Warhammer 40K Fluff Discussion XV: You Must Be THIS Tall To Witness The Grimdark

[Xenopax]

The only felinids are alfa brusa ones. They are kept as pets to remind humanity of their great station.
In all seriousness i have no clue.

[The Glyphstone]

Has anyone ever found a citation/fluff piece on how many Navigators will be present onboard a ship? Most ships have backup Astropaths, but Navigators seem to be even rarer than psykers. Having even one backup Navigator seems like a major extravagance.

[bluntpencil]

Has anyone ever found a citation/fluff piece on how many Navigators will be present onboard a ship? Most ships have backup Astropaths, but Navigators seem to be even rarer than psykers. Having even one backup Navigator seems like a major extravagance.

Everything I've seen seems to strongly imply that there's only one, and that's why, in spite of their being dirty mutants, they have a very privileged position.

[Cheesegear]

Has anyone ever found a citation/fluff piece on how many Navigators will be present onboard a ship?

Just the one. However, because each ship needs a Navigator, fleets need one for every ship. And they add up fast. In the Adeptus Mechanicus trilogy, they even had a meeting. But yeah. Each ship only has the one. They're very expensive, after all. No-one is going to be able to afford to have more than one. And with each and every ship in the Imperium requiring a Navigator, no-one has the resources available to mess around with two on the same ship.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Felinids were in the 6th edition rulebook, so they were real canon. They were actual cat-like humanoids, rather than fetishized catgirls.

Precisely. I figured they were kind of like Star Wars' Cathar (at least from Legends, I don't know if they've been reintroduced into canon).

Spoiler: Some examples

Show

They were given a planet to live on (named Carlos McConnell, which is probably an obscure reference to... something? Maybe the Rogue Trader who discovered the place?), but the location of that planet was never defined so it's impossible to know whether they got Nid'd, or Maelstrom'd, or anything else.

As for actual Squats, their status has varied. They definitely do exist - there's a special Bounty Hunter character in Necromunda which is explicitly a Squat, and Necromunda is 40k canon - but otherwise they have swung between "never existed" to "they were xenos who were all eaten by the Tyranids save for a few odd refugees" to "they're just abhumans", depending on the writer in question.

This was the source of my concern: that, given the presence of felinids in the 40K universe is limited to maybe one or two sentences from a book two editions ago, it'd be fairly easy for a writer to say "Carlos McConnell was in the path of the Great Rift, so the felinids got eaten by daemons," or "The Tyranids showed up so the felinids had to be Exterminatus'd," especially since from my understanding there were plans to do this with the ratlings, with more recent editions saying "the ratlings homeworlds are currently under invasion by the Tyranids, and outside the Imperial Guard they may soon go extinct." This, along with how Beastmen abhumans have been written as being considered non-human by the Inquisition now, makes me suspect that GW is trying to write the quirkier abhuman subspecies out of canon.

[Wraith]

Broadly speaking, they write out anything that they don't currently have models for and/or stuff that's really old that they don't intend to update.

That's why Grey Knights lost a bunch of their Special Characters, why Tyranid Tyrannocytes were originally removed from Codex Tyranids and had datasheets come in their boxes, and why Ratlings (whose models date back to metal, pre-millenium sculpts) were/are on the verge of extinction.

My personal view is that they are still there until GW specifically says that they are gone, but don't expect to see anything new in the meantime. Welcome to limbo, suckers!

[Archpaladin Zousha]

How does Rogue Trader stuff actually work in the Imperial economy? On the one hand, it seems like the Departmento Munitorum distributes resources and stuff from each planet according to what it produces, to each planet according to its needs, so guns from Forge Worlds go to the Imperial Guard Fortress worlds and food from the Agri Worlds go to the Hive Worlds, etc. But yet Rogue Traders behave essentially like a blend of Captain Kirk and Scrooge McDuck, which would only be able to work in a capitalist-style system. So how do Rogue Traders obtain wealth to spend on things like ships, mercenary armies, or heretical xenos art pieces, when the Imperium's economy doesn't seem to TRADE resources so much as DISTRIBUTE them?

I ask because I'm planning out a Rogue Trader character for a Wrath and Glory game and was trying to figure out what he'd reasonably be called upon to do in the aftermath of the Indomitus Crusade, and thought re-establishing previous Imperial trade routes to the Dark Imperium wouldn't really be effective since the Great Rift makes warp travel from one half of the Imperium to the other too dangerous to see regular trade traffic, to which a friend replied that interplanetary "trade" doesn't really happen in the Imperium for the aforementioned reasons and that trade for profit is pretty much exclusively the purview of Rogue Traders.

So in summary, how the heck does the Imperium of Man's economy actually work?!

[Destro_Yersul]

My understanding of it has always been that the Munitorum only bothers with supplying the Imperial military. Interplanetary trade still happens, it's just that it's more along the lines of trade between interconnected parts of the same country than it is between sovereign entities. Each planet has a tithe, a quota that they must supply, and everything beyond that is gravy. Luxury goods would be a big trade item, for example.

Further to that, Rogue Traders are typically charged with operating beyond the fringes of what actually counts as the Imperium. Their job is not to start trade routes between established worlds, that's for the chartist ships to take care of. Rogue Traders go off into the bits of the map labelled 'here be monsters' and set about killing all the monsters, taking their stuff, and generally bringing those areas into the Imperium proper.

[The Glyphstone]

Pretty much by chanting the MST3K Mantra to a background of Gregorian organ music.

[Forum Explorer]

How does Rogue Trader stuff actually work in the Imperial economy? On the one hand, it seems like the Departmento Munitorum distributes resources and stuff from each planet according to what it produces, to each planet according to its needs, so guns from Forge Worlds go to the Imperial Guard Fortress worlds and food from the Agri Worlds go to the Hive Worlds, etc. But yet Rogue Traders behave essentially like a blend of Captain Kirk and Scrooge McDuck, which would only be able to work in a capitalist-style system. So how do Rogue Traders obtain wealth to spend on things like ships, mercenary armies, or heretical xenos art pieces, when the Imperium's economy doesn't seem to TRADE resources so much as DISTRIBUTE them?

I ask because I'm planning out a Rogue Trader character for a Wrath and Glory game and was trying to figure out what he'd reasonably be called upon to do in the aftermath of the Indomitus Crusade, and thought re-establishing previous Imperial trade routes to the Dark Imperium wouldn't really be effective since the Great Rift makes warp travel from one half of the Imperium to the other too dangerous to see regular trade traffic, to which a friend replied that interplanetary "trade" doesn't really happen in the Imperium for the aforementioned reasons and that trade for profit is pretty much exclusively the purview of Rogue Traders.

So in summary, how the heck does the Imperium of Man's economy actually work?!

Here's what I understand:

Each planet has a Tithe. It might be men, materials, or equipment, but they must provide that for the greater running of the Imperium. How much the Tithe is depends on the planet, and what it has to offer. But after that, the planet is run however the Governor chooses. So many planets (most) have made deals with Charterists. They sell their products to these captains who are allowed to fly a certain route, who sell the stuff they pick up all along the line.

Rogue Traders can go anywhere and make deals with anyone. They get to ignore all of those contracts and merchant fleet nonsense to be able to fly and trade with anyone and anything. As a result they almost always have exotic stuff that the residents of the current planet has never seen before, even without leaving the Imperium at all.

[Thanqol]

Here's what I understand:

Each planet has a Tithe. It might be men, materials, or equipment, but they must provide that for the greater running of the Imperium. How much the Tithe is depends on the planet, and what it has to offer. But after that, the planet is run however the Governor chooses. So many planets (most) have made deals with Charterists. They sell their products to these captains who are allowed to fly a certain route, who sell the stuff they pick up all along the line.

Rogue Traders can go anywhere and make deals with anyone. They get to ignore all of those contracts and merchant fleet nonsense to be able to fly and trade with anyone and anything. As a result they almost always have exotic stuff that the residents of the current planet has never seen before, even without leaving the Imperium at all.

Also if one planet's tithe is 'one billion lasguns per year' and the lasgun factory is currently possessed by the spirit of Mork then the planet's in a bit of a bind - the Departmento Munitorium won't accept payment in cash because the treaty (and associated crusade plans written decades in advance) are counting on them billion lasguns. So if the planetary governor can't trade for the billion lasguns he needs he'll be declared in revolt and have the Adaptus Astartes crashing through the ceiling of his palace before you can say Diocletian.

So having the option to buy some lasguns from the next planet over is p. handy.

[Drasius]

So in summary, how the heck does the Imperium of Man's economy actually work?!

The Imperial authority currently in charge of a planet works with the other millions of worlds to meet their tithe to the Imperium first and keep their planet happy second. On a designated Agri-world, the tithe is food which gets dumped into the network to provide for the rest of the Imperium after Terra takes her amount. On a hive world, the tithe is generally bodies for the guard, a forgeworld is material for the various campaigns the Impreium is currently conducting, mining worlds will tithe a certain amount of resources to keep the forgeworlds able to churn out their toys.

Each tithe is generally set at a number which gets adjusted based on a million different arcane formula as well as what the scribe had for lunch that day, but anything the planet produces over the tithe can be traded to other Imperial worlds (or select approved entities). My understanding is that the useful worlds (read: non-hive worlds) get a certain amount of supply from the Imperium, kinda like a stipend so they can keep doing their thing without interupting the supply chain - ie. a mining world will get a certain amount of food from part of the agri-world tithe, generally the minimum determined amount so that the world can provide the Imperial tithe in resources. The general trend is that said minimum is only the amount to meet the tithe and anything else (such as the inconsequential daily living requirements) are to be made up by whatever other arrangements a planet can make, trading any surplus over the tithe amount to other planets who need to boost their own pool of resources.

Say an agri-world produces 10000* units of food locally along with 10* units of manufactured goods. They might be required to tithe 7000* units of food [which gets shipped off to other worlds at a determined rate] while the populace generally consumes 1000* units and requires 30* units of resources/goods. The Imperium has determined that they can meet their quota with 5* units of resources/goods [which get provided out of the communal Imperial tithe at a predetermined rate]. They effectively have 2000* units of food to sell on the open market to other govenors who want to provide better for their people know that to force your workforce to work 16 hours a day so they can meet the ever rising tithe, you need to feed them at least twice. This sale of excess food in turn provides the cash to be used to aquire the 15* units of resources they need to continue making quota and not starve. The agri-world will also be required to have their own standing militia and probably have a tithe to raise a couple of regiments every now and then too.

I see it as a weird blend of communist style planned market in that the state provides** for everyone (so they can continue to provide for the state) mixed with the general western free market as to how most citizens live their lives - still needing to work to put food on the table. This way you still have some impact on price, so food will be more plentiful if you've got half a dozen agri-worlds nearby with shorter trips to make, allowing for a wide range of planet conditions to suit any story without coming up against the age old problem of how to keep forgeworlds and mining worlds under control while still allowing cartels to operate.

*all numbers plucked from thin air
** for certain values of provides

[Thanqol]

I see it as a weird blend of communist style planned market in that the state provides** for everyone (so they can continue to provide for the state) mixed with the general western free market as to how most citizens live their lives - still needing to work to put food on the table. This way you still have some impact on price, so food will be more plentiful if you've got half a dozen agri-worlds nearby with shorter trips to make, allowing for a wide range of planet conditions to suit any story without coming up against the age old problem of how to keep forgeworlds and mining worlds under control while still allowing cartels to operate.

*all numbers plucked from thin air
** for certain values of provides

It's odd to say about a future setting, but calling it either communist or free market is extremely anachronistic. The economic policy of the Imperium is the economic policy of the late Roman Empire to a T, it's a deliberate historical parallel as the name may suggest. Check out the reforms of Emperor Diocletian after the crisis of the third century.

[Drasius]

It's odd to say about a future setting, but calling it either communist or free market is extremely anachronistic. The economic policy of the Imperium is the economic policy of the late Roman Empire to a T, it's a deliberate historical parallel as the name may suggest. Check out the reforms of Emperor Diocletian after the crisis of the third century.

I can't say I'm as up to speed with 3rd century roman economic policy as you are. If that's what it's meant to ape, then cool, answer provided.

[Eldan]

Pretty much. Client kingdoms and more distant provinces were mostly left alone, but had to pay taxes and tithes, especially in grain, because Rome could not feed itself. Rome would send provincial governors to make sure the borders were kept secure, to keep the peace and to make sure the tithe came in and to enforce the handful of other laws that Rome required from the provinces, but they often let local authorities have a lot of autonomy.

[Cheesegear]

the state provides** for everyone (so they can continue to provide for the state)

I lol'd. Well done.

[Wraith]

Technically, the Imperium is supposed to be a feudal society; one guy at the top, designated lords dividing territory as you go down the list until you reach the populous who are technically free people, but are in fact slaves in everything but name, paid meagre wages which are almost entirely returned to the employer to pay for basic requirements and taxes thereon. It's all a part of the big 40k joke - 400 centuries into the future, and we've just about returned to the economic policy of 1,200 years ago.

40k writers are not medieval economic historians, however, so trying to make it fit into an exact copy doesn't work through sheer lack of research. As with so many things 40k

So in summary, how the heck does the Imperium of Man's economy actually work?!

The important thing to remember is, when it's all said and done, it doesn't work. Not in a Real World-compatible way that can be contained in any particular theory; it works because GW says it works, and if the writers need to establish any particular aspect then whatever they say is generally only true of their own story.

When it comes to Rogue Traders, it's similarly important to remember that no two are the same. They fill a variety of archetypes - there are those who are little more than bulk-cargo haulers who buy cheap goods like grains and foodstuff and then chase the supply-and-demand trail, hoping to turn a profit at whatever port at which they put in; Planetary Governors always need more than what the Departmento Munitorum can provide for them, be it food, weapons, or even indentured work-forces. Sholto Unwerth is such a character, from the Ravenor novels - while he is a genuine Rogue Trader and thus a king among men, his comparatively impoverished trading style makes him a tramp amongst kings.
There are also those who are exotic and glamorous, dealing exclusively in rare luxuries and taboo black market dealings from distant, xenos-infested stars. They sell to whoever can afford their prices - Ecclesiarchs, Governors, other Rogue Traders, occasionally even high ranking Imperial Guard officers and the likes.
That's Tobias Maxilla from the Eisenhorn books - he's a (in contemporary terms) multi-billionaire on top of also having one of the most technologically sophisticated and culturally magnificent starships in the Imperium, and he basically does whatever he wants short of open heresy or treason.

And, of course, there's everything in between.
In your character's case, re-establishing trade routes through the Great Rift sounds like exactly the sort of thing a Rogue Trader would do - he might not be doing any trading himself (although there's always room for a bit of smuggling...) rather he would be trying to find safe routes through supposedly-dangerous areas and selling the starmaps on to other traders for a lucrative price. That is exactly the sort of daring escapade that one could expect from a Rogue Trader who was brave enough to try it!

[thethird]

How does Rogue Trader stuff actually work in the Imperial economy? On the one hand, it seems like the Departmento Munitorum distributes resources and stuff from each planet according to what it produces, to each planet according to its needs, so guns from Forge Worlds go to the Imperial Guard Fortress worlds and food from the Agri Worlds go to the Hive Worlds, etc. But yet Rogue Traders behave essentially like a blend of Captain Kirk and Scrooge McDuck, which would only be able to work in a capitalist-style system. So how do Rogue Traders obtain wealth to spend on things like ships, mercenary armies, or heretical xenos art pieces, when the Imperium's economy doesn't seem to TRADE resources so much as DISTRIBUTE them?

I ask because I'm planning out a Rogue Trader character for a Wrath and Glory game and was trying to figure out what he'd reasonably be called upon to do in the aftermath of the Indomitus Crusade, and thought re-establishing previous Imperial trade routes to the Dark Imperium wouldn't really be effective since the Great Rift makes warp travel from one half of the Imperium to the other too dangerous to see regular trade traffic, to which a friend replied that interplanetary "trade" doesn't really happen in the Imperium for the aforementioned reasons and that trade for profit is pretty much exclusively the purview of Rogue Traders.

So in summary, how the heck does the Imperium of Man's economy actually work?!

What people need and what people want might be two entirely different things.

[hamishspence]

I ask because I'm planning out a Rogue Trader character for a Wrath and Glory game and was trying to figure out what he'd reasonably be called upon to do in the aftermath of the Indomitus Crusade, and thought re-establishing previous Imperial trade routes to the Dark Imperium wouldn't really be effective since the Great Rift makes warp travel from one half of the Imperium to the other too dangerous to see regular trade traffic, to which a friend replied that interplanetary "trade" doesn't really happen in the Imperium for the aforementioned reasons and that trade for profit is pretty much exclusively the purview of Rogue Traders.

"Trade wherever within Imperial Worlds you like, within a segmentum" is also an option for Merchant Fleet captains with Free Charters.

Rogue Traders are different - they get to visit and trade with worlds outside Imperial territory, among other things.

[Forum Explorer]

Also if one planet's tithe is 'one billion lasguns per year' and the lasgun factory is currently possessed by the spirit of Mork then the planet's in a bit of a bind - the Departmento Munitorium won't accept payment in cash because the treaty (and associated crusade plans written decades in advance) are counting on them billion lasguns. So if the planetary governor can't trade for the billion lasguns he needs he'll be declared in revolt and have the Adaptus Astartes crashing through the ceiling of his palace before you can say Diocletian.

So having the option to buy some lasguns from the next planet over is p. handy.

The Planetary Governor can declare himself under invasion though. But it's a good way to get yourself shot if it's determined that your factory got possessed by Mork due to your own incompetence.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I see. Thank you all, this has been VERY enlightening!

Just HOW difficult is the Great Rift to get through, and how hard is travelling on the opposite side? I was under the initial impression that the side now called the Dark Imperium was effectively cut off from the Astronomican, so interstellar travel was basically impossible, creating an immediate crisis as many worlds would now be in danger of starvation, war efforts in the area would run out of munitions and reinforcements, dogs and cats livin' together, MASS HYSTERIA! But the fact that the Indomitus Crusade was a thing indicates that's not as accurate as I'd initially been led to believe, and so I wonder if a civic-minded Rogue Trader might take it upon themselves to re-establish connections the Great Rift severed and reclaim struggling Dark Imperium worlds to reunite and stabilize stuff.

[bluntpencil]

I see. Thank you all, this has been VERY enlightening!

Just HOW difficult is the Great Rift to get through, and how hard is travelling on the opposite side? I was under the initial impression that the side now called the Dark Imperium was effectively cut off from the Astronomican, so interstellar travel was basically impossible, creating an immediate crisis as many worlds would now be in danger of starvation, war efforts in the area would run out of munitions and reinforcements, dogs and cats livin' together, MASS HYSTERIA! But the fact that the Indomitus Crusade was a thing indicates that's not as accurate as I'd initially been led to believe, and so I wonder if a civic-minded Rogue Trader might take it upon themselves to re-establish connections the Great Rift severed and reclaim struggling Dark Imperium worlds to reunite and stabilize stuff.

I imagine there are loads of such enterprising individuals.

I imagine most fail.

Which, of course, means more money for those who succeed.

[LCP]

Does anyone know if it's possible to pick up the new Inferno! anthologies as an ebook? It's been a long time since I willingly gave money to GW but turns out a writer I know from some other work has a story in the first volume of the relaunch and I'd quite like to read it.

[Voidhawk]

I see. Thank you all, this has been VERY enlightening!

Just HOW difficult is the Great Rift to get through, and how hard is travelling on the opposite side? I was under the initial impression that the side now called the Dark Imperium was effectively cut off from the Astronomican, so interstellar travel was basically impossible, creating an immediate crisis as many worlds would now be in danger of starvation, war efforts in the area would run out of munitions and reinforcements, dogs and cats livin' together, MASS HYSTERIA! But the fact that the Indomitus Crusade was a thing indicates that's not as accurate as I'd initially been led to believe, and so I wonder if a civic-minded Rogue Trader might take it upon themselves to re-establish connections the Great Rift severed and reclaim struggling Dark Imperium worlds to reunite and stabilize stuff.

When the Great Rift first tore open, it blotted out the Astronomicon as the warp shook and boiled.

Then after ~some unspecified length of time, maybe years~ it calmed a little and the Astronomicon could again be detected on the other side, if only faintly. Two corridors of stability from one side to the other also appeared, one at each end of the rift.

Then Guilliman and Cawl launched the Indomitus Crusade to retake and re-inforce the Dark Imperium. It lasted for ~more unspecified time, probably centuries~, long enough for the Primaris Marines to be broken in and some to become veterans. It started at Terra, and ended at Macragge.

Then Mortarion and the Death Guard invaded Ultramar.

Then it was now.

[Thanqol]

The Planetary Governor can declare himself under invasion though. But it's a good way to get yourself shot if it's determined that your factory got possessed by Mork due to your own incompetence.

I think the bigger barrier is that there are two different Departmento Munitorium forms to fill in if your factory has been possessed by Gork or Mork and the average governor is not well versed enough in Ork Theology to make that call.

I see. Thank you all, this has been VERY enlightening!

Just HOW difficult is the Great Rift to get through, and how hard is travelling on the opposite side? I was under the initial impression that the side now called the Dark Imperium was effectively cut off from the Astronomican, so interstellar travel was basically impossible, creating an immediate crisis as many worlds would now be in danger of starvation, war efforts in the area would run out of munitions and reinforcements, dogs and cats livin' together, MASS HYSTERIA! But the fact that the Indomitus Crusade was a thing indicates that's not as accurate as I'd initially been led to believe, and so I wonder if a civic-minded Rogue Trader might take it upon themselves to re-establish connections the Great Rift severed and reclaim struggling Dark Imperium worlds to reunite and stabilize stuff.

My impression from The Devastation of Baal is that the Indomitus Crusade was retaking the regular, non-Dark Imperium and the Dark Imperium is still totally on its own with the Blood Angels given the unenviable task of managing it. Gulliman reinforced the Blood Angels but that's not part of the Crusade proper and now it's all just a giant hellfight.

[Cheesegear]

Then after ~some unspecified length of time, maybe years~

Noctis Aeterna lasted 33 days. You think GW would actually progress the timeline that drastically?

...The Cicatrix Maledictum, though, is forever. Which makes the Indomitus Crusade essentially unwinnable, indefinitely.
(P.S. Apparently the T'au Fourth Sphere shows up in War of Secrets)

It lasted for ~more unspecified time, probably centuries~, long enough for the Primaris Marines to be broken in and some to become veterans.

Guilliman has been doing his Crusade for ~100 years...

Then Mortarion and the Death Guard invaded Ultramar.

...where the Plague War happens in 100.M42.

[bluntpencil]

...The Cicatrix Maledictum, though, is forever. Which makes the Indomitus Crusade essentially unwinnable, indefinitely.

This is where the Imperium's money has to rest on Dante, ruling over the Imperium Nihilus, is not an utter narcissist when it comes to Blood Angel prophecies.

He's generally a decent, humble enough guy as far as Space Marines go, but I wouldn't want to take that bet.

[Wraith]

Dante will be fine in the job. And not just because he has Gabriel Seth looking over his shoulder.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

That's kinda funny considering one of my Rogue Trader's companions is going to be a Blood Angels scout!

[druid91]

The way I always understood Rogue Traders / Imperial Economics is...

1.) The Imperium is a Feudal system. With the Emperor of Mankind the ultimate ruler, and each Planetary Governor basically a king who owes fealty to him.

2.) The Planetary Governor owns his world, and owns the output thereof. Save for those parts he has sub-divided to whatever form of nobility the planet might have. Be that rich capitalist businessmen, The Various Forge Masters of the Mechanicus, or a more typical Feudal nobility.

3.) You don't sell things or buy things from the common man. You sell or Buy things from Planetary Governors and/or their sub-nobility if you can deign to stoop so low.

4.) As a Rogue Trader, You have a right to anything you can take from outside the Imperium. Be it coming back with a hold full of Minerals, or simply declaring an entire planet is now yours. The idea being that you get certain immunities to tithes that the rest of the Imperium suffers under, to encourage you to take risks and (hopefully) bring greater prosperity to the Imperium as a whole. Sure, you're making out like a bandit as a Rogue Trader if you colonize a dozen worlds, and they all turn out productive. But if they don't, that's all your loss. You had to barter and deal to try and make that happen. It's essentially a way to get the parts of the Resources that the Lords of the Imperium AREN'T required by law to give to terra, into helping advance Terra's cause.