Editing Nobledark Imperium Notes (section)

==Severan Dominate==

The Severan Dominate is a violent oppressive enclave that as of 999.M41 is primarily holding on through grimderp pseudo-pragmatism that is really serving to make things worse for everyone. Their casus belli for secession basically boils down to the fact that the Severan Dominate are basically lucky in that they’ve never really seen a real war. Like the Tau in vanilla, they really don’t understand the scope of the galaxy they live in. So when they hear stories of what is happening elsewhere in the galaxy, they think it’s on the same level of what they have to deal with, exaggerated by shell shock, big fish stories, and an intragalactic game of telephone. They hear stories of endless hordes of insectoid xenos (Tyranids) and go “we have those too, we call them the Q’orl”. They think an invasion by the Blood Pact is on the same level as a Black Crusade. They think a bunch of isolated enclaves are what the Imperium worries about when they hear “Necron Star Empire”. They think Grimtoof Git-Slaver is on the level of Ghazghull. They’re like soldiers fighting in Africa during World War I hearing about what’s going on in No-Man’s Land and finding what there hearing simply too ridiculous to believe. They're the logical extension of someone hearing of how the galaxy really works and finding the truth to be more ridiculous than fiction.

The Imperium has tried explaining what’s really going on to the Severan Dominate, but the Dominate refuses to believe them. They see the Imperium as using the Tyranids, Necrons, Chaos, and Brain Boyz as boogeymen used to justify the increasingly high tithes placed on worlds like the Dominate in order to support their favored worlds like, say, Cadia. They think the Imperium is overexaggerating the threat and that they can survive perfectly well on their own. They have no idea the kind of rapetrain that is out there in the darkness. Additionally, the current heads of the Severus family are kind of self-centered assholes and see setting up their own petty empire as their own personal ego-trip. As a result, it was relatively easy for them to convince the citizenry that the Imperium had been lying to them to justify higher taxes and incite secession.

Of course, this leads to problems. Part of the deal on joining the Imperium is that when you are in, you are in for good. There are no fair-weather friendships or chickening out in the Imperium. The Imperium can’t afford to let the Dominate leave. If the Imperium allows a state to leave then others in a similar position will leave. If they all piss off it's going to be a small number of worlds holding up a large number of fortress worlds that are keeping the monsters out. The walls fall through lack of support and monsters get in and the Imperium gets annihilated and, and here is the real kicker, those worlds that ran away realize their folly only after it's too late to possibly be doing anything about it and everyone is dead and there is no hope for meaningful survival of any member of the Imperium. Hence the current war with the Dominate. The Emperor also doesn’t like the idea of leaving an uncorrupted human civilization out to hang, but the situation is starting to become one in which there is no objectively right decision. Either kill a whole bunch of citizens of the Severan Dominate and the greater Imperium in a bloody war to suppress the rebellion, or leave the Dominate out to hang and watch an entire civilization get killed by Chaos/Dark Eldar/Orks/Slaugth/whatever.

The Severan Dominate see the overwhelming response of the Imperium as the desperate attempts of a failing empire to hold onto power, rather than simply the sheer amount of power the Imperium is able to wield its fuckhuge army in times of relative peace (see: [[Nobledark_Imperium_Drafts#The_Badab_War|Badab]], the last time the Q’orl got uppity). However, the Imperium is still much, much bigger than they are, and the Dominate is starting to get desperate. They’re not stupid enough to try joining Chaos, but they might even be stupid enough to try and get backing from forces that they should know better than to negotiate with to achieve their goals. Specifically, the Severus family is making deals with the Slaugth instead of/in addition to the Dark Eldar, giving the maggot-men a few worlds in exchange for an external foe to keep the Dominate in line ([[Nobledark_Imperium_Drafts#The_Rangdan_Xenocides_and_the_Slaugth|and completely unaware of what happens if you let the Slaugth get a foothold]]), hence why there are so many Slaugth in the Calixis Sector.

As of 999.M41, the suppression of the rebellion of the Severan Dominate is just still going on. No one is aware of the level of shit that is about to go down, so it’s possible the Dominate might just get the lucky break they have been hoping for.