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Author Topic: WH40K discussion thread: from Tyran's heart I stab at thee.  (Read 944802 times)

MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: WH40K general discussion thread: Lictor, P.I.
« Reply #9585 on: October 20, 2017, 11:20:41 pm »

I wouldn't call it grimdark, at least not compared to M42. It's just a "well...what the fuck do we do now?" sort of thing. Humanity doesn't even remember any other way of life, doesn't have a good idea of why they exist and what goal they should aspire for, because for the past forty thousand years it's been nothing but the will to live with two short periods of relative peace in the Federation and the Great Crusade. Now it's finally over, for how long nobody can know, and what to do about that is a question that could be safely ignored up until that moment.
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Egan_BW

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Re: WH40K general discussion thread: Lictor, P.I.
« Reply #9586 on: October 20, 2017, 11:31:21 pm »

relative peace
Great Crusade

Uh-huh. Very peaceful, that massive crusade with new genetic warriors?
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: WH40K general discussion thread: Lictor, P.I.
« Reply #9587 on: October 20, 2017, 11:37:13 pm »

Such is the nature of 40k that even that was relative peace for humans, who before then were in a galaxy-wide chaos (pun intended) with aliens and demons of every stripe about. The Imperium brought order to most worlds until the beginning of the Horus Heresy.
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Trekkin

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Re: WH40K general discussion thread: Lictor, P.I.
« Reply #9588 on: October 20, 2017, 11:43:21 pm »

Now it's finally over, for how long nobody can know, and what to do about that is a question that could be safely ignored up until that moment.

And, at least for the Inquisition, this is a moment of existential crisis that they are well-prepared to solve. They justify their wide-ranging powers and operational secrecy by the magnitude of the threats they face; in the absence of such a threat, they will absolutely invent one rather than accept a reduction in their capacity to kill worlds with a word. The same is true of the Officio Assassinorum, the militant orders of the Sororitas, and those parts of the Astra Militarum whose specialties are less in demand without new worlds to conquer and world-spanning threats from which to defend them.

I could definitely see them colluding to keep the illusion of total war going indefinitely in order to maintain their own existence and discourage the various governors from fighting amongst themselves, which might be an interesting antagonist for Only Peace. Wag the Dog, 40k style.
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MetalSlimeHunt

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Re: WH40K general discussion thread: Lictor, P.I.
« Reply #9589 on: October 20, 2017, 11:57:22 pm »

The Inquisition also is where the most intelligent and motivated humans tend to end up. Some of them would likely do as you're saying, but others would not, all the more so because there is already a specific faction of the Inquisition (the Istvaanians) who believe in the "strength through conflict" line of thought. But there are also others. Presuming the scenario as I described it, the Puritians are in serious trouble. The Thorians and the Amalathians (who you'll recall are the biggest single faction in M42) are struck from their purpose now that the Emperor is dead and not coming back. At best, you'd have hardcore revivification believers continuing to try and find a way. The Monodominants basically got most of what they wanted are are also obsolete.

The Radical factions are more varied. All the Emperor or Chaos-centered factions are equally obsolete. The Radicals who would survive best would be the Polypsykana (unless stilling the warp wiped out human psychic potential), the Xeno Hybris, the Seculos Addendous (dependent on the state of the Eccleisiarchy), the previously mentioned Istvaanians, and especially the Recongregators now that changing the Imperium without killing the entire human race is possible. I'd say that would be the main state of the "Post-Radical" Inquisition: the Recongregators versus the Isvaanians, with a smattering of minor radicals who still have some relevance.

The Guard and the Assassins would still have full-time anti-rebellion duty, so I don't see them changing much. The Imperium figured out how to deal with the Officio Assassinorum trying to take over all the way back at the Beheading. The Sororitas militant I think would just give up war and spend all their time dedicated to the Emperor's memory.
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Quote from: Thomas Paine
To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.
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Trekkin

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Re: WH40K general discussion thread: Lictor, P.I.
« Reply #9590 on: October 21, 2017, 12:44:09 am »

Some is really all we need, and I think you're accurate in how you break down which Ordos would do what. Ten thousand years might be long enough to burn off all the ones mostly in it for their own power anyway.

In many ways, the M52 Imperium could feel like the US in the wake of the USSR. There's no longer one set of big bad guys to aim at, the lines of battle are blurrier, and there's a general sense that "so what do we do now?" is going to have a complicated and uncomfortable answer coupled with a lot of people who bet their careers on the perpetuity of the particular conflict and now don't have anything to do.

I maintain that the Imperium is full of individuals damaged enough to kill en masse to keep from having to think about that, and that it's been semi-deliberately designed to churn out more; the Inquisition needs terrible Hive Worlds to recruit from just like the Space Marines, although they also need other environments to produce other skillsets. The Imperium at large is used to accepting a certain amount of insanity as the price of weeding out all but the very best, and now they might not need to. That's going to send the existing crop of madmen running in all sorts of directions, and some of those are going to butt heads.

It would be a fun universe to run a very contemplative sort of game in, I think, especially without psykers. At what price purpose?

Explorator fleets would be particularly fun. Given all the magi who don't have a common enemy anymore and how many are going to let their newfound freedom go to their head, the crew would in some ways parallel the Craftworld crews in the lead-up to the Fall, except the rot's not set in deep enough to build a whole crew out of people fleeing it and so they'll bring it with them. I could see some kind of grimbright Star Trek/Alpha Centauri-alike going very well.
« Last Edit: October 21, 2017, 12:49:21 am by Trekkin »
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Taricus

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NullForceOmega

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Re: WH40K general discussion thread: Lictor, P.I.
« Reply #9592 on: October 21, 2017, 06:53:24 am »

BOOOOP
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Dorsidwarf

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Re: WH40K general discussion thread: Lictor, P.I.
« Reply #9593 on: October 21, 2017, 08:12:31 am »

Wonderful
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Ghazkull

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Re: WH40K general discussion thread: Lictor, P.I.
« Reply #9594 on: October 21, 2017, 08:55:34 am »

Governor Willbur Jomqvist was watching the delegation leaving the massive lander with some nervous fidgeting. He had heard the rumors of the rogue Exploratoris Fleets long ago. No longer bound by the Divine laws of the Dead Emperor they prowled through the far reaches of the Stars searching for long lost human knowledge where none was to be found anymore. Everything had been unearthed, everything had been dug up twice or more often. There was nothing left. Yet still they searched for STCs and other artifacts that were long gone.

Some had instead concerned themselves with the Cold Trade, taking what tech they could from xenos, straining the already tenous peace with the Eldar and others, threatening to violate the divine perogative given by the Dead Lord. Others had persisted, and these were the most dangerous for they still claimed to work in the name of the emperor and demanded supplies be given to them, why his planet could impossibly survive.

His Bodyguards stiffened at what they saw emerging from the lander. They were a rarity these days. Space Marines. Not the Primaris kind which served the lord of ultramar keep his influence as successor if not in truth then by force of power. No, these were the original kind. Created by the Dead Lord himself. He had managed to aquire an entire Squad of them off of one of their Fortress Ships which aimlessly traveled from world to world, dropping off marines in exchange for resources, recruits and a myriad other necessities. That Squad had cost more than an entire Regiment of Kriegsmen would have cost, but they were worth every penny. One of them had even seen the 42nd Millenium...the darkest of times of the Imperium. The faded bleeding heart on his shoulder plate marked out some apparent connection to the orders of old or something.
Jomqvist had never really asked or cared.

Yet even these veterans which had cost him a fortune paled at what emerged from that lander. If he hadn't known better he would have assumed that the people leaving the ship would have been a rogue trader crew, simply by the diversity of them.

In front and center was of course the representative of the Magos, who in all likelyhood couldn't even be bothered to deal with him. But behind the red robed figure he could make out the results of millennia of peace, a retired Comissar (by the looks of him someone who couldn't be integrated into the new Commissariat), a Kriegan bondsman (the stylized skulls marking him as an officer), a Sister of Mourning (in all probability someone high ranked) and a bunch of similiar outcasts and never-do-wells of the Imperium. But those folks were not what made hima nd his bodyguards stiffen. It was the man with the golden I on his chest. He had thought that that order had long ceased to exist...apparently some still cursed the galaxy with their lives.

This was gonna be one miserable negotiation.
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90908

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Re: WH40K general discussion thread: Lictor, P.I.
« Reply #9595 on: October 21, 2017, 01:48:40 pm »

So, this is going to be continued once I finish some stuff I have to do. It's going to end in the post-war Imperium, during which every major power other then the Imperium is more or less spent instead of outright dead. So, yeah. This is probably terrible and edgy, what with my potentially unhealthy obsession with overly-dramatic prose, but still. It's here.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
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TheDarkStar

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Re: WH40K general discussion thread: Lictor, P.I.
« Reply #9596 on: October 21, 2017, 02:05:09 pm »

Why not an anti-peace? Instead of an endless war with battles roughly zero-sum (or occasionally net losses), have every battle be so much of a net loss that all sides slowly die. Eventually the war ends because everyone is dead (or at least the scattered survivors are so far apart that they rarely if ever encounter each other - a story following a group like this might be interesting, though. Think some Imperium ship wandering the galaxy, encountering dead or not-quite-dead debris from the war).
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LordPorkins

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Re: WH40K general discussion thread: Lictor, P.I.
« Reply #9597 on: October 21, 2017, 03:22:22 pm »

Actually, I know exactly what would end up happen if every single species got on good terms with each other to the point where they stopped fighting.

https://img00.deviantart.net/748f/i/2013/309/8/0/blood_bowl_40k__by_menziestank-d6t52og.jpg

Though for real though, the Guardsmen were created more as like the Starship Troopers or the UNSC in Halo. Go to a new, undiscovered planet, rape it for all its resources while killing hostile fauna, rinse, wash, repeat.
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Akura

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Re: WH40K general discussion thread: Lictor, P.I.
« Reply #9598 on: October 21, 2017, 05:00:40 pm »

Another TTS, another urge to go play Dawn of War. It's a shame Catachan Jungle Fighters aren't available in Ultimate Apocalypse.

They really need to come out with a new RTS, centered on army play rather than shiny superheroes.
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Kot

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Re: WH40K general discussion thread: Lictor, P.I.
« Reply #9599 on: October 21, 2017, 05:04:09 pm »

Yeah, good luck, 1 army in the base game, rest as DLC. Catachans 199.99$ special occasion.
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