Editing Nobledark Imperium Notes (section)

==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.