I think that one of the things that annoyed Vulkan about Isha and her adherents was that the Promethean Creed was all about traditional family values. You have the matriarch or patriarch of the house, the immediate family of siblings and children and then the more distant relatives.

That's the structure of an extended Promethean family and it's from this that their societies are constructed.

Then along comes Isha. She is all about free love and her priestesses typically have the children of the pilgrims to their temples.

This is as far away from good traditional Promethean values as you can get and 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.

In a similar way he didn't trust the Aspect Warriors. They were too specialized and inter-dependant where his doctrine put emphasis on self reliance. Also they moved with the same grace as the nightmares of his childhood.

He also didn't like craftworld civilian society as the Path System was there, he saw, to facilitate eldar selfish behaviour rather than rejecting it for the good of the many.

He didn't like exodites either. Because fuck the eldar basically. But not literally, have better taste in women than Oscar.

>>57055511
What more could we do with the Olamic Quietude to make them worthy of extermination without resorting to Chaos?

>>57056974
It was mentioned later in his life when he changed from "fuck the Eldar" 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 isn't just the goddess of fertility. She's also the goddess of motherhood, family, and familial ties. In terms of lovr, Slaanesh is eros (or a very specific, selfish form of eros), Isha is storge. Or in other words, Slaanesh is about having sex with lots of random strangers while doing drugs and weird shit because YOU don't feel anything anymore, whereas Isha is about having tons of sex with your one true beloved in the missionary position in order to make lots and lots of babies.

That said, it's likely Vulkan would have focused more on the fertility and sacred whores part of Isha worship and ignored the familial aspects, since that's the parts that are more unusual and obvious from a cursory glance. This wouldn't be unusual in history. Most contemporaries of early Christianity (namely non-Christian Romans) overlooked the "be kind to your neighbor" parts of the creed and focused on "holy shit, they promote cannibalism" based on a misunderstanding of the Eucharist.

It's likely due to Isha's place as the goddess of family that she and Vulkan were able to find any common ground at all later in life.

This wouldn't be helped by the fact that Eldar are highly introverted and clannish by nature. They do form wider societies, but they mostly do so via expanding their own personal social circle than putting their faith in an abstract idea of community. Which would be anathema to Vulkan.

My guess is Vulkan spent a lot of time around the Imperial court not only because he was the Steward's champion, but to make sure Isha wasn't corrupting him with her bad influence.

>>57057761
In canon they see themselves as superior beings because they are more AdMech than the AdMech and all the other dithering fleshy humans are untermenschen. In canon they vivisected the first diplomats from the Imperium for no reason. They probably have an Urshii view of themselves as having ascended beyond mere humanity, and everyone else are semi-sentient animals to be guided and do with as they see fit.

They just don't worship Chaos because they are so arrogant they consider Chaos beneath them.

Really the kind of people who you don't want to have a tech edge on you (which they do, but don't have the footprint to exploit it).

Holy shit this is so fucking autistic

>>57057964
Given the degree of augmentation I imagine that they were born in test tubes and presumably there was no notion of kin among them.

How did they feel about true A.I.?

>>57058936
In canon they were said to be either uploaded minds or brain-in-a-jar A.I. It's possible the distinction to them is meaningless.

I would say go for the uploaded mind in this universe to go with the "beyond tech heresy" thing they seem to have going. Or maybe Brain-in-a-jar transferred to full engram later in life to keep population levels up. The AdMech despite wanting to be cybered up as much as possible have an arbitrary line drawn between human and A.I. thanks to the war with the Men of Iron in days long past. The Olamic Quietude both represent the culmination of what they want to be and tech-heresy of the highest degree.

Bump to see if there is any interest.

>>57059842
If given another 10,000 years to keep going and them not become too god like then they would have to have either stagnated or been repeatedly knocked back.

Presumably they get as fucked over by Chaos Incursions as everyone else and they would have been as rekt by The Harrowing as the Imperium was.

Other times of weakness would have to have been hidden or Oscar and/or the High Lords would have deemed it finally prudent to wipe them all out. Before now.

Now it's not that they are particularly weak so much as they just tried to take out a Fenrisian Colony. Oscar could try ordering the Vlka Fenryka not to start shit but would in most likelihood ignored. At that point he will have to either relent and look weak or call in other forces to control the Fenrisians and look like he is willing to prevent people from defending their hearth and home.

So he gives Grimnar and Ulrik his permission to prosecute a retaliatory war against the Olamic Quietude. If they win then all is right and well and nobody is going to shed tears for the loss of the Olamic Quietude.

If they loose the Imperium gets to swoop in, pull them out of the fire and help them get back on their feet.

At this point it's about making the best of a bad situation. In an ideal world they would have stayed in their quarantine zone but it's not an ideal world.

From the point of the Vlka Fenryka this is a wonderful opportunity to claim considerable in rite of conquest and from the point of view of Bjorn Fellhanded of Krakan Bay it's a day a long time overdue.

>>57061941
It could be that while the Quietude has on the whole increased in technology relative to M30 (though with repeated knockbacks from Chaos incursions and the like), it's population has greatly decreased. Automation and the like has reduced the demand for new soldiers, and so there isn't a lot of replacement when individuals are lost. The Imperium has only just now realized that their latest series of attacks aren't the beginning of a new campaign by the Quietude, but a diversionary tactic to make it seem like the Quietude are a lot stronger militarily than they actually are.

It would explain why a single chapter is able to take on the Quietude, or alternatively the Vlka Fenryka are using the opportunity to call for a Reformation of the Legion to knock some heads on a massive scale. All Space Wolf descendants would know the story of the Quietude and they would be eager to settle a 10k year grudge so long as they aren't doing something like guarding the Eye of Terror.

Normally Oscar would try to avoid starting a war liable to turn into a meatgrinder especially given the Quietude tend to be isolationist assholes, but doomsday is rapidly approaching and the Quietude have to be dealt with now. In addition, it's clear that now is the best time to fight with the Quietude if any fight is to be had, since this time the Imperium knows the Quietude is recovering from a punch to the gut. Hence doing nothing as Fenris marches to war.

Did we ever figure out a solution for the Commorragh size problem?

I would almost go with Commorragh's suns being kept artificially small. Commorragh should definitely have a surface area bigger than Earth, as the Dark Eldar are said to be as numerous as the Craftworlders who have populations in the trillions and Commorragh is the Dark Eldar's primary domain, but more inhabitable space than even the canon Imperium seems way overboard.

Trying to do some synthesizing stuff for what's been said in the previous threads. What should I do if this thread goes down and interest seems to wane? Just put it on 1d4chan if it looks like the threads aren't coming back?

>>57064207
There is the possibility that they aren't stars and only look like they w and the two dyson spheres are smaller.

Or they are smaller and the suns are further away than conventional dimensions should allow, the Dark Eldar having imported additional distance.

Or due to people doing crazy shit like Black Hole in a box vast swathes of land are uninhabitable

>>57057917
It's also been mentioned that the priestesses of Isha do typically have large families.

Does any one remember the Teclis and Tyrion inspired characters? Were they saved?

>>57058031
Fuck off, autistic retard faggot cunt nigger.

>>57065981
I can dig through the archives to try and find them. I remember the general thread of where they were.

Also was the grox thing good enough to go on 1d4chan?

>>57065981
>>57067020
And the Teclis and Tyrion inspired characters are up.

>>57067020
Grox was very much good enough.

>>57067237
Thank you

>>57065659
Well in canon they are pretty clearly supposed to be stars plucked at the height of the Old Empire's debaucheries from people they don't like. It certainly sounds like something the Dark Eldar or Old Empire would do from a thematic point of view if it didn't cause the space problem.

>>57065659
>>57068890
Shaa-Dome would also be pretty big. The inhabitable space of Shaa-Dome would essentially be the surface area of the planet, minus however much space there is between layers, so on and so forth until you reach the Brass Palace. Using Earth as a proxy that could easily reach into the billions of m^2 if Shaa-Dome is "only" as deep as Earth's mantle, the gaps between layers are several kilometers talls and the Crones are only using one side (so it could be much larger). Of course this makes more sense as there is supposed to be a lot more Crone World Eldar.

>>57070066
I can imagine that the average Croneworlder has vast estates or considerable other assets with them as the lord of many slaves.

They would see this as the right and proper way of things.

Population density might be quite low compared to what obscene numbers it could be. Still much higher than the Craftworlders. Also more prone to circular firing squad levels of infighting.

>>57070852
We've not really touched on infighting between the Croneworlders, have we? We've mentioned Lady Malys has to repeatedly bitch-slap them to get them in line, and the four champions of the gods have a personal hatred for each other that goes beyond the fact that they merely favor different gods (aside from maybe the Indigo Crow, but he's weird anyway).

What sort of infighting shenanigans do the Crones get up to?

>>57071337
Poisoning the wine, although it's probable at this point that they would miss the poison if it wasn't included as standard.

Tattooing summoning incantations on the inside of the eyelids of a slave belonging to someone you dislike or just want to fuck with. Every time they close their eyes or blink it reads the incantation a little more. Eventually the slaves head tears open at an inconvenient time (like during dinner, slave may or may not be a food item) and an angry deamon tries to kill everyone.

Finding new and exotic acquisitions for the rape rack.

Seeing if you can make a human-eldar hybrid with a sufficiently altered Daemonculaba setup. Hasn't worked the last 500 times but that's no reason not to keep trying.

Reading the results of that mutagenic substance you dumped into an Imperial Hives water supply and chuckling at the hilarity of three and a half billion families realizing that all their children and all the children they will ever have will be hideously and disgustingly deformed.

Fucking their children (or disguising themselves as a rival and funking their children) in an attempt toy either breed out flaws in the bloodline, exaggerate good features or because you find inbred cripple funny. Either way works.

Basically everything Dark Eldar do but 100% because they love it and not because they ever had to. Also some shit not even Dark Eldar would do because DEldar don't suck around with deamons.

Other than Dorhi are there any anti-human craftworlds?

>>57072980
There's bound to be at least a couple of minors, but Dorhai is the largest and most prominent.

>>57071524
>>57072980
There are quite a few that while not as anti-human as Dorhai, are pretty anti-human. Iyanden wanted nothing to do with the Imperium until Leviathan forced their hand, and while the younger generator are caught up in newfound patrotic fervor the older generation bemoan the fact.

The inhabitants of Alaitoc (that is, not the rangers) are amazingly snobby to any non-eldar, and refuse to associate with them more than is strictly necessary. However, they will at least deal with the greater Imperium in person.

Il-Kaithe refuses to even deal with the non-Eldar sections of the Imperium in the first place. All the negotiation that is made is made through Eldar intermediaries, and they only joined because they felt the writing was on the wall and they had to pick a side, and better the side that and was least likely to backstab them.

Dorhai goes above and beyond in that they will even shoot most eldar on sight. Probably the only way to get them to stand down is to get Isha in front of them, but since Isha is incarnated in Macha's body it's more likely that Dorhai would just shoot any ship out of the sky.

It's also worth noting that a lot of the more militantly anti-human parts of the other Craftworlds immigrated to Dorhai and the minor craftworlds in its political orbit, to the point that it now rivals Ulthwe or Biel-Tan in size.

Additionally, there is a lot of variation between Craftworlders as well. The older generations tend to be more conservative and prone to cultural posturing to make sure the mon-keigh know their place (which because eldar live a real long time, they are basically in charge and this is technically the party line). The younger generations tend to be less so.

>>57071524
If they could get a Daemonculaba out of humans to make eldar babies, it would speed up population growth immensely. Not that it's any less fun to torture their own kin but there are just a lot more humans in the galaxy.

I feel like writing... something, but I'm drawing a blank on ideas. What still needs to be done?

>>57074073
Dorn.

Two of the High Lords.

Interesting Chapters.

Drop Troops of Elysium

Catachan

Particularly whacky WAAAAGH!!!!!!s

Escapades of Legi and Draco

>>57073300
How much intermingling between the craftworlds is there?

>>57074272
>Drop Troops of Elysium

Elysium does, in fact, produce forces for the Guard beyond its famous Drop Regiments. There are Elysian tank regiments, Elysian artillery regiments, Elysian footslogger regiments. They are all, universally, nursing a mild grudge against the universe in general and the Drop Regiments in particular for the way everyone is continually surprised by their existence. "I thought Elysium did, you know, drop troops." "FUCK YOU."

But nobody cares about them. [muffled FUCK YOU in the distance] Let's talk about the Drop Regiments.

The Elysian Drop Regiments are somewhat unique in the Imperial Guard for being descended from a naval boarding force. Elysium was and is a major trade hub in a sector unfortunately plagued with human pirates, Ork Freebootas, and a superfluity of places for them to hide. As a result, Elysium committed much of its PDF force to anti-piracy operations, stationing regiments on board merchant vessels and escort ships for boarding and counter-boarding operations.

However, no war can be won with defense alone, and the Elysian PDF regiments assigned to anti-pirate duty began experimenting with methods of striking at the pirates in their lairs. Thus, the modern Drop Regiments began to take shape. The first attempts were amateurish and improvised, in some cases using civilian shuttles and Void Maneuvering Packs instead of proper assault ships and grav-chutes. Still, a couple of victories proved the concept worthy of further development, and Elysian high command invested in additional training and equipment.

>>57075598
The first battles of the Drop Regiments were void-borne affairs, fought in microgravity in and around hidden asteroid bases. As more and more pirate bases were expunged, however, they were forced to track down their opponents in ever more diverse locales, from fairly conventional planets to burning Mercurial environments to floating gas-giant bases. But, in the end, it was mostly done. The pirates would never be fully expunged from the sector- fucking Orks- but it was safer than it had ever been before. Trade was flourishing, new worlds were being colonized, and the Elysian PDF found itself somewhat underemployed. So, when the next Founding came around, the course of action was obvious.

The modern Elysian Drop Regiments distinguish themselves from the usual run of air cavalry in three ways.

First, they continue to train for operation in a very wide variety of environments. Zero-g and vacuum, high gravity, extreme temperatures, toxic atmospheres, they have the tools and training to operate in them all. Most drop regiments only train to operate within the usual 'human-habitable' range of environments, giving the Elysians a distinct niche and edge.

Second, they have very good relations with the Imperial Navy due to their past as, essentially, naval armsmen hunting pirates. Thus, they have an easier time securing air and orbital support, and have the doctrine and training to make the maximum use of it. They are comfortable with inter-service cooperation in a way few regiments are. This includes good relationships with the Void Wolves, with joint training exercises being commonplace.

Third, general superiority of training and equipment. The Drop Regiments have become a point of planetary pride, and as a prosperous trading hub Elysium can afford to ensure they are equipped and trained to the highest standards. And with far more volunteers than they can accept, the training academies can accept only the best recruits.

>>57075610
Combined, this results in the Drop Regiments being frequently deployed to the stranger battlefields of the Imperium, executing their distinctive lightning strikes in environments an unprepared human could not even hope to survive in, much less fight in.


Thoughts?

>>57075238
In canon, Eldar are said to migrate to the Craftworld that best fits their philosophy if they can't put up with where they were born.

Baharroth was said to be from Anaen, yet his brother Maugan Ra was from Altansar (both here and in canon), implying at least some immigration goes on.

It's worth noting that despite putting out a united front the Craftworlds can't seem to agree on anything when it comes to policy or central organization beyond a Craftworld level. There's a reason why in both canon and here they've been compared to Greek city-states (unified culture and religion despite radically different philosophies, incorporated into a larger, more militant empire (Rome/Imperium), despite being a minority the larger entity tends to look to them when it comes to knowledge). Immigration for them would be like people from Spain moving to Colombia, or people from the U.S. moving to Australia (and vice versa), similar language and not completely alien customs, but still a massive culture shock.

It's worth noting that the reason Old Earth was recognized as the Imperial throneworld is because 1) the location of the throneworld didn't affect the functioning of the Craftworlds all that much, 2) the Craftworlds would see no Craftworld be the center of power than give power to a rival (e.g., Biel-Tan and Ulthwe).

>>57076415
It's kind of like what happened in the whole "Ancestral Puebloan" debate. The Native American tribes claiming descent from the Ancestral Puebloans (more popularly known as "Anasazi", which they hate) met to try and come up with an alternate term for "Anasazi" (which actually means something very offensive) that the archaeological community could use. They agreed that they should use one of their own names for their ancestors (The name "Anasazi" comes from a group that hated the Ancestral Puebloans and their descendants), the problem is that every tribe had their own name for the ancestral group, and everyone wanted to use their own tribe's name. They eventually resolved the issue by going with the relatively neutral "Ancestral Puebloan", because while it wasn't something they preferred, it was something they could live with and was way better than the alternative.

If anything, the Craftworld Eldar maintain a similar cultural baseline in spite of their massive differences, because their shared cultural heritage is all they have left.

Bump

>>57075722
Did you, by any chance, draw inspiration from TTSD videos that had muffled angry Abaddons in the background? I definitely like the write-up, it provides a clear idea of why Elysian Drop Troopers are noteworthy when there are other airborne infantry units and is pretty well-written. Is there anything else you have planned to write up?

Bump.

>>57078129
No and no. I've been away for a few months, so I don't know what the current priorities are.

>>57075722
it's great

It was mentioned last thread that Prometheanism might have some hints of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity among some of the other features that differentiate it from other religions. Does anyone know enough about Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity to suggest some features?

>>57075610
What is the planet Elysian like?

>>57075722
It's good and should be put on the page.

>If they could get a Daemonculaba out of humans to make eldar babies, it would speed up population growth immensely. Not that it's any less fun to torture their own kin but there are just a lot more humans in the galaxy.

I don't think pure practicality and efficiency is the guiding star of the Croneworlders. If it was they could grow legions upon legions industrially Dark Eldar/Krieg style.

It's about status and about entertainment, preferably getting both at the same time.

It has been hinted at that if Isha does have the Impossible Child then the barrier between human and eldar will start to break down and additional hybrids besides Impossible Child and Lofn will be possible.

If this happens and it isn't restricted to the eldar in the Imperium then the Daemonculaba being used to spawn whole armies of disposable half-eldar is a very real possibility.

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>>57080813
Also meant to link to
>>57073300

>>57079566
They have a flat hierarchy. They have a pope but it's more of an honourific than the Catholic pope. When descisions have to be made the bishops all get together and vote/argue with a bishop (primate) presiding over the meeting, usually the most senior.

>>57081348
Sounds like we figured out how they twisted Vulkan's arm to make him philospher-king of Nocturne then, they had a vote for who would be pope of the fire-loving Space Baptists and of course everyone would pick the retired primarch. Vulkan was too nice to turn them down.

>>57082069
They may have made him Senior Bishop of Nocturne, by everyone else stepping back rather than him stepping forward, but they wouldn't have made him Promethean High Patriarch. If he was representative of the entire faith he would be in the Collective Synod. If he was in the Collective Synod he would end up as the head of it. Vulkan would have been a High Lord. He would not have reacted well to that.

In any case becoming Bishop of Nocturne would have been an accidental consequence of being the first leader to unify the planet and coincidentally being a Promethean priest.

Before then he was just an ordained priest doing missionary work in his spare time alongside his considerably greater secular authority as Primarch. Much the same as Logar was doing.

Every promethean listened to Vulkan, even those outside his authority, because he was Vulkan; Primarch, Patriarch and Priest. He had been there since the beginning and had guided the faithful for thousands of years and helped the faith adapt as the galaxy changed whilst still remaining true to it's principals.

Nobody could could fill those boots when he died, but then nobody should and that is good.

>>57079973
Probably pretty Earth like

>>57078129
What is TTSD?

>>57084453
If The Emperor Had A Text-To-Speech-Device, a youtube comedy/parody series.

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>>57079973
>>57083316
Can't find any notable features of it in canon beyond mentioning the system is filled with a lot of space debris and pirates as mentioned above.

I wonder if they have any problems with asteroid impacts and the like. That said, they could probably get rich off the asteroid mining royalties.

>>57085598
Speaking of Be'lakor and rocks did we ever come up with a name for the psychic Tarellian world? I think it was suggested Slaan was too on the nose because the Hrud name for the Old Ones and other powerful beings (Slaa-hai) implies the Old Ones actually called themselves Slaan or something similar.

>>57085746
I think there wasn't one and they organised with their psychics as a priestly elite, Old Ones were psychic and so are they so they get a certain prestige.

Unlike the astropaths it takes an entire choir of them to send a short message. They refuse to rent astropaths for reasons of pride.

What is the ratling word for ratling?

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Andwise Bophîn, formally scribe first class and assistant to scrivener Tomnalas Haranad of the Gothic sector, was at the end of his life. He knew it with leaden certainty. He had reached the point where he couldn’t see a way forward. Voices of the men before him droned on and on as background sound. They were discussing things. Details, numbers, statistics and sorrows upon sorrow. He should be listening. He should be hearing them, knowing what has happened. He doesn’t need to; he knows enough now. He knows more than enough now and far more than he would ever want to.

He had tried to not know. To remain ignorant at first, then in doubt and then in foolish hope beyond hope for some minor mistake or for this to all be a dream or clever and cruel ruse. It is not. It never was and he can see that now. They stop droning on about things he is beyond caring about and he makes his excuses and leaves. There was pity in those eyes. Hardened warriors centuries old from the, Knights of Blood and Dog Soldiers from Æsa’s Claim and more mortal men from other worlds of some he knew and other he didn’t. They who had seen horrors beyond the count of number or seasons pitied him.

And here they were at Haupstemmler Keep. He had seen the body of the late governor a weapon in each hand and most of his ribcage excavated. Some third cousin by second marriage on his mother’s side and fifth cousin of his father. Distant kin who he had only met once but they had spoken over ale and he seemed a good old gaffer with many stories to share. All stories that would be silent now.

Haupstemmler Keep. Last refuge of the kudugin. He stood upon the spot where his world had failed and finally fallen. His wandering feet bringing him to the great rend in those ancient walls, thirty or forty feet wide at the base through which oblivion had flooded in.

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>>57087502
Scribe Bophîn stood there for a long time looking through the hole in the wall to the mountains beyond. Jagged rocks for miles and beyond them, the fields of green and gently rolling hills of childhood. This, with the sun rising but before the sins could be seen, this was how he was going to go. The heirloom family revolver was with it’s seven metal stubs in it’s holster hanging heavily at his hip almost welcoming in it’s familiar weight.

Sun was the horizon in the east turning the fields beyond the mountains to gold and the mountains into monochrome of jagged edges and bathing the snowy caps in copper.

Faces of the dead coming to haunt him in those lines and shapes. Others of his people, those who had been away on business and those serving on distant worlds, would be arriving soon. As the highest ranking member of his people remaining, a man of the Administratum and a distant relative of the ruling family he was their ruler now. He was Overthain of Ornsworld. He would be the one they looked to for direction. He would be the one to shape this broken world as it rebuilt and by the gods it would be rebuilt.

Tears flowed freely down his cheeks, burning and bitter. By the gods they would regret setting foot on this hallowed ground.

>>57087517
Wow. What I wrote was so fucking bad it actually seems to have killed the thread.

DOn't know what I was thinking

>>57088508
I thought it was pretty interesting. I didn't know if there was more or not.

Does anyone think we need more battles with non-Imperial, non-tyranid victories?

Literally everything involving the tyranids so far (Tyran getting munched, Kryptman Line, Battle of Ultramar, Lusitan, Doom of Malan'tai), has been a pyrrhic victory or an outright defeat, but there haven't been many Imperial defeats.

The main victories for Orks/Necrons/Chaos I can think of are as follows.
- Orks killing Sisters of Silence to a man at beginning of War of the Beast
- Pretty much entire War of Beast in general, which is either Orks stomping Imperial's shit or at best getting a bloody nose until Siege of Terra
- Doombreed subverting an entire sector of space
- Anaen being destroyed and Ulthwe getting fucked up during the WotB
- Pretty much anything involving the Fallen
- Croneworlders wrecking the Imperial Fleet's collective shit before the 2nd Black Crusade
- Prospero being destroyed in 4th Black Crusade
- Phinean Massacre
- Be'lakor steering Leviathan into Tarellian space as revenge for being thrown down a hole
- Vect using the Imperium to kill his rivals for him and cripple Sansayaam at the same time.
- Chaos burning Ornsworld to the ground in the 13th Black Crusade

Of course, one issue may be some victories might be hard to write. Some unambiguous victories for Chaos would be game over for the Imperium (Emperor dies, Chaos successfully kidnaps Isha). Others are more ambiguous (e.g., would the Badab War count as an Imperial loss? It resulted in a massive waste of lives and resources and gave Chaos five chapters worth of Fallen. Would World Engine count because even though it was brought down in the end it racked up a massive number of casualties?). Additionally, when the Imperium does lose it tends to give a "fuck you" to whoever it loses to (e.g., Exterminatusing Sarosh) to at least give them a bloody nose.

>>57088857 (cont.)
Of course, is that how it is in military matters? Not every battle ends in the opposing force being killed to a man, forces in real world battles are often routed and have to retreat (though is that even viable beyond a planetary level given the way Warp Travel works in 40k?)

The other thing would be differentiating things enough so that it seems fresh or interesting. Everyone knows what a Chaos taking over a planet and dragging it into the Warp looks like. Everyone knows what Necrons waking up and killing all life on a planet looks like. Writing a complete curbstomp for any group unless it highlights some important aspect to a faction, planet, or individual is rather dry.

Forgot to add to the above list
- Chaos burning down Tanith and Tallarn
- Maynarkh Dynasty wiping out entire Orpheus Sector
- Crones manipulating situation on Krieg until it turns into a shithole

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How much does the Imperium know about Be'lakor? In canon they barely even know he exists. However, given that here Be'lakor is one of the big three warlords of Chaos, I would assume his existence is better known.

Perhaps here the Imperium knows Be'lakor exists, but they don't know exactly what he is. This is as much Be'lakor giving multiple possible stories to hide his true origins as outright secrecy. The Forces of Chaos (particularly the daemons) have a better idea of what he is, but because Chaos are well known for lying at the slightest opportunity no one believes what they have to say.

The fact that the Imperium even knows Be'lakor exists in the first place was only discovered due to a lot of blood, sweat, and tears on the part of the Alpha Legion shortly after the War of the Beast, and they nearly got themselves wiped out for that.

The Imperium knows Be'lakor likes to set himself up as a god-king of mortal empires throughout history, but usually his involvement is pretty subtle and the Imperium typically only realizes he and his gang of abyssal catfish are involved in retrospect.

Overall, they know slightly more than in canon, but only enough to know he's a threat and not enough to know what he's planning or where he'll strike next.

How long has the Octarius War been going on in this timeline?

>>57090395
Presumably as long as Leviathan's been around. Behemoth was M36. Kraken was either in M37 or M38 (having trouble tracking down the date we gave). Leviathan was probably M39 or something? The stuff so far seems to suggest it was before M41 at the earliest.

The current Overfiend of Octarius was suggested to be interested in using the tyranids to augment the Orks natural orkiness, which suggests he probably wasn't the Overfiend when Leviathan hit.

>>57091224
Over a thousand years, then. That's a lot.

>>57091257
Long enough that it's been said the Orks are basically farming tyranids for EXP. Plus there's the whole Bug Boyz thing, though I don't remember exactly what that was about.

>>57088508
Your writing is really not bad, everyone's probably just busy with Christmas Eve and all that jazz right now. It's a little vague though, name dropping the 13th Black Crusade would make it less confusing for people who might not know much about Ornsworld and Ratlings.

>>57088969
Thoughts on why fleet logistics makes complete losses possible: An Imperial Army defeat could involve a desperate Navy defense of evac transports from the victorious enemy's spacecraft, or the systematic massacre of an encircled Hive City before aforementioned Imperial fleet was able to arrive and extract the defenders. Why is the latter a possibility? While an outnumbered starship might be able to make a risky emergency Warp/Webway jump should it find itself surrounded on all axis, ground armies do not have the same luxury. Transport ships are their lifeline, and should said lifeline be cut when an enemy battlegroup drives away their escorts/destroys them, the defenders have nowhere to run, unlike a real world military force.

Tldr; because infantry are reliant on vulnerable transports to get them on- and off-planet, space battles can make or break the ground war, and decide whether an army eventually gets reinforcements/an evacuation, or is instead slaughtered to the last/have no way of escaping the consequences of an enemy victory (like your example of a planet falling into the Warp). I'm still working on how this relates to the Tyranid story I'm working on, but not having Warp-capable transports on hand will play a part in the Imperial defense strategy.

This would contribute to a lot of Pyrrhic victories, because in most cases, the cornered foe does not have surrender as an option on the table (either becoming a POW is worse than merely dying in combat or the enemy just doesn't register the meaning of a white flag, like Necrons) and is not interested in lying down and taking it. Am I overthinking this?

Also, to everyone who's reading this, Merry Christmas.

>>57092274
12th

>>57090192
And then a huge rock landed on him

>>57092620
Perhaps... a huge Rok?

>>57092274
Given the use of Exterminatus to deny assets to the opposition and the time and effort needed to terraform if the wars continue at current intensity the galaxy will eventually reach a state of post-War in Heaven desolation.

Isha and Ceggers remember that and want to avoid it but they can't think of an alternative to the current methods.

>>57092668
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fYgJ5oTccWY

I just got the reference

Does the Astronomican still eat people.

>>57094509
Kind of. It burns them out and drains them over time, but the number of people required has been massively reduced, and people contribute in eight month shifts. However, most die after less than a year, and few have survived beyond eighteen months.

We never really figured out why the Astronomican eats people, given that in canon the Emperor could power it by himself while walking around during the Great Crusade. Even if we say Oscar isn't powerful enough to do so in this timeline, it raises the question of how the Imperium would have expanded to such a point where it could sustain the Astronomican, given that it requires over a thousand psykers for a year, when there are at best low hundreds of psykers in any given system.

>>57092274
And a Happy Sanguinalia to you too.

>>57095147
It could be that the Imperium didn't have an astronomican until past halfway into the Great Crusade.

Navigators and Void Born were interstellar travellers.

>>57095663
But don't the Navigators still need the Astronomican to act as a fixed landmark?

>>57096109
Not "need" as such. Navigators are Dark Age relics. There was no Astronomican for the Dark Age or Ageof Strife.

It's just really helpful

>>57096145
Wasn't the Warp less shitty during the Age of Strife because Slaanesh wasn't around stirring up trouble and galvanizing the other three? Also didn't humanity have the Men of Gold to act as beacons?

That might be an explanation. Early expansion didn't require an Astronomican becausr you had Oscar in the Sol system. Once the Crusade got going past so many lightyears, it was necessary to come up with an alternative because they were getting to the point where Oscar was getting hard to see.

>>57097302
Age of Strife was moer churned up due to gestation and birthing pains of Slaanesh.

Dark Age was quieter

God I remember writing up something shitty for this thread last Christmas. Bless you crazy bastards for sticking around, let’s hope this thing last long enough for all the Primarchs to wrap up.

Merry Christmas. I got you a write-up of the Octarius War.

There are worlds that they believe they have known war. Cadia, last bastion before the Eye. Krieg, named better than its discoverers knew. Armageddon, world of steel and flame. Mordia, stubborn and resolute.

Octarius laughs at them all. Ever since Kryptmann unleashed his grand plan, Tyranid and Ork have fought relentlessly, unceasingly, across its surface. For over a thousand years. There is almost nowhere you can touch the original surface without digging; mounds of charred corpses, Tyranid growths, and ruined Ork war machines cover the surface too thickly. Strata after strata of fossilized war. To walk on the surface of Octarius is to walk on dead flesh. The sky is perpetually black, an ashen shroud composed of Tyranid spores, oily smoke from Ork engines and guns, dust kicked up by ceaseless orbital bombardment, and the vaporized particles of uncounted trillions of dead. The blackness is broken by a perpetual meteor shower, as broken fragments of millions of shattered ships and shredded naval organisms rain down on the surface from the unending war in orbit. Despite the fact that there is no sun and no stars, there is more than enough light; the eternal thunder of Ork guns lights up the horizon with a false dawn, reflecting off the clouds until it seems the sky is on fire. The ice caps have melted from the ambient heat of trillions of guns and trillions of bodies.

>>57099426
The seas are dyed with Ork blood and Tyranid ichor, and filled with ork warships and submarines so densely packed you could almost walk from one coast to another in battle with tyranid swimmers no less numerous. The skies are clogged with millions of flyers. The earth is honeycombed with endless tunnels, begun for shelter from orbital bombardment or in attempts to outflank a stubborn defense but long since turned into a theater of war on their own, grots and squigs and tyranid burrowers hunting each other through the darkness. Sometimes the diggings get too vast, too unstable, too convoluted, and vast sections of front drop into sudden sinkholes.

In orbit above, ships merge together and battle in the orbitals, amid a vast ring system created by the wreckage of a hundred thousand previous battles. Ork ships and tyranid bioforms clashing at point-blank range and closer, an endless maelstrom of boarding action and bombardments. Destroyed or damaged vessels frequently fall out of orbit to cataclysmic ends on the surface below- or, as both ork and tyranid know it, 'delivering reinforcements'.

Both sides deploy weapons and creations seen nowhere else, ork Meks struggling to keep pace with tyranid hyper-evolution. Vast armies of Mega-Gargants, in numbers not seen since the War of the Beast, clash with Bio-Titans of unprecedented size and ferocity. Tyranids sprout flame weapons in vast quantity, while Doks devise poisons that scythe down even tyranid biologies- for a time, until they adapt again. Unique squig breeds hunt down lictors with incredible ferocity, and fields of razor-worms devour entire ork columns in seconds.

The war extends to stranger battlefields as well. It is a war of ecologies, as ork and tyranid spores attempt to out-compete and strangle each other, a microscopic war of poisons over nutriet-rich corpse-strata.

>>57099435
It is a war of ontologies, a clash of welt-systems, as Ork WAAAGGHH and the Shadow In The Warp strain to overcome each other. It is a war on every possible level.

The war extends throughout the Octarius sector, and beyond; Octarius is simply where it is at its most intense. Vast fleets thrust and parry across light-years, vital systems changing hands dozens upon dozens of times. The sectors surrounding the Octarius sector are slowly ground down to nothing, as ork and tyranid raiding fleets venture further and further outward to fuel their respective war machines. The war expands, and expands, and expands.

Black Crusades split apart to avoid Octarius. Imperial seers try to divine its depths, to control it, to contain it, but are foiled by the psychic maelstrom formed by the clashing of WAAAGHH and Shadow. Khornate warbands and Deathwatch kill-teams vanish without trace.

The Octarius War has become a perpetual motion machine. The orks feed off the war, and the tyranids feed off the orks. Neither can accept defeat or countenance retreat. To withdraw for either combatant would be to forever mark them as something lesser, something inferior, and extermination would surely follow.

This has been going on for a thousand years. It cannot last forever; sooner or later, something will give. And it is uncertain what, if anything, will survive the conflagration when it does.

>>57099448
Holy everloving shit that was fun to read.

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>>57097302
It could be that for the early days of the Crusade they did without. Got as far as some of the nearby systems along the relatively safe currents that Horus and his people used in the Age of Strife but it was slow.

Oscar delegated the Legion running and Great Crusading to his Primarchs from the get go because that's why he hired them and a Steward has responsibilities of actually running things.

Free to pursue the Astronomicon project and makes no secrets of this to his followers.

Gets it to work eventually and it illuminates fairly well. By this time the Imperium already has hundreds of systems.

Steward finds that if he gets it started of ther psychics can maintain the fire but it takes a lot of them working together and they have to rotate in shifts. Thankfully the Imperium is big enough now to provide those numbers.

As the Astronomican grows it become difficult to handle. The warp-flow goes "lumpy" and the lumps are dangerous proportional to the size of the flame you are trying to generate. Given that the flame is bright enough to see across light years the lumps are pretty lethal.

Alliance with eldar happens. Eldar are persuaded to send some of their specialist to Old Earth to look at the thing. Then they back out of the hall slowly because what the fuck are they even doing?

Start absorbing shock absorbers and buffering jars and shit to it. Life span of resident psychics jumps dramatically and it's considered an actual job rather than a death sentence. Eldar and human technicians keep on tinkering with it and adding more shit to it like lenses and spectrum filters.

And that's where the Astronomican is at now. It can't be tweaked any more, they have hit the hard upper limit on what is possible with a psychic lighthouse.

Expected lifespan without the safety features even with the best medical care would be the aforementioned 18 months tops. With the eldar designed safety features and medical care you can get maybe 30 years tops.

>>57099448
Damn.

>>57100786
Is 30 years too long? The whole nature of the Astronomican is still supposed to be one of the darker aspects of the setting. Even though psykers aren't being shoved into the thing like firewood and tortured like in canon, it's still at its core a group of people nobly sentencing themselves to an early death in order to make normal life possible for the rest of the galaxy.

30 years, especially if you consider the amount of time it takes for the Black Ships to find them and the training necessary to control psychic abilities enough to use the Astronomican, means that you get people dying maybe in their late forties to fifties. Which while shorter than normal, isn't incredibly shorter than the lifespan of the average joe with no access to rejuvenants, which has been said to be fairly close to life expectancy today.

>Free to pursue the Astronomicon project and makes no secrets of this to his followers.

Definitely, even with the reasoning of not wanting Oscar to suddenly grab the idiot ball like in canon, the primarchs would have noticed it was becoming more difficult to travel further out and Oscar would have said he was working on fixing that.

>And that's where the Astronomican is at now. It can't be tweaked any more, they have hit the hard upper limit on what is possible with a psychic lighthouse.

I suppose theoretically it would be better to have a series of small psychic lighthouses to light up space rather than one big one. The more landmarks you have the easier it is to figure out where you are, even in an illogical realm of pure thought.

Of course, the reason the Imperium doesn't do this is either it lacks the resources to do it (making one Astronomican was a pain in the ass) or it requires something akin to the Men of Gold or the Iron Minds, which humanity did do before Age of Strife. Or just make a bunch of Pharos devices, which it is implied some species did.

So here’s a question. Right now we have two slightly different accounts of the first encounter between the Imperium and the Tarellian mage-priests. In both accounts hearing the accounts of the Tarellian gods gets Isha interested because she thinks they sound like surviving Old Ones and hopes to find other survivors of the War in Heaven and the Fall, only to be bitterly disappointed.

In the first version, the Tarellians try and bullshit the rest of the galaxy by claiming their mage-priests are surviving Old Ones. Then Isha accidentally calls their bluff when she asks if they remember her. They drop the bullshit after that.

The other is that the Tarellians believe their gods walk among them. When Isha hears about this she assumes the stories of the Tarellian gods are to be taken literally, she goes to Tarellian space but only finds statues in temples.

So which one are we going with? Do the Tarellians try to bullshit the rest of the galaxy or not? Or do we go with both? The timing of this implies that Isha's interactions with the Tarellians happened when the Confederacy was rather stable, which means it would have to be during the Great Crusade when the Eldar were still doing their own thing.

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>>57064921
That sounds good, but I for one will be posting these threads until I am done with Fulgrim.

In other news, my brother was looking through my drawings and wants a tattoo of Oscar, so I'm gonna be redoing that drawing

>>57074073
What the fuck was Vect doing at Cthonia at the end of the War of The Beast?

I will drawfag anything for the person that answers this quandary.

>>57103914
That's obvious. He was trying to dig up the secrets of Oscar's creation. What it would take to kill him... what it would take to control him... what it would take to create more of him.

>>57103969
Fair enough. Do we have any inkling of what he got? He had Crone warships with him, and this was a while before Malys's rise as well as his full domination of the dark city, could it be that he brought her with him in the raid and their discoveries were part of their long term trajectory towards the dark wedding and the end times?

>>57104153
Hmm. I think we can assume that he got *something*, because the expedition being a bust is incredibly boring from a narrative standpoint. But what?

Perhaps... they found some fragments of the process used to create Men of Gold. Not enough to create Men of Gold of course, but perhaps... enough to upgrade themselves, just a bit. Enough to place them head and shoulders above the rest of the Dark/Chaos Eldar, make them exemplars of their type, place them on a trajectory to eventual rule.

Hell, maybe that's part of why Malys is so confident in her interpretation of the Starchild Prophecies. She's already got a little bit of Man of Gold in her.

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>>57104392
Which she would have gotten from Vect putting it in her.

Oh my.

>>57104392
>Hell, maybe that's part of why Malys is so confident in her interpretation of the Starchild Prophecies. She's already got a little bit of Man of Gold in her.

But would that give Vect an unreasonable amount of power over Malys? If she gets threatening just turn whatever Man of Gold tech she has in her off and possibly cripple her in the process.

Part of the reason why the alliance between Vect and Malys is so threatening is the two are highly accomplished in their own right. Malys isn't solely defined as Vect's love interest and Vect is not the same for Malys. It's a relationship of equals, and both don't necessarily rely on the other to get shit done (indeed, from what's been written their famous on-again, off-again relationship is almosy their hobby). They would both be highly threatening even if one or the other didn't exist, and the two together just makes them twice as dangerous.

>>57104970
Yeah, the Man of Gold augments thing is a bit too out there for me. Can’t Malys be the biggest baddie of Chaos simply through sheer skill, insanity, and evil?

>>57104970
I don't think that sort of augmentation can be turned off.

>>57106682
Maybe, but I think that whatever they found on Cthonia, it should be something momentous.

>>57106713
If that was their first meeting then they both foundn love.

>>57104970
It wouldn't need to diminish Malys if its an edge they've both posessed for their very long relationship and both outgrew as their foremost power. It would just be the basis of one of the many mutually assured destruction scenarios where the bleak marriage falls apart. In the face of a fight Vect would need to find some way to shake Malys' immense personal might in hope to survive, and making a move of that kind would probably prompt reprisals from her benefactors in the Warp.
>>57107192
This could also be it. The nominal loot was cultural treasures, technology, and somewhat significant knowledge of the Men of Gold, at least to know that the ones the Chaos Gods claimed to still have were too corrupted to verify or really count anyway, but the real result was the planting of the seed of Malys and Vect's horrific romance.

>>57104392
>>57106713
You know what, I think it's almost better if Vect's Cthonia expedition is a momentous failure and waste of resources, because it shows the universe's acts of cosmic black comedy aren't only limited to the Imperium. Heck, the Imperium has it's very own trickster god, and what would be more lulzy than the Dark Eldar slogging through defenses, taking grievous casualties, and finally breaking into a sealed vault expecting to see an ancient human superweapon only to find a scrap of paper with Ceggie's handwriting that says, "Love and peace are the strongest weapons." (We also need Ceggie to be more active, considering his stuff is pretty thin compared to Isha)

Though if this is indeed how Malys and Vect meet, then that paper would be doubly ironic.

>>57108153
Also it indicates that Ceggers has DaoT WMDs stashed in the Black Library.

Bumpan

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>>57107526
Vect versus Malys would be like Batman versus Superman. Malys would try to kill Vect by punching her way through his bodyguards and defenses, only to find when she finally reaches him the "Vect" that she kills is really a slave surgically altered to look like him. Then she notes a present on his dais labelled: "Apologies to my sweetheart".

It's a black hole in a box.

Meanwhile the real Vect is on the other side of Commorragh enjoying a drink of something. Malys is no stranger to scheming but Vect definitely has the edge on her there.

>>57106713
>>57107526
>>57108153
>>57108320
It could be that no matter what Vect found, he isn't going to tell anyone. He's not just going to admit that his raid was a bust, because that would make him look weak. On the other hand, if he did find anything, he likely wouldn't say what it was because it gives him the element of surprise. It could be a Schrodinger's gun thing for any post-999.M41 things: left up to the reader's imagination.

It could be he was expecting some ancient god-tier technology and what he found was merely "okay", and not worth the slog the Raid was.

This would be before the official alliance of humanity and Eldar, but it would make sense that Ceggers would be interested in keeping any sort of WMDs out of Crone Hands.

>>57100786
>Expected lifespan without the safety features even with the best medical care would be the aforementioned 18 months tops. With the eldar designed safety features and medical care you can get maybe 30 years tops.
Thinking about that, given the numbers required those could be statistical lifespans rather than a direct wearing out of people. Basically, there's a certain probability of a particular lethal event occurring to a psyker per day, and the more days they serve, the more likely it is that such an even actually happens (and their own power/skill might have an effect on the chance). The advantage is that this will give you a small cadre who survive longer, and who can form a group of veterans who run the training and manage the Astronomican and so on. Of course, they'd also be expected to step in and help in an emergency, but that's in keeping with the nobledark theme. A few might even retire completely. The flip side is that you will also get possible stories about people tragically dying on their first or last days through sheer chance (or whatever drama people want to write about, of course).

>>57110446
Makes some sense with the "psychic lumps" explanation given above. When a psychic surge hits, you don't know if it's going to blow out one of the new capacitors or one of the old ones. On the one hand, the new people aren't as fatigued, but on the other older people might be more used to dealing with the shock.

>>57108153
> (We also need Ceggie to be more active, considering his stuff is pretty thin compared to Isha)

Keep in mind that that Isha is somewhat of a blunt instrument. Ceggers presumably does quite a lot, or at least instructs his followers as he holds court in the Dark Carnival. The Harlequins and other followers are always coming and going and who knows how many are leaving with instruction.

Also the APEX twins have visited the Dark Carnival and they have spoken to Ceggers.

>>57108153
>>57111511
>Cegorach needs more screen time
If we're talking about the Harlequins as a whole as opposed to just Cegorach, there was that suggestion a few threads back that during the War of the Beast Ulthwé was getting hammered hard because of their proximity to the Eye of Terror and matters were made worse by Eldrad suddenly bugging out when the Craftworld most needed him. The tide was turned by the sudden arrival of the Harlequins, which was their first major appearance in force despite existing in small numbers as early as the Raid, ending with Chaos forced off Ulthwé and the Craftworld saved.

Ulthwé is physically supposed to be a wreck in canon due to constant Chaos attacks. IIRC, even it's front end has been partially melted off like it was made of wax. The worst of the damage could easily be due to what it suffered during the WotB.

Well, at some level I think one of the best ways we could base a piece around Cegorach’s influence would be to note his fairly long part in the Great game in the warp, particularly relative to Oscar, and how he would be doing much of the Warp intervention for the forces of the Imperium that the canon Emperor covers, while the younger and more sprightly Man of Gold actually spends time governing.

The laughing god would also be in a long term series of gambits against Tzeentch and The Deciever, so harlequins would often be noted to do battle against the forces of the Indigo Crow and the Golden Space Vampire Pyramid Scheme.

>>57113153
That's pretty much what the Harlequins have been suggested to be doing so far. They have a direct line to their god who has a pretty good idea of what's going on, and sends them all over the galaxy to influence key points to fuck up the Necrons/Chaos/tyranids. The Harlequins are always up to something, it's just not immediately obvious to bystanders what that is.

>>57114603
I like the image that conjures up, where even though the in-universe explanation of the dark carnival coming to town should be sufficient, the Imperial authorities have every reason to wonder what the fuck is really happening when the clowns from beyond the stars show up

>>57115041
One of the things that people don't realize is that whilst it is true that humans can't be Harlequins not all of The Laughing God's followers and associates are Harlequins.

The Friends of the Clown are found on many, many worlds (but not Krieg) and the master of the Dark Carnival knows a lot more than people think he should know.

>>57102852 (same)
Since no one seems to have responded to the question above, so I just wanted to ask again, should we have the Tarellians initially try to bullshit the rest of the galaxy by claiming their mage-priests are surviving Old Ones or is it more of a benign misinterpretation?

I'm only asking because I am trying to do a general write-up of Tarellian religion so we get the rock incident with Be'lakor written down among other things.

I have most of it done but there are a few things like the above that have to be written around.

>>57110446
>>57110988
I think these are pretty reasonable explanations for working with the Astronomican as one of its psykers. 30 years is the optimistic estimate for those who get immensely lucky or just happen to have what it takes to survive being the battery for the psychic lighthouse, and it's almost certain you don't make it to that point unscathed.

>>57116888
I would go for the benign misunderstanding with the statues. To me, it seems they've already done enough things to play the part of "rebellious but loyal," without much motivation for their resistance to the Imperium, and the Tarrelians might perceive the Imperium to be snubbing them when they tell the Tarellians that their gods aren't actually walking amongst them, regardless of what Isha/the diplomats actually intended. This would give many Tarellians a legitimate reason to be annoyed by the disrespectful humans and snooty Eldar waving around their gods' authority like toys, and differentiate their mentality and culture a little from the more mainstream Imperial creeds (which IIRC generally don't worship their priests as symbols of their gods).

However, this is your write-up, so feel free to decide on what works better for what you already have written. I look forward to reading about Nobledark Be'lakor getting squashed by a bunch of rocks.

Bump

Write-up of the Cthonian Ring, inspired by the discussion up-thread.

Cthonia. The ring. Last and greatest remnant of the Bountiful and Benevolent Terrestrial Dominion. Symbol of humanity's incomprehensible height... and of how very, very far it has fallen.

What was it like, in its heyday? Nobody alive knows. The Mechanicus has some idea; vast telescope arrays staggered light-years apart in deep space, drinking in fossil light from its construction, taking decades to assemble a single picture from stray photons. Vague blurred shapes and impressionist insinuations; of the vast machines siphoning matter and energy from the sun to build it, of the swirling blue-green-white of a million continents, of the golden glow of cities stretching from one edge to the other. Enough to inspire questions and fire imaginations, but not provide answers.

What is it like now? Scoured clean. The Iron War was at its most ferocious here. Towards the end, even the sun was used as a weapon, induced to go nova. The system still bears the scars, shells of cold gas cast off from that massive conflagration surrounding Cthonia. Everything on the inward face was annihilated, leaving only an endless expanse of bare, gleaming neutronium. Only systems contained within the exotic matter band itself or mounted on the outward face survived the nova... and very few of those survived all of the other ordnance being thrown around.

The Imperium dreams of one day recreating the Ring. But at this point, it would only be somewhat less of an undertaking than creating one anew. The neutronium base, most difficult to create, still exists, but everything else is gone. Hundreds of thousands of living worlds would need to be stripped bare to provide air and water and soil. Every forge world in the galaxy would need to devote themselves entirely to the effort for a thousand years. Perhaps, if the galaxy was at peace, the Imperium victorious without qualification, it could be done.

>>57119998
Until then, they settle for sending more expeditions into tunnels and ruins already picked over a hundred times before. And they create art.

The Cthonian Ring, past, present, and hopeful future is a common subject of painting, statuary, literature, and other arts. In painting, the 'Ring Triptych' is almost a genre unto itself, combining past, present, and future into a single image. Mechanicus facilities often have a sculpture of the Cthonian Ring prominently displayed; a skilled connoisseur can often identify faction and ideological leanings by the details of the sculpture. Portraits of the Emperor occasionally depict the Ring circling his brow like a crown, a symbol of office and the once and future might of Mankind.

(The most famous of these portraits is Callimant d'Argan's 'Image of Man and Emperor', which shows Oscar almost swallowed up entirely by a massive Ring/crown, the man lost in the weight of history and of the office. The original hangs in Oscar's private quarters on the Traveling Court. This is well known, so duplicates are prominently displayed by ambitious nobility the galaxy over, most of whom miss the symbolism entirely.)

Cthonia, now, is a symbol. A symbol of what precisely varies from speaker to speaker, planet to planet, year to year. But nobody denies that it is a symbol; a unifying factor, one which that the teeming trillions of humanity need. Billions of pilgrims travel to the Ring, second only to Sol in drawing people from across the Imperium.

>>57120011
Ironically, one of the galaxy's greatest graveyards has become a major hub of culture and trade. Port stations stud the outside surface, sheltered by the vast bulk of the ring from the radiation flares of the still-unstable star. Although the warp currents have shifted since Cthonia was the capital of the Terrestrial Dominion, several trade routes still run through or near the system. A permanent population in the billions has slowly grown, serving the pilgrims and trade fleets passing through, along with the permanent Mechanicus presence. Even though a true restoration lies tens of thousands of years in the future... the first step has already been taken.

Thoughts?

>>57120020
I really like it, and Cthonia has needed a bit for the Notable planets section for a while. I can imagine the Mechanicus stylizing Cthonia as a gear, the Imperial Court stylizing it as a crown, the Hydra making it a golden oroborus, the Imperial Navy making it a corona, Navigators calling it an eye, The Synod making it into a halo, and many other ways the ancient capital could creep into culture.

>>57120020
It's good. We needed a Ring section in Notable Worlds. It also raises the question of where they got the matter to make it in the first place and hints that the Iron Minds could spin it out of nothingness.

>>57116888
Go with what feels most satisfying to you.

>>57116888
It could have been unintentional. The psychic lizards, as heirs to the Old Ones, inherit their name.

And clearly they are the heirs. Look at this carving. It show s the Old Ones standing over their creations; their Tarellian children.

Isha recognizes the faces in that carving. Those absolutely are Old Ones at the top. Those are not the masses of Tarellians under them.

That one is Ceggers (before he put on the cap and bells), That's Khine before he was made of iron and dripped everywhere, those are Gork and Mork, that's Quh and all the others.

Tarellians came much later. Little newts on the thrones of fallen kings marvelling at the remains of things infinitely their greater.

>>57120020
Art history in our AU? Dope.

>>57121455
Bruh, it’s KhAine

>>57055511
I’m confused on the Dark Eldar for nobledark 40k

So they aren’t really evil like in OT but more of like amoral pirates/ancap meme with the true big bads being crone elves and chaos humans?

Also now that abuhumans are back some fleshed our space dwarves and ogres would be pretty sweet.

Stout holds embedded in comments and asteroids come to mind

>>57122448
Nah they’re super fucked up still, but the Chaos Eldar are arguably worse. I think the DE do their horrible shit out of secular hedonism (like th horrible torture and experiments they do in canon) whereas the CE do it to worship Chaos (insert choice of horrible Chaos ritual here). I do think it is a bit of a weakness that they’re not better differentiated but we needed a Chaos antagonist to replace the Chaos SMs which are greatly reduced due to the nature of this AU.

>>57122448
>>57122704
I too agree that Dark Eldar and the Crones. That said there are some differences that have been pointed out so far.

- Dark Eldar are a bit more practical. Yes, really. They do all sorts of crazy shit in their free time, but when it comes down to business have a much easier time mass producing things. Crones treat technology/atrocity more like art, and get away with it because they have most of the Old Empire's manufacturing resources
- Dark Eldar have more of a survival instinct. They are only out for themselves and will bug out when things go sideways. Crone Eldar are like a cross between crazy door-to-door proseletyzers and Crusaders/Ottoman reverse Crusades and are more likely to sacrifice themselves for their fanaticism.
- Crone Eldar are a bit more durable than either Dark Eldar or Craftworlders. Both in terms of ships and in person, because of Chaos blessings and because they have access to more of the Old Empire's military technology.
- Cronedar dream bigger. Dark Eldar just want a fractured galaxy they can raid forever. Crones want to spread the word of Chaos to all.
- Crones play with daemons. Dark Eldar will do no such thing and are secular.
- The "space pirate/ancap" bit is more played up with the Dark Eldar, because that's one of their more distinguishing features. Also because they can see where the line is drawn thanks to the Crones (doesn't mean they won't do horrible things to you, but that they have [incredibly low] standards).

>>57122704
>>57123108

Well then I would think creatively it makes more sense to move the Dark Eldar to be more pragmatic and neutral and tone down the evil aspect

Thematically if they are kept as evil as the original lore why wouldn’t hey just be a part of the forces of chaos, an extension of Webway pirates that are a terror to traders, pilgrims and imperial forces alike?

If anything now that the Craftworld Eldar and humans are allied and more or less a single force why not place the “Dark Eldar” as the neutral party that stays out of direct conflict unless well paid.

Self serving, disloyal and always looking out for themselves. Give them a true pirate role and have them completely fractured into clans, and the empire and chaos and other powers in the galaxy use them as mercenaries Justin like pirates in real life.

>>57122252
My spellchecker keeps fucking with me

>>57055511
Bump

>>57123250
>>57123108
Lets not forget that the DEldar enjoy what they do because they absolutely enjoy the shit out of it.

>>57124735
Idk they just feel like they don’t have a place in the noble dark universe

Hey look at these sadistic elves that aren’t quite as sadistic as the crones but still pretty bad or whatever...

They just don’t really fit as a major component of the new universe

>>57124932
It's to add another faction of evil bastard elves that don't get along and can be hired out as

>>57123250

suggested. Or at least could back before the marrige.

One is Dark Msgic elves the other is Mad Science elves.

>>57124735
Oh definitely. I would say the main difference between the Crones and the DEldar is the DEldar have the self-awareness to realize when something is not worth the risk.

Basically, the DEldar are the traditional DnD style backstabbing drow meets space pirates whereas the Crones are the Space Wild Hunt.

>>57124932
The Dark Eldar are more selfish whereas the Crones are more about abstract concepts. Dark Eldar are more about gang wars and power struggles whereas Crones are more about holy war.

>>57123250
>If anything now that the Craftworld Eldar and humans are allied and more or less a single force why not place the “Dark Eldar” as the neutral party that stays out of direct conflict unless well paid.

In some ways they kind of are, especially since corsairs also got absorbed into the Greater Imperium. Except you'd have to be crazy or naiive to think that hiring the crazy bondage space pirate elves is a good idea.

The Dark Eldar have been repeatedly described in this universe as vultures: they won't attack a hard target, but they sure as shit will keep an eye on a wounded one and strike when they fall. It's what happened to the galaxy during the War of the Beast and to the Tau after the A.I. rebellion (which incidentally is why the two hate each other more than ever).

>>57126052
>and to the Tau after the A.I. rebellion (which incidentally is why the two hate each other more than ever).

Also the "Cultural Exchange". I'm pretty sure that this must have happened in this AU.

On the subject of the Tau. Neither the Empire or the Enclave can truly be following Aun'Da's teachings to the letter anymore. Farsight because he has adapted it to make a them and us structure and Aun'Va (First Disciple) because the Tau'va was written before irredeemable shits like Dark Eldar and orks were known about.

Also it just occurred to me the sheer magnitude of change that Aun'Va must have witnessed during his life so far in this AU. It would be like if a court functionary of Charlemagne just carried on with his job long enough to watch Jean-Luc Picard defeat the Borg.

>>57055511
Can you imagine being so soy saturated that you have to write an alternate version of 40k because the real one is too mean for you.

>>57126477
>mean
no, its too stupid.

>>57126477
It’s not about 40k being too “mean”. It’s about altering it to make it more reasobable

There are many things in the 40k lore just to make it dark for dark sake.

Actually the way the crones are written in nobkedark seem much worse than almost anything in vanilla 40k

>>57127187
That's because Vanilla has to contend with the whims of the PG13 crowd. This not so much.

So whilst the Imperium is, for the most part, far nicer to live in the shit beyond the walls is more horrific. Nobility is achieved and darkness is maintained. The conflict turns from not one of order vs anarchy but to civility vs barbarity.

>>57088508
If we redo the tale of Ornsworld I would have Andwise Bophîn be angry by that point rather than sad. The Extermination of Ornsworld galvanized them into a warrior race who fight with garrotte wire and sniper rifles and have to limit the number of volunteers their military accepts or they would bleed themselves dry. My point is this is not a people full of despair, this is a people full of seeping into the bone levels of wroth and righteous indignation.

>>57126193
> Also the "Cultural Exchange". I'm pretty sure that this must have happened in this AU.

I think it was that the Tau, despite being naive, were smart enough in this timeline to realize that the crazy bondage elves were probably not safe to go with. This suspicion would have only been confirmed when the Dark Eldar started raiding them without mercy when the Empire looked weak.

The Tau considered the battle of Sansayaam to be their revenge on the Dark Eldar in the form of "cultural exchange": that is, the exchange of Tau pulse fire at Dark Eldar heads.

Even if you look at it from a broader perspective, the Dark Eldar ideas of "survival of the fittest", "social darwinism" and "everyone for themselves" would be horrifying to any interpretation of the Greater Good.

>Also it just occurred to me the sheer magnitude of change that Aun'Va must have witnessed during his life so far in this AU. It would be like if a court functionary of Charlemagne just carried on with his job long enough to watch Jean-Luc Picard defeat the Borg.

Not to mention Va grew up in a world where the Ethereal caste wasn't put on a pedestal and kept out of harm's way like it is today. The Ethereals used to be scribes and historiographers for the petty empires that dominated the river kingdoms of T'au. They were considered important, but not to the point that they were considered sacrosanct or were immune from harm when a city was sacked. Not from another kingdom, and sure as hell not from the fire nomads who could not give a crap about history. Heck Da almost got put on the chopping block simply via an association he had no control over. The Ethereals of that time would have had to be a lot scrappier than they are today.

Was actually working on something that kind of pointed this out.

>>57128210
Or add to it, show the cycling of emotions from the initial bone-crushing sorrow to the immense rage at their world being destroyed. People don't necessarily finalize their emotions overnight. I mean despair and anger are both considered part of the traditional stages of grief after all.

>>57128302
To be completely frank, the transition from medieval courtier to administrator of a post-scarcity pan-terran, galaxy exploring power referenced in the prior post is pretty effective at conveying that shift. Aun'Va has been there from the first battles where the Fire Warriors fought as soldiers of the Tau'va, he saw the very first precursors of battlesuits enter combat, witnessed the maiden voyages of the first Tau FTL, the first contacts ever made by the water caste, gave reluctant blessing to their territorial wars with the ancient and exotic Imperium, and supervised what seemed at the time the long and glorious rise and fall of Tau AI, and went on to see their second expansion and the civil war, the reforms and Unification with renewed vision. Eventually he would be introduced to the real elders of the galaxy, and fall in with a strange sort of demigod, be they seers, generals, Astartes, or magos, in pan-galactic war with the galaxy's horrors, and the Tyranids in particular.

Bump.

Thread archived

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/57055511/

More bumps.

>>57131777
>>57134352
I recommend bumping the thread with some sort of question. Even if it's completely inane, at least it might provoke a little bit of discussion. Like so:

Have we done anything with the Pharos Light?

>>57134445
What is the Pharos Light?

Also is Fulgrimfag still around?

>>57134624
The Pharos Light was a xenos artifact in Ultramar that functioned something like a mini-astronomicon, and also did some more exotic stuff. Can't recall the details. Anyway, Guilliman used it in the Heresy to rally loyalist forces, then it got bricked up by the Inquisition and finally eaten by Tyranids. If I recall correctly.

>>57134666
Maybe in this AU something like it could have been the origin of the Astronomican and Oscar just built om it.

Would also add another reason why Ultramar was the designated Imperium Secundus.

If thread survives until evening I will attempt to write up a Catachan and Ornsworld section.

Working over Christmas, fucking sucks.

>>57135048
Looking forward to it.

Bump

>>57134445
For some reason 4chan is going really fast these last few days, probably because it's the holiday season. We used to barely have to bump at all, even with the same level of posting. I think threads 9b and 10 (which were also about that time) fell off the board early too.

There was one mention of the Pharos device way back in one of the early threads (indeed, about 10 or so) of someone doing some writefagging about it (or at least A Pharos) being discovered during the Age of Apostasy and messing all sorts of stuff up by attracting Enslavers.

Though it's canonicity is debatable because the writefag never finished it and the topic got derailed into whether the tyranids are the Old Ones' reset button or not in this universe because the fact that it was Enslavers rather thsn tyranids wasn't clear (IIRC, the decision was to not connect tyranids with the Milky Way races, or at least not openly).

Any ideas for Star Empire Necrons besides Anrakyr or Imotekh? Or even an expansion of Anrakyr? So far most of the Necrons we have are all independent sorts.

>>57137279
So Pharos is still up for grabs?

Presumably the lesser one in Ultramar is still functional.

>>57134624
I’m always around, I just take forever to finish a chapter

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When will Ratboy Genius be added to the 40k canon?

>>57140682
Who?

>>57140924
The Great Horned Rat

>>57072980
In canon, Kaelor also has a reputation for not getting along with other Craftworlds. 1d4chan goes so far as to compare them to Dorhai, though the articles on Lexicanum and 40k wiki mention nothing about them considering other Eldar tainted.

They're also really weird because they have this Song of Ice and Fire-ish jockeying of noble houses whereas most Craftworlds are led by a council of eldars in some form (farseers, autarchs, etc.)

One possible idea for Kaelor in this timeline is this. Right after the Fall in canon, Kaelor got into a collision course with Saim-Hann and the two got into a fight (possibly to see who would move out of the way?). The fight ended when Kaelor made a Webway jump to avoid crashing into Saim-Hann. This is less hard than it sounds, as Kaelor was a small Craftworld, so it was easier for them to enter the Webway than, say, Lugganath.

Problem is, this Webway jump dropped them far away at the very edge of the galaxy. It took them a few millennia to even get close enough to normal galactic space. So Kaelor hasn't been up to date on the latest events. They don't know about the Raid to free Isha. They don't know that the humans and Eldar are allies. Heck, even isolationist Craftworlds like Iyanden knew about these things, due to just being in contact with other Craftworlds.

>>57142520
This lack of knowledge of the current political state between humans and Eldar ended up backfiring when first contact between the Imperium and Kaelor turned into a rather bloody misunderstanding (to put it bluntly, the Imperium were too chummy thinking they were an already known Craftworld and Kaelor was wondering why the hell the mon-keigh were approaching them) which resulted in the farseer queen of Kaelor, Ela'Ashbel, being blinded with some nasty scars.

Normally in these situations the greater Imperium would turn to the Eldar to defuse the situation before things got out of hand, but Kaelor has about as much love for the other Craftworlds as they do for the rest of the Imperium. The only other Eldar they tolerate are the Harlequins, and they do so begrudgingly.

The other Craftworlds don't like Kaelor too much either. They see the constant jockeying for power of noble houses as a sign that Kaelor has not done enough to distance itself from the failings of the Old Empire, and fear Kaelor is a ripe target for Chaotic corruption. Others feel Kaelor reminds them uncomfortably of the Dark Eldar.

Kaelor mostly moves around the fringes of the galaxy, only coming into Imperial space on rare occasions. However, it seems like they are looking for something, and they are more than willing to manipulate both humans and Eldar (something that lowers them even further in Eldar eyes) to get what they want.

>>57140682
It doesn’t matter, here it’s chained to Malal’s dark world and unless the Indigo Crow fucks up it will stay there

>>57143805
Let me me dream you you fuck fuck

>>57142719
Sounds good. Isha may make a point of intercepting them with the traveling court at some point, and bearing down on them with the full glory of the Imperial Union, like the iron matron she has become.

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>>57143884
It will probably look something like this

>>57140682
>tfw a fucking rat took Slaneesh’s place

Get dunked Slaneeshi scum

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Catachan was discovered towards the end of what is referred to as the First Stellar Exodus by automated sub-sapient probe at or about the cross over point of M4 – M5. Initial hopes were high as it was a planet with a breathable atmosphere and a thriving ecosystem that appeared to be made of carbon based life forms. The probe made several orbits of the planet before moving on to survey the other planets in the system and move on to the next. It wasn’t until ~500M5 that increasingly reliable warp drives made expeditions of such range, and so close to the currents of near-Hub territory, a practical possibility that a proper survey team was sent to the planet. Of the surviving member of the 100+ team a harrowing report was made that resulted in the planet being quarantined.

For the entire lifespan of the Great and Bountiful Human Dominion the planet was a no-go site. Occasionally down the long centuries other research teams would descend upon the world. Briefly. Sometimes members would survive but always it would be costly. It was discovered that there was an ork population native to the planet missed for a long time due to them being mid level on the food chain at best. The planet remained the stuff of dark legend and decidedly off limits although given it’s uselessness for anything practical it was more obscure than forbidden, a curiosity of biologists and few others.

When the Age of Strife and the great churning of the warp started several ships were washed out of the warp half wrecked and not too distant from Catachan. If they hadn’t have heard of the world they would have had record of it in their ships data-stacks but faced with the probability of death in greenhouse hell and certain death in the cold of space they chose the path of most likely survival.

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>>57145284
The sites of the original crash/landings are hard to decipher but are of such antiquity that they are no longer of any practical concern. Any technology on the ships would have broken down an age ago at least and raw materials salvaged by those that came afterwards.

It is known that at least one of the stranded ships, before the technology broke down, dabbled in the art of genetic modification. Their environment proved too durable to lastingly change so they had to change themselves to be more resilient. It is believed that this worked for some considerable time, certainly by the time things started to go wrong they had lost the ability to correct the damage. Generation after generation the differences between them and the baseline humans exaggerated and the result was the Primeval Ogryn population encountered by the fledgling Imperium in the days of the Great Crusade.

Curiously the beseline humans that interbred with the altered humans in the says before they became too divergent did not have degenerating offspring and instead seemed to take on a tiny touch of the Ogryn without most of the down sides. It is suspected that this is the origin of the in/famous Catachan physique, as well as an increased likelihood of developing joint and heart problems.

As society regressed to a more primitive state they knew nothing of the comings and goings of the galaxy. The first generations held out hope that someone would come from the Bountiful Dominion to rescue them but as the years ticked by such old memories became nothing more than stories that were eventually forgotten.

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>>57145464
Thankfully the human inhabitants discovered iron veins close to the surface. It is possible that these were first taken from the native orks, fighting them off with the last dregs of their inherited high-tech weapons. Whatever the case by the time the Imperium discovered them the human inhabitants of Catachan were could make steel of varying quality.

The planet itself has one major landmass with the bulk largely around the equator though in the extremities it can reach to almost temperate latitudes. The land is stretched out rather than one continuous block with many lagoons, bays and inland sees separated by dense jungles at the feet of heavily wooded mountains. Predominantly the human population is found along the rivers and in the foothills of the mountains with the beaches and higher slopes shunned for being too exposed and the “Deep Green” being seldom travelled due to the high lethality of the environment.

The deadly nature of the Deep Green has little to do with orks, with whom the Catachans have warred with constantly over the habitable lands, but because of real predators. The Ogryn are the only ones brave and hardy enough to traverse those places where it is said the gods of Catachan dwell.

The Ogryn have responded as well as any population of their kind to the Adeptus Biologicus uplift attempts. They are smarter now than they were, more inclined to team work and tool usage and that makes up for the decrease in strength and endurance. The other population of note is the furtive pygmy peoples of the islands. They are not abhumans and their small stature is just a case of island dwarfism and nothing more. Due to their remote locations and primitive nature it has been considered a waste of resources to try and make extensive contact with them, certainly there are none in the Imperial Guard.

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>>57145756
The Imperial Guard regiments raised on that verdant world make some of the hardiest fighters in the Imperium, provided they are deployed somewhere tropical and for preference in a Jungle. It was quickly realized by the Imperial Army Brass that it was necessary to mix the tribal elements thoroughly as they will form alliances and in-regiment gangs if left in a big enough pre existing group. Mixing them up so that there is only one or two squads at most from any given tribe in a regiment and them separated by company worked well, especially when provided with a pro-Imperium priest. One other method suggested was to regiments segregated by tribe but this was dismissed as it sounded like a quick way to have whole tribes devastated if things went catastrophically ploin shaped.

It is known that many Tyrannid life forms share some characteristics with the native Catachan wildlife. This is evidence suggesting that the planet was invaded by a hive fleet, or more likely some small elements of a broken one, at some time in the Imperial Era. One of two things have happened since then; the planet ate and absorbed the Tyrannids as it did the orks and to a lesser extent human settlers or the Hive managed to get genetic material from the planet and disseminate it across the fleets. Either way nobody noticed the invasion. The planet is also known to have devoured at least nine minor and two medium sized WAAAAGH!!!s, a Q’orl migration and a Loxatl incursion to say nothing of countless Dark and Chaos eldar raiding endeavours. The planets greatest deterrent to invasion is the nature of the planet itself.

>And done for now

>Will do the section on their gods in the gods section. Not tonight because it's just turned into tomorrow and work and shit

Name a better tabletop game than Gorkamorka

>>57145809
Sounds good except for the bits about the tyranid hive fleet. In this continuity Catachan hasn't been cribbing notes off the tyranids. The tyranids have been cribbing notes off Catachan since the genestealer wars via genetic bioespionage ("smash-and-grab" missions).

The genestealers did this not only to Catachan, but to Fenris, the Orks, and numerous other worlds, not to mention whatever the hell the Hive Fleet has absorbed from the galaxies it already ate.

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This is going to take a while, so strap in...

The Tarellians, in a rather roundabout fashion, worship the Old Ones as their gods. The Old Ones, from what little we know about them, seem to have some sort of connection to the Tarellians. However, the Tarellians are not direct descendants of the Old Ones. The Old Ones, despite having dry, leathery skin, were still semi-aquatic and had to return to the water to breed. The Tarellians have scaly skin, and lay eggs. Instead, the Tarellians appear to be descended from components of the Old Ones’ biosphere, likely spread to other planets in the Old Ones’ first attempts at terraforming. In human terms, it would be as if a race of sapient rats rose to power long after the extinction of humanity, only to find human artifacts and come to believe humans represented a race of gods.

The Tarellians did not evolve on the original homeworld of the Old Ones. Whatever planet the Old Ones originally hailed from was lost long before the War in Heaven even began, although there are numerous fringe theories as to where said planet might have gone. The Tarellian world with the greatest concentration of Old One artifacts was Tarellia, the planet where the Tarellians originally evolved sentience. Unfortunately, most of the Old One technology on the planet was rendered non-functional beyond any means of repair and only the simplest, most resilient objects, such as statues, tablets, and stone carvings, remained intact. Ironically, the few Old One artifacts that have survived the millions of years since the War in Heaven tend to be either exceedingly primitive (stone carvings and tablets) or ridiculously advanced (the Blackstone Fortresses, the Webway, three of the four Ruinous Powers). According the Tarellians, the writing on these Old One artifacts inspired their own writing system and they can even translate it to a crude degree, though modern Tarellian differs greatly from the language used by the Old Ones.

>>57147463
After Tarellia, the Tarellian world with the greatest concentration of Old One artifacts was the colony of Xibalanique. Xibalanique was a harsh, dry world, even by Tarellians standards, one of the reasons why so many artifacts were preserved there in the first place. Said artifacts were just about the only reason the world was of any interest to the Tarellian Empire, as the world was barely habitable otherwise and its population before the Age of Strife was almost entirely composed to researchers studying the Old One artifacts. When Xibalanique was cut off from the rest of the galaxy during the Age of Strife, the Tarellians stranded there had to either adapt, or die. Xibalaniquans are short and stocky compared to other Tarellians and tend to be relatively heavyset, which is thought to be due to genetic adaptations towards conserving energy for times of famine in harsh environments.

The inhabitants of Xibalanique were also notable in being all psykers, a situation somewhat analogous to a Tarellian Prospero. It is not clear if this is because of something the Old Ones did to Xibalanique, or if it was simply due to a founder effect from the original population of researchers having a higher-than average proportion of psyker genes relative to the rest of the Tarellian worlds, as Tarellians psykers are not unique to Xibalanique. Tarellian psykers are normally so stoic and dispassionate as to appear almost emotionless, interspersed with huge spikes of emotion whenever they use their powers. This makes them less susceptible to daemonic attention than psykers of other races, but it also means they tend to use their powers in quick bursts and become rapidly exhausted when trying to do anything strenuous. Nevertheless, this was not enough to completely avoid attention, as Xibalanique was destroyed shortly after the end of the Age of Strife.

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>>57147483
The Xibalaniquans that survived their planet’s destruction migrated to the other Tarellian worlds, where they were eagerly assimilated with open arms. The Xibalaniquans were of interest not only for their psychic abilities, which were of value to any Tarellian warlord, but also for any potential lost knowledge that had been lost to the wider Tarellian Confederacy. Due to their psychic powers, the Tarellians viewed psykers as being closer to the Old Ones and on many worlds these psykers (typically Xibalaniquans) were organized into councils of mage-priests, who often served as advisors to the resident warlord. This arrangement varied from world to world; for example Maza has no mage-priests in an administrative position, whereas on Tikal at some point in history the mage-priests became the direct rulers of the planet, rather than just advisors. The organization of mage-priests into councils was not simply for symbolic reasons, as it also allowed for the organization of mage-priests into choirs similar to the human astropath system for interstellar communication. Even today, the Tarellian remain one of the few non-human, non-Eldar races to use their own methods of faster-than-light communication.

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>>57147505
The Tarellians know the bare basics of the War in Heaven. They know that their gods were in a war with a pantheon of anti-gods and that their gods spawned a race of dark gods to help them. They know that the gods made lesser beings to act as soldiers. However, this is where the Tarellians get a few things wrong. They believe that they were the race created by the gods to fight in their war, when they were not. Indeed, in terms of age, the Tarellians are closer to humanity or the kinebrach than the truly ancient races like the Eldar or Orks.

The Tarellians believe the stylized bipeds in the Old One hieroglyphics at the right hand of their gods, figured to the same scale that peasants are often figured relative to gods and royalty, are the semi-mythical ancestor kings and queens, from who the Tarellians claim their descent. They’re not, but don’t bother try telling the Tarellians that. They’re actually representatives of the various gods of the mortal races the Old Ones uplifted during the War in Heaven. Isha recognized herself in the carvings, as well as Kurnous and Qah. Actual mortal representatives of those races are nowhere to be seen.

The Tarellians also believe that their gods walk among them, though perhaps not in a physical fashion. When Isha discovered this fact in M30 this, as well as the general physical similarity between the Tarellians and the Old Ones, was enough to excite the then recently-freed Eldar goddess Isha about the possibility of finding surviving fellow survivors of the War in Heaven and Age of Strife. Although, still acclimating to the current situation in the galaxy, Isha made plans to travel to Tarellian space at the first opportunity. The mage-priests were excited at the prospect of an outsider taking an interest in their gods, and eagerly escorted Isha to the nearest temple to “show her their gods”.

>>57147677
However, Isha’s hopes were to be dashed. Instead of finding living, breathing Old Ones, she found stone statues and temples filled with a few attending devotees. Isha, furious at having her hopes raised at and having that hope yanked away just as quickly, almost lashed out at the “horrid little newts” in her grief and rage, before being calmed down by the Handmaidens. The mage-priests at the time were confused and did not know what they had done to make the outsider so angry, but it is thought that later priests figured out what happened and were slightly bitter to the Eldar about it, seeing Isha’s reaction as a dismissal of their gods.

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>>57147687
When the Daemon Prince Be’lakor, the last of the Old Ones, found out that the Tarellians worshipped the Old Ones, he realized he had potential means to take control of the Confederacy. It has long been known that Be’lakor has a habit of setting himself up as the power behind the throne in a number of empires both human and alien in his attempts to break free from the machinations of the Chaos Gods, though typically his involvement with these petty empires was visible only in retrospect. Be’lakor often likes to cover up any evidence of his existence, or better yet lay contradictory evidence or trick his enemies into destroying the evidence for him. However, in the millennia following the Age of Apostasy, Be’lakor began to find he had fewer and fewer civilizations naïve to Chaos to work with, with most either being absorbed by the Imperium, subverted by other aspects of Chaos, or being outright destroyed. When Be’lakor found out the Tarellians worshipped his people, being the last of the Old Ones he was by default their rightfully inherited master.

When Be'lakor felt he had enough information, he made contact with the Tarellians and enunciated his demands. At first, the Tarellians were surprisingly receptive to Be’lakor, apparently believing his claims and requesting that he meet their mage priests at their peoples’ traditional sacred meeting grounds to consecrate his reign. However, when Be’lakor and his court of Warp anomalies manifested in front of the Tarellian mage-priests, the Tarellians dropped the act and Be’lakor realized that for the first time in millennia he had miscalculated. Despite worshipping the Old Ones, Tarellian society is largely meritocratic and achievement-based to the point that social advancement is based on personal deeds.

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>>57147885
For Be’lakor to show up and claim that the Tarellians should fall to their knees and worship him because he is one of their long lost gods simply because he is a god, rather than what he has accomplished with his godhood, was highly insulting. The mage priests told him as much to his face.

This, according to Kroak, leader of the Tarellian delegation, meant one of two things. Either he was a fake god who knew nothing of Tarellian culture and was stealing someone else's title and accomplishments for his own ends, or he was a terrible god with no glory to his name and did not deserve to be worshipped in the first place. On that note, the Tarellians revealed the so-called “sacred meeting grounds” Be’lakor had met them at was actually a fake (which, the Tarellians added, if Be’lakor had really been one of their gods he would have realized was a fake in the first place) built above a vast cavern and wired with explosives. Then they triggered the explosives and sent Be’lakor and his retinue screaming down the mile-deep crevasse. Kroak himself dealt the final blow, striking the daemon prince with a house-sized rock as he tried to fly out of the rockside and burying Be’lakor beneath the debris.

Unfortunately, the Tarellians paid a terrible price for their insolence. The Tarellians had maintained their freedom, but they had done so by humiliating Be’lakor, someone to disrespect at your own peril. Be’lakor would not tolerate such disrespect from the younger races, but he was patient and more than willing to play the long game to get his revenge. Less than twenty years after the Tarellians banished Be’lakor, Hive Fleet Leviathan made galaxyfall. It is rather noteworthy that despite coming from the same general direction as Behemoth, something made the Hive Fleet change course at the last minute causing it to take a different path through the galaxy. Right through Tarellian space.

>>57147896 (same)
And it's finished. Not completely happy with how everything turned out, though.

I know there were some variations on how the Be'lakor thing went down, either "Be'lakor was after tyranids and victory was how Tarellians got their pride back after the shame of having to be bailed out" or "Be'lakor was first and the tyranids were his revenge". Liked the tone of the first one but it didn't make sense for Be'lakor to not take revenge for being banished in such a humiliating way by the Tarellians.

Do any species in canon other than humanity use astropaths? I don't think Tau do (have heard "Space Pony Express"), unless the Nicassar are doing it. I assume Eldar have some method of FTL communication. Orks and tyranids probably don't give a shit, though there's a canon novel where Wyrdboyz are mentioned doing it on occasion.

Kroak could probably get a name change. Was thinking Kroak is one of the better known Tarellians in history, not only living through the incident with Be'lakor but also the tyranid war and the initial years of integration with the Imperium trying to preserve as much of the Tarellians' dignity and independence as he could.

Was thinking Sotek, if there is one here (since we don't want a 1:1 with Fantasy), is a King Arthur-like figure seen by the Tarellians as the first ancestor king who received a mandate to rule from the gods way before even the Age of Strife when the Tarellians had an Empire, not a Confederacy. He seems to have existed, but whether he did half the stuff he did is doubtful.

>>57148050 (same)
For similar reasons (no 1:1 correlation), had the mage-priests as a council of advisor-wizards rather than ruling caste. With the exception of Tikal since that seems to be explicitly Lizardmen-inspired. Especially since the Tarellians seem to be more proud independent warrior race than biological robots like the Lizardmen. Mazon was also said to have a council of elders, IIRC.

The nature of Tarellian psykers was so as not to make them OP and also to draw comparisons with real lizards who tire out quickly from exertion. Tarellians wouldn't because the same factors would be in play for a sapient bipedal warm-blooded reptile, but it's a nice in-joke.

Thoughts, comments, or criticisms?

>>57148152
My only comment is that that was pretty good.

Do D I G G A N O B Z next

I don’t know enough about Lizard boys to critique

>>57148152
This was really good, you put a lot of work into this, and it shows. The paragraph on how the Tarellians defeated Be'lakor beneath a pile of rocks feels a little rushed, but obviously that isn't the focus of this and the whole write-up is quite coherent.

Unfortunately, I'm not familiar enough with Fantasy to give you feedback on your questions, but as it stands this would be a fine addition to the 1d4chan page.

>>57149213
The Be'lakor section did feel a bit rushed (anon who wrote it here). Really the thing should probably be divided into three parts.
> Tarellian religion
> Xibalanique and Tarellian psykers
> SCREAMING! WITH ROCKS!

I just had no clue how to handle the flow of the incident with Be'lakor. Philosophically the reasons why the Tarellians told Be'lakor to sod off are understandable, but the plotting and counterplotting isn't my strong suit.

When Be'lakor came to the Tarellians he would have come in that period between whenever Dorn broke the original Confederacy (late M30-ish? Does WotB happen in the early days of M31 like the Horus Heresy in canon?) and when the Neo-Confederacy formed and the Tarellian race had nominal unity again after Kraken. Between then Tarellian space was a mostly lawless backwater. Be'lakor could have offered to make the Tarellians strong again as part of his pitch.

>>57145809
Minor nitpick, would it be a Q'orl invasion rather than migration? Hrud migrate. Q'orl have an empire and take worlds when their population gets big enough and they get a ruler that's bold enough.

>>57055511
I’m going to do a write up on stouts (squats is too comical) because I think space dwarfs are dope af

>>57150193
We've already got some material on them scattered around the 1d4chan pages, I'd recommend reading those if you haven't already.

>>57148152
that was a good read. thank you

If this thread is here by afternoon I will try and do Ornsworld.

Gorkamorka is a better game than standard 40k fight me

Bump

>>57150193
>>57150275
Squats is implied to be the more derogatory name the short socialist space cowboys get called behind their backs. They call themselves Hubworlders since they live in the Hubworld League.

>>57150275
I found only passing mentions as in, they happen to still exsist

>>57155317
There's other stuff. Would type it all but I'm phone posting scum.

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>>57155801
Me too m8, metoo

>>57155317
>>57155801
>>57155971
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Nobledark_Imperium_Notes#Squats_.28Hubworld_League.29
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Nobledark_Imperium_Imperial_Forces#Hubworld_League_.28Squats.29
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Nobledark_Imperium_Drafts#The_Siege_of_Lusitan

Who was Orn of Ornsworld? Or is it a thing never touched in Vanilla?

>>57156863
I suppose it was never touched on in Vanilla. It's also known as Orn's World so I assume it was named for someone named Orn. Person who discovered the planet or who settled it?

>>57157224
Or he could be a figure of folklore of whom many unlikely and impossible things are claimed.

>>57148050
Eldar can communicate FTL. In Path of the Seer it seems that it takes both skill and power and they do so by tugging on your thread of fate. Typically the message is received in dreams.

>>57134666
Any clue as to which xenos made the Pharos Light?

>>57161063
I can't find anything. Only a mention from a daemon that it was made by an "old race" to fight against Chaos by bypassing the Warp.

>>57162247
Probably the Old Ones then, right?

>>57163144
It wouldn't have been the Old Ones. Chaos wasn't an issue before the War in Heaven and the Old Ones literally walked through the Warp either directly or via the Webway when they wanted to go fast. They wouldn't have had a need for protected methods of travel like a Pharos, Gellar Field, or Astronomican. It was probably some race that arose post-War in Heaven but pre-Imperium.

>>57149379
The subject of the year the WotB began is still undecided, but the Nobledark 1d4chan page says the Great Crusade lasted 300-500 years in canon instead of Vanilla's 200, and Old Earth is unified post 30th millennium.

>>57161063
>>57163350
Lexicanum doesn't say much on the topic. We could simply leave it as a mystery, the zenith of Warp-tech engineering left behind by some long-dead species.

>>57163144
I associate fighting Chaos/the Warp with the Necrons, actually. But the wikia describes the Pharos as 'biotechnological', which is absolutely not their style.

>>57163400
>>57163415
There's some fan guessing on the Internet that it's related to the "Old Ones are Tyranid's reset button" theory that's floating around.

But since in this timeline we've decided not to give the tyranids a concrete origin (or, at least give multiple possible equally plausible ones with no clear favorite), I vote we make it not War in Heaven era.

Something interesting I found out while doing some research. You know Gorro? The world in canon that was at the heart of an Ork Empire to rival Ullanor and was ruled by an Ork who canonically was capable of chokeslamming the Emperor (the one that canon!Horus saved the Emperor from by cutting off its arms)?

The way it’s described in canon strongly suggests it was an Attack Planet/Attack Moon in the making. The planet was described as a “scrapworld”, a hollowed out stellar body (variably described as either a planet or a big asteroid) that had huge plates of metal strapped to its surface making it impervious to orbital bombardment and was in fact so hollowed out it collapsed in on itself in the aftermath of the battle.

Yeah, the Imperium got really damn lucky they set out on the Great Crusade when they did. A few centuries later and they would have been in prime Brain Boy territory.

>>57164117
I second the vote for the Pharos device not originating from the War in Heaven, according to the WH40K wikia the Pharos device was used during the DAoT by Navigators, possibly as part of a network.

>>57134975
I would not suggest taking it this direction, canon has the Astronomican not being based off the Pharos' design (unless canon Emps remembered the device's schematics), and it would better fit the Eldar's 'By the Pantheon, this is a crude and barbaric device' reaction if the Astronomican is a homebrewed psychic lighthouse on steroids. Considering that the Pharos is all the way out in Ultramar under a mountain on Sotha (if we take this from the wiki as is) it's unlikely that Oscar would be familiar with this device until later in the Great Crusade. It might be more plausible for some of the Astronomican's improvements to be based off of understanding gleaned from studying/reverse-engineering the workings of the Pharos.

Also, what is the fate of the Pharos device in this AU? Is it still operational with its Easy-Teleporter Device functions, taken apart and stuffed in a box somewhere on Ganymede, sabotaged by Crone Eldar, digested by Tyranids, or like in canon, dismantled and destroyed by Imperial hands?

>>57165623
Gorro could actually be a rival the Beast broke up and absorbed into his Whaaaagh with the blessing of the Chaos Gods, and its Warboss a faithful follower of the Gorkamorka. The fall of Gorro at the hands of Ullanor would actually mark the usurpation of the Orks by the Crones and Chaos for much of the Imperium's age, and the battle between The Beast and the Orklord of Gorro represented a direct contest between the Gorkamorka and the Chaos Gods, and Khorn in particular taking pompous revenge.

>>57166111
It could have been the event that got the other Primarchs to gang up on Oscar and tell him to get back to Old Earth and leave crusading to them. If he dies it's no more astropaths.

>>57166063
I would say that it is no longer operational, and that it was probably destroyed in a Black Crusade. The primary operational goal for those things is 'prevent the Imperium from having nice things', after all. The Pharos would be an obvious target.

>>57167368
Sounds good. It probably wasn't a primary goal but it would show a BC having a definite, measurable and long lasting impact on the Imperium as travel on the Eastern Fringe is crippled.

It also shows the BCs to be dangerous to the whole galaxy.

>>57164117
It could be from one of the forgotten ones that got exterminated by the Eldar Empire at some point in the past, the only mention of their race in dusty old Old Empire tomes and their only tangible legacy some warp-tech that the eldar could make better and in fact did but used as a musical instrument. When the Eldar Empire died those tomes were burned and those artifacts lost save the one in Ultramar that was then
>>57167368
Could have been the goal, or at least a goal of the 5th Black Crusade. Nothing written about that yet.

>>57166395
Would Oscar even have participated? He would have been smart enough to know that he was worth more to the Imperium on Earth than out on the field of battle unless things were really desperate, especizlly with the Astronomican not uo yet.

Of course no one ever said Oscar had a monopoly on non-stupid decisions. And the canon Enperor went and fought at Gorro.

>>57169719
That could have been fheat until that point they hadn't been using an astronomocam at all and Oscar being told to stay on Old Earth was got got the project started

What would the reactions of the Primarchs have been to the marriage with Isha?

I can imagine Vulkan being slightly aghast. Fulgrim would have thought it only right.

>>57169719
There were definitely situations during the canon Great Crusade where the Emperor was absolutely militarily needed, like that once battle where 3 Primarchs + their Legions were getting their asses kicked by Orks and Emps and the Custodes had to their rescue. So those situations would still exist where someone of Oscar’s power is needed, especially since our Primarchs are nerfed.

>>57171887
That’s actually a good question. The marriage happened right after the War of the Beast, so the primarchs had a lot of shit on their plate. Lion was in full on “what I’ve done” mode, Perty was having a mental breakdown, etc. But at the same time you would expect them to have a reaction to what was essentially the biggest political change in recent history.

Angron was dying and Sangy, who would have been the most positive primarch, was dead. Lorgar might have been positive, seeing as at this time he had rationalized Isha as being essentially an archangel sent by God to keep the Eldar on the straight and narrow

Someone suggested Dorn’s reaction. He said they were perfect for each other. But don’t get the “dawws” out yet, because it wasn’t as heartwarming as it sounds on paper. Specifically, he said something along the lines of “she’s weird, you’re weird, you’re perfect for each other” in his typical bluntness. It’s been mentioned Dorn was a proponent of something that was called “psychic apartheid”, though what that is has never been defined (beyond a literal interpretation).

Also keep in mind that this was during the early days of the Imperium, before the Steward and Isha knew each other, and the marriage was very much an arranged marriage in the interest of politics at the time. The Steward would have seen Isha a grand total of once before then, and at that time he was rather more concerned about the Bloodthirster trying to eat his face than making small talk.

The Steward's thoughts when he heard Eldrad's boon were probably along the lines of *what the hell did I get myself into*.

The fact that the Steward had made it clear he was fully intending to step down once a proper Emperor had been found may have alleviated some concerns. Also the fact that Eldrad risked his ass saving the Steward may have won the Eldar some brownie points in the primarch's eyes (though Vulkan would have dismissed it).

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>>57172474 (cont.)
One thing that would have really elevated Isha's standing to the human parts of the Imperium would be Isha revitalizing worlds after the War of the Beast.

Orks don't tend to leave habitable worlds in their wake. Anything that was not orkiformed would have been firebombed from orbit. Isha could have taken a lot of those worlds that would have otherwise been written off or taken millennia to restore and have new plant life grow from the ashes, though even with her powers it would be a significant undertaking even for a single planet. This would do a lot to make people more receptive to an alien...what the hell was Isha called before the Emperor took the throne?

The problem is that like the Steward, there is only one Isha. She can't be everywhere at once, something that has been noted before when it comes to curing diseases, solving other problems, and otherwise being extremely overworked.

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>>57172474
Lion, if he had time to think about it at all, would have dismissed it all as only right and proper. He was a high functioning autistic and fixated on on Franjic fairy stories. When a brave king rescues a fair lady from an den of evil she is supposed to offer him her hand in marriage. Admittedly by then he had long ago seen that the world does not work how it should, but this time it does. Maybe, he would think, there is some small hope left. Then his brother beats him into a coma.

The eldar would have probably initially seen it as Isha taming some fearsome beast-people for use and domestication. The majority of craftworlders of that time would have grown up in the Eldar Empire at it's worst and to have survived would have had to participate at least in some measure of the awfulness.

>>57172593
I would argue that Isha still made claim to royalty (at very least in title) by divine right (that being her own) even when Oscar was only the Steward. I remember in early threads discussing the marriage we agreed that Isha, and to a lesser extent Ceggorach, would argue that Oscar is a very young god, much to his protestations, and this for his worthiness to lead humanity (as viceroy to Isha’s spiritual rule of the The Eldar). This has absolutely nothing to do with the Old Empire’s belief that the Men of Stone were subservient colonist folk/animals in the Great and Bountiful Human Dominion, and that Iron Minds and Men of Gold were the only children of Sol of any worth, certainly not.

That probably didn’t stop some of the remembrancers brought up under the pre-unification earth doctrine of Holy Human Form and stories that blamed Xenos at large for Old Night from depicting her as something like Lady Macbeth when it came to Imperial Court politics in the early years of the marriage.

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>>57173510
By M41 I can almost imagine Isha thinks Oscar is a god in denial inb4 Necoho and wishes he'd just admit it so everyone can get on with their lives. This might not be entirely selfless, as some of it probably has to do with her missing Kurnous. She also sees herself and Oscar as the new Asuryan and Lileath (which is weird because she's the latter's mother) after the last top gods screwed up.

On the other hand, she does have a point that he's both vastly more powerful than any mortal human or Eldar, and he's also biologically immortal unlike them. Even with the few survivors since the Great Crusade, Eldrad is old as balls but emphatically not immortal (and unusually old even by that standard), Bjorn and Leithon are a dreadnought/wraithguard respectively, Lion is missing and in a stasis field, and Galadrea and the Handmaidens use cheat codes due to their connection to Isha. He also has access to a lot of power that he's not using as a symbol of the Imperium and hence civilization (indeed he diffused a lot of that by having people direct it towards multiple entities).

Of course, having been around Oscar for 10k years, she probably knows all he'll do is pick the position with the absolute least amount of responsibility and refuse to be budged from it unless the Warp froze over. Heck, he'd probably take Hoec's old job and become the God of Interstellar Communications, despite the fact that he could easily add "Justice", "War" (as in Athena-style, not Ares-style), "Honor", and "Order" to his portfolio.

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>>57174361
>Lion is missing and in a stasis field

He is neither of those things. He is in a coma and he's in the same hospital bed on The Rock he got put in when Luther mangled him.

It's just that only the top apothecaries (and assisting staff) and top Chaplain are allowed to see him on anything like a regular basis. At most there are only 20 - 30 people alive at any given time that have laid eyes on him. His condition is stable and he could wake up at any moment, he has been like that for the majority of Imperial history. His kienbrach sword is still on the shelf it was left on when they brought him in, weaponry is typically reassigned only after the death of the soldier it was issued to.

Problem is that the Dark Angels are sticklers for rules. They don't allow visitors save friends and family members into the Apothecarium. Lion has no friends or family. Cameras are not allowed in the apothecarium. No they don't give a shit how often you ask. Come back with something that boils down to more than "but I really, really want to know". What you really, really want to know or not is not the chapter's business or concern and is entirely your problem. And the more people ask the more they stick their heels in an refuse out of principle.

Presumably Oscar, as his only superior officer, could demand to see him. But what then? He will have accomplished nothing but annoying the Dark Angel officers. He couldn't be awakened back in the old days and nothing has changed since. Forcing the issue for idle curiosity will accomplish nothing.

So what's going on with Titus?

>>57175691
Beyond what was talked about before or in general? Because not everything is on 1d4chan yet. There was some debate over how to make the opposition to Titus' proposal reasonable without making him seem like he's always right.

Because many of his opponents (minus Leandros, who's just a jealous dick upset that he didn't get promoted and is more than willing to fan the flames) have a point: Ultramar footing the bill for a second Founding would bankrupt the system and potentially end up with an army loyal to Ultramar but not the Imperium. At the same time knowledge of the true tyranid threat is variable. The choice is between potentially destroying Ultramar through military buildup or definitely destroying it via tyranids.

>>57174686
Is that supposed to be Empress Isha?

>>57176379
Maybe one of the Handmaidens?

>>57176379
>>57176509
I meant to say if that is supposed to be Isha, it looks really good. Keeps some of the Macha-look while still showing you that this is Isha.

>>57167368
>>57168756
>>57169585
Breaking the Pharos so the Imperium can't have nice things sounds like a good victory for Chaos to me.

>>57168756
I remember in a previous thread that the Tau were trying to spread their Warp-skimmer drives out to the wider Imperium, and that the Ultima region was benefitting in trade and tourism from having more reliable, if slower, methods of FTL travel. Could the accelerated proliferation of the Tau drive been related to the loss of the Pharos?

>>57180368
If it was lost during the 5th Black Crusade, the Tau wouldn't even figure out space travel for another three thousand years. Still, the success of the Tau Drive would be even more pronounced by the absence of the Pharos. Anything to speed up travel in the southeastern Ultima Segmentum is a big deal.

>>57180368
It's not that the skimmers are fast, it's that they're reliable.

>>57180368
Speaking of which, are skimmer drives affected by the Nids' Shadow in the Warp? If not, that could be another niche for them: anti-Tyranid reaction forces.

>>57181833
Assuming that works and given how slow they are to use them effectively against 'Nids you would have to regular warp to the edge of the Shadow effect and skim from there.

so, art deco skyscraper starships or neoclassical enlightenment starships?

>>57176379
>Is that supposed to be Empress Isha?
I've seen that pic before so probably not. It could be made to look like her though. assume that those marks on her jaw and cheek are tattoos and not scars and make them red. Get rid of the marks above her left brow.

Pic does not give asense of scale one way or the other but in Vanilla Macha is supposed to be 7'2" tall.

It was mentioned in a previous thread that the tattoos never actually meant anything. Macha got them in ancient times because she thought they looked good. Since then they have been adopted as a visible display of office by her priestesses on many of the exodite worlds although on many of the craftworlds it's seen as basically the equivelent of a tramp stamp because no eldar are clanish by nature.

>>57176509
Handmaidens would not have identifying marks. It would not be good for their job.

>>57183095
Depends where they are made. Mars makes the floating cathederals we are used to in Vanilla. Luna tends towards the art deco. Hubworlders make what looks like a cross between a meadhall and a longboat.

>>57175691
>>57176379

If do do Titus as trying to hyper-militerize Ultramar then we need to have it be clear that he isn't just making more Space Marines. He is making more Space Marines but also more ships, more tanks, more defensive walls, more defense satelites, more ground to space lasers, starting conscription and hiring Cadian training staff (Mira and her cadian remanats among others) and all the other things that make a Legion. Because that's what he is doing, he is making a Legion like in ancient days.

As the Regent he has seen the reports that the others haven't. He can't show them the reports without approval of the Chapter Master. CM Calgar is in a coma.

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Has the current state of the Imperial fists been discussed yet?

>>57185206
Not really, mostly because Dorn's history after Unification hasn't really been discussed. We have his death: manning the battlements of Cadia during the 1st Black Crusade. We know the Crimson Fists exist. Black Templars are Death Guard descendants rather than IFs.

Inwit has never really been discussed either. They don't have the Phalanx since in this timeline the Phalanx is a human superdreadnaught instead of a Human Attack Moon for lack of a better word. It was mentioned they were brought on as a Survivor Civilization, as they did have a thriving, if small, interstellar empire in canon even before Dorn showed up.

>>57181833
>>57182475
If they do skim the Warp they probably wouldn't work, though I could be wrong. Any canon instances of people entering/escaping a tyranid invasion? Tyranids are really subject to the "every battle is a complete loss for one side" because the Shadow essentially turns every fight into a Rage in the Cage.

I think Webway works even with the Shadow, since it's a pre-existing structure rather than a "jump".

>>57183928
Oscar has both blessed his project and in doing so affirmed his position, why should the dissenting commanders persist against the will of their Emperor?

>>57187699
Webway is also diferent from the warp.

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>>57187891
Because Ultramar is a survivor civ and therefore can tell the Emperor to politely fuck off on purely internal matters and Oscar isn't infallible and never pretended to be.

>>57187891
>>57188882
Oscar also never officially blessed the project. He sent funding and Cawl Titus' way but never officially decreed anything, so it makes it seem like Ultramar decided to do this rather than the Emperor putting unfair demands on one of its provinces.

This is probably going to bite him in the ass because if it's Titus' idea Ultramar will have to foot the bill and people will fight his ideas. If it was Oscar suggesting it there would be a lot less complaining and the (still heavy) costs would be buffered over the entire Imperium.

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Was trying to do a shoddy map of the galaxy to show where things are. Basically took the borders of the Segmenta as provided by the helpful blank map in the Imperium Asunder threads and put it on top of the latest published map of the Milky Way. Wasn’t able to do the weird asymmetric borders of canon but was able to put a simpler one on.

However was running into some problems. First, the organization of the galaxy makes no sense since the Milky Way has about two fewer arms than were previously believed when GW made its first maps. Also, I found out that just about every map of the 40k galaxy on top of real Milky Way maps I could find have the Milky Way galaxy sideways.

The Eye of Terror (and therefore Shaa-Dome) is said in canon to be the Cygnus X-1 anomaly (which in real life is thought to be a black hole). However, Cygnus X-1 is only 6000 light years from Earth, which would put the Eye of Terror right in the middle of the Segmentum Solar. Indeed, in canon the Eye of Terror is said to be 20000 light years across, which and put Earth in the same approximate location as Cadia. Made the Eye about 5000 light years across in this image, and that’s still pretty big.

The Q’orl Swarmhood is shown to be about the same size as the Eye in the only available map, so it is here.

There are maps of the Necron dynasties, just wasn’t able to put the maps together. Baal in canon is actually about where the “A” is in Sagittarius Arm.

The reason the Tau Empire looks so big here is it’s about 33% larger than canon, owing to the extra expansion they’ve had. Tried to make it about the same size as Ultramar and sharing a border, as has been mentioned.

>>57189348
I think we decided to relocate the Dominate to the Segmentum Pacificus, since their reasons for rebelling in this timeline make no sense if they're right next to the Eye.

>>57189331
But we already discussed this, the rest of the Imperium would be (rightfully) pissed that more resources are being funneled to what is already one of the richest regions in the Imperium. Cadia and its supporters, for example, would pointedly ask if Chaos is so much less of a threat than the Tyranids. That is the great balancing act Oscar has to play: while he is theoretically an absolute monarch, he much prefers to be as laissez faire as possible, and this neutrality has helped keep tensions within the Imperium down between the various factions. Whether this model will survive the trials of the End Times remains to be seen.

>>57190123
Will do. Feel like the Swarmhood, Tau, Ultramar, and Hubworld League are still too big, even though Ultramar and the Swarmhood are about the same size as canon.

Feels like you could fill the whole galaxy up with about 200 Ultramar sized entities, which seems a big small given the scale of 40k. I know Ultramar is the biggest with ~400 systems and the Tau and Hubworld are just behind that with 200-300 worlds, but it feels a little odd seeing as there are at least a dozen similar entities out there (Interex, other Survivor civilizations, Ork Empires, etc.), though IIRC most Survivor Civs are said to have between a dozen to 50 worlds or something.

Has GW ever given explanations for why the segmenta are drawn the way they are? Particularly the weird regions of overlap and protrusions like the one around Fenris, as opposed to just saying "Solar is the 15,000 lightyear circle around Terra, etc."? Especially since Ultima is easily the same size as Pacificus+Obscurus or Pacificus+Tempestus.

Indeed, there is barely anything in Pacificus at all, just the outer bit of the Outer Arm.

>>57190943
In theory Oscar could just say the second founding is just as much to reinforce Cadia as Ultramar because the Crones are looking uppity and this Black Crusade is probably going to be worse than the rest, especially if the Necrons decide to act at the same time. In theory though. This may just be a situation where every decision has at least some bad consequences.

Ironically based on the Severan Dominate stuff it seems like Cadia is seen as a subject of Imperial favoritism to the planets that don't realize how absolutely hellish it is to live there and how important Cadia is to keeping daemons from attacking them while they're on the toilet.

But you're absolutely right about the laisse-faire monarch method having its pros and cons, and the coming End Times being a real test of how well it works.

>>57189348
Did we decide on a location for Cthonia?

>>57191062
I would imagine the various Void Wolves descendants around Cadia would be in touch with their navy connections and Old Earth voidborn connections as quickly as possible once the Ultramar program is known to them, and would be the second set of chapters/legion to be refounding and arming up with the new primaris pattern astartes mods.

>>57191622
It's right next to Old Earth. Close enough that in canon it was capable of being visited by non-Warp capable ships (so less than 60 light years, maybe as low as 30), and here it was possible for Malcador to plan an expedition there even during all the warp storms of the Age of Strife (though it sounds like it was a major undertaking).

>>57191681
Are the new foundings proposed by Titus supposed to have the new augmentations the canon Primaris marines have? I thought it was just called the Primaris initiative because it was essentially the first major founding since the Great Crusade. Maybe it was in the Cawl fluff and I didn't see it.

>>57191002
As TvTropes would say, "sci-fi writers have no sense of scale." Drawing the segmenta irregularly might also make them easier on the eyes.

>>57191777
The Cawl fluff on the Nobledark 1d4chan wiki says he was working on improvements to Mk III MP implants, and had counterfeited some to create stuff that could go into his own, (mostly) human baseline body. It stayed vague on whether the augments he was working on were the same as vanilla Primaris, making Mk III S organs more compatible for Neophytes, or making minor bug-fixes to MP organs, and this open-endedness was probably done specifically to leave the option open.

>>57193049
Also if the Astronomican only extends 50,000 light years, Ultramar is going to be cut out of the Astronomican. That number on the map is 60,000 light years, not 50,000

Of course that also raises the question of how Guilliman in canon was able to travel between the 500 worlds of Ultramar before they knew the Astronomican was a thing. Ultramar had interstellar travel long before Guilliman even landed there.

>>57193385
Im just spitballing, they could have a particularly good set of maybe five or six uncorrupted Great and Bountiful Human Dominion era shiny psychic trinkets, maybe even the remains of the region's Man of Gold preserved holy relic style through Old Night after its death/martyrdom at the hands of its maddened siblings. Those relics would also be interesting to work into the hellenistic faith and panteron of the eastern Imperium/Imperium Secundus. It could also be Necron tech left in what was once the battlefront of the War in Heaven to pin down reality.

>>57194796
People do seem to find a lot of random junk just lying around in 40k. In canon the Grey Knights have a bunch of Necron Tesseract Labyrinths they found and use for imprisoning particularly bad daemons. Farsight found his sword and he found some warp-repelling junk (strongly implied to be Necron) in a cave.

Alternatively we tweak the bounds of the Astronomican and other things because as >>57193049 said as TvTropes says "sci-fi writers have no sense of scale" and no one knew the Milky Way was a barred galaxy with fewer arms than a typical spiral. Though that seems a bit iffy since we're trying to keep this close to regular 40k (and having a bigger Astronomican might seem like too big of an advantage to the Imperium).

Interestingly, the NASA website on the Milky Way says that on the outer edges of the Milky Way seem to have fewer stars but more clustered ones. So...Tau and Ultramar confirmed?

Happy New Year! I wrote thing.

Knowledge of its many enemies is vital to the Imperium's survival, and quite hard to come by. Oh, you can learn some things on the battlefield. Weapons and tactics. But this is far, far from a complete picture. It tells you nothing of their logistics, of their politics, of their inner minds, of the deep knowledge needed to strike at the heart of an entire civilization. Fighting on the battlefield tells you how to fight on the battlefield, but not how to craft grand strategy.

Channels for gaining this deep knowledge are few. It is impossible to infiltrate the Silent Court; a tyranid cannot be bribed to turn against the Swarm. There is no trade with the Orks, and an embassy in Commorragh would be nothing but a buffet table. Listening in on the psychic conversations of the Crones is actively hazardous to the listener's health, and no bug could tap into the inner thoughts of gods. All the tricks human nations have used to spy on each other since time immemorial are useless against the vast majority of the Imperium's foes. But ignorance is not an option.

Thus, the Deep Field Recon squadrons.


The Deep Field Recon squadrons are one of the few methods the Imperium has for investigating the inner reaches of enemy territory. Deep Field Recon ships are made to be as stealthy as possible, typically mounting multiple forms of concealment. Reflex shields and eldar holo-fields are standard, as are various forms of passive stealth such as low-signature engines and auspex- baffling plating. Some are equipped with more exotic devices still, archeotech and xenotech cloaking devices salvaged from the far corners of the galaxy. An (un)lucky few bear psychic choirs on board, actively diverting the attention of possible searchers away.

>>57196063

The design of any two ships are often dissimilar; due to the incorporation of xenotech in the design, the main body of the Mechanicum refuses to construct them. Thus, their creation is left to the heterodox and other member states; the Hubworld League, the Eldar, the Interex, and increasingly the Tau.

With these techniques, they dive deep into the sanctums of the enemy, gathering information, inserting and extracting commando teams, and striking targets of opportunity. The Deep Field Recon squadrons are a vital part of anti-Ork efforts, providing forewarning of rising WAAAGGHHs and delivering kill- teams to eliminate rising Warbosses. Others ghost through the Silent Empire, mapping tombworlds, counting World Engines, and watching for any preparations for an attack. (This is one of the highest- mortality duties among in Deep Field Recon; the Silent Empire guards its borders jealously, and its reserves of techno- sorcery are vast and deep.) There are even rumors of ships covered in hexagrammatic wards operating under the auspices of the Alpha Legion, plunging into the Eye of Terror itself to strike at the Great Enemy in its lair.

Life in the Silent Service is frequently nerve- wracking. By the nature of their missions, they sped their time deep in enemy territory far away from any possible reinforcements. Often for years on end, as they slowly assemble a complete picture of enemy numbers and capabilities from telescope pictures and stray vox- chatter. At the same time, it is often quite boring, drifting through space with everything but stealth systems and passive sensors powered down, watching an enemy with no idea of their presence. When hunting, the nature of the wait and tension changes as they slowly glide towards their targets, moving into position for a single kill- shot and hoping their exit route remains clear.

>>57196072

Deep Field Recon squadrons usually operate under the auspices of the Inquisition. Typically, they are attached to various Watch Fortresses keeping an eye on specific threats or regions of space. Most Recon ships operate with an Inquisitor, or at least an Interrogator, on board, specializing in the specific threat the ship is operating against. Many Inquisitors use vessels of similar design as their personal vehicles, even if not specifically on Deep Field Recon duties; the class is well- suited to Inquisition duties generally.

There are few Deep Field Recon vessels. Due to the exotic equipment and demanding tolerances of the class, they are difficult to build; only a few tens of thousands exist at any given time. But, in enemies of the Imperium ambushed and destroyed, and even more in vital knowledge gathered, each is worth ten times its number in conventional vessels.


Thoughts?

>>57191777
Malcador was using warp travel to get to the ring. It was during a lul in activity and he wasn't going far.

>>57196078
It is good an bleeds atmosphere.

Given the presence of the Temple of Hera in Ultramar what is Ultramar religion like?

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Are there still Zoats in this AU? Do they still eat zoatibix?

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>>57055511
Some IG mix better than others

>>57199432
I think that the Severan Dominate have the monopoly on Rome In SPAAAAAAAAAAASE!!!

Ultramar is more Greek.

>>57199112
Zoats were brought up a few threads ago. They were an alien race that were eaten down to the last by the tyranids. The last ones figured out a way to make themselves live on as a "virus" within the tyranids, popping out of the Hive Fleet like parasitic wasps out of an insect and doing anything and everything in their power to sabotage the Hive Fleets and slow them down. Technically they're not the original zoats, but tyranid bioforms modified to look and function like them and with the original's memories. How much they actually remember is kind of murky.

Their breakfast cereal preferences are unknown.

>>57199556
Is it on the 1d4chan page? I can't find it.

>>57196078
Is there moar?

>>57200211
It was in an old thread, it needs to go on the Notes page. Check suptg, it mentions which thread involved zoats in the thread description.

>>57197504
There was some discussion about it in one of the threads. That needs to go on 1d4chan too. In the meantime, I'll try to find what thread it was in.

>>57199556
Do they at all interact with the Imperium?

>>57204293
>For one thing they could see them as equal parts personifications of humanities virtues and spirits of the Greater Human Soul to which all are bound
>Hera, as the chief deity of a substantially militarized society, could be more in line with Bastet with less cat. She is the protector, the figurative lioness who will fuck up your day if you threaten what is hers. She also defends the Sun. As a space faring society that has been traversing the stars since man first settled that region of space some 30,000+ years ago it is a spiritual sun, the light of civilization around which society is nurtured
>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
>Thanatus should be 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

>>57206302 (same)
Damn, forgot my post. This was the main post on the Ultramar pantheon in the previous threads. There was another after it.

>If we're taking the Greco-Roman gods and making them Egyptian flavoured then Ma'at might fit better in that she was the deity of law, justice, order and harmony rather than just law.
>Although keeping the toga and blindfold look. Also the sword on the principle that laws are worthless by themselves if you aren't willing to enforce them.

The overall idea was that despite being Greco-Roman themed Ultramar's pantheon seems a bit more like Hellenistic Egyptian polytheism. The central deity being a lioness-headed sun goddess who represents law and order, both in nature and in society.

Overall it seems like based on the presence of Chaos and the 'nids the Imperium would lean towards two views of nature. One is the 16th century "beasts in the darkness view", the idea that nature represents darwinism at its worst and it is the job of civilization to stand against that. The other (primarily inspired by Isha and seen in the parts of the Imperium that do view nature positively like the AdBio) would be the idea that there is a natural order, and the brutality of nature as we see it is from the natural order being corrupted (guess who they blame). This view of nature was also popular in the 16th-18th century, but I cannot for the life of me find out what it's called.

The Exodites, if anybody, would be the most likely to have a third view.

The 21st century Western concept of nature as amoral and uncaring yet not evil and with its own strange sense of harmony would be utterly foreign to them.

>>57206101
I think they were said to help the Imperium at times, but it's because they hate the tyranids rather than like the Imperium. Everything they do is to spite the 'nids.

Sabotage a Hive Fleet? Spites the 'nids. Help an Imperial force fight off a splinter fleet? Spites the 'nids. If they save civilians, it's because that means it's one more life kept out of the jaws of the Great Devourer and therefore a middle finger to the Hive Mind.

However, they are not part of the Imperial military and they don't listen to Imperial commands. Get across how they can do something to mess up the tyranids and they'll consider it. They cooperate with the Imperium because the Imperium kills tyranids.

It was mentioned they might have no clue what to do in the unlikely event the Hive Mind is actually killed and they have lives to look forward to beyond being killed again by tyranids.

At the same time, they might do things that are not in Imperial best interest simply because they fuck up tyranids. Like waking up a Tomb World so the retaliatory action kills a Hive Fleet, but the splashback causes a Necron rampage through the sector.

Bump

>>57193385
>>57195141
Changing the maximum effective range of the Astronomican to 60,000 light years probably won't have much of an effect. After all, it's essentially fixing a plot hole and not changing much else. I believe that Cogitator-calculated Warp jumps can be done for short distances, and I think this is a reasonable explanation for how Ultramar held itself together in the wake of the Age Of Strife. Also, the Pharos was in the Ultramar region, and that's canon. If the Ultima region doesn't have a particularly stable Warp, maybe in this timeline the Easy-Teleport Device was discovered earlier and they figured out how to use it on their own?

>>57196078
I thought it was well done, however, does 'tens of thousands' of Deep Field Recon vessels sound like a bit much? I'm not sure if it is, but an additional phrase or two comparing it to the number of, say, normal reconnaissance ships (like Viper-class sloops) that the Imperial Navy has might be less likely to put the reader off (and show the scale that the Imperium's armed forces fight on). A quick glance at some other discussions about this peg the total number of combat-ready, Warp-capable ships around the millions, but that could definitely be wrong.

>>57206408
>>57206302
This is quite interesting.

Should they believe in reincarnation or heaven?

holy fuck this thing is still going. How incredibly distorted has it gotten in the past year?

>>57211659
I think we've stayed more or less on target.

>>57207941
Are there individuals or are they some sort of hive-mind like the things they spawned from.

I assume that they are keeping the "can use 'nid "technology"" thing which menas that they would have to be genetically similar enough to the Tyranids to graft with the stuff.

Which would explain how they survived at all when they arrived in the galaxy.

Hive organism born as zoat rather than bug. Waits for more to turn up. grow in number. Kill 'Nids when they are still asleep. Kill Norn Queen. Lobotomize the hive ships and install one of their own was a driving force. Build those weird semi-ceramic / smei-organic ships from asteroids and engineered hive-flesh.

On setays behind to suicide bomb the hive ships into another hive or the nearest star if that's not an option. Set out in ships made of sea shells to the Imperium to warn them about whats coming, Imperium already knows. Kryptman is just hitting his stride.

Zoat learn of what the galaxy is like from the Imperium contact teams. Turn the fuck around, the galaxy knows already. Zoat start to multiply, build an army time.

They know they are not the zoat. They are simulation zoat made of tyranid flesh and blood. An infection made in the image of zoat to be their final insult, living spite, a sad and terrible mockery of what their makers were. They take that and they run with it.

Maybe, they tell each other, maybe once this is all over they can rebuild somehing in memory of the True Zoat. Maybe they can be real people one day. But not today. Today there is war.

>>57210600
Tens of thousnads is probably pushing it.

How many should there be?

>>57210600
I don't think the Pharos was discovered in canon until after Guilliman joined the Great Crusade.

>>57211659
Surprisingly not very.

>>57206302
>>57206408
Would/should there be secret cults like there was with the Egyptian gods in Rome?

>>57212964
That's pretty much what the general idea was. Kind of Silver Surfers for the tyranids by way of parasitic wasps, dedicating themselves to warning others of the impending doom and urging them to tool the fuck up.

There was a suggestion that the Zoats were the original tyranids, that the Zoats were a race that had mastered bioengineering the way the Necrontyr told physics to bend over, and when the majority of their race got splattered trying to make a singularity it explains how they were able to engineer themselves to be a parasite on the Hive Mind.

However, it was decided to leave this deliberately ambiguous, to keep the tyranids as an out of context problem for the Imperium, no more true than any other suggestion for the origin and function of the tyranids. At best it's one hypothesis among the AdBio, and the Milky Way Zoats are either not talking or they literally don't know.

>>57217499
You mean like genestealer and Chaos cults?

Secret cults in general are seen as a red flag in the Imperium. If people aren't upfront with what their religion is doing to the Synod, Inquisition, or Arbites the knee-jerk reaction would be they have something to hide. That was the reason the previously private Feast of Blades became public knowledge: some Inquisitor was convinced the Dark Angels were performing some kind of Khornate ritual and the DAs went public to show that was not the case.

Keeping an eye on religions goes beyond Chaos and genestealers. It's been mentioned that some of the Shadow Wars are between theocracies trying to see how far they can push things before the Imperium notices (and in some cases planting fake Chaotic artifacts to make it seem like the other side are really Chaos worshippers and bring the Imperium's wrath down on them).

Of course, to be suspicious of something the Imperium has to know it exists in the first place.

>>57218090 (cont.)
Most worlds are also not monolithically religious. Case in point there are a minority of Katholians in Ultramar even if they aren't the dominant religion. Eldar pantheon worship is also a minority belief among humans on many worlds (like how some humans in Fantasy worship Khaine).

>>57218107
I was thinking more on the lines of

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism

Can stealer cults fall to chaos?

Working on bringing together all the stuff we had on Taldeer so far into something cohesive (specifically what Taldeer has done aside from her relationship with LIIVI, her relationship with the Ulthran Cartel, fighting on Kronus).

However, I noticed there are two contradictory bits out there for what was going on with Taldeer. One in which she goes back to Cadia and leads the 1st Kronus Liberators against the Dominate, the other in which she is trying to get Kronus in some semblance of order.

Is the Kronus fluff as "the Imperium in a microcosm, and everything's a mess" still there? I was thinking a good resolution for this might be Taldeer has spent much of her time trying to get Kronus in order in the aftermath of the battles there until she got sidelined in the last year for *cough* medical reasons *cough*. There are rumors that because the war against the Dominate is heating up and more regiments are needed on that front the Liberators are expected to be sent out on that front as soon as their Farseer-Colonel comes back from medical leave.

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>>57220571
Kronus is being used as a pension planet. Soldiers who have done their time or who are from regiments so broken that rebuilding them is no longer a practical option are given the option of either taking their pension in Imperial Thrones or land of equivalent value.

The soldiers who fought to retake Kronus get first dibs if they go for the land option for obvious reasons. There is a native population, Kronus was originally an Imperial world, but most have been exterminated by a combination of Necrons, Orks and Chaos before the Imperium arrived. Estimated native population is in the tens of thousands globally and very scattered.

The 1st Kronus Liberators are what the new PDF will be built around, the rest of the pension veterans estimated to arrive over the next 3 - 10 years although most of them will be taking more civilian orientated jobs after the appropriate training.

Taldeer is the head of the Kronus PDF because the 1st Kronus Liberators survived more or less intact and she has seniority over any other colonel on the planet by several decades at least and, being Cadian, substantially more experience. Until an actual population and government arrive Taldeer is in all but name a planetary ruler.

It is unlikely that she, or indeed her Cadians, will see action for at least a few years. not just because of her *medical condition* but because of what Lofn is. It is deemed top priority that the trial run of the Impossible Child be uninterrupted. In this regard she is exactly in the safest place she could be, on a planet being flooded with veteran soldiers. Almost as if someone was pulling strings to make it so that this was the case, pic possibly related.

There were cities on Kronus. They are ruined to the point of being uninhabitable, hence the new settlements of Pillbox Harbor, Mastburg and the acting capital of Bunker Town (where can be found the infamous Dig The Fuck Inn).

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>>57221569
The remnants of the regiments that took the planet have formed themselves into some of order and are trying to adapt and get comfy. Their official mission is to keep the ork spores down until the real colonization effort arrives.

Bunker Town on it's river is the most mixed with elements of Modians and Praetorians, who despise each other, and a few Drookians. Location was chosen because the nice broad river is good for transport and it's right next to a slab of granite bedrock that was exposed by a glacier in per-historic era, it makes a great landing pad. The surrounding land is fertile and the forests full of game.

Down by the coast it's Pillbox Harbor with more Drookians but mostly Savlar. They specialize in fish and recreational/medical drugs.

Upstream the river disappears into the mountains. There the Kriegers (estimated to be ~30 - 50 survivors at most) set up their grim little settlement. They tend the masts there is one big hub of them roughly in the middle of the range and relay masts down the length of it. It's a bleak place but they value their privacy.

The Catachans disappeared into the forests the moment the campaign was over and the right of settlement invoked. Any military order disintegrated almost instantly. They turn up in the settlements every so often to exchange meat for beer.

The commissars are in effect the police force.

Also Kroot. Shas'O "Doomtau" Kais called in personal favours and got the Kroot to help with the taking of the world. It was assumed that they left with the Tau. They did not. They are seen from time to time but have no interest in the human presence on the planet.

How should the Imperium deal with primitive xenos?

>>57223091
>>57222182
Wasn't there something like the Valhallans accidentally ended up in the desert or the Tallarn ended up by the poles?

>>57223091
I think they usually leave them alone. In general the Imperium's first contact policy seems to be to approach cautiously and see what the xenos do. If the xenos are territorial they just leave them alone. If the xenos start getting aggressive they wipe them out.

That said, it does raise the question of what they do if the xenos are on a world with useful resources. Do they just leave them alone? Do they try and uplift them just to get access to the resources (shades of imperialism or Romanization), even though that might be a really, really bad idea?

>>57224328
>Do they try and uplift them just to get access to the resources (shades of imperialism or Romanization)
Honestly the Imperium could just civilize them without serious technological uplift, then have the Administratum mark out a sort of planetary trust fund fed by a dividen of the resource extraction process, and get the Xenos in on the resource extraction and infrastructure building until they can run the extraction themselves. Once they demonstrate their grasp of galactic politics they would be given the opportunity to build themselves a system of self rule to replace their Administratum governor, and the pursestrings of their now (possibly) centuries old account run by the Administratum for what would seem to them an entire starship of Thrones.

That or much more hands on imperialism and 'Imperialization' just with an empire that really does respect and value their personhood, but will dominate and reshape them anyway for their own good. It just wouldn't do, letting them go unsupervised, where they could be corrupted and fall to Chaos, Druchari raiders, Orks could Orkiform their world, Genestealers could draw a Hive Fleet to it, Necrons could roll over it, hostile regional hegemonies might anex it, etc. and such indiscretion could see their valuable resources in enemy hands, and the primitives horribly degraded and slaughtered.

>>57224328
Valhalla in this AU isn't a frozen world so it doesn't work the same.

>>57226154
Maybe it was the Vostroyans. Or one of the Fenrisian Line Regiments. It was someone from an iceball world.

Also should we try to make a new thread at about 300 to keep momentum or just let the old one die and then make a new one?

>>57210600(absolute nobody who's me)
>>57214174
Just spitballing because I don't know enough to be able to extrapolate for some reasonable numbers, but I'd have the number of Deep Field Recon vessels as less than ten thousands, including those commandeered for Inquisitorial duties, around the low thousands. The total number of DFR vessels could be left vague, after all they don't seem to commissioned for mass production like other ships are.

>>57215021
In canon it wasn't, but depending on whether reliable (but slower than Tau skimming) FTL travel is possible without the Astronomican (personally leaning towards 'yes' in previous post), having the Pharos be found out earlier (without Imperial intervention) might be a way to make Ultramar viable in the first place.

I hope everyone's enjoying their fresh new 2018, we're almost at 300 posts, which I believe is greater than the combined number from the last two threads.

>>57207941
>Everything they do is to spite the 'nids.
Kryptmann must really like them.

Cunning theory for re-adaptation of the currently butchered dark angels history.
Luther was a powerful psyker who chose to go on a noble crusade against some hitherto unknown alien race. The race itself is lost to history and time since he exterminatus'd their entire civilisation.
As punishment he had to duel the lion and in the duel he struck down his old friend and confided in him a great secret before giving his last sanity in the form of psychic energy to entomb him for all time (till he is "needed").
Thats the reason he rants, he opened up his mind to save his friend and lion carries a terrible secret, some in the inner circle believe that that secret, when revealed, will rouse the lion himself.

Organisation wise i considered that instead of them being only 2 companies of special troops just make it so that their importance (given all of the existing fluff of how useful the different wings of the legion were) is in that their entire chapter, and the successors, are made of highly specialised companies who each excel in a form of combat. And whom all use artifacts powerful and old and not commonly available to other chapters except the dark angels successors.

>>57227240
Prefer the stuff we already have for Lion and the DAs.

>>57227240
Literally what

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Where do Ogryns fit into Nobledark 40k?

>>57228738
They've been one of the longest running and most successful Abhuman restoration/quality of life programs set up by the Adeptus Biologicus. Neo-Ogryn are smarter (equivalent to a simple minded and uncreative person, not retards) and nearly as strong, and have more stable psyches and physiologies. They can even live productive lives away from the battlefield, though they remain pretty closely tied to the Imperial war apparatus out of a culture(?) wide sense of familiarity with it. There is still a population of natural Ogryn in the Imperium, and possibly beyond its fringes, mostly on underdeveloped worlds, and I think they are considered nominal Imperial citizens, though they don't really participate in Imperial civil society, and mostly find themselves listed as specialists for the local PDF, or happily sent off to battles they can hardly fathom as part of the planet's tithe.

>>57226237
I'll post in a new thread as soon as I see one

>>57228415
the stuff we have is garbage it's just blatant "here they are 3/4 outright evil"
i dislike this immensly becuase the whole point of the DA going to chaos was because of the horus heresy. Without horus heresy there is no reason for half the legion to flip and support chaos. Would make more sense, given that the beast is the horus heresy replacement, to make the strife more internal. And also give more personal authority and sensibility to luther as opposed to him just being a fucking pawn for the chaos gods. You removed the emphasis for Spec marines away from chaos. So why are we trying to shoehorn that back in. Let the power of chaos be in their ability to manipulate other races.

>>57229198
I was going to make a post mocking your half-coherent ranting because I'm pretty sure you haven't read the DA fluff for this AU, but I get the feeling you're not a troll so I guess I'll take some time to explain why what you said makes no sense. I figure it may also help future new readers understand the DA fluff a bit better so we avoid verbal diarrhea like your first post.

Your assertion is that the War of the Beast gives no motivation for the DAs to flip sides compared to the canon HH, and that Chaos isn't sufficiently manipulative enough in this AU. Except we've addressed both of those things. Luther here has a clear narrative arc of a jealous older brother overshadowed and sidelined by his more successful younger brother (which is pretty much a mirror of canon, except Luther is Lion's adoptive father). Jealousy is the perfect flaw for Chaos to exploit, which Erebus manipulates to great effect, and in this AU we've given Luther a healthy dash of xenophobia and nationalism for extra motivation to rebel.

>>57230245
So his rebellion during the War of the Beast wasn't that he wanted to join orks in tearing down the Imperium, he just saw it as a chance to remove the Steward as its head/carve out his own human civilization that he felt would represent a continuation of Franj and its ideals. And yes, after millennia of having Chaos whispers rot his brain, his goals have shifted a bit. As for the reason he flipped so many DAs, it was because he was essentially an equal with Lion inside the Legion, since he was a lot more charismatic than the mildly autistic Lion. The Steward initially thought this set up was great, since it was like getting an extra mini-Primarch to help run the DAs, but it ultimately backfired.

I didn't even write this fluff (not sure which of the writefags did Lion) so I have no particular attachment to it, but your assertions are pretty much wrong. Sure, I guess you could say you find this narrative ineffective, but your own proposals are pretty laughable. How does making Luther a psyker help the narrative or tie things to canon? Why are you trying to give the DA's super special "artifacts powerful and old and not commonly available to other chapters"? This isn't the place to shoehorn in your DA fanfic.

Contributions from new readers are welcome but denigrating the work of others when your own suggestions are shit isn't going to ingratiate you to anyone.

TL;DR: What the fuck are you doing son.

bummp

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>>57230267
This. Luther's betrayal was due to a large number of events which he interpreted as being snubbed and later ones which he saw as Franj being gutted in the name of the greater good. He technically wasn't wrong to say that Franj would cease to exist if it joined the Imperium (look at Franj today), but Lion was also right in that joining the Imperium was the only way for anything of Franj ideals and culture to survive (look at how the Astartes are organized).

Most of the Dark Angels weren't evil per se but Luther was much better at handling people than Lion and Lion basically depended on Luther to be his second in command so it was easy for Luther to yank the levers of nationalism and convince them it was necessary for the continued survival of Franj. Lion flipping out at them made him easy for Luther to demonize. Eventually at some point they reached the point to where Chaos got their hooks in and logical thinking starts going out the window.

Been thinking about how to push Luther from "staying out of the WotB" to "actively fighting against the Imperium". Erebus goes to Luther and says "You know, we said you just had to stay out of the War, but now we really need some help. We might lose, and if that happens the Imperium might find out about our bargain, what a shame". Luther grits his teeth, he knows this wasn't part of the deal, but Erebus has his gene-seed in a vice. Then Erebus offers the carrot by saying all he has to do is burn down some Maiden Worlds (knowing Luther will object less to that than fighting humans). Not treason, right? They're just Eldar.

Then Lion finds out, the DAs have their civil war, and enough of them become so fed up with the Imperium or turn to Chaos in desperation they can be pointed at human worlds.

>>57234704 (same)
That said, the idea that the Wings are specialized organization derived from the DAs being sent out and having to operate out in the boonies with little traditional support is a good one.

>>57229005
Is there a link about the Adeptus Biologicus and what they do in Nobledark Imperium?

>>57235851
they're in there, and also Moloch, their HQ world

>>57235851
>>57235863
Link here:
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Nobledark_Imperium_Imperial_Forces#Adeptus_Biologis
Basically, the Adeptus Biologis focus on biological enhancements/engineering, and two notable things they did were uplifting the Beastmen and Ogryns after the Abhumans' discovery in the Great Crusade. For reasons that are probably obvious, they've never really gotten along too well with the Mechanicus despite being different sides of the same coin, and wear dark green instead of the usual red.

>>57236042
We also have a bit in the notes that mentions a group of the less sensible AdBio Magos, Eldar Seers, and Imperial Aristocrats that are trying (unsuccessfully) to uplift the Orks.

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>>57236042
>>57236346
Nice

>>57236346
Man, the Orks may have been a sloppy job (especially for a near-custom conversion given what they had to start with), but the Old Ones knew what they were doing. Chaos and the Imperium have been trying to control them for thousands of years, and nothing's really worked. No one's been able to make them pay attention like the Old Ones. The best they've been able to do is convince them to fall like Chaos Dwarfs in Fantasy or a few rogue traders/desperate colonies hiring a few Blood Axe mercenaries in exchange for dakka.

>>57230245
>>57230245
I have read the fluff but it relies on tired story tropes that don't really make much sense. Why make it chaos manipulation? Why not make in more, hmmm nobledark, and think that he is doing something genuinely helpful. The xenophobia and nationalistic elements I can accept, just the way it is manipulated that i don't enjoy. You've stripped chaos mostly of their power over space marine legions. So why just replicate the shit that ALREADY EXISTS in cannon. Especially when the shit in cannon makes just about as much sense (see: none) as the stuff you've more or less copy pasted. The motivations are the same, the characters are mostly unchanged and the manipulation is unchanged.
You've missed a golden opportunity for the chaos to do what they do best and manipulate others to use the xenophobia of Luther driving a wedge since both the lion and luther are doing what they see as being right. In the current story Luther is just a pawn being used by the chaos gods. In my proposed changes he becomes an active agent, he is in control of his own actions. That makes for a character who's betrayal stings all the more.

>>57230267
i'll denigrate the work of others if that work isn't in the nature of the setting that you've created. Everyone is simply hand waving it as being legitimate when it stinks of the exact same issues that plague the DA fluff in 40k. It reads the same, it has the same issues.
The rest of the shit is simply a suggestion and to sideline it is perfectly reasonable. And notice that i'm not saying to gut anyone else, others have access (unlike in current fluff where DA just get random amazing weapons that no-one else has even seen before) to but they simply have more of it (like the deathwing in current fluff).

The back story simply stinks of current fluff like nobody even thought of changing it. You've changed details without changing the overall arc, which has always been trash.

>>57238237
>>57238303
Or alternatively you could drop it as it seems that nobody else wants the shoddy changes you want to shoehorn in.

>>57238237
>>57238303
Goddamn you're obnoxious. Write up the story in full, post it, and we'll compare. So far you seem new to the setting and th have a poor grasp of our intentions for it, but hey, if what you write is better than what we already have I'll be all for it.

>>57238237
>>57238303
What tired story tropes? You mean the Cain and Abel sibling rivalry where one turns to evil with overtones of the Arthurian mythos? Because I'm pretty sure that was the high concept for Lion when his character arc was being plotted out. Also an explanation for where Fallen come from given no primarch fell, and a big blotch of dark to keep with the overall landscape of "patchwork of shades of gray with some spots of hope and big splotches of dark like Krieg". Dark Angels were perfect for this because of Luther and the whole "fallen angel" angle.