Warhammer 40K Fluff Discussion XVI: Where the Ordnance is Hand-Delivered!

[Borgh]

The Calpurnia books get pretty close. I don't think they ever say it explicitly but the books show a functioning government down to some quite gritty roots.

[Cikomyr2]

If the surge of psykers, corruption of Men of Iron and all that just happened relatively after Humanity discovered War Travel, there may be more causation than we thought.

[Kris Strife]

There were a lot of things that all went wrong, all at once. To my understanding, if they'd been more spaced out, humanity as it was might have been able to weather the crisis a bit better. I think there was something about each crisis somewhat feeding into one another as well, but that may have just been an in universe theory.

[hamishspence]

Maybe, during stormy warp conditions, psykers find it much harder to control their powers and avoid possession.

It's also possible that the Iron Men were Chaos-corrupted when they turned on humanity, which, again, the warp storms made easier to happen.

That might be why everything happens at once.

[Cikomyr2]

Maybe, during stormy warp conditions, psykers find it much harder to control their powers and avoid possession.

It's also possible that the Iron Men were Chaos-corrupted when they turned on humanity, which, again, the warp storms made easier to happen.

That might be why everything happens at once.

Was there really a "Primarch Titan", progenitor of Men of Iron, who made a pact with Chaos? I heard about it somewhere but can't remember.

[hamishspence]

Not that I know of. The main piece of evidence that Men of Iron are Chaos-Corruptible is Gaunt's Ghosts (book 1- First and Only).

[Grim Portent]

There was a titan from the Dark Age who was suggested to be the most advanced and mightiest titan to ever exist in the original Grey Knights novels, and possibly the prototype for titans in general. It had become corrupted and insane over many years of isolation, but it's unclear if the sapience in it was originally a daemon, or an AI that became a daemon.

It was also unaffilliated with the Men of Iron.

[Wardog]

"The Imperium is/was doing what has to be done" is the worst 40K take. It's literally buying into arguments that are presented satirically.

I think GW has to take a bit of the blame here.

Back in 1st Edition fluff, the Imperium (and the setting as a whole) was very obviously an OTT satirical dystopia. The Emperor was just a warlord who had conquered Eath, and then most of the galaxy, before being KOed by Horus. Space Marines were just indoctrinated and surgically enhanced psychopaths, with a tendency to graffiti "Hate" and "Kill" on their armour. You could be sentenced to life servitude in the Imperial Army for failure to pay library fines. Named characters include the inquisitor Obiwan Sherlock Clouseau. Chaos/warp entities were a danger, but not the all-pervading threat they would become in later editions.

But then GW doubled down on "the Emperor is Psychic Space Jesus"; all the threats from internal and external enemies were magnified so that any failure in defence could doom everyone forever and so justify extreme measures (even though these measures frequently did fail, or make things worse); etc. And the whole thing was (mostly) taken ultra seriously.

[LCP]

Yeah, that's what I meant when I mentioned 'cargo cult' writing - official writers who have absorbed the aesthetic but not what it's saying.

[Renegade Paladin]

Unsubtle Allegory starring the Adeptus Astartes and Underhive Scum.

[Amechra]

Unsubtle Allegory starring the Adeptus Astartes and Underhive Scum.

Say what you will about the Scum - at least he was painted.

[Lord Raziere]

Unsubtle Allegory starring the Adeptus Astartes and Underhive Scum.

Whats most awesome about that is that the scum somehow came up with that on his own, with presumably no philosophical background or education that could've gave him the idea. so either he has thought long and hard about this in private surrounded by one of the most conformity-obsessed regime imaginable, or he realized that himself as he said it. all the while in front of what is, as far as he knows one of his god's unstoppable warrior angels meant to specifically kill someone like him. so he either was very courageous or he knew that he was gonna die as soon as the Astartes started questioning him and decided to go out in the best way he could.

the fact he was successful in making the marine put a horse skull on himself to be more of an individual is just icing on the cake.

[LansXero]

Whats most awesome about that is that the scum somehow came up with that on his own, with presumably no philosophical background or education that could've gave him the idea. so either he has thought long and hard about this in private surrounded by one of the most conformity-obsessed regime imaginable, or he realized that himself as he said it. all the while in front of what is, as far as he knows one of his god's unstoppable warrior angels meant to specifically kill someone like him. so he either was very courageous or he knew that he was gonna die as soon as the Astartes started questioning him and decided to go out in the best way he could.

the fact he was successful in making the marine put a horse skull on himself to be more of an individual is just icing on the cake.

Probably just parroting off what their local chaos demagogue told him to get him into the nails and the skull. Gray marine could be one of the unnumbered, the Primaris before they got given a chapter. Being fresh out of the vat and having no culture of his own, he'd be easy to impress with such theatricals. Veteran Space Marines know their place as weapons of war, and accept it, endure it, or revel in it.

[Fyraltari]

‘Hardly consistent with standard human biology’ said the space marine. Good to see that hypocrisy is doing well in the forty-first millenium. Like geno-grandfather like geno-grandson.

[Lord Raziere]

‘Hardly consistent with standard human biology’ said the space marine. Good to see that hypocrisy is doing well in the forty-first millenium. Like geno-grandfather like geno-grandson.

That and the entire Imperium is guilty of wearing skulls lets be honest. the deathwatch rpg front cover has seven skulls on it, five of them on the center space marine of that book. or how about the fact that tech priests probably have some number of cybernetic limbs on their back and would totally replace a hand with a musket if they thought it was a sacred relic. like the leader of the mechanicus uses a freaking rotary phone to call Belisarius!

all the Imperium's rules are to just keep things under control so the elite can do what they want. the only people who don't realize this are crazy puritan factions in the Inquisition like the Monodominants or the Libricars who take the status quo and purification nonsense to extremes even other inquisitors find stupid. though clearly the TTS verison of the Inquisition got taken over by one or the other.

[Forum Explorer]

That and the entire Imperium is guilty of wearing skulls lets be honest. the deathwatch rpg front cover has seven skulls on it, five of them on the center space marine of that book. or how about the fact that tech priests probably have some number of cybernetic limbs on their back and would totally replace a hand with a musket if they thought it was a sacred relic. like the leader of the mechanicus uses a freaking rotary phone to call Belisarius!

Human skulls. Not horse skulls. One is a reminder of your own mortality and inspires you to serve the Emperor with what time you have left. The other is clearly a sign of worshiping Chaos and needs to be stamped out immediately.

[Lord Raziere]

Human skulls. Not horse skulls. One is a reminder of your own mortality and inspires you to serve the Emperor with what time you have left. The other is clearly a sign of worshiping Chaos and needs to be stamped out immediately.

I mean to most people, the emperor is a distant god they've never seen with many different forms of worship as long as its the Emperor. who says there isn't a variation known as the Horse Head Cult that puts skulls upon themselves to remind themselves that they are merely the Emperors steed, serving as his eternal ride to victory while he is clearly the rider of the entire Imperium?

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Space Marines aren’t exactly clones, either. Simply having a uniform and a uniform set of enhancements doesn’t render you less of an individual.

The closed helmet does a lot to visually obscure their individuality, but underneath that is a (heavily modified) human being.

Simply dressing according to your random whims and thinking that makes you more human is surely a mark of Chaos corruption.

[Fyraltari]

Space Marines aren’t exactly clones, either. Simply having a uniform and a uniform set of enhancements doesn’t render you less of an individual.

The closed helmet does a lot to visually obscure their individuality, but underneath that is a (heavily modified) human being.

Aren’t all Space Marines brainwashed with their original personality replaced by one closer to that of their respective primarch? Not to mention the removal of their sex drive and flight response.
They are very removed from a baseline human and that’s not even taking into account the possibility of turning into a werewolf or a vampire.


Of course this episode is an unsubtle metaphor about people who customize their figurines vs those who don’t even bother to paint them, so we’re probably overthinking it a bit.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Aren’t all Space Marines brainwashed with their original personality replaced by one closer to that of their respective primarch? Not to mention the removal of their sex drive and flight response.
They are very removed from a baseline human and that’s not even taking into account the possibility of turning into a werewolf or a vampire.


Of course this episode is an unsubtle metaphor about people who customize their figurines vs those who don’t even bother to paint them, so we’re probably overthinking it a bit.

Well it’s clearly a light hearted kind of video, but it does bring up some lore-relevant points.

I think there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that Space Marines may not be the same people that they were before the transformation, but despite that they can and do differ in personality and temperament from their battle brothers of the same chapter.

All Space Wolves may be wolfy, but Lukas the Trickster is definitely not Njal, who is definitely not Canis, who is definitely not Logan Grimnar.

[Fyraltari]

True but the overall point remain. The undergive scum looks like no other while the space marine is very much alike his battle-brothers in mind and body.

And brother bobimus is still playing the part of the pot calling the kettle black.

[Forum Explorer]

I mean to most people, the emperor is a distant god they've never seen with many different forms of worship as long as its the Emperor. who says there isn't a variation known as the Horse Head Cult that puts skulls upon themselves to remind themselves that they are merely the Emperors steed, serving as his eternal ride to victory while he is clearly the rider of the entire Imperium?

Ever since the Emperor was betrayed by his son, the Horse, all horse related symbology is clearly a sign of chaos corruption. Why do you think rough riders didn't make it into the codex?

[Lord Torath]

Human skulls. Not horse skulls. One is a reminder of your own mortality and inspires you to serve the Emperor with what time you have left. The other is clearly a sign of worshiping Chaos and needs to be stamped out immediately.

Whenever my son starts painting his marines, I'm guaranteed to hear him mutter "But why skulls?" (0:57 in video).

I can't really complain though; I convert (almost) all the skulls on my marines into gems (very poorly, I might add). I think this guy's my only exception.

Edit: Whoops! I forgot about my terminator librarian.

[Cikomyr2]

Stupid question. Could the Adeptus Mechanicus field an IG regiment?

I understand they have lots of cool cyborg soldiers Skitarris, and other cool dedicated ****. But if a Forge World needed to field relatively quickly a large army of tithe workers, it would look like an Imperial Guard regiment, right?

[LansXero]

Not at all, it would be PDF and look like PDF, as in, conscripts / cultists. IG Regiments are another thing entirely.

[Wraith]

It would probably LOOK like Imperial Guard, but it wouldn't BE Imperial Guard.

The Ad.Mech. are technically a sovereign nation who owe fealty to the Imperium. This means that they are exempt from paying the IG tithe on the grounds of the IG being an Imperial Force and the Ad-Mech *technically* being an Allied faction - they owe materials and money in the usual way, but Ad-Mech personnel are off limits to the tithe.

Similarly, the IG is its own Adeptus, same as the Navy and the Astartes. On paper, none of the Adeptus have any authority to command the other - they can only ever request aid or support. The Ad.Mech has no authority to raise an IG regiment any more than they could raise their own Naval contingent or found their own Astartes Chapter, just as the IG has no authority to make demands of a Forgeworld which is controlled by the Ad.Mech.

What they would have instead would be the aforementioned Skitarii and the likes, and a Planetary Defence Force - PDF - of conscripted soldiers who take care of an individual planet's security needs, kind of like the National Guard. Albeit most likely, a very well equipped one that was at least partially cybernetic in nature as reflects the Ad.Mech's tastes.

[Cikomyr2]

Ah. Darn.

I didn't mean fielding an army for the IG. But if a Forge World needed to build its own armed forces because it was cut off from the Imperium.

I am just trying to find a justification to turn my IG models into Adeptus Mechanicus Guards, with Adeptus Mechanicus specific units as allied

[tyckspoon]

Ah. Darn.

I didn't mean fielding an army for the IG. But if a Forge World needed to build its own armed forces because it was cut off from the Imperium.

I am just trying to find a justification to turn my IG models into Adeptus Mechanicus Guards, with Adeptus Mechanicus specific units as allied

A PDF army would probably be patterned after the organization of a the Imperial Guard, as far as command structure and squad arrangements go. Typically the biggest difference would be that the PDF is not equipped as well - less armor support, fewer/less advanced special and heavy weapons, less specialty or elite troops, etc - because they only get whatever their local home planet can produce or purchase instead of being supplied from the tithes of the rest of the Imperium, and their troops would not be expected to have as high a standard of training or see as much live combat. Being associated with a Forge World would be a pretty good reason to ignore the 'gear is not as good' part. So.. go for it, I don't think you'll get serious objections from anybody but the most hard-headed of lore gatekeepers.

[Haruspex_Pariah]

True but the overall point remain. The undergive scum looks like no other while the space marine is very much alike his battle-brothers in mind and body.

And brother bobimus is still playing the part of the pot calling the kettle black.

In the context of the video as a self-contained and humorous allegory, sure.

But it doesn't work as any kind of serious commentary on the 40k fluff, which again is probably not the intent, but this is a fluff thread and I felt the need to make that link.

It was a funny video. Sorry if it seems like I'm taking it too seriously.

[The Glyphstone]

Spinning off the 'Feral World Religion' link - how much Heresy is too much Heresy when it comes to the Imperium absorbing human civilizations? Obviously Chaos worship, xenos, or rampant psykery is off-limits, but how much can you just be 'wrong' about, like in the story?

It's relevant to the campaign I'm currently running (RT), actually. A small cluster of planets has been cut off from the greater Imperium since just after the start of the Horus Heresy, isolated by assorted stellar phenomena. Their principal, and likely the most heretical belief, is that the Imperium was destroyed in the rebellion and they're all that remains of humanity. They remember the Emperor, but having completely missed out on the formation of the Cult Imperialis they don't venerate him as a god - they actually think he's dead. Internally they're very Puritan in mindset, hating the alien and purging any psyker or mutant on sight. On the flip side, they're also very culturally maltheistic as the only Gods they know of are Dark Gods, with 10,000 years of inertia towards associating religion of any kind with demons and evil sorcery.

How would the Ecclesiarchy and Ministorium be likely to react to this, as obstacles towards conversion and assimilation?