Editing Nobledark Imperium Notes (section)

=Forces of the Imperium=

==The Commissariat==

Commissars represent a tangible tie for the foot sluggers to the Imperium of Man and Eldar. Some people in the real world have trouble thinking past their city/tribe/religion to focus on what's good for their nation. Take that problem, and magnify that to a galactic level. Guardsmen that might previously have considered the trip to the big city a long ways away are suddenly surrounded by technology beyond imagining, aliens they've only heard in legend, and worst of all, guardsmen that they're told are the same species as they are, but do everything completely wrong in the most disgusting ways. Some of those freaks have TATTOOS for pity's sake!

This isn't just the problem that the grunts suffer. Officers, graduating top of their class at the finest war academies on their worlds are forced to rub elbows with complete yokels that couldn't tell you the difference between a flanking maneuver and their asshole, or complete snobs that sneer at one another's credentials and undermine authority with their pompous arrogance. In short, for humans faced with the weird and unknown, they can get unpredictable. The commissar is there to ensure that every soldier remembers their duty to the Imperium, and prevent culture shock from harming army cohesion. Guardsmen regiments are given a great deal of latitude- they may specialize in their own methods of warfare, select their own uniforms, and create their own command structures, with the exception of the commissar. Every raised regiment requires a commissar, and every commissar dresses exactly alike, and every guardsman regiment is required to train and recognize what the commissar represents as the Imperium made manifest, the final word on matters of justice, and the last resort commander. Regiments across the galaxy immediately know that if all their native officers fall, they need to look for the cap and great coat to follow.
They do not rule, they do not follow.

They look over the shoulder of the rulers to make sure they aren't doing anything too stupid and they make sure the plebs follow.

They can't pull any rank unless everyone else with a real officer rank is dead. They can't execute anyone unless they are sure that they are acting in cowardice rather than tactical sense, they are obviously Douglas Haig levels of incompetence or that they are secretly on the other team.

They have no rank. They have very limited actual authority, although what authority they do have is terrible and terrifying. Everyone gets a basic anti-Chaos education, the commissars get additional training.

This time around there was no great and cast iron divisions in the break up of the old Legions. If you are part of an Imperium commissioned fighting force you get one of these scary fuckers traveling around with you.

It's not so bad, they are usually very well educated in the ways of war and they sometimes come out with good ideas.
Commissars still have their trademark “more lethal to their own troops than it is to the enemy” bolt pistol. However, in this timeline the purpose of the bolt pistol is less for morale-boosting executions, and more to provide mercy killings to guardsmen who are beyond saving and are in the grip of some tentacled horror or who have been corrupted by Chaos. The enemies of the Imperium, particularly the Crone Eldar, can kill you in a hundred different ways, but they can make you wish you were dead in a thousand. This isn’t to say that executing people for extreme cowardice still doesn’t happen.

Nevertheless, commissars are still people, and power still corrupts. Just like in canon, you still get the overzealous trigger-happy commissars who BLAM! their own men at the slightest hint of them stepping out of line and build their careers over the corpses of their fellow soldiers. The only difference is that in this timeline, if you’re lucky, those commissars get caught (or Catachaned) and put on military trial. Whenever a commissar gets assigned to an Imperial Army regiment, the Imperial Army troops hold their breath to see if they are going to be brave or insane. Sometimes, if they are particularly unlucky, they are both.

==Imperial Army==

=== Cadian Doctrine ===

The Cadian Doctrine, which is the most commonly followed military doctrine in the galaxy, basically boils down to digging in and mowing down enemies from range with massive amounts of las- and shuriken fire before they get close enough to engage in melee. This is fantastic for digging in and holding territory, and is especially effective against Orks, who love melee charges and whose accuracy in ranged combat is...spotty, at best. However, at the same time followers of the Cadian Doctrine have trouble taking ground. When attacking, the Cadians use mass artillery support with charging infantry to dig out defending enemies. Either that or they partner up with a regiment of Fenrisian Line Troopers, beastmen, Ogryn, Astartes, or other group who do excel in offensive action. Unfortunately, this makes the Lost and the Damned, who excel in close-quarters melee combat and asymmetrical warfare, a pretty good counter for the typical Cadian strategy.

The Cadian Doctrine is also effective because it is cheap. All you need is lasguns and lots and lots of people who can aim, no need for fancy sagittars, tough-as-nails warrior culture, special weapons, or elite troops/specialists. So it's possible for any regiment to follow the Cadian Doctrine, hence why it is often seen as the "standard", much to the grumblings of the Macharians, who prefer specialization and sending the right type of troops for the right job. Cadian Doctrine soldiers can also easily support other units such as Astartes, which makes them an effective force multiplier in just about any situation.

==Imperial Navy==

The overall motif of the Imperial Navy and void life in general is Age of Sail-style Wooden Ships and Iron Men (no, not those Iron Men). Like on a ship in the Age of Sail, life on a void ship is arduous, and you have to be constantly alert (on a sailing ship to make sure the ropes are all taut and the sails in the right position, on a void ship to constantly make sure the engines are working right). Overall, it’s a lifestyle that’s hard, but not so bad that the entire crew doesn’t jump ship the first chance they get and the people who live it actually take it as a point of pride over those who don’t.  Wooden Ships and Iron Men is very nobledark because by definition it pits the wills and creations of men against the cold, uncaring forces of nature. It’s a gritty job away from civilization much of the time and at the mercy of the "elements" so to speak, where a rogue storm could wreck your ship at any time if you're not careful. That's not to say the bad parts of the Age of Sail, such as mutinies, harsh discipline, and the occasional unauthorized press-ganging don't happen though.

The Mechanicus let a little more of the basic technology out (i.e., autoloaders), at least in part because they have competition with the other semi-autonomous member states and can’t act like complete assholes or else people will go to the Tau, Demiurge, Kinebrach, squats, etc. However, autoloaders can break and the crew are all trained to readily load munitions in by hand or pulley if they have to. So it's less a thousand slaves pulling a macrocannon into place with whips and more a dozen guys hoisting the cannon into alignment with ropes and pulleys.

The Voidborn, the original source of the ships and crew of the Imperial Navy, are becoming an increasing minority in the Navy by M41. The Imperial Navy is increasingly composed of baseline humans, if for no other reason than sheer size and logistics. On the other hand, most of the venerable old Navy families are either Voidborn or have a disproportionate amount of Void Born ancestry (manifesting in being tall, or having big dark eyes, pale skin, or a receding hairline). However, all of the intermarriage between the Void Born and baseline humans has made them close enough to baseline that the Void Wolves and their successors can recruit from them (except Black Legion, who recruit exclusively from the Gate Worlds).

===Five Flagships===

*In the long run, the Five more than paid for the expense that went into them, but Oscar thought they weren't a big enough success to be worth completely refurbishing or commissioning replacement ships</br>
*Oscar didn’t freak out over the Rock and Terminus Est going off the reservation because the Dark Angels and Black Templars were basically doing what the ships had always been meant to do (patrol Obscurus and Pacificus, respectively)</br>
*Addition of ships like the ''Tomb of Horus'' to the Imperial Fleet as well as just plain old battleships meant the Five were no longer as important as during the Great Crusade.</br>
*Finally, it was becoming apparent to the heads of the Imperium just how big the galaxy was, and that the resources devoted to ship building was better spent making larger numbers of relatively smaller ships, rather than fewer, more heavily armed ships.</br>
*Left out the details of the Carcharodons' story of reclaiming the Nicor as that is better left to the Carcharodons' entry and there was some disagreement over what they are like.</br>
*I kind of liked the idea that the Terminus Est was still out there fighting the good fight as the Templar’s flagship, but people suggested otherwise.</br>

== Sisters of Battle ==

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

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

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

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

==The Inquisition==

There are Eldar and Tau Inquisitors. Indeed, the Inquisitorial Representative is really the only position on the High Lords of Terra that can really be occupied by an Eldar. The High Lords hate the idea of an Eldar High Lord, because Eldar live for millennia and any Eldar that became a High Lord would conceivably be there a very, very long time. Of course, that doesn’t stop every other member of the High Lords from having farseer advisors whispering advice in their ears. And of course there is nothing stopping any Inquisitor from having an Eldar seer or Enforcer or a Tau Fire Warrior or Earth Caste researcher in their retinue any more than an Arbites or tech-priest.

The Inquisition, Eldar members included, also hates the idea of having a permanent representative on the High Lords, because there is a high risk of any permanent representative to the High Lords of Terra, even a human with rejuvenant treatments, is going to become heavily entrenched in Old Earth politics and gain too much political power at the expense of the rest of the Inquisition instead of doing their job. Instead, the position of Inquisitorial Representative is a ten-year rotating position, selected by a vote among the most senior members of the Inquisition. Generally, whoever gets elected tends to be the recognized expert on a particular phenomenon, so the High Lords have an expert on hand for whatever the greatest threat is to the Imperium at the moment. If it’s Chaos and daemons, it’s generally a member of the Ordo Malleus. Necrons or tyranids, and it tends to be Ordo Xenos. As of 999.M41, because shit is currently hitting the fan across all fronts simultaneously, the current Inquisitorial Representative is Hector Rex.

'''Hector Rex'''

Hector Rex was a failed Grey Knight aspirant that was shunted into the Inquisition’s service under venerable Inquisitor █████ ████████ of the Ordo Malleus. If there is one thing the Inquisition loves it's well trained and clever soldiers, the formidable and refined psychic power being somewhat of a bonus.

It is realized soon that Hector is quite clever and so Inquisitor █████ ████████ takes him on as an apprentice.

Much of his career would be much the same. He banishes daemons, prevents the formation of daemonworlds, builds a retinue and so on and so forth all the while adding notches to his hammer for every greater daemon broken, every battle won, every cult uprooted, every ritual stopped, every world saved. Also notoriously good at playing cards.

The Grey Knights' loss was everyone's gain as he has kicked more ass than he ever could have in that life.

The job of Representative is given, seemingly at random, to an Inquisitor Lord drawn from a pool of the best few hundred based on time served, successful missions and the nature of those missions, spotlessness of record, psychological screening and not having batshit monodomiant or some other dangerous ideology that's going to get everyone killed.

Also the job being swapped every 10(?) years makes it infuriatingly difficult for the more slimy High Lords to manipulate the Inquisition from the top down. If it was one man holding the job for centuries then they would start to get drawn in to the backstabbery and maybe the other HLs would get leverage over them. With this their efforts are wasted as you spend years trying to get the dirt on one of them and they they just replace him.

'''Commodus Voke'''

The Inquisitorial Representative before Hector was Commodus Voke, best known for his actions in the Thracian Gate Atrocity. The Thracian Gate Atrocity was a rather bizarre clusterfuck that involved Voke teaming up with two of the Imperium’s greatest fugitives: the APEX twins. The APEX twins weren’t directly responsible for the event, having been trying to keep a low profile on the world (indeed, when Voke found them they were eating ice cream in the crowd). The twins assisted in the cleaning up and mitigating the problem somewhat, though this is possibly one of the few instances that they have ever been in serious danger. By the time anyone got their shit together enough to look for them they were long, long gone.

Voke was the Inquisitorial Representative of the High Lords prior to Hector Rex. After his 10 year stint in the big chair he went back to his job but the urging of his friends (such few as he had) and colleagues to retire due to age and failing health caused him to find a compromise. He is now spending his twilight years as the Inquisitorial Overseer to the chapter Guardians of the Covenant

'''The Younger Generation'''

Although they are still centuries away from being in a position of seniority where they might be elected to Inquisitorial Representative, two talented up-and-comers among the younger generation are Tomb World-raiding Necron-expert Inquisitor Valeria, who managed to break into the heart of Solemnace (before being caught by Trazyn the Infinite and shipped back to the Imperium in a Tesseract Labyrinth, but hey she lived to tell the tale), and everyone’s favorite not-a-Dalek Ravenor, who unlike his mentor Eisenhorn looked into the abyss and didn’t blink. Both are way too young to have much influence, but anyone with a brain knows that Valeria and Ravenor are going to be two big names to look out for in the future assuming neither of them die. The power blocs are already starting up, but Valeria and Ravenor are actually pretty friendly with each other and neither would mind if the other ever became in charge, since each knows the other isn't a Fyodor-style lunatic.

==Knight Houses==

Not much has been done on them. The idea that has had the most traction is to take the somewhat noblebright tone of the 5th edition Warhammer Brettonians but replace the Arthurian myth with Ad-Mech techno-wizardry and toning down the over the top oppression of the peasants for a more nobledark feel (basically Bretonnians IN SPACE with a bit of [[Battletech]] thrown in maybe). Have them be guardians of feudal worlds and also the military aristocracy of more advanced planets. Noble in Deed and Name alike, they are a tireless foe of the Imperium's enemies. There’s a bit of irony when you realize the Knights are still screaming “for the Lady” in this timeline, only the “Lady” in question is Isha rather than Lileath.

There are also Chaos Knight houses. House Devine still fell in this timeline, though the battle of Molech went somewhat differently. House Devine could have sided with Chaos because Imperium was allied with the eldar. But they hadn't allied with the true eldar. Croneworlders were the true inheritors of their old empire and the only allies worth having.

There is even something running around that is basically the Nucklavee in space. Plague flame thrower breath, quadruped, spear arm and all the rest. Once a valiant knight of House Devine that upon seeing all of the bad shit and with some Chaos Eldar prodding fell into a state of absolute despair. Now rusted into being one with his half deamon machine he serves Nurgle.