Editing Nobledark Imperium Imperial Forces (section)

=== Nightsiders ===

<div class="toccolours mw-collapsible mw-collapsed" style="100%"> '''''A Brief Elucidation of the Nightsider:'''''
 
The Nightsider is a catchall term for a grouping of sub-species adapted for a specific type of environment without any common origin beyond that of any other human group. They are native to many worlds of the Imperium, such as Praetoria, Calth (from the transplanted population of dead Posul), Equixus, at least one world in the Carcharodon recruitment area, and many others. Typically, they are a pale breed adapted to living on worlds either with no light or additional environmental conditions that make dwelling in the light substantially detrimental. Such reasons can include, but are not limited to, the planet having unusually harmful sunlight, extreme daytime predation or population pressure, or isolation in the dark lands of tidally-locked worlds. Worlds populated entirely by Nightsiders are rare (but not unprecedented), as they would require an environment where regular humans could not survive, and such worlds typically can't maintain global environmental conditions that would allow a population of humans or near-humans to survive at all.

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Although disparate in origin, the Nightsiders of the Imperium share common features which are partly necessitated by their environment and partly derived from a standardized Dominion era gene-template; Large dark eyes, a lack of pigmentation in the skin, hair and nails, the ability to synthesize vitamin D in the liver, and a very slightly lower optimal body temperature. Due to their native environments often being lower in available energy, Nightsiders often form smaller social structures based on extended family bonds, typically numbering no more than twenty or thirty individuals operating over a wide area dictated by availability of resources. To this end, the Nightsiders are also often fiercely territorial in nature. This borderline anti-social nature is assumed to be more cultural than biological, as they have been integrated into the Imperial Army with little additional problems after the first few months when they realize that the meals are regular and predictable, although even then they tend to form groups among themselves and disperse evenly within the regiment.
 
Nightsiders are as intelligent as baseline humanity and so have never qualified for AdBio uplifting like the Beastmen and Ogryn strains. Although they were often found in primitive conditions by the Imperium, this is typically a result of finding a long term equilibrium with their direct environmental needs; usually a lack of available food prevented work specialization and the larger social projects that result. In all cases, efforts of the Missionarius Galaxia, especially the Orders Sabine, have resulted in varying degrees of successful pacification and introduction to true civilization.
 
The introduction to the civilization of the Imperium's light has gone smoothest in places where the local populations could be persuaded to accept the tithe willingly. The Nightsiders are human; they do not gladly eat the slain of their own kind or kill off excess population in times of greatest need, but they did so nevertheless in the name of survival. The tithe offers a way out, as excess population is sent out into the galaxy and send their pay home in the form of nutri-paste and tinned foods, and when they return they have had the habits of good order trained into them, which they spread to the rest of their kindred. This cultural influence over the generations has resulted in them adopting Imperial technology willingly as barter and trade for their services, rather than as the recipients of charity. Charity they would not tolerate, as they seldom care for the pity of outsiders (a term typically used to mean anyone that is not part of their family group). By this helping hand, the Imperium reaches out to them rather than reaching down to them, and in doing so all may rise up higher as allies and friends.
 
In the Imperial guard, Nightsiders typically make very good target spotters for artillery and patrol squad removers. The ways of hunting are often a second nature to them, and all good commanders know how best to take advantage of this.
 
Despite long term introduction into the wider Imperium, the various Nightsider cultures have retained many of the more "primitive-seeming" rituals and customs of their ancestors, at least partly because, like all ab-humans, they maintain an "us and them" mentality based on the very obvious and noticeable differences between themselves and the teeming masses of other humanities. This is encouraged for the most part as it binds their social order, and so long as they retain pride in their social identity whilst understanding that the Imperium places due worth in them based on their skills and contributions, they are less tested by the whispers of more terrible things. Due to their extremely family based social structures the prevailing religious trends tend towards the worship of ancestors and ancestor spirits, although due to their disparate nature this is not always the case and great variation has been noted.

Many human strains, both baseline and abhuman, express apprehension towards Nightsiders, often because their strange habits and dark sclera give them an uncanny valley effect. Ironically, many xenos species find Nightsiders to appear more personable than regular humans (at least in appearance; their behavior often having the same off-putting effect), white sclera being virtually unique amongst humanity and its component subspecies in the galaxy, with some xenos even admitting that the white sclera of human eyes can be creepy in their eyes.
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