated 1,200 year old they would have reached the 100% mutation mark, no longer have any human remnants in their biology and would be an entirely new species. Sadly only the medical knowledge of the Dark Age would be enough to get them to last that long. They also tend to reject cybernetics. All attempts to find a way around this have failed. Examination of the genes found exclusively in Navigator has proved confusing. They are mostly human, hence the ability to interbreed. A few of the genes are 100% artificial and found only in one other organism (Emperor Oscar) and some of the more odd genes seem to have been grafted from an as of yet undiscovered xeno organism. The xeno genes also seem to spread in a manner not compliant with normal biology. If left to their own devices in laboratory conditions they subsume and transform the rest of the DNA in whatever cell they are in. They do not change it into copies of themselves but into what is presumably the rest of the code from the species they were extracted from. This is conventionally impossible, but there it is. Attempts to cultivate and grow the cell samples into a viable organism have thus far failed. Suggestion of introducing the fully mutated sample into a living Navigator to create a "pure" navigator without any human have been rejected by unanimous vote of the House Elders. Possibly they know what the creature would be or they may have some other reason. Possibly they just don't want to break the exclusivity on their bloodlines. It is possible, even probable, that the Navigators would gradually become these strange xenos if they lived long enough. Although the nature of these xenos is unknown besides having an extremely close connection to the warp and possibly being aquatic or having originally evolved in an at least semi-aquatic environment. Nemensor Zandrek once remarked that Navigators seemed familiar to him but he couldn't remember why. They made him feel slightly angry, but not at them, but he couldn't remember who. It's quite vexing say what.. == Religion == The Imperium is officially secular, providing a limited freedom of religion, as long as you don't worship Chaos or Oscar. Known Sector Relevant Religions: *Katholian Church - basically Catholicism with the Emperor seen as some sort of saint. Good old Olly Pious and Lorgar were members back in the day. Terrain branch and off-world branches reunited by Word Bearers. Implied to be a far-flung descendant of an Abrahamic religion that changed over the centuries due to exchange of ideas with other creeds like Zoroastrianism or Buddhism to the point it is barely recognizable. Had a nasty sister branch, Kartharanism, which was formerly the state religion of the Yndonesian Bloc and had thing for omens and believed that only through suffering (whether self-inflicted or otherwise) was any worth found in the world. One of the primarch Lorgar’s biggest accomplishments was the writing of the ''Lectatio Divinitatus'', which reunified the two branches into a single whole. *Promethian Creed - An old faith predating the Unification but united into a cohesive whole by Vulkan. They view the Emperor as a perfect human but still human and therefore flawed. Strong focus on community strength. *Fenris Paganism - A loose collection of polytheistic tribal faiths. Each tribe has a slightly different pantheon but most have some sort of overlap. Ulfrik the Slayer is the nominal head of the religion. *Yechudism - Presumably pseudo-Jewish, and somehow related to the Katholian faith *Eldar - Let's work on that *Cults of Oscar - Working on them (Sangy Guardsman) *Omnissiah* - Y'ALL WORSHIPPIN' THE VOID DRAGON NOW (ahem) *"Death Cults"/Religio Mortem* - *Tanith Small Gods* - *Catachan gods of blood and wood* - A bunch of nutters with their old deep forest gods. Every god is an asshole who kills you with various flora and fauna if you fuck up or offend them. According to the Catachans, it's really easy to do so. Catachans worship them by going to church once a week and just fucking screaming at the alters cursing them out. *Armageddon Outrider Ancestor Worship - Have some kind of ancestor worship setup where they demand that their ancestors "witness them" before performing some deed worthy of mention. *Cadia - A variety of beliefs are practiced on Cadia, but the most common is a predominantly maltheist and misotheist belief derived from Old Cadian customs. Believe the gods exist, how could you not on Cadia, but that it is every man, woman, and child’s duty to do the exact opposite of what they want and give the finger to them. Interestingly they don't believe Isha is a god because she's 1) in realspace, 2) looks mortal, and 3) not actively malicious. It's worth noting that Old Cadian uses the same word for "god" and "daemon", the closest distinction being made is "god" sometimes more literally translated as "big daemon". *Prosperine Hermeticism* - Dominant religion on Prospero and by extension the descendants of the Prosperine refugees on Old Earth. Has a big focus on syncreticism and learning all the things. Divided up into several "schools" which despite differing often radically in their philosophies all consider each other sects of the same religion, a worldview that drives outsiders batty. According to legend, the religion started during the Age of Strife when the greatest sages on Prospero met to try and understand the meaning of the universe. Pooling their powers to try to see the fabric of reality, they were all struck with a vision, though no two people saw the same thing. Each founded their own school based around this (think Ancient Greek "air is the center of the universe", "no water is" and so on) hence their worldview of the different schools as sects of the same religion. Though the Prosperans were usually pretty careful about not delving too deep into some stuff (if the Warp was the Great Ocean, it was certainly one full of sharks), the fact that they tended to pick up traditions from other worlds led people to worry about Prosperine Hermeticism as a gateway for Tzeentch, and in a few cases Tzeentch did get in. *Classical Ancestor Worship* *Murphyism - Worshippers of the concept of Murphy's Law via an imperfect interpretation of historical documents leading to the view of Murphy being a metaphorical personification of the phenomenon of "everything goes sideways sometimes" rather than a general observation. Believe Murphyism got a huge boost in popularity after [[Nobledark_Imperium_Writing#The_Month_of_Murphy|Cegorach admitted that the power of Murphy's Law probably exceeds even himself or the Chaos Gods (though he considers Murphy's Law to be a universal concept rather than an actual being), and "Murphy" made an absolute fool out of the Emperor]]. Innumerable other Faiths are practiced from world to world === Yechudism === (WIP. Author notes in parentheses) Yechudism is a cousin to the Katholian Faith, in that they pull from the same initial source: The Prophet of The Book, who produced a divinely-inspired text concerning the place of man in God’s Universe, called the Codices of Duality, in about 798.M26 during the Age of Strife. The difference is that the ancient Yechudites merged it with their native beliefs, while the Katholians replaced theirs entirely with the Codices. (note: the Codices of Duality is not, unlike the Bible/Torah or even the Kojiki, a mytho-historical legitimization text. It is more like a body of laws with a mythological reward/punishment section) Yechudism is a multi-worship, dualistic, ritualistic faith. Beginning with Quolious (The sacred name permitted to mortal mouths), their deity of goodness and creation, who is forever locked in a battle to maintain universal purity with the Great Adversary, whose name is forbidden; it then fuses ancestor guidance with animism in an almost non-existent religious hierarchy. (Basically a Zoroastrianism basis mixed with Shinto beliefs and Jewish leadership) The religious leaders are the Rabuni (singular Rabun), who are common to both faiths as sacred scholars. However, the Katholians place them to the side of the religious hierarchy, putting in place a complex structure of priests, cardinals, bishops, various other titles, and the Church Father (space pope!). To the Yechudim, above the Rabuni is only Quolious, and the Rabun is equal to the common person in the eyes of Quolious. To live in the Yechudite faith is to live in ritual. There are prayers for everything, an attempt to bind your action to furthering Quolious’ Great Plan. Many of the rituals are shared with the Katholians, but their context is not: The Katholians allow only a few rituals to be performed by the individual, with the rest requiring the guidance of a priest in a sacred space. A Yechudite can perform any ritual he wishes, as he is considered to carry sacred space with him. Only a few require more than the individual, and the requirement is to simply have a group of ten adults of the faith participate. Quolious does not provide guidance: They are too busy dealing with big stuff for that. For help, a Yechudite turns to his Ancestors, the Sacred Ancestors, and the Spirits. His Ancestors are just that: his line of ancestors who were of the faith, lending advice and aid to his efforts. The Sacred Ancestors are considered the Ancestors of every person of the faith; these are people who became shining paragons of what the faithful can be. The Spirits live in every object, being the spiritual form of reality, and are less worshipped and more bartered with in a very ritualistic fashion. The Rabuni can dispense with formality, part of their training involving learning to speak with them (can they? Can they not? Who knows?), and it is from these interactions that the rituals for dealing with spirits are derived. ===Eldar Polytheism=== Overall, Eldar polytheism is rather similar to ancient Greek polytheism, where you have a core group of more powerful immortals and then a wider group of less powerful gods. However, one major difference is that in Eldar polytheism you have one god, Asuryan, who is superior to all gods rather than merely the most powerful among the older generation (as shown by his ability to make a decree and actually make it stick). Another major difference is the gods don't seem to be organized by generation, where you have an older generation of more powerful immortals (Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Demeter), who represent more primordial concepts and a younger, "closer to mortals" generation that represent more human concepts (Athena, Hephaestus, Ares). Eldar polytheisms Big Three were Isha, Kurnous, and Khaine, whereas Lileath, Morai-Heg, Vaul, and the like filled out the pantheon. Morai-Heg was definitely among the older gods (being Isha's mother), whereas Isha, Kurnous and Khaine are in many ways associated with more mortal concepts (The Mother, The Hunter, The Warrior). Isha and Morai-Heg are both earth deities, but in different ways. Isha represents fertility, family, healing/heath, plantlife, and the harvest (i.e., the stuff on top of the earth), whereas Morai-Heg is a more [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chthonic| chthonic] earth deity that represents the earth itself (often being associated with Shaa-Dome itself). Lileath is typically associated with the moons (both moons in general and the white moon of Shaa-Dome that is named after her). There is significant debate as to where Cegorach fits into this paradigm. Some say he is the fourth member of the Mother, Hunter, Murderer trio but at the same time is more powerful and influential than the other lesser gods but still not operating on the same level as the other 3. Other say that as a trickster deity Cegorach is by nature a liminal being and therefore outside the traditional pantheon structure. When asked directly by eldar in more Cegorach gave the straightforward and yet completely unhelpful answer. "I'm the Cosmic Jester that runs an interdimensional carnival and my followers are ninja clowns. I defy sensible classification". Eldar polytheism is, as one might expect, mostly an eldar thing, though it exists in a minority form among human populations on many worlds and is actually a majority religion among humans on places like [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_Planets#Colchis|Colchis]]. '''Isha Worship''' Like Ishtar, Isha priestesses are known to engage in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/sacred_prostitution| sacred prostitution], and *ahem* ''[[PROMOTIONS|motivational]]'' pictures of Isha exist, despite the eldar normally frowning on such things. This causes most humans no end of confusion, though to eldar the difference is perfectly clear. Pictures of Isha and those blessed by Isha aren't bawdy, they're religious art displaying the miracles of the goddess and her power. It just so happens that Isha's realm is that of fertility. Most non-eldar just chalk it up to a weird xenos thing. Vulkan (who along with Magnus spent the most time with the Steward out of any of the primarchs due to living several millenia) really didn't like Isha because of this, because he saw it as an affront to the Promethean Creed and traditional family values. The fact that Isha was the goddess of motherhood and family as well as fertility was quietly glossed over, because the more weird and unusual aspects of Isha worship were what was more immediately obvious (kind of like how Romans saw early Christians as cannibals). Vulkan habitually referred to the Disciples of Isha as Temple Whores and Isha as Queen of the Whores although he stopped that after Oscar had a quiet word with him. When Vulkan's opinion on the eldar changed from "the Eldar can go to hell" to "well-meaning, but insensitive and racist", Vulkan tried to encourage Isha to play up the "matron" side of her portfolio and downplay the "fertility", ignoring the fact that doing so would be like asking her to suppress a part of her. Isha priest/priestesses perform several important duties in Eldar society. Their role in sacred prostitution is one of the factors resulting in the glacial increase in the Imperial eldar population, and they tend to have multiple births in an even higher ratio than the average eldar. They sometimes act as healers in cases where normal healing isn't good enough. They are also the only ones other than Isha herself who can synthesize new soul stones, which means no more costly and dangerous expeditions to the ruins of the Old Empire(which in this universe have very pissed off inhabitants). === Baalite Wheel Faith === The Blood Angels and the majority faith for the people of Baal is that there is a wheel of fate and that the world goes in cycles of birth and death and rebirth. Everything is bound to this cycle, the cycle continues. Gods are as bound to the cycle as mortals, possibly more so. There is no way off of Mr Bone's Wild Ride. Your only hope is to make it to either selfishly cut all ties to everything so you can become light of soul enough to get to the middle where shit is less animate and the lack of reaction causes you to achieve a state of Nirvāṇa because nothing is bothering you. The other way of doing things correctly is the selfless giving of your time, effort and life to making the eternal journey on the wheel less awful. The result is a better world than there should have been for the next time around. Souls are endlessly recycled but the indifference or cruelty of the wheel strips away all things from one life as it enters the next so unless you are selfless and leave something behind to make it less shit the journey is harder and unless you record your wisdom increases in ignorance. By good works and the preservation of knowledge the cycle is made bearable. It is theoretically possible to remain in Nirvāṇa indefinitely if you cut every single tie to life before the moment of death and made it to the total stillness of the absolute centre of the wheel. Sadly the exact centre is by definition a single point so can only have one occupant and it is held by Death. He is not moving. He is eternal, the one constant, the ur-god. To the Blood Angels there is not Heaven, there is not Hell, there is no Judgement after death, there is just the Wheel upon which we are all imprisoned seemingly eternally. There is, therefore, ultimate incentive to make the imprisonment as good as possible. They follow the teachings of their ancient masters in the knowledge that somewhere out there they have been born again in ignorance. By the propagation of their teachings and the imparting of recorded wisdom they can be brought out of their ignorance again. They do not see Saint Celestine as special merely because she is a possible reincarnation of Sanguinius. There have undoubtedly been thousands of reincarnations of good ol' Sangy down the ages. They consider her special because of the wings, they are a clear and unmistakable omen that shit is going to get real in her lifetime because the last time Sangy's soul wore wings was the founding of the Imperium. They acknowledge that the other gods of the other faiths in the Imperium are probably real, not that this makes them special and any god claiming to be all knowing is, in their eyes, either a liar or stupid. To the people of Baal the gods of Chaos are indeed gods. They are also abominations that are going against their purpose on the Wheel and as such need to die. And yes, gods can die, only Death reigns eternal. Ynnead they don't know of, not yet. They would consider that it is either an aspect of the ur-god reflected in the minds of mortals like an image in a gently moving stream or they would consider it to be a god taking the image of Death. They would not take offense as imitation is the highest form of flattery. Nightbringer they do know. Given Mephiston alone how could they not? There's imitation and then there's a sick fucking mockery. Nightbringer is a stain upon the galaxy trying to imitate something it doesn't understand to justify atrocities. In any case Nightbringer, Ynnead and Impossible Child would not to them be the ur-god made flesh. The ur-god is already made manifest, you're standing in it. They see Emperor Oscar as exactly what he is in that he is an artificial construct of the Dark Age. They also see him as a very enlightened heathen. Some of them think he is a god, some do not. Those that do are spared the Emperor's ire as to the Baalites the difference between gods and plebs is not so great. === Ultramarian Polytheism === Despite being mostly Greco-Roman inspired, the Ultramarian pantheon looks more like Hellenized Egyptian polytheism than anything else. Though the gods are often depicted as wearing togas. The chief deity in Ultramarian polytheism is Hera, goddess of the sun, life, light, law, and order. Given that the denizens of Ultramar are a space-faring society her position as defender of the sun is often depicted in a figurative light, the sun representing the light of civilization around which society is nurtured. She is often associated with lionesses, or depicted with the head of a lioness. Other times she is depicted as blindfolded to represent that justice is impartial and holding a set of scales in one hand and a sword in the other as justice means nothing if people aren't willing to enforce it. The other deities in the Ultramar Pantheon are subservient to her and usually her offspring because it is only from this light and the willingness to protect this light and warmth that the very basics of humanity, not a a civilization, but as a functioning species can arise. She is worshiped extensively by the PDFs and the IG Regiments raised in Ultramar, they do not typically pray for her to protect them but that they might protect others. Basically Ma'at meets Ra with a dash of Sekhmet. Thanatus is another deity worshiped, if worshiped is the word. Some of the more fringe worlds might raise a regiment or two into which they can dump them as a containment measure. They are, the ones that are born on the ground, Ultramar's local branch of the Religio Mortis usually referred to as Morites. They do enlist to protect. They are typically those who have lost too much to want to stay and now pray that they can get even. They demand the chance to honour their Pale Lord, to be his hands in this world and take some fucker out before he claims them. Often depicted as like a spider sitting at the heart of a galactic web. He is also worshiped by the Void Born of the Eastern Fringe as one of their tribal gods. They do not share their traditions with outsiders == Imperial Holidays == In general, there aren't a lot of holidays that are practiced universally across the Imperium, generally because what might be considered significant to one group of people may not be to another. Sanguinalia is the only holiday that is pretty much consistently practiced across the Imperium, and is seen as a period of remembrance for those lost in the War of the Beast and good will towards all. Even then it is a primarily human holiday. Another celebration that is practiced across much of the Imperium is a celebration in honor of the memory of Hoec. Hoec was the god of messengers, travelers, and the Webway, as in the past it was often customary for messengers travelling between outposts to be given food and drinks (usually alcoholic) by the host as part of sacred hospitality (especially pre-War in Heaven). Today the celebration is performed once a Craftworld year in memory of Hoec and the other deceased Eldar gods and resembles a cross between St. Patrick’s day and a New Orleans funeral (complete with the eldar equivalent of bagpipes). It’s a celebration for which the paths system is relaxed for just one day (which not coincidentally helps prevent people from getting pathlost). Other races like to join in for the free alcohol, though humans generally stay away from the eldar stuff since humans can’t digest most of the plants Eldar use to make alcohol. == Psykers and How the Imperium Treats Them == The Rhetor Imperia didn't mean to build an army. They were teachers, after all. But, as the saying goes, spare the rod, get killed and eaten by daemons spilling forth from the mind of the child... The threat of Chaos is still there, and still insidious. For those poor souls 'gifted' with psionic powers, a moment's carelessness could lead to their very soul being torn asunder, and their very flesh rendered into a portal for daemons to slip into the materium to sow terror. The only reprieve is that it is rare for psykers to manifest their abilities before the onset of puberty (But it is still horrifyingly possible for prodigies to manifest earlier). Because this is the Nobledark Imperium, generally speaking lynch mobs and witch hunts are frowned upon. Not that that doesn't happen, but it doesn't have state sponsorship. The Emperor generally prefers murder as a last resort, and done with a degree of professionalism. Instead, the issue of psykers is approached more humanely, with agents attempting to identify potentials as young as possible to minimize their chances of causing damage to the Imperium. The approach to this problem was two fold- first, corral all possible problem children into facilities for inspection and safe sequestration until the black ships arise, and secondly, educate the populace (Responsibly) about these dangers, and what to do in case such happens. In the name of efficiency, these two functions have been combined into one institution. From birth, all children of the Imperium are supposed to be offered a place in the Schola Vulgus to better themselves and learn proper moral values and skills to serve the Imperium better. The courses range from basic arithmetic to diagnosing warp corruption, from samples of Imperial literature to learning Xenos languages. Black Ships are less hellish. They perform a service to the Imperium and everyone knows it. With the population knowledgeable about the basics of Chaos and the hazards of the Warp few if any psykers resist invitation to the Black Ships. They know that they are going to Earth to be made safe one way or the other and there is little to fear. Because there is still a mass immigration/pilgrimage of Psykers to Old Earth the rejects who decide to stay and their descendants have started to build up somewhat in the population. Psychic talent and training is one of Old Earth's exports. Was 2nd to Prospero before the 4th Black Crusade and Rubric of Ahriman. Much of Prospero's psychic population ended up on Old Earth because they wanted to be among their own kind. Some of the Craftworlds and planet dwelling Eldar Enclaves also offer basic making your shit safe training as it is in their interest to do so. Psyker-heavy worlds like Old Earth and (formerly) Prospero also have dampening crystals that help young, uncontrolled psykers calm their minds and learn to control their powers without exploding into daemons. Problem is the crystals have to be made by growing them in a low-intensity psychic field over a period of several years (nearly 30 if you want a good one), and so are only really used on worlds that have a significant proportion of psykers. On top of that, the good crystals are the about the size of a large statue or a small building, so they're not really portable and the Imperium can't just stick one on every psyker and be done with it. == Treatment of Mutants == Despite the overall change in tone, mutants are still treated relatively poorly in the Imperium. Like the condonement of certain forms of slavery, treatment of mutants is another big area of intentional values dissonance between the Imperium and modern society. The Imperium frequently commits infanticide on those who are born with mutations on a scale hitherto unheard of in human history, reasoning that it is better to put them out of their misery now and spare them a life of suffering. [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notes#Celestine|Celestine]] only survived because Ophelia VII was fanatic enough about their reputation to check, the implication being that other children with active Sanguinius genes may have existed throughout the centuries but got killed as infants because people assumed they were run of the mill mutants. Even then, Celestine’s parents kept her isolated for most of her childhood on their farm in the middle of nowhere because they were afraid of repercussions. At the same time, the general opinion of your average Imperial citizen to mutation is more along the lines of “those poor bastards” rather than “purge the unclean”. Due to the extremely high rate of infanticide, the most common sources of mutation in the Imperium are 1) former Guardsmen and PDF who were exposed to Warp energy and other gribbly phenomena, 2) people exposed to various mutagens in places like the underhives, and 3) Chaos cultists who have received boons from their gods. As a result, many people tend to view mutants with suspicion, seeing them like a Yakuza member who is trying to gain sympathy by passing off their missing ring finger as a workplace accident. The Navigators still keep the nature of their change on the down-low because although they are actually abhumans they are paranoid that people will consider increasing changes throughout lifespan + warp exposure = mutant. Additionally, even though the Imperium takes pains to make sure that the idea of "normal genetic variation is completely okay, abhumans are not mutants, alteration through genetic engineering is not mutation)" is made perfectly clear to everyone across the Imperium, there are many backwater, superstitious worlds where the idea of baseline humans that look different from the average population, much less [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notes#Carlos_McConnell|cat-people]] or tech-priests or Astartes or squats or Void Born, is still a shocking concept. People from one Segmentum may have never heard of an abhuman breed from the other side of the galaxy and on these worlds abhumans, let alone xenos, run the risk of being labelled mutant by the sheltered populace. Ironically, this concern is not totally misplaced, there have been cases where semi-stable Chaos cults have passed themselves off as abhumans by claiming they belong to an abhuman species from the other side of the galaxy. A secondary job of Ordo Mutatio in addition to providing oversight of the notoriously spacey Adeptus Biologicus is to act as an external authority invalidating claims of Chaos worship-induced mutation before some yokels end up burning innocent people at a stake. There are even cases where certain mutant-phobic worlds servitorize their entire mutant population by labeling them as mentally invalid, even if they are physically and mentally capable of living their own life, [[bullshit|“for their own good”]], of course. == Path of the Enforcer/Judge == The Eldar on the Path of the Enforcer/Path of the Judge are the intepreters and enforcers of law in Eldar society. A lot of the Eldar on this path tend to be individuals that have spent time both on the Path of Awakening and the Path of the Warrior. Due to the semi-monastic nature of Craftworld society and the fact that Eldar seem to have a communal idea of law, individuals on the Path of the Enforcer/Judge are much less common than one would expect based on human society. This path probably always existed to solve legalistic disputes within and between Craftworlds, but became much more important when the Eldar joined the Imperium. The Path of the Judge probably exists in vanilla 40k, given that there are records of Eldar outlaws and law-breakers, but is probably not very important, since the punishment for most crimes in Eldar society is simple banishment. Here, the Path of the Judge serves a much more important purpose, since the Eldar engage in many more interactions with other species and simply cannot let their criminals roam free in the galaxy anymore. To the Eldar, you cannot let criminals loose anymore, because those stars are no longer mon-keigh stars. They are your stars. When the Eldar started negotiating with the wider Imperium, the Eldar considered these philosophers of law crucial to make sure the Eldar got the best end of the deal possible. Basically think of 2000 year old lawyers that literally know every loophole and trick in the book. There are two main schools or aspects, for lack of a better word, in this path. One is for the people who actually enforce the laws and their day-to-day application. Few Eldar get lost on this aspect of the path, but those who do tend to end up like a cross between Elrond (or is that a Noldor) and Judge Dredd. The other is the more philosophical study of the nature of law and morality itself. One might refer to them as "Eldar lawyers" or "law-seers", but they're closer to ancient Greek legal philosophers than anything else. Most Enforcers who get too old to serve or are veering from the path tend to end up here. == The Feast of Blades == In response to Luther subverting the majority of his legion during the War of the Beast, Lion El’Jonson divided the remaining Dark Angels into small orders and scattered them across the galaxy, so that one person could never have so much power over the entire legion. However, he wanted the Dark Angels to know he still cared about them, so he set up an event (the Feast of Blades) based on the knightly tournaments of Franj to reinforce the ties of brotherhood between Dark Angel chapters. Also it was made a more open event back in late M33. The Dark Angels are all about transparency and some of the more radical/puritan/arseholeish Inquisitors were suspecting them of some sort of Khornate ritual. Now other chapters outside of the Dark Angels progeny are invited to spectate and take part. The Feast of Blades is also a spectacle for the common folk, being one part knightly tournament, one part training exercise, one part Olympic games. It has television crews broadcasting it across whatever system it is being housed on live but for light speed delays to the general populace and recordings of the proceedings made and shipped on disc across the Imperium. There's even someone selling hotdogs. <s>It's Cypher.</s> ==Secret Societies== To clarify what we've seemed to decide about the Imperial spy apparatus, The Alpha and Omega legions are the next level of fuckery up from the Inquisition and Astra Militarum, which includes the intrigues of Void Admirals and most Chapter Masters and such. These organizations all answer to the High lords. The top level of those organizations conspire as the Illuminate to eventually do something or other about Cthonia and the dear Cthonian, with much variety of aim. The various Illuminati occasionally conflict with the Alpha Legion (ON the very-classified-record Imperial secret service/intelligence/black-ops) and Omega Legion (strictly OFF all records secret police/nominal-renegade/blacksite elements), but most of the time they work well together in mutual execution of their duties. The Alpha and Omega only answer to certain High Lords, and all to the Imperial Family, Oscar and Isha. They are much like the Custodes, but bound to the Emperor, not Oscar himself. The only real conflict between the Alpha & Omega and the Illuminate Order (and the Ordos they hold high station in) comes when some Illuminati gets some stupid idea and tries something dangerous or treasonous, or in more bureaucratic struggles between what the Illminate might like to do with Cthonia and what the Hydra is already doing there. The Hydra is to the Alpha, Omega, Favored Chapter Masters and Others, Custodes, and the Emperor and Empress' close courtiers what the Illuminate Order is to the great institutions of the Imperium. The Hydra is the influential circle that could be very well said to rule the galaxy in the Emperor's company, and very little is known as to its true membership even to the Illuminate. The Illuminate Order is mostly Imperium, with strong representation from the Inquisition, who float the best crackpot long term plans, and the Administratum, who float the most insane ideas for technocratic reform, a small faction of Naval and Military officers that mostly partake to keep the other factions in check, an Eldar Farseer faction of similar size with similar goals, a handful of unaligned powerful galactic Statesman and Rogue Traders, and assorted blocs of Shola Psychana theorists. The Mechanicus also makes a significant faction in the Illuminate Order, and tends to have the most politically disruptive agendas in regard to Cthonia, Oscar, and Men of Gold in general. Broad goals of the Illuminati are the reclamation of Chthonia, understanding the fate of the Great and Bountiful Human Dominion, and understand the full power and fate of the Men of Gold. To these ends they use their personal influence and power to research and advance these projects within their respective organizations and in joint efforts. The Hydra can be assumed to include the Emperor in its ranks, as when he was Steward, and likewise might include his venerable wife, and the old wizard Eldrad. Likewise the Illuminate Order assumes there is within this circle some agent of the Alpha, maybe another for the Omega, and a representative of the Custodes, at least one High Lord, and so on. There are signs of The Hydra during Earth's Unification, and in Terrawatt going back into Old Night. There are hints of The Hydra in parts of the broken Circlet, never before explored. Lesser members of the Illuminate may not even be sure of the Omega Legion's existence, setting forward operating bases in The Eye and setting Fallen and Crone against each other. To those same naive Illuminati "the Hydra" is often correctly guessed to also be a byword for machinations still above them, foremost being the Alpha Legion. The most learned and well connected of the Illuminate Order, those blessed by the Emperor's humoring fondness, have barely an inkling what The Hydra truly is, thinking it a conspiracy rather than a semi-immortal state. It is known to have operated heavily on the Cthonian Circlet since the Great Hunt, apparently vacated the system during the reign of Emperor Vandire and only returned after the civil war. Since then various activity in the unmappable vastness of the broken ring has been attributed to "The Hydra" following the highest level of inquiry, and the few resources tracked into these depths are of incredible interest. Though rumors of Iron Minds being brought back to functionality and into order, Men of Gold returned from an extragalactic voyage bearing gifts and asking quarter, Methodology for the manufacture of true Godhead for the Emperor, and many more tales abound, others are more reasonable. The research of Man of Gold physiology and production, possibly their potential for natural reproduction, experiments on webway tunneling to once again tie the Dominion to its Capital, or even the resumption of Neutronium production to fully mend the Capital itself, even immortality research, are far likelier to be the secrets hidden by the hydra, and are in much closer keeping with Oscar's known aims. The Hydra is the big secret project of the Imperial Court, akin to the Dragon for the Mechanicus. The Guardians of the Dragon might have to smack down nosy Illuminati, most often from their own faction, but that's cause they're the parallel route to chasing the Hydra. The Illuminate Order is where all the powerful and informed, but not top tier, congregate to pick at the secrets they've found, and bother the Imperial Court as much as the High Mechanicus. They Hydra and the Guardian's of the Dragon both know the other has a secret, they might even peek, but they mostly look the other way. ==Ansible Twins== Ansible Twins are the fastest method of communication in the Imperium. Faster and more reliable than the average Astropath, faster than Navis Nobilite post boats, faster than Eldar webway runners. The problem is the requirements: twin psykers, born within a short timeframe of one another, with exactly identical psychic potential and barely any neurological differences, that are strong enough to survive being soulbound at the same time. Psyker twins often have some sort of strange connection (think Alpharius and Omegon in canon, or Eldar wraithlords) and in Ansible Twins this is basically taken up to eleven. Ansible twins are extremely rare: in a galaxy with quadrillions of humans, you might find one or two every decade. As a result, the Imperium tends to restrict them to extremely important communication links and infighting over them is always fierce. The original Ansible Twins were Tedward and Todburt Ansible, born 347.M31 in the land of Strayllya on Old Earth. They definitely existed and Oscar definitely remembers Soul Binding them. It was thought at the time by Magnus, who was at the time the leading authority of the weird, to be some sort of bio-warp based entanglement. Real-time, reliable FTL communication would be a holy grail for the Imperium. So you can bet the AdBio would be interested in it. Sadly, all attempts at artificially duplicating the phenomenon via cloning, induced twinning, cross possession, and other methods have yielded no success. You get twins that have varied psychic potential, one that has all the potential and the other with none, etc. It's psykery. It's sticking your dick in the Warp and hoping for the best. You can account for every variable, replicate every condition and still get a different result. The best they can do is just look for specific circumstances and hope for the best. On top of that, most of the proposed methods for creating ansible twins are highly ethically dubious and Oscar won’t touch them. Mass cloning psykers for the purpose of finding the one pair in a thousand that might work is generally considered a bad idea and leads to many issues. Like babies going crazy. And summoning daemons. Sometimes both. The last project got shut down by its own manager, who committed suicide by turning himself into a servitor. The project has still remained a holy grail for the AdBio, ever out of reach. ==Imperial Fiction and Entertainment== ===John Fuklaw and the Angry Marines=== Commissar John Fuklaw exists in this timeline, but the Angry Marines don’t. After a fashion. John Fuklaw exists, but he’s just a relatively normal man with a hair-trigger temper and a blood pressure problem. The John Fuklaw everyone thinks of, the one who runs on anger like tanks run on promethium and surfs Battle Barges like a Looney Toons character, is just that. A cartoon. During his tenure as a Commissar, Fuklaw was stationed with a regiment of Baalite soldiers. Included with that regiment was a number of 1st Company Blood Angels (a.k.a. “Black Rage” marines). The Blood Angels are well-known for their tendency to see red when it comes to treason. The 1st Company take it up to 11, swearing an “Oath of Rage” to hunt down all enemies of the Imperium with immense abhorrence. They are basically about as close as you can get to Angry Marines in this timeline. A Remembrancer assigned to cover the regiment saw Fuklaw and the 1st Company and found their antics hilarious. Years later, the much more highly positioned Remembrancer pitches the idea of a highly exaggerated version of them (kind of like G.I. Joe) complete with an fictional parody chapter of the 1st Company (the Angry Marines) to a local entertainment company and they love it. 20 years later the cartoon is a well-established cultural tradition with films, numerous spinoff series, toys, books and a few high budget films. Fuklaw found out about the cartoon and flipped his lid. But then he found out a portion of the proceeds go to PDF pension fund and supporting wounded Guard veterans. So he tolerates it. Barely. It is unclear how the Blood Angels are going to react. Seeing as the cartoon takes their vaunted 1st Company, who swear an Oath of Rage out of dedication to their founder, and makes a parody out of it. ===Portrayal of the Primarchs and Other Crusade-Era Figures in Imperial Culture=== Although there are uncountable numbers of films and shit about the Unification War, Great Crusade and War of The Beast there can only be a certain number of characters that people give a shit about. For every Lancelot there is are a hundred Lamorak and Kai. Taranis, despite all he did, was still not a primarch, and was buried in a nowhere grave in Terrawatt among thousands of others. His grave is no site of importance like Sanguinius, Horus, or Lorgar. Arik might be known to extreme scholars of history in the same way [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jay| John Jay] is known among the American founding fathers: an interesting person to those who know about him but otherwise literally who? The only notable recognition Taranis got in recent years was in 789.M40 when a film came out purporting to show the "true story" of the Imperium. In it, Taranis is portrayed as a bumbling sidekick and comic relief, like Baldrick on Blackadder. When you're playing the Watson to the Emperor of Mankind, and the people making the film thinks it "needs a comic relief to appeal to audiences", the committee turns you into the bumbling comedy relief. It was a step up from previous portrayals, in which Taranis was a literal spear carrier whose name was only mentioned in the credits. It's also a good thing Constantin Valdor wasn't around by M40 or there would have been words. The only reason the Emperor hadn't decried the film it would have made him too sad to see it. Horus is remembered as a heroic Coyote- or Hermes-like trickster, his more oilier aspects and ambition ironed out. Part of this is because he only ever voiced his contrary opinions to the Steward behind closed doors. His infamous moment of indecision and subsequent epiphany are often turned into [[Cegorach|Horus tricking the Chaos Gods over and over to distract them from properly directing the War of the Beast]]. Sanguinius is remembered as Objectively Best Primarch, despite the fact he had feelings of insecurity and powerlessness and rage issues (which are never brought up in the public perception). Ultramar and the Administratum just love Guilliman. For Ultramar, he is the law-bringer, the civilization shaper. The Ultramarines call Guilliman their spiritual liege because he is a figure of veneration for him despite having never been a super soldier, been born in Ultramar, or even fighting on the front lines during most of the Unification Wars and the Great Crusade. The image of Russ in the common Media of the 41st millennium is that of the ultimate Honourable Savage Viking. Axe in one hand, keg sized beer mug in the other and a different woman every night. A riotous, loud and jovial marauder combining the most desirable parts of man and beast. Truth was he was a never unfaithful to his wives and held great reverence for the sanctity of marriage. His small tribe of daughters was just the result of both his wives and himself being active for the better part of five hundred years. He was also prone to bouts of depression and although he could laugh up a storm was more known for brooding and gnawing at old wounds. His sense of humour was fairly gallows and tended towards self depreciation. But that's hard to make sit-coms out of and the only Space Wolf left who remembers him spends most of his time asleep so who honestly gives a shit. There has never been a film out that featured Bjorn for the simple reason that nobody apart from the Fenrisians and a small group of eldar give a shit about Bjorn. Ollanius Pius is barely remembered outside of his famous role and he kamikazed a Rok from landing on the Imperial Palace. He is responsible for saving the Imperium. The only people that remember his name by 999.M41 are Oscar, Isha and Lion should Lion ever come out of the coma. Of all the well known public names there is only one that has remained conspicuously absent from the big film releases; Eldrad "Unreasonable Royalties" Ulthran. Attempts to make films without informing the grumpy old bastard generally result in Eldrad kicking expensive executive doors in and yelling something on the lines of "heard you were talking shit about me like I wouldn't find out!" It's not a pleasant experience and Eldrad just does it to fuck with people. He's a dick like that. ==The Void Born== The Void Born Migrant Fleets were spiritual but decentralized, and inclined to novelty, commerce, and thinking on a vast scale in time and space. Believe it or not, although he named him one of his primarchs the Steward actually had problems with Horus, as Horus was one of the only primarchs to suggest a competing vision for humanity's future (although he only did so behind closed doors). A lot of Horus' dissenting ideas revolved around going with the flow and using inertia to your advantage than try to juggle fifty plates at once. Humanity is diverging as a species? Let them. It's foolish to force a single ideal as a species and as long as we remember we're all brothers and don't throw civilization and sapience out the window why interfere? Giant galaxy-spanning empire? Much easier to work as a semi-independent confederacy given how hard it is to enforce standards on a human civilization dependent on Warp travel. It's ironic to note that despite the Steward's best efforts to enforce his vision, the galaxy is still sliding towards Horus' ideal out of inertia and slow change, and any post-M41 galaxy where the Imperium meaningfully survives is going to look more like Horus' vision if the external threats of Chaos, the Necron Star Empire, and tyranids are lessened and places like Fenris and the Pastoral Worlds apply for Survivor Civilization status. Void Born were all over the place as isolated clans prior to the Great Crusade. Not even that closely genetically related, Sol's Migrant Fleet interbred quite a bit with Earthlings, Martians, and Navigators enough that some (though very few) were compatible with Astartes augmentations. They were more culturally contiguous than any other human group from the Iron War through Old Night, and maintained rare local interstellar communication and travel in that era. In the current Imperium they are closely tied to the navy, and are the second largest ship building faction behind the AdMech, who don't bother them much about it due to their very long and close relationship. It was probably thanks to the Sol Voidborn that Mars even remembered there were other Forgeworlds out there. There might be a massive Voidborn presence in your home system, but unless you leave the planet or own a really good telescope you wouldn't know, they prefer asteroid belts and lagrange points to descending a gravity well, and only do so for things of great interest that can't come up to them. They love their kingdom of empty space more than any muddy landscape, and their niche has lead to a removed and culturally distinct subset of humanity still closely tied in to the wider Imperial civilization. Void Born were/are known for being very gregarious, laid-back, and easygoing. High emphasis on community and working together. In the inky blackness of space you basically have to get along, as there is nothing but a thin starship hull between you and the Void. Also no need to burn bridges with people for whom you barely have to deal with most of the time and a friendship would be mutually profitable. Good example of this is Abbadon versus Horus. Horus grew up in an era where space was dangerous in an uncaring force of nature sort of way and depending on one's fellows was the best bet for survival. Abbadon grew up during the Great Crusade when space stopped being uncaring and started being actively malevolent. Combined with the Void Born being incorporated into the more aggressive Imperium and he ended up with a more militaristic outlook on life (as in "kill them before they kill you"). That said, the two overlapped a lot in outlook, even if Abbadon didn't see it that way. Sol Voidborn's claim to fame was that they acted as the mercenary transports of the Mechanicum of Mars and did a lot of work for them in-system in exchange for ships. Did a lot of trading between Earth, Mars, and the other Solar planets, along with the nearest outlying systems. AdMech had to build their own ships if they wanted to do something stupid like send an expedition out into where the maps said hic sunt dracones. The Mechanicum tended to use DaoT archaeotech ships for that like the Ark Mechanici until they started building their own. Mars expected Void Born to side with them when the Imperium became a rising power. Horus took a look at the two (specifically not a big fan of the Olympus Mons brotherhood due to them crushing the others underfoot) and said "no". Or, at the very least, they wouldn't side with Mars over the Imperium. Compared to other Void Born, Horus is rather notable in that he had ambition, vision, and military acumen. He wasn't a fighter in the same way Lorgar was a fighter: it wasn't his calling but he could still dish out pain (almost always on a ship or in zero G) if he had to. This is the guy who successfully sniped the Beast through guile during the Ullanor Crusade after all. The Void Born once had a criminal element, much like the Pyrite Order “squat mafia”. Horus actually ran with the gangs in the bowels of the ships in his youth, which is how he knew how to approach ground combat despite being a spacer by birth. All of the major Void Born crime syndicates seemed to mysteriously disappear around the same time Horus got in the game and started unifying the clans. One might wonder why, and one might be denied an answer by fleet intelligence, because nobody saw nothing, and that nothing certainly didn't go down in Horus's used starship lot when some nosey fools asked pointed questions. This wasn’t because people actually didn’t know, Fleet Intelligence isn’t the Inquisition or the Alpha Legion, but rather what happened to the Void Born crime syndicates was an open secret among the Void Born but no one would say anything incriminating to outsiders because it would involve antagonizing the guy who out-mafiaed the Space Mafia (and few cared about the criminal element of the Migrant Fleet in the first place), little got written down and it fell out of history. Void Born spiritual traditions vary massively from clan to clan. The ones around Ultramar venerate a member of the Religio Mortis trio and Aximand found religion as a coping mechanism after his uncle died. According to the Horus fluff their calendars don't even match up from clan to clan. Some cultural influence from the Diasporex up until the point of "ditch all your worldy things" which the Void Born say "hell no" to. Mention of the Mournival as a Void Born tradition, at least for the groups around Sol. Void Born kind of fell apart as a unified nation after Abbadon the Last because they didn't have a lot of galactic scale ambition or the necessary cat-herding charisma (Horus was charismatic enough that he could have gotten Kurze and Mortarion to do what he wanted, which even Sanguinius couldn't accomplish) and the clans weren't going to start killing each other over who inherited the silverware. There was some mention of Horus allowing immigration into the Migrant Fleet to get himself access to more geneseed-compatible recruits. Void Born are gradually dying out as of M41, though "dying out" is an inaccurate description. The Imperial Navy is in part derived from the Void Born, the Void Born are massively outnumbered by groundpounders and due to population dynamics Voidborn genes are being diluted through interbreeding. Most of the big old naval families have significant Void Born ancestry and related features (pale skin, tall and skinny, receeding hairline). Some pure Voidborn still exist, as [[Nobledark_Imperium_Notable_People#Lady_High_Admiral_of_the_Imperial_Navy_Merelda_of_House_Pereth|Merelda Pereth]] will attest.
Summary:
Please note that all contributions to 2d4chan may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here.
You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see
2d4chan:Copyrights
for details).
Do not submit copyrighted work without permission!
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)
Navigation menu
Personal tools
Not logged in
Talk
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Namespaces
Page
Discussion
English
Views
Read
Edit
Edit source
View history
More
Search
Navigation
Main page
Recent changes
Random page
Help about MediaWiki
Tools
What links here
Related changes
Special pages
Page information